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Moment of truth nears for
Pyongyang
By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - The multilateral talks on North Korea
tentatively scheduled for late this month in Beijing
could be a moment of truth - for China, as well as Korea
itself.
In the past days the Chinese media have
reported US Central Intelligence Agency allegations that
Pyongyang has already built two nuclear weapons. These
stories indicate that Beijing is not willing to be
dragged forever into a Korean quagmire. China wants a
peaceful solution for North Korea, but it is not willing
to abet all the provocations coming from Pyongyang.
The new Chinese position comes for domestic
reasons - ties with Pyongyang have never been easy, and
now are faring even worse - but also because things have
changed in Seoul, where the party working for
conciliation with the North is seeing its stance
weakening. This is because of the death of the Hyundai
Asan chairman Chung Mong-hun.
A few hours after
Chung killed himself two weeks ago in Seoul, Pyongyang
accused the main South Korean opposition party of being
responsible for the mogul's death. "Chung's death was
not a suicide in a true sense of the word, but a murder
by South Korea's independent counsel and main opposition
Grand National Party, which oppose inter-Korean
progress," North Korea said in a statement carried by
the official Korean Central News Agency.
The
message is enigmatic in many ways. South Korea's
independent counsel is carrying out an investigation of
the US$500 million that Chung is alleged to have
secretly paid to allow a meeting between North Korea
leader Kim Jong-il and then South Korean president Kim
Dae-jung in 2000. If rumors turn out to be true, what
seemed like a great political victory for Kim Dae-jung
would in fact be only a deal, and one that has little to
do with politics: the North got the money; the South a
supposed commitment.
The affair has reflections
on the present situation. South Korea's current
president, Roh Moo-hyun, is continuing his predecessor
Kim Dae-jung's policy of conciliation with the North. He
is today the major force behind a peaceful solution of
the North Korea crisis. If it were proved that the
meeting between the two Korean leaders in 2000 did not
generate any serious commitment on the part of
Pyongyang, his political stance would be meaningless.
This is of extreme importance internationally.
Only last week, South Korea announced that North Korea
had agreed to hold multilateral talks in China with the
United States, Japan, Russia and South Korea with the
aim of stopping Pyongyang's nuclear program. North Korea
does not understand that its statement about Chung makes
it weaker. There were already few doubts that Pyongyang
received money before the 2000 meeting, and fewer still
now, after Chung's suicide. It appears that Chung, Like
other Asian officials in the past, killed himself to
protect his boss, the former South Korean president. But
if the North accuses the Southern opposition of having
forced Chung to commit suicide, it reveals that the only
way to deal with North Korea is through bribes.
But is it really possible to deal with a
government that must be bribed before it will deal with
other nations? Pyongyang's policy could work in the
short term, as the US, with its hands full in
Afghanistan and Iraq, doesn't want to be tricked by
North Korea. But if it is proved that the North only
wants the South's money without giving anything in
return, South Korea's old guard - the managers who held
power until the 1997 financial crisis by waving the
threat of the North as if it were a flag - may make a
comeback. They could defeat the modern guard. For those
backing the reconciliation efforts with the North also
happen to be those who would like to reform the South's
economy. At their forefront is Roh, who is both a lawyer
without a degree in a country that adores diplomas, and
a union leader in a country where industrialists
prevail.
Chung's Hyundai Asan was seeking
change, and it had broken the united front of the other
big corporations, albeit with the hope of receiving
profitable development contracts from Pyongyang. Chung's
plan, it appears, was to bribe not only a restricted
elite of party officials in North Korea, but the entire
country, bringing a market economy to the North and
changing it in the same way China has changed. But if
the South abandons its quest of reconciliation with the
North, all this will become impossible. China's
conciliatory posture will weaken and the anti-Pyongyang
faction will gain clout.
With his jump into the
void, Chung helped the life of the doves. His death cut
the strings that could have tied Kim Dae-jung and his
successor to the bribery scandal. But Chung also helped
the cause of the hawks: conciliation with the North is
now more difficult. The North has revealed itself as
only interested in kickbacks to be distributed to its
aristocracy, not real reforms. Seoul can no longer
easily cover for this.
And if Seoul doesn't, how
can Beijing, given the fact that in the past year China
and Japan have improved bilateral ties, finding a common
ground in their dealing with North Korea? And if China
and South Korea no longer back conciliation with the
North, where else can Pyongyang turn? The US has no
interest in getting bogged down in Korea. The
administration of President George W Bush has its hands
full not only with Iraq and Afghanistan, but with
declining popularity ahead of next year's elections.
Further provocations from Pyongyang could help those in
the US who are willing to try their hands at a surgical
strike on North Korea.
It is in this context
that Pyongyang has finally been forced to accept
multilateral talks that it previously shunned in favor
of bilateral meetings with the US alone. Perhaps the
guile North Korea has shown in the past will surface
once again. But if it tries new tricks, it could well be
the last time.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online
Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
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