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The far-reaching potential of the Korea
talks
By Jaewoo Choo
SEOUL -
Recently, North Korea announced that it would prefer
that the next round of the Six-Party Talks be held in
December, rather than the November date sought by the
other five parties. So it seems that disagreements over
the date notwithstanding, the talks - whose first round
took place in Beijing at the end of August - at this
stage seem set to actually continue.
There
remain many unanswered questions, however. Will the
talks make any progress? Will they be the only avenue
for a solution to the North Korea nuclear crisis? If so,
what do they need in order to generate effective
consequences? Could these multilateral talks evolve or
transform into an international security system?
Especially on this last point, some may argue
that we are getting ahead of ourselves. But for the
talks to fulfill their original aims, they must be
equipped with legally and politically binding authority.
If that becomes the case, we may set our hopes high that
these talks could be the precursor for the first
multilateral cooperative security system for East Asia.
Such a system has been sought by the regional
actors since as far back as the 1960s. Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev's proposal at that time received no
response at all, including from China, as Sino-Soviet
bilateral relations had reached their nadir. Since the
end of the Cold War, there have been numerous calls from
the regional states, except for China and the United
States, to build such security regime in the region.
In 1993, the first Track II meeting, comprising
academicians and experts from the US, China, Russia,
Japan and South Korea, was held in San Diego in an
attempt to build a framework for such a regime. The
meeting was known as the Northeast Asia Cooperation
Dialogue (NEACD). The meeting was subsequently held on
an annual basis, with constructive consequences in 1996
when the governments of all the represented states
adopted the idea of creating similar multilateral talks
at the governmental, or Track I, level and named it
Northeast Asia Security Dialogue (NEASD). However, NEASD
was never held, for many reasons, but primarily because
of tension across the Taiwan Strait and a subsequent
deterioration of Sino-US relations. NEACD then also
perished for lack of government support.
As a
consequence of the outbreak of the first North Korean
nuclear crisis, a similar idea budded and blossomed into
the "Four-Party Talks". That forum, however, did not
last more than two years. With new hopes for the
continuity of the Six-Party Talks, however, can we
expect it to become an effective international
institution?
Northeast Asia, in fact East Asia
as a whole, has been perceived as one of those regions
where differences in cultural values, ideology, economic
development, and political and social systems are so
great that any kind of cooperative international system
at the multilateral level is an impossible dream. In
addition, as long as the superpower political structure
seemed immortal, any talk of a multilateral cooperative
security system at the regional level was akin to
shouting "I dare you" to Superman.
However, with
a wake-up call from North Korea - once again - the
regional states have managed to build a consensus that
talks and cooperation at the multilateral level are the
only viable means for solving the second nuclear crisis.
That is interesting enough, but what is much more
surprising is that China and the US have been active
promoters to this end. Under these circumstances, then,
can we reasonably hope for this long-sought dream of a
multilateral cooperative security system along the lines
of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe? Here are some of the critical assumptions that
must be fulfilled before we can get our hopes that high.
As perceived by many, including the
participating member states, the Six-Party Talks may
last much longer than originally expected to achieve
their original purpose, to deal with North Korea's
nuclear-development program peacefully, thereby
fomenting a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. Since
peaceful resolution of this problem cannot be achieved
on the limited terms of military security alone, it will
in the end require participating states to find feasible
ways to meet whatever demands it makes in the process,
including economic and financial aid as well as
guarantees of North Korea's security.
Under the
circumstances, one salient reason the talks may be
protracted is that all these wishes by North Korea may
only be realized through abrogation or annulment of the
existing domestic and international legal constraints in
the form of sanctions (see Why the US won't peel the
onion, August 15) that the participating
states have imposed on themselves, especially the US and
Japan, in the name of containing an adversarial and
communist state. In other words, removal of all these
legal constraints is the key to bringing North Korea
into the international community as a normal state and
to enabling it to adapt to international norms in its
foreign affairs.
If and when all the legal
obstacles are removed and a new set of rules and laws
are established for a peaceful solution, the Six-Party
Talks may develop and transform into a legally binding
institution for the sake of North Korea's future. Once
the six-party forum achieves its original goals and
purposes, in other words, it will have to be
institutionalized as the governing body of all those
matters related to North Korea's survival as a state.
This is particularly so because, at least during the
initial stage of the process, North Korea's fate will
be, to a great degree, in the hands of its dialogue
partners.
Another perspective for the six-party
forum to be able to transcend into an institution for
the prevention of international conflict in Northeast
Asia lies in the fact that the region's great powers are
all active members of the forum as it currently exists.
These states include China, the United States, Russia
and Japan. Other directly concerned states are also
included, namely South and North Korea. One of the most
difficult facts that has thus far prevented the region
from building a multilateral dialogue regime for
regional affairs has been the question of whether
regional players were willing to participate. Many of
these players have in the past attributed their
unwillingness and skepticism to a lack of transparency
and confidence measures. By wisely utilizing and
manipulating the immediate situation - nukes in North
Korea - the six-party forum may act as a precedent for
future security issues of the region. Whether the talks
can become an institution, then, will greatly depend on
the consequences of its handling of the North Korean
problem.
Third, a membership-expansion scheme
for the forum would lay a solid foundation for
institutionalization. This scheme requires continuing
success with the North Korea talks. If the forum were to
follow the course of the original idea of the talks, it
will eventually include the European Union, Australia,
France, the United Kingdom and Canada. The significance
of this expansion is twofold. One is that all these
states and regions happen to be members of the governing
boards of most of the international financial
institutions. As the cost of a nuclear-free Korean
Peninsula cannot be met by a single state's economic
strength and requires multilateral cooperation, the idea
of retrieving support and assistance from international
financial institutions has recently surfaced. The other
significant point is that, especially with the
participation of the UK and France, the transformation
of the Six-Party Talks into a 10-party format would
enhance, and further endorse, the legitimacy of the
talks' resolution with the fact that all five permanent
members of the United Nations Security Council are
involved.
If and when the Six-Party Talks
continue to progress toward their founding purpose as a
multilateral dialogue channel for peaceful solution of
regional affairs, the aforementioned preconditions for
the institutionalization of the talks can be fulfilled.
If this becomes the case, then, it is safe to say that
the prospects for the long-sought wish to build a
multilateral cooperative security system is very
feasible. Under the institutionalization scenario, we
then may be able to assess the possible impacts of the
talks on trilateral relationships among Korea, the
United States and Japan.
Jaewoo Choo
is a former research fellow at the Trade Research
Institute, Korea International Trade Association, and
currently assistant professor at the School of
International Relations and Area Studies, Kyung Hee
University, South Korea.
(Copyright 2003
Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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