Bush, Lee and that North Korea problem
By Sung-Yoon Lee
In politics everything turns around.
South Korea's new leader, President Lee Myung-bak, in his youth was imprisoned
for protesting against his country's normalization of diplomatic relations with
Japan in the mid-1960s - a diplomatic move strongly endorsed by the United
States. Now, embarking on his single five-year term as president, Lee is bent
on improving his nation's relations with both Japan and the US.
US President George W Bush spent much of his two consecutive four-year terms
criticizing the North Korean regime's nuclear brinkmanship and human-rights
abuses. But for over a year now, Bush has been dangling an olive branch before
North Korea,
choosing not to emphasize certain salient aspects of the regime for which he
once famously characterized Kim Jong-il's North Korea "evil": "North Korea is a
regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its
citizens."
The two leaders meet for the first time this week. Beyond comment on the degree
of American hospitality accorded the South Korean visitor - they meet at the
presidential retreat of Camp David - lies the question of substance. That is,
beyond atmospherics, for what, if anything, will the summit be remembered by
future generations?
Were US-South Korea relations friendly in a "conventional" sense, say, like
that between the US and Australia, the meeting between the two leaders would
fulfill its purpose merely by reaffirming the alliance and discussing various
economic aspects of the bilateral relationship. But unlike Australia, South
Korea is a US ally that faces a threatening neighbor in North Korea, a regime
with the potential, in Bush's own words, to "threaten the peace of the world".
As Bush pointed out, North Korea - along with Iran and pre-invasion Iraq -
"could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their
hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States.
In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic".
What an opportune time then for the new South Korean leader to prompt the
seasoned American leader to refocus on the crux of the comprehensive North
Korea problem at hand: a regime that may proliferate weapons of mass
destruction to America's enemies, or blackmail America and its allies with
nuclear weapons, all the while "starving its citizens".
Issues of mutual concern like restructuring the configuration of US troops
deployed in South Korea or the bilateral free-trade agreement should and will
be addressed at the summit meeting. But the two leaders' legacies, in varying
degrees, shall be defined by their North Korea policy, not their positions on
imports or exports of automobiles and agricultural products.
Proponents of engaging North Korea take care to remind us that the Kim Jong-il
regime is not going to go away, and that we have to deal with it as it is. But
seldom do they see the irony in their accurate assessment: that the Kim regime
is not only not going to cave in but will actually stay on its present
trajectory of nuclear blackmail, and that short of change in the Pyongyang
regime, further fits of nuclear negotiations are all but an exercise in
futility. Astonishingly, even North Korea's unique record of violating with
unfailing regularity every single international agreement that it has signed
has proven to be a woeful deterrent against appeasement - even for someone as
"ideologically rigid" as Bush.
What, then, are the alternatives to the present cycle of rewarding Pyongyang
with ever new rounds of diplomacy and payment? What can Lee and Bush achieve
together in the less than one year of Bush's remaining time in office?
The two men can chart a detailed future plan for providing humanitarian relief
to North Korean refugees and reconstructing North Korea in a post-Kim Jong-il
world. That world may lie years or even decades away, for as long as Kim is
able to keep his own mortality at bay he is likely to remain in power and
perhaps even succeed in handing over rule to one of his three sons. But the end
of the Kim family regime shall one day come, and although it may not be
feasible to precipitate that end in the short-term, wise it would be to prepare
for that inevitable end and even accelerate it by explicitly planning for a
post-Kim, unified or still-divided, Korea.
Even acknowledging the possibility of the end of the Kim regime was anathema to
the two previous South Korean administrations, so intent were they on appeasing
Kim Jong-il. But Lee and Bush now have an opportunity to address and plan
together for - if not encourage - just such a change in the status quo.
In November 2006, outgoing US senate majority leader Bill Frist introduced a
bill for "North Korea Relief and Reconstruction Fund", appropriating up to
US$10 billion for North Korean refugees and persons living in North Korea in
the event of the "emergence in North Korea of a new national government
committed to respect for human rights, nonproliferation, and peaceful relations
with the United States and other countries of the region".
Lee can seize the opportunity to encourage Bush to exhume that bill from the
morgues of the US Congress. He can also resuscitate OPLAN 5029, the joint
US-ROK Combined Forces Command plan for American and South Korean forces to
respond to various scenarios involving internal instability in North Korea,
such as regime collapse, mass defection, and revolt. The close coordination
between South Korea and the US will be pivotal in demilitarizing North Korea
and preventing any wayward proliferation of North Korea's weapons of mass
destruction in such a contingency situation.
