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Kim Jong-il's impeccable
logic
By Marc Erikson
Kim
Jong-il has been accused of being some sort of a
dangerous nut case, erratic, paranoid, mendacious, a
loose cannon. His behavior at one time or another has
displayed all of those characteristics. But he and his
father have ruled North Korea for 58 years - not a mean
feat, however horrendous for the ruled. And since last
October, when confronted by the United States with
evidence of a clandestine uranium-enrichment program,
the Kim regime has once again displayed remarkable
survival tactics under adverse circumstances.
Kim may be paranoid, but he does have enemies.
He has lied and broken treaties, but that's not the most
uncommon of practices in international politics. He has
proved erratic, but a better term might be
"unpredictable". His regime, by almost any moral
standard, is utterly reprehensible, but the logic of his
survival strategy and actions, as demonstrated yet again
during and after the just-concluded Beijing six-way
talks, is impeccable.
Last October, it appears,
Kim had concluded that US President George W Bush would
sooner or later attack Iraq and get rid of Saddam
Hussein - and that he might well be next in line. He
also probably saw no great upside to denying US
uranium-enrichment charges, as US intelligence had
probably learned about it from its new friends, the
Pakistanis, who had had a hand in supplying North Korea
with enrichment-centrifuge technology. After the
admission of guilt (sort of), Kim threw a fit and
embarked on a relentless series of crisis-escalation
steps, culminating in the announcement of resumption of
spent-fuel-rod plutonium reprocessing. This got the
world's attention, the US's and China's in particular.
China, its essential regional strategic interests at
risk, went all out to arrange for negotiations. The US
agreed to talk. North Korea was in a position to make
demands rather than facing sanctions or possible
military attack. It had also gained time - if needs be
to produce more weapons and weapons materials. By late
April, Kim had won Round 1.
Round 2, the six-way
talks, it now emerges, went even better for the Dear
Leader. While the US stonewalled with its
"comprehensive, verifiable, and irreversible" nuclear
disarmament formula, the North Korean negotiator
presented a comprehensive package deal, in essence
proposing nuclear disarmament in return for a
non-aggression pact with the US. The proposed deal would
insist on the "principle of simultaneity", any step by
North Korea being matched by a US move, beginning with a
North Korean declaration of intent to scrap nuclear
programs and US assurances of non-aggression. This would
be followed by more formal and tangible steps, eg, US
resumption of heavy-oil shipments in return for
readmission of United Nations inspectors, and so on.
The US rejects this approach and insists on
verifiable disarmament prior to any concessions; it also
has refused the signing of a formal non-aggression
treaty - ever. The US stance was labeled "gangster-like"
by North Korea after the six-way talks and described as
follows by the official Korean Central News Agency
(KCNA): "The United States insists that we take off our
clothes until we get stark naked, while it refuses to
move even one step."
Who knows about
"gangster-like", but otherwise the characterization was
pretty much accurate and implicitly deplored as well by
China and South Korea when they said that "simultaneous
steps" were necessary when going forward. In effect,
through its negotiating tactics, spiced up by
threatening a nuclear test, North Korea has driven at
least a bit of a wedge between members of the initially
solid front of five demanding its disarmament. China,
I'm told, while publicly putting a positive spin on the
latest Beijing confab, quietly says that North Korea was
"understandably disappointed" by the outcome. South
Korea has publicly spoken in favor of "simultaneity".
Where will this lead now? After initially
dismissing further talks as useless and announcing that
it would now have no choice but to strengthen its
"deterrent forces", North Korea said on Tuesday that it
was willing to resolve the dispute over its nuclear
program "through dialogue". It's now the US that is in
the most uncomfortable position. Its "rejectionist"
stance is dictated by the fact that just about no one in
Washington, not even among ranking opposition Democrats,
believes that Kim Jong-il is a credible negotiating
partner and just about everyone believes that Kim rather
than his nukes is the problem, ie, that only regime
change will ultimately settle the issue.
On the
other hand, of course, Kim surely is aware of that
thinking in the Bush administration and beyond (though
not reaching all the way to the gullible Jimmy Carter).
Kim is confronting Washington with the unpalatable
choice of either conceding "simultaneity" or driving a
hard line to which he has threatened to respond by
formally declaring North Korea a nuclear power and
conducting a nuclear test. Kim's logic is simple: If the
US really is intent on getting rid of me Saddam-style,
then I must keep my nukes - the one thing Saddam didn't
have and which sank him. And Kim's logic has the
practical advantage that neither China nor South Korea
is likely to agree to sanctions, even if it proves
difficult to reconvene negotiations or future
negotiations formally break down.
China will
continue to play the crucial role. It will put pressure
on both Washington and Pyongyang to give a little and
sit down together again, perhaps as early as October.
The one thing China will not condone is a North Korean
nuclear test. Too much in strategic and economic terms
hangs on - minimally - preserving the status quo. Japan
is already prepared to allocate billions of dollars to
missile defense and may take a much more aggressive
military stance in case of a North Korean test. Foreign
investors, for their part, will reduce their China
exposure if and when they begin to perceive clear and
present danger in Northeast Asia. Were Kim to test,
China would conclude that all bets are off and very
likely join the regime-change camp - with likely dire
consequences for Kim. But on performance to date, Kim
will know that and meanwhile is sitting pretty.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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