Freedom comes at a price in Pyongyang
By Donald Kirk
WASHINGTON - The return home of Hyundai Asan technician Yoo Seong-jin after 137
days in captivity in North Korea, like that of the two American journalists
whom former United States president Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang to bring
home to America, raises enormous questions.
What was the real price paid for Yoo's return on Thursday? What kind of deal
did the Hyundai Asan chairwoman, Hyun Jeong-eun, make during her visit to
Pyongyang? Clearly, North Korea wanted more than an apology for such a display
of mercy.
These questions also arose after Clinton picked up the Current TV journalists
Laura Ling and Euna Lee, held in Pyongyang for 140 days after North Korean
soldiers seized them as they were filming
a documentary on North Korea's Tumen River border with China on March 17.
Ling, Lee and the Hyundai Asan engineer had powerful interests on their side.
In the case of Ling and Lee, they had their savior to carry them home after
they had been sentenced to 12 years of "hard labor" for "illegal entry" and
"hostile acts". The Hyundai Asan technician, detained in the Kaesong Economic
Complex inside North Korea about 64 kilometers north of Seoul, had the powerful
support of the company responsible for building the complex as well as the
Mount Kumkang tourist zone.
The cases were different but had much in common, in terms of the affront to
North Korean authority that all three represented as well as the responses of
American and South Korean officials.
The Hyundai Asan technician, described as a boiler mechanic in charge of a
snack bar for North Korean workers, had evidently been flirting with a North
Korean waitress, suggesting she flee North Korea and join him in the South. A
North Korean official was quoted by Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, as
saying that he had "slandered" the North Korean system, meaning he had assured
her that life in the South with him would be far nicer than her existence in
the North.
Like Bill Clinton's wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, South Korean
officials were quick to say that Yoo's release would have no impact on South
Korea's policy toward the North. A spokesman for the Blue House, the center of
presidential authority in South Korea, said the government would "maintain its
policy consistency toward North Korea", and a spokesman for the ruling Grand
National Party saw the outcome as the result of the South's "consistent
principle-based policy".
The sense is unavoidable, though, that with the releases North Korea is
shifting course toward a more conciliatory line, as it has done so often over
the years of crisis and near-crisis. Certainly the homecoming of the Hyundai
Asan worker suggested that North Korea had no desire to jeopardize the output
of some 100 South Korean factories producing light industrial products in the
Kaesong complex.
Then again, despite denials, it is always possible that the Hyundai Asan
chairwoman, Hyun Jeong-eun, waiting all week in Pyongyang in hopes of a meeting
with Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, intimated a willingness to go along with North
Korean demands for more rent and higher pay for the 30,000 workers in the
complex - money which goes straight into North Korean coffers, not to the
workers.
Hyun surely would have liked to come to an understanding that would benefit her
interests in North Korea as well as those of South Korean President Lee
Myung-bak. Aside from concern about the Kaesong complex, she may have also
sought resumption of tours to Mount Kumkang, the complex on the eastern side of
the peninsula into which her company has invested more than US$1 billion.
Tours were suspended more than a year ago after North Korean soldiers shot and
killed a South Korean woman who had wandered outside the tourist area to watch
the sunrise.
North Korea's apparent softening of attitudes may have been influenced by
another far greater consideration - pressure from China to show signs of
reconciliation after months of rising confrontation with both South Korea and
the United States.
China may not be fully in line with the US in enforcing the sanctions imposed
by the UN Security Council two weeks after North Korea exploded its second
nuclear "device" on May 25. However, the Chinese have blocked exports to North
Korea of strategic materiel needed for its nuclear program and are cooperating
on stifling the activities of a tiny bank through which US Treasury officials
say North Korean state companies were selling North Korean missiles.
The Korean Kwangson Banking Corporation, with an office in Dandong, the large
Chinese city across the Yalu River from the North Korean city of Sinuiju, has
been identified as a prime suspect for expediting sales of arms to Myanmar and
other countries.
The blacklisting of the bank by the US Treasury Department announced on Tuesday
automatically freezes any accounts held by the bank in the US and also bars
American firms, or any firm doing business with them, from dealing with the
bank. It may also compromise the wheeling and dealing that goes on in Dandong
between Chinese and North Korean traders who go back and forth every day.
The US sees action against the bank as part of a continuum of events showing
broad adherence to put pressure on North Korea to soften its line and return to
the six-party talks on its nuclear program, which it has renounced.
The bait may be a "broad comprehensive package" that Kim Jong-il is believed to
have presented to Bill Clinton during a meeting that went on for more than
three hours, including a state dinner. Clinton has not said he entered into
negotiations during what the US keeps saying was a "private visit", but somehow
the North Koreans got the impression he and they had reached what Pyongyang's
Korean Central News agency called a "consensus of views".
United States strategy seems to rest on mingling toughness with interest in
finding a formula or a setting for the two-way dialogue that North Korea wants
with the US and only the US.
Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, is delighted to cite
evidence of the effectiveness of UN sanctions, such as India's boarding last
week of a North Korean vessel in its waters. The vessel was believed to have
been laden with something to do with missiles if not the missiles themselves.
"These sanctions are tight," said Rice. "They're being enforced."
Some American strategies, though, are not all that realistic. United States
diplomats have suggested they and the Chinese get together on what to do if Kim
Jong-il, reportedly recovering from a stroke and possibly suffering pancreatic
cancer, leaves the scene. China quickly rebuffed anything to do with such a
proposal that would thoroughly upset the North Koreans if they got wind of it.
One thing is sure: the State Department is not about to offend North Korea by
spreading rumors about his health or his ability to govern. Kim Jong-il is "in
full control", a State Department spokesman hastily noted. "They have a
leadership in place."
South Korea's President Lee lost no time dusting off his earlier proposal for
massive aid for North Korea if it "gives up its nuclear program". On Saturday,
the anniversary of the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, he would,
said a spokesman, "again confirm plans to actively assist North Korea".
North Korea has repeatedly scoffed at Lee's offer. With the release of the
Hyundai Asan technician and the presence of the Hyundai Asan boss in Pyongyang,
the South Koreans hope this time that North Korea may be inclined to listen -
or at least not respond by again branding Lee as a "traitor".
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of
forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
