"History demonstrates that developing China-North Korea relations are in keeping
with the fundamental interests and shared wishes of both countries' peoples. It
also benefits the protection of regional peace and stability." - Chinese President Hu Jintao
"Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was at the behest of the late
president Kim Il-sung. The hostile relations between the DPRK [Democratic
People's Republic of Korea] and the US should be turned into peaceful ones
through bilateral talks." - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il
TOKYO - High-profile visits to Pyongyang by two foreign leaders - former United
States president Bill Clinton in early August and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
this month - have gone a long way towards dramatizing the senselessness of the
much-publicized United Nations sanctions on North Korea. They have also helped
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to consider switching gears to a "Plan C" as a
permanent nuclear power.
In an op-ed published in the Christian Science Monitor in July, Professor
Zhiqun Zhu wrote, "Frankly, it is unrealistic for the US to ask North Korea to
give up its nuclear technology. The reason is simple: The nuclear card is the
only one North Korea has; it will not easily give it away. The ostrich policy
of refusing to accept North Korea as a nuclear state has to be ditched. A
solution to the North Korea conundrum must begin with recognizing the fact that
North Korea has the ability to produce nuclear weapons and will remain
nuclear-capable."
The New York Times, in an editorial published on June 17, wrote, "North Korea
is developing a frightening track record of making good on its threats. True to
its word, in recent weeks it has conducted a second nuclear test and several
missile tests. It also may have resumed making fuel for nuclear weapons. And
the threats keep coming. Over the weekend, the North vowed to make more nuclear
weapons and to take 'resolute military actions' against efforts to isolate it."
Bloomberg reported on October 6, 2009, that in his October 1 letter to the
United Nations Security Council, North Korean ambassador Sin Son-ho called
dismantlement of the DPRK's nuclear weapons "unthinkable even in a dream", and
that he had stressed that his government "won't give up its nuclear weapons
unless the US completely disarms".
Plan C envisages the US belatedly learning to live in peace with a
nuclear-armed North Korea and putting to rest scores of years of hostility
between the two countries through signing a peace treaty and establishing full
diplomatic ties. It also involves recognition of the DPRK's responsible
behavior as a nuclear power and desire to join the US in its efforts to achieve
global nuclear disarmament - major US allies such as the United Kingdom,
Germany, Italy, the Netherlands Canada and Australia already have diplomatic
relations with the DPRK.
DPRK-China ties upgraded The most important result of Wen's trip, and of
a joint message of three Chinese leaders including Chinese President Hu Jintao
to North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-il, was the fact that Kim Jong-il had
upgraded DPRK-China relations into a new treaty alliance that bands together
two nuclear weapons states.
As South Korean news agency Yonhap reported on October 5, Wen vowed, "Sino-DPRK
relations will invariably develop, whatever change the international situation
will undergo ... Sino-DPRK relations are on a new starting point. We hope to
consolidate traditional friendship with the DPRK and expand exchanges and
cooperation with it."
The Wen remark signifies China's determination to seek closer ties with a
nuclear-armed North Korea and stand by it. The implications are a far cry from
1991, when paramount leader Deng Xiaoping said to visiting Kim Il-sung from a
non-nuclear North Korea, "No matter how the international situation might
change in the future, China would, as always, do its utmost to further
strengthen the friendship between the two countries."
At that time, North Korea was non-nuclear. Today North Korea is capable of
keeping the superpower US at bay. North Korea is the third most powerful
nuclear weapons state after China. It has all types of nuclear arms:
thermonuclear, atomic and neutron and inter-continental means of delivery that
can effectively reach any target in the metropolitan US.
North Korea played an important role in helping Mao Zedong win the Chinese
civil war and create the People's Republic of China in 1949. At the request of
Mao for direct involvement in the Chinese civil war, Kim Il-sung provided the
People's Liberation Army with military supplies for a million troops and sent
250,000 North Korean troops, who took part in the liberation of Manchuria and
other parts of China.
North Korean troops and Chinese volunteers also fought shoulder-to-shoulder in
the Korean War in the early 1950s, badly mauling the US military.
For Beijing, a nuclear-armed North Korea should be welcome as a most dependable
ally because China has no other. This new treaty alliance between permanent
nuclear powers is certain to be a major boon to peace and security in Northeast
Asia and the rest of the world.
Tacit acknowledgement of nuclear status
Tacit US acknowledgement of the nuclear status of North Korea is the greatest
dividend of former US president Bill Clinton's trip to Pyongyang, intended
ostensibly to plead with the DPRK's constitutional supreme leader Kim Jong-il
to pardon two female US journalists arrested for straying into North Korea.
Indications are that the Obama administration is currently in the process of
accepting a nuclear North Korea as the US did for Israel, India and Pakistan,
since it has little hope of succeeding where the two previous administrations
of Bill Clinton and George W Bush failed.
There are two major ironies in former president Clinton's trip to Pyongyang.
