WASHINGTON - United States President Barack Obama, talking for more than an
hour this week before Congress, seemed to cover all the issues facing the
country. Or so a number of commentators told us in the post-address yak
sessions.
There was one problem. He did not seem to have mentioned Korea.
Could this really be? No, wait a moment. Korea did come up in a riff on "the
power of clean, renewable energy". He wanted Americans to consider the example
of China's "largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient",
the danger of the US falling behind Germany and Japan on solar energy and, yes,
the embarrassment of having "batteries made in Korea" run "plug-in hybrids"
rolling off American assembly lines.
Considerably more noteworthy than the passing mention of Korean-made batteries,
however, was that he forgot to allude to another made-in-Korea product - the
missiles and nuclear warheads produced in North Korea and the threat they now
pose to peace and stability in the region. How could the American president
have overlooked what had been in the news just the day before, that North
Korean technicians were busy preparing a missile for another launch, that the
missile, according to the North Koreans, would put a satellite into orbit?
It is possible Obama and his advisers may deem North Korea a sideshow, best to
skip while worrying about the Middle East and the economy. It's also possible
his advisers did not want to tip the American hand, to offend North Korea, to
throw off yet another bid at going along to get along with the Dear Leader Kim
Jong-il while he's poised to press the button on a long-awaited, much
publicized missile launch.
Now, with the imminent dispatch of the newly appointed chief American envoy on
North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, former ambassador to South Korea, along with the
US envoy on six-party-talks, Sung Kim, who held the same post in the final year
of the presidency of George W Bush, North Korea, is about to get some of the
attention it craves.
Just as North Korea was busy cranking up the missile on a long trajectory to
liftoff, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Bosworth and Sung Kim at
her side said she was sending them both to Northeast Asia for another attempt
at "engagement" with North Korea. Whether they get to North Korea at all,
however, is uncertain. North Korea has not indicated it is prepared to receive
Bosworth, who went there with an American delegation last month on an
"unofficial" trip - a precursor to the mission to which Clinton officially
appointed him during her own recent trip through the region.
The thinking in Washington is that Bosworth can at least coordinate on strategy
and tactics as he follows the same path blazed by Clinton, stopping off in
Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing. He's hedging bets, though, on whether he gets into
North Korea, saying "yes, we plan to engage" with the North but, "no" on
"whether on this particular trip remains to be decided".
North Korean strategists could not have succeeded more admirably in dragging
out the drama while proclaiming their own right to do as they pleased. The
cartoon image would be that of Kim Jong-il manipulating diplomats from
Washington to Tokyo, to Seoul and Beijing like marionettes, tugging here,
relaxing there, jerking the Americans, Japanese, Koreans and Chinese around
like puppets in a traveling circus.
The show in all probability will conclude with a huge bang - the noise of a
Taepodong-2 roaring off the launch pad - while the puppets fall in a heap on
the stage, motionless until the puppeteer tugs the strings again and they
scurry about, in little jerky motions, bowing, gesticulating and shouting among
each other, with voices all spoken by the clever puppeteer doubling as a
ventriloquist.
The puppet image is one that North Korea loves, never more so than when
referring to South Korean "puppets", actually a mild term compared to "traitor"
and "lackey", two of the words most used to characterize the South's
conservative President Lee Myung-bak.
As the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, a powerful
Communist Party organization handling inter-Korean relations put it in a
typical statement, for North Korea to launch of a missile, or a satellite borne
by a missile, "is the North's sovereign right" and "does not allow mere [South
Korean] puppets to take issue with it". In a swipe at all possible American
actions, a spokesman said the North was ready for "everything, from their
loudmouthed sanctions, intercepting and retaliatory strike".
As for the uncertainty about whether the purpose of the missile is really to
put a satellite into orbit, said a North Korean "spokesman", as quoted by
Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency, "If they are not sure about whether it
will be a satellite or something else, they will come to know when watching
what will soar in the air in the days ahead."
All the rhetoric was scary enough for Bosworth to have to cancel a talk at
Georgia Tech in Atlanta at which a senior official from North Korea's United
Nations mission and a top State Department official both spoke. Their remarks
were off-the-record - the State Department would not permit the North Korean to
make the trip if he wanted to talk publicly - but the North Korea said while on
his way there that of course North Korea would launch the missile.
Amid such posturing, US trade problems with South Korea do indeed loom large.
US imports from the South may well descend precipitously in coming months while
pressure grows on Lee to keep his economy from totally deteriorating in the
midst of the worsening global economic crisis.
So then, in the wake of Obama's speech, the question is whether South Korean
batteries, as a symbol for so much more that South Korea exports, pose a worse
threat than North Korean missiles? Which is more serious, the continuing trade
battle between the US and South Korea, or the perpetual struggle to get North
Korea to abandon its nuclear program?
No, North Korea is not going to fire the Taepodong-2 on a path to Alaska or
Hawaii. Unless something goes very wrong, however, the latest version of the
Taepodong should do better than the Taepodong-2 that flew for about 40 seconds
and landed in the sea after its launch on July 5, 2006. The missile, if it gets
into the atmosphere successfully, may indeed launch a satellite that will orbit
the Earth - a reminder of the terrible warhead it might carry if North Korea
were sufficiently annoyed, or frightened, or the Americans were about to bomb
the daylights out of the place, the bogeyman image of North Korean propaganda.
Under the circumstances, the decision of Obama, his aides, advisers and writers
to skip over the North Korean threat seemed all the more remarkable,
considering that Clinton had just returned from a mission that took her to
Japan, South Korea and China, with a diversion to Indonesia. Everywhere she
went she discussed the North Korean threat.
We won't really know the US response to an actual missile/satellite launch
until North Korea turns warnings into reality. Obama's omission of Korea in an
address in which he pointedly cited that other would-be nuclear menace, Iran,
hardly instills confidence in the US as a strong defender of South.
The real fear is that South Korea will be forgotten again, just as the Korean
War remains America's “forgotten war".
The spectacle of the US sending high-level diplomats junketing on ever-more
missions to convince the North Koreans to honor all commitments while
condemning North Korea's nuclear/missile programs is a familiar one. By
ignoring Korea in his most major speech since his inaugural address six weeks
ago, however, Obama leaves the impression the US may choose to "forget" about
Korea in a life-or-death crisis.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of
forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
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