Pyongyang plays 'funeral diplomacy' By Donald Kirk
WASHINGTON - Kim Dae-jung's funeral seems to have advanced his "Sunshine"
policy of reconciliation with North Korea more effectively than he did in the
last few years of his life.
Kim Dae-jung, who spent a career in politics battling dictators in South Korea
before cozying up to the one in North Korea, would be delighted to know that
his grand state funeral on Sunday provided the perfect opening for renewal of
North-South dialogue. He died on August 18, aged 85.
After having spurned all contact for months, North Korea, presumably the Dear
Leader himself, sent six people to Seoul to lay a wreath at Kim's bier. Three
of them then sat down for 30 minutes with South Korea's conservative president,
Lee Myung-bak - the same man that North Korea's state-run media has been
excoriating for more than a year as a "traitor" and "lackey" of the Americans.
You have to wonder what kind of message Kim Ki-nam, said to be a "secretary" of
the ruling Workers' Party - of which Dear Leader Kim Jong-il is "general
secretary" - passed on from his boss. Whatever it was, said a spokesman for
Lee, the message was "oral" - nothing in writing but probably clear enough if
you read between the spoken lines, which the spokesman said were too
"sensitive" to be revealed.
All the spokesman would say is that the message was about "progress in
inter-Korean relations". We're left guessing, then, if Kim Jong-il, whose real
power resides not in his party post but as chairman of the National Defense
Commission, told Lee that all the nasty rhetoric was meaningless. Was he
saying, let bygones be bygones, and let's be friends?
The substance of the message is not known, but two points are clear.
Firstly, North Korea misses the money it was making from projects such as tours
to the ancient Koryo capital of Kaesong, which is located just north of the
border near the Kaesong Economic Complex. It also may miss profits from tours
to Mount Kumkang, which were suspended by the South in 2008 after a North
Korean soldier shot and killed a South Korean woman who had strayed out of the
tourist zone to see the sunrise.
North Korea may be having second thoughts about jeopardizing the future of the
Kaesong complex, where 100 South Korean factories turn out light industrial
products. It is these companies that pay the wages for the 40,000 or so North
Korean workers there - but they never reach them.
Pyongyang also no doubt misses the "humanitarian aid" in the form of several
hundred thousand tons a year of rice and fertilizer that South Korea shipped up
the coast every year during the decade from 1998 to 2008 in which Kim Dae-jung
and then Roh Moo-hyun held the presidency.
Secondly, however, is a distinct downside that may negate the upside of the
sweetness and light that surrounded the North Korean visit. (Kim Ki-nam, who
seemed to lead the delegation, said he was "leaving with good feelings" before
going to the airport with his colleagues for the return flight aboard a North
Korean Air Koryo plane.)
The downside is that it appears extremely unlikely that the subject of North
Korea's nuclear program, which has been at the center of the confrontation with
North Korea for more than 15 years, was discussed. As Kim Tae-woo, vice
president of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, warned, "North Korea's
peace gesture has nothing to do with its intention to give up nuclear weapons."
The whole question of North Korea's nukes, said Kim Tae-woo, is "entirely
separate", just as the White House separated the issue of the return of the two
Current TV journalists with the former US president, Bill Clinton, from
anything to do with the sanctions the US is pressing United Nations members to
enforce against the North.
No one really expects North Korea to decide suddenly to return to six-party
talks, something it has said it will never do. No one doubts, though, that
North Korea would like two-party talks between Pyongyang and Washington, with a
view to pressing a list of demands. These are likely to range from a withdrawal
of the remaining 28,500 US troops from South Korea to signing a peace treaty in
place of the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953.
It's possible this strategy may pay off for Kim Jong-il. "North Korea may be
using funeral diplomacy," said Kim Tae-woo. "It could give a slight leverage
for North Korea to make a peace gesture."
Certainly, North Korea got the message through to US President Barack Obama.
Bill Clinton thoroughly briefed Obama last week on the three hours he spent
with Kim Jong-il before taking off for Los Angeles with Laura Ling and Euna
Lee, the journalists who had been held for 140 day since North Korean soldiers
picked them up filming on the Tumen River border with China.
Bill's wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is pressing for nations to
enforce the United Nations sanctions adopted after North Korea conducted its
second test of a nuclear device last month. But it is unclear if the aura of
rapprochement surrounding the funeral will generate a face-saving way to talk
to North Korea. How about one-on-one talks while the others at the six-party
talks, China, Japan, Russia and, of course, South Korea, are all on a long
break or talking among themselves?
Again the funeral provided some clues. At the head of the official US
delegation was Madeleine Albright, who as secretary of state met Kim Jong-il in
Pyongyang in October 2000. Ever since, she has been writing and talking
effusively about what a smart guy he is. With her in Seoul on Sunday was her
number two, Wendy Sherman, who was also on the 2000 Pyongyang trip and who now
works with Albright at their consulting firm.
They were the duo, it should be recalled, whom Kim Jong-il led unsuspectingly
into the May First Stadium to watch the annual Arirang festival - the famous
event that features thousands of placard-holders depicting scenes of the firing
of a long-range Taepodong missile.
Just as important, the US delegation included Stephen Bosworth, who was
ambassador to South Korea while Kim Dae-jung was president - and whom Hillary
Clinton named in February as special envoy on North Korea. Bosworth visited
Pyongyang before his appointment, but hasn't been there since. Might he now
find the door open to him - and to two-way talks?
Kim Jong-il, with his recent display of cordiality instead of confrontation,
may be playing one huge shell game. With his country in a downward spiral of
severe food shortages and economic deterioration, he has already indicated his
eagerness to ease up on access to the Kaesong economic complex, reopen tours to
the city of Kaesong, resume reunions of families divided by the Korean War and
come to terms on tours to Mount Kumkang.
Now might be the time for him to engage in damage control after having suffered
a stroke a year ago that's clearly left him looking far weaker, judging from
his recent photographs with Clinton and the head of Hyundai Asan, the company
responsible for developing the Kaesong and Kumkang zone. It's conceivable he
wants to place relations with the US and South Korea on an even keel while
building up his youngest son as a possible successor.
In practical terms, however, the olive branch extended by Kim Jong-il seems
most likely to reflect the country's economic desperation. "The most important
thing for North Korea now is life, is food," said Choi Jin-wook, senior fellow
at the Korea Institute for National Unification.
Choi predicts South Korea may resume humanitarian aid to North Korea after
North Korea resumes reunions of families divided by the Korean War. About
16,000 family members, among hundreds of thousands still alive more than 50
years after the war ended, have met each other in brief reunions since the June
2000 summit, but there have been no reunions for more than two years.
Now is the time for Kim Jong-il to exploit the tremendous outpouring of emotion
over Kim Dae-jung's death. While thousands attended his funeral on Sunday,
about 700,000 visited memorials for him around the country and almost all the
South's 48 million people watched all or part of the service carried live on
four national television networks.
Whenever the US and North Korea meet, in whatever format, Choi believes "the
nuclear issue should be on the table". But that's not saying Kim Jong-il is
ready yet to consider abiding by the two agreements his nuclear negotiator
signed in 2007 agreeing to disable and dismantle the North's entire nuclear
program in exchange for an enormous infusion of energy aid.
In the meantime, said Choi, sanctions might have an impact. "It will take
time," he said. "Washington and South Korea and Japan do not want to hurry to
lift sanctions before North Korea decides to dismantle its nuclear program" -
something North Korea, in confrontational moments this year, has vowed never to
do.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of
forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
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