Getting North Korea to change its
tune By Donald Kirk
SEOUL - The history of the Korean
Peninsula may be at a momentous turning point with
Monday's inauguration of conservative former
business leader Lee Myung-bak as president of
South Korea, to be followed on Tuesday night by an
epic performance by the New York Philharmonic
Orchestra in the North Korean capital of
Pyongyang.
The real significance of this
confluence of events, however, revolves around the
question of what's said behind the scenes about
North Korea's nuclear program - and the role of US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in attempting
to use both occasions as a great opportunity to
overcome what appear as insurmountable stumbling
blocks on the way to getting North Korea to give
it up.
In the face of official US State
Department denials, speculation
still
swirls around the possibility that Rice may divert
from Seoul after the inauguration and go to
Pyongyang for the concert - and a possible meeting
with North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il.
If
that scenario seems far-fetched, a visit to
Pyongyang by an American secretary of state would
hardly be unprecedented. Madeleine Albright made
the journey as secretary of state in October 2000,
"laying the groundwork" as the Associated Press
reported at the time, for a visit by Bill Clinton,
then nearing the end of his eight years as
president.
Those hopes were dashed during
the recount of votes in Florida that propelled
George W Bush to the presidency amid demands for a
"review" of US policy - and reversal of moves
toward reconciliation. Rice as secretary of state
has overseen a shift toward moderation in which
the US has backed away from the hard line of
Bush's first term, fully supporting six-nation
talks in which North Korea has agreed to give up
its nuclear program.
As the Bush
administration is in its final year, Rice may have
very few, if any, better opportunities than the
events of this week to try to wrest a lasting
diplomatic triumph from a maelstrom of
recriminations that threaten to ruin the sense of
progress engendered by the signing of the
six-nation agreement a year ago, on February 13,
2007.
Rice's schedule - on her first trip
to the region in more than a year - calls for her
to fly from Seoul (she was there on Monday) to
Beijing and then on to Tokyo. Along the way she'll
be prodding her opposite numbers in all three
capitals to move swiftly, in their own distinctly
different ways, to get North Korea to live up to
its agreement to reveal all its nuclear
activities, including the contents of its nuclear
inventory and its dealings with such dubious
partners as Iran and Syria.
What could be
more logical, though, than for her to go to
Beijing via Pyongyang - a move that would
presumably have the full endorsement of China as
host to the six-nation talks and North Korea's
main source of diplomatic and economic support? It
is not difficult to envision Rice standing beside
Kim Jong-il as the 130-piece orchestra plays
before a global television audience, including
North Korea's citizens, accustomed to a daily diet
of reports of economic successes interspersed with
praise for Kim and denunciations of varying
intensity of the US.
There is ample
precedent, moreover, for such a diplomatic stroke.
Just look at Henry Kissinger's secret trip to
Beijing in July 1971 in which he prepared for
president Richard Nixon's visit next year and the
opening of US-China relations after years of
strife, including the Korean War in which more
than a million Chinese troops are estimated to
have died. When it comes to North Korea, however,
other realities argue against Rice stopping off in
Pyongyang - intriguing though such a mission may
seem.
For one thing, North Korean
officials, notably the North's chief nuclear
negotiator, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan,
have repeatedly said they really have nothing more
to reveal about their nuclear program. They
persist in denying anything to do with highly
enriched uranium, the program that touched off the
nuclear crisis in 2002, and in the aftermath of an
Israeli raid on a mysterious base in Syria
repeatedly denied having provided Syria with
nuclear technology or material.
Analysts
doubt if Rice would be able to negotiate any
revision in North Korea's position on these issues
even if she were to sit down with Kim Jong-il as
Albright did in October 2003.
Yet another
problem revolves around the sensitivity of US
relations with South Korea. The outgoing South
Korean president, Roh Moo-hyun, welcomed US moves
toward reconciliation with North Korea as evidence
of a change of heart that showed Bush's desire to
move closer to the outlook of the South Korean
government.
Prior to Lee's inauguration,
Rice met with Roh's outgoing foreign minister,
Song Min-soon, a major figure in South Korea's
drive for reconciliation. Lee's own policy toward
North Korea appears much tougher than that of
either Roh or Roh's predecessor, Kim Dae-jung, who
formed South Korea's Sunshine policy of
reconciliation and won the Nobel Peace Prize after
meeting Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang in June 2000.
According to South Korea's Yonhap News
Agency, Rice will also meet with Song's successor,
Yu Myung-hwan, who is waiting for a confirmation
hearing this week.
For starters, Lee has
spoken firmly of the need for "verification" of
whatever North Korea claims to have done about its
nuclear program. At the same time, he has called
for "reciprocity", meaning North Korea has to give
something substantive in return for the aid that
it's getting under the nuclear agreement - or
separately for humanitarian reasons, to feed its
people.
As a businessman who rose to the
top of Hyundai Engineering and Construction
Company at the age of 35, Lee, now 66, may well
back down from a seemingly hard line as he focuses
on the South Korean economy, on South Korean
economic relations with China, its largest trading
partner, and then on ways to invest in North
Korea.
Nonetheless, Lee may not exactly
welcome the idea of Rice dashing off to North
Korea the day after his inauguration, before he's
had a chance to carry out his policies. Wary of
upsetting the new president, Rice may prefer first
to sound him out - and set in motion the process
of arranging for Lee to call on Bush at the White
House after South Korea's National Assembly
elections in April. In fact, Rice may very well be
carrying a personal letter, an invitation, from
Bush to Lee.
Even if Rice does not go to
Pyongyang, however, the performance by the
philharmonic is sure to be accompanied by a chorus
of diplomatic chatter - and raise hopes for
opening US relations with North Korea when and if
the State Department removes North Korea from its
list of nations sponsoring terrorism.
Donald Gregg, former US ambassador to
South Korea and chairman of the Korea Society, an
influential organization that functions with
official South Korean support, will be among the
guests. The list also includes Evans Revere,
formerly second-ranking US diplomat in Seoul, who
succeeded Gregg as president of the Korea Society,
and William Perry, former secretary of defense
under Clinton.
Yet another guest will be
the chair of the Hyundai Group, Hyun Jeong-eun,
widow of Chung Mong-hun, who led the group until
his suicide in August 2003 amid revelations of his
role in passing approximately US$500 million to
North Korea to bring about the North-South summit
of June 2000. Hyundai Asan, one of the major
companies in the group, is responsible for
building the Mount Kumkang tourist complex and the
Kaesong industrial zone above the demilitarized
line in North Korea.
The Hyundai group no
longer includes such companies as Hyundai Motor
and Hyundai Heavy Industries, the world's largest
shipbuilder, both of which are the centerpieces of
separate groups. Still, the presence of a
prominent Hyundai executive underlines the
economic aspect of North-South reconciliation.
Lee, as a former Hyundai executive, is not likely
to want to reverse the pattern.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been
covering Korea - and the confrontation of forces
in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
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