The first irony is the fact that this same president kept on predicting North
Korea's imminent collapse during his eight years in the White House, from
1993-2001. Yet his visit has demonstrated beyond doubt that the North Korean
leader is "unexpectedly spry" - in full control - and that his nuclear-armed
DPRK is far from collapse but a force to be reckoned with as a permanent
nuclear power.
President Barack Obama joined Clinton in telling the world that "North Korean
leader Kim Jong-il is "pretty healthy", prompting a review of the hardline
approach to North Korea within his administration that had been based on the
North's chaotic collapse.
Clinton flew into Pyongyang, hat in hand, and met with Kim Jong-il. He tried to
break the ice and pave the way for bilateral talks on the future relations
between these two nuclear powers on behalf of the Obama administration.
The former US president apologized for the illegal entry of the two
journalists, pleading for their pardon as well as asking Kim Jong-il to invite
US special envoy Stephen Bosworth to Pyongyang for direct talks.
Clinton's earlier misplaced bet on the North Korea's implosion induced him to
procrastinate implementing the American obligations of the landmark 1994 Agreed
Framework to dismantle the North Korean plutonium program.
True, Clinton's belief that the DPRK would collapse in several years appeared
founded, given the demise of the socialist camp and the death of Kim Il-sung,
but his view lacked a proper understanding of North Korea. This nation is the
only successor to the Korea's Koguryo empire (37BC-668 AD) and the Koryo
(935-1392 AD), and Lee (1392AD-1910AD) dynasties, and this fact is lost on
people from the US, a country with a history of just 200 years.
Former CNN reporter Eason Jordan stated at Harvard University March 10, 1999,
"I can guarantee you this: When you hear about starvation in North Korea, you
hear about famine in North Korea, you hear about the backwardness of the
country, a lot of very levelheaded, logical thinking people think 'Well that
country cannot survive. There is no way a country like that can survive.' And
I'm here to tell you with absolute certainty those guys will tough it out for
centuries just the way they are."
Mike Chinoy, former CNN reporter, agreed on January on 28, 2008: "The [North
Korean] system didn't collapse. [Speculation that the North Korean system would
collapse after the death of founder Kim Il-sung] didn't hold true then and
doesn't hold true now."
The second irony is that Obama seems to have a similar fate to former president
Lyndon B Johnson, who had to ask the lower-ranking Major General Gilbert H
Woodward to - on behalf of the Johnson administration - sign a US government
apology for the USS Pueblo incident to win the release of its 82 crew
from 11 months of captivity in North Korea.
The USS Pueblo crew members were caught red-handed while on a military
mission, whereas the two journalists were detained after illegally entering
North Korea. The reporters were well treated and not sent to prison.
Reacting to the USS Pueblo capture by North Korea in 1968, Johnson
ordered a massive military build-up in the region to punish the DPRK, including
600 fighter jets and six aircraft carriers, while fighting a losing war in
Vietnam. But he stopped short of ordering military reprisals on the DPRK, out
of fear that a second Korean war would be sparked, defining later US policy
behavior to North Korea.
Obama has spearheaded the imposition of UN sanctions on North Korea over its
launch of a satellite and a nuclear test, while losing a war in Afghanistan
that the majority of Americans consider not worth fighting. However, the US
refrains from interdicting ocean-going North Korean ships since the Korean
People's Army has vowed a quick military response to any such US action.
As the New York Times reported June 13, experts and diplomats agree that the
sanctions on North Korea will be counter-productive. The Obama administration's
initial reaction to the arrest of the two women journalists were nothing but
verbal protests and schoolyard taunts, in the words of the July 24 edition of
the Washington Post.
Obama's plummeting popularity numbers indicate that like Johnson's failed
re-election bid in 1968, he will risk seeing his re-election bid collapse in
2012 over the war in Afghanistan.
A silver bullet for Obama to avoid this would be to borrow a page from former
president Richard Nixon's playbook and fly Air Force One into Pyongyang for a
photogenic landmark summit with Kim Jong-il to offer to live in peace with the
nuclear-armed DPRK.
Nixon sent former secretary of state Henry Kissinger to Beijing in 1971,
diverting public attention from the unpopular war in Vietnam. The following
year Nixon made his groundbreaking visit to China and won his re-election by a
landslide.
Ambassador Donald Gregg appearing on the edition of the Good Morning America
television show on October 9, 2006 dismissed the fear of North Korea selling
nuclear material as "a self-fulfilling prophecy." He added: "[North Korean
negotiator] Kim Gye-gwan, a man I meet every time I go there, said last month,
'You're going to have to learn to live with a nuclear North Korea until you are
willing to sit down and talk seriously with us'."
Kim Jong-il will accept Obama's demand that North Korea should behave in a
responsible way as a nuclear power and pledge not to transfer nuclear
technology abroad.
Kim Myong Chol is author of a number of books and papers in Korean,
Japanese and English on North Korea, including Kim Jong-il's Strategy
for Reunification. He has a PhD from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's
Academy of Social Sciences and is often called an "unofficial" spokesman of Kim
Jong-il and North Korea.
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