The two leaders can also agree to call on the United Nations, Japan, the
European Union, and international non-governmental organizations to provide
funds and technical/managerial support for the reconstruction of North Korean
infrastructure, such as power plants, factories, medical facilities, roads,
train stations, harbors, and schools. South Korea will bear the brunt of the
logistical costs of reconstructing North Korea's agriculture, industry, and
civil society.
But such a gargantuan task cannot be undertaken by South Korea alone, or even
by a unified Korean government on its own. It is a long-term task that
requires, especially in its early years after the fall of the Kim Jong Il
regime, multilateral cooperation on all fronts - security, humanitarian,
political, and economic.
Lee will ultimately be judged by history not for having revived the economy -
which was his campaign platform - even if he succeeds in achieving that
important goal. For in every society, a nation and its people can identify the
one great compelling national task of that given era. In times of peace and
prosperity, this national challenge is less evident than in times of war or
social upheaval. And for affluent South Korea today, economic growth is but
just one of many important tasks that the nation faces.
For South Koreans in the 1950s, the greatest national task was reconstruction
and recovery from the ashes of the Korean War. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was
alleviating acute poverty and laying the foundations for economic development.
And in the 1980s and 1990s, it was nurturing the seeds of democracy that South
Koreans had so painstakingly planted. Today, the single greatest challenge of
our time that the Korean ethnic nation faces is, without doubt, alleviating the
unspeakable suffering of ordinary Koreans in the North. How Lee will be
remembered for improving the conditions of life in North Korea and laying the
foundation for the post-Kim reconstruction of North Korea will be his legacy.
Bush, too, still has time to carve out a true North Korea legacy for himself.
Ten months in the life of a politician is a lifetime in the life of a
persecuted people. During his presidency Bush has taken a genuine interest in
the terrible plight of the North Korean people.
Instead of being remembered as having stuck to attitude more than policy during
in his first five years in office, followed by a year of real policy of
financial pressure from late-2005 to late-2006, then capitulating and lunging
at any kind of written agreement in the wake of North Korea's nuclear test in
October 2006, Bush still has a chance to put pressure on Kim Jong-il and help
the North Korean people by taking the following simple steps - none which are
revolutionary or even revelatory. In fact, they are old policies that have
recently been swept under the carpet of fantasy diplomacy.
Empower the office of the US special envoy for human rights in North Korea so
that the special envoy can fulfill his mandate as per Section 107 of the North
Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 unfettered by Washington politics.
Make full use of the $20 million appropriated for 2008 to provide assistance to
North Koreans outside North Korea as stipulated in Section 203 of the Act.
Increase the volume and frequency of radio broadcast into North Korea and
provide funds and logistical support to organizations that disseminate
information into North Korea.
Bring back the Treasury Department to the fore of US-North Korea policy so that
fighting financial crimes once again becomes the practical instrument by which
pressure is placed on the Kim Jong Il regime.
Target Bureaus 38 and 39 of the North Korean Workers' Party as entities of
"primary money laundering concern" under Section 311 of the US Patriot Act, so
that their various criminal activities come under the greater and sustained
scrutiny of the international financial community.
North Korea may very well still be a nuclear power by the time a new American
president is inaugurated in 2009. The odds are overwhelmingly in its favor.
Even yet, with a show of statesmanship by putting an immediate end to a failed
policy of appeasement and refocusing on human rights, financial pressure, while
preparing together with the new South Korean administration for a post-Kim
Jong-il North Korea, Bush, when he leaves office, will have won a small victory
and a genuine legacy in his North Korea policy.
To save North Korean lives, to coerce the North Korean state to relax its
repressive control within its concentration camps, and to restrict the Kim
Jong-il regime's nefarious criminal activities would be real and lasting
achievements in changing North Korea. All are entirely feasible goals with a
policy of principles and pressure.
Lee now has the opportunity to end his predecessors' decade-long self-defeating
policy of appeasement and chart out a future plan for rebuilding North Korea.
Bush, too, can revert to his former form. By working together with the new
South Korean leader Bush can put real pressure on the Kim Jong-il regime while
simultaneously addressing the ever-pressing human rights problems inside one of
the most oppressive totalitarian states the world has ever known.
In politics everything turns around. And the summit meeting between the leaders
of South Korea and the United States this week can effect that
pivotal turnaround.
Dr Sung-Yoon Lee is adjunct assistant professor of international politics
at The Fletcher School, Tufts University, and associate in research at the
Korea Institute, Harvard University.
(This article has appeared in The Korean American Press out of Boston,
www.bostonkap.com. Published with permission.)
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