SPEAKING FREELY North Korea: Mad as a hatter?
By John Hemmings
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A bright idea came into Alice's head. "Is that the reason so many tea-things are
put out here?" she asked.
"Yes, that's it," said the Hatter with a sigh. "It's always tea-time, and we've
no time to wash the things between whiles."
"Then you keep moving round, I suppose?" said Alice.
"Exactly so," said the Hatter. "As the things get used up."
"But what happens when you come to the beginning again?" Alice ventured to ask.
"Suppose we change the subject," the March Hare interrupted, yawning.
- Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
Much like the tea party in Carroll's seminal work, the Korean
nuclear issue seems to go on and on, round and round, spinning in circles with
its own peculiar logic, and landing the reader (and the general public) much in
the same place as when we started. In dealing with North Korea and the nuclear
issue, one is seldom assured of the facts. They are slim on the ground and
highly contestable: analysis is everything. Also, one is never sure of why
previous negotiations have failed: bad intentions, mistaken policies and even
just plain bad luck have all played a part.
It is a difficult riddle to unravel. How did we get to this stage (of the North
having weapons) and how do we get back? This is not merely because of the
secretive nature of the regime or due only to the cyclical nature of the
negotiations that have continued on and off since the early 1990s. It is also
due to the complete lack of trust on both sides. Do the Americans really intend
to honor their pledges to the Hermit Kingdom once Pyongyang gets rid of its
weapons, or will North Korea keep some programs hidden as it did after the 1994
Agreed Framework?
In other words, are the two countries sincere in their dealings with each
other? With facts slim on the ground, one can only work according to hunches
and analyze statements of intention, using past experience as a rough guide to
understanding these tantalizing clues.
So what does it mean, for example, when the North Korean Foreign Ministry
issues a statement saying that as a result of a high-level US visit, "both (the
United States and North Korea) deepened mutual understandings, narrowed
differences in their respective views and identified not a small number of
things in common"? Does this mean that the North is ready to resume the
six-party talks? Well, surely it must, after all the same press statement goes
on to say that they "reached a series of common understandings on the need to
resume the six-party talks and the importance of implementing the [2005]
September 19 joint statement".
Or perhaps it means that it is ready to carry out denuclearization as spelled
out in the joint statement. Might it mean that North Korea is willing to return
to the full embrace of the international community, become a loving brother (or
sister) in the family of nations? Well, the answer is "no", "no", and er, "no".
The reason that none of these scenarios is likely is due to the following:
quite simply, there is a lack of trust in the relationship between North Korea
and the United States. The policy of developing nuclear weapons has actually
"worked" for North Korea, and the nature of the regime is such that it does not
wish to return to the family of nations. It is quite content in its present
guise.
One of the largest obstacles to agreement between the US and North Korea has
been the lack of trust between the two states and this comes from a singular
lack of imagination on both their parts. On the one hand, the North has done
little to counter the first impression made by its sneak attack on the South in
1951. And how first impressions count in global affairs: the US has viewed the
North as untrustworthy ever since and seen every sign of underhanded behavior,
from reneging on the 1994 Agreed Framework to fighting verification in the
Joint Statement as aspects of this treacherous nature.
For its own part, once the US cast North Korea in this role in the 1950s, it
has more or less kept to it ever since, punishing the North far more for its
deeds than ever it did to China, the USSR, Vietnam and other opponents of the
Cold War. While it is true that various US administrations have tried different
approaches to the North, none have tried to understand the underdog mentality
that the North has, the hang-ups about its economic collapse in the face of the
South's success, and tried the right combination of give-and-take in
negotiating with the state.
As the North Korean diplomats say, not without some wiliness, Washington only
took Pyongyang seriously after it developed nuclear weapons.
As for casting North Korea as a villain, the fact that it has one of the worst
human rights records in the world, a Cold War military bent on retaking the
Peninsula by force and a reputation for building cash reserves by a combination
of missile exports, drug trafficking and counterfeiting does not help. North
Korea is its own worst enemy.
While it has been useful for the US to isolate a regime that wanted to be
isolated, it has not played out well in the end, for the net result has been
North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and missile systems capable of
carrying them, which has shaken the US security edifice in Northeast Asia to
its very core. In the end, the US has hurt itself by allowing North Korea to
play the villain. US policies, which looked to regime change, only worsened
what little trust could exist between the two. Since the nature of the
agreements, both in terms of security and technical exchange, necessitate a
high level of trust and cooperation, it is next to impossible that this will
happen any time soon.
It is clear to both US President Barack Obama and Stephen Bosworth, the US
special envoy, that North Korea has a strong hand at the moment, but that the
clock is ticking. On the one hand, the North has the bomb, as both the 2006 and
2009 tests indicate. That puts Pyongyang in a much stronger negotiating
position than the undeclared nuclear status that it played throughout the early
part of this decade.
On the other hand, the North is seriously suffering in economic terms. It may
have a large army and nuclear weapons, but it has been effectively stripped of
its ability to trade with the world by the United Nations Security Council and
is living off of the barest of Chinese supplies, which are set to decrease even
further with the on-going devaluation of the North Korean won. While it is
early days, this devaluation is already showing signs of causing unrest in the
countryside. Furthermore, experts from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization
are now predicting a famine in the spring of 2010, in the interval between the
rice and barley harvests.
Naturally, neither South Korea nor the United States will seek to interfere
with food aid to the North for political reasons, but the facts of the matter
are clear: 2010 will see the North suffer food shortages after suffering severe
economic problems. The North has already approached - and been rebuffed - by
the South's Unification Ministry in an effort to revive the Mount Kumgang
tourist project, one of the conduits for hard cash into the country.
On the other hand, while this pressure is likely to give North Korea some cause
for alarm, it is unlikely to deeply affect its negotiation position for the
following reasons: developing nuclear weapons is not only a strategic
bargaining tool, but an economic and diplomatic one too. The nuclear program
has given Pyongyang more attention, status, energy aid, food aid and diplomatic
courtship than it ever dreamed possible. Now why would it want to go and ruin
all that? While this is a deeply disturbing conclusion, it is not the final
word on the matter.
The refusal of the world and of the members of the six-party talks to accept
the North's acquisition of such weaponry, backed by real economic isolation,
would eventually break the regime. Is the world willing to advance on such a
united front? Unfortunately for Obama, who has graciously picked up his Nobel
Prize this week for good intentions, the world is not yet ready. Both Iran and
North Korea fall between the strategic cracks of the great powers in the Middle
East and in Northeast Asia, making a common front difficult at best.
The final reason why North Korea is unlikely to shift at all in future talks is
because that final incentive of joining the family of nations means little to
the Hermit Kingdom. Indeed, representatives from Mexico, Norway and South
Africa recently grilled North Korean officials at the United Nations Human
Rights Council in Geneva. The fact that the April 2009 revision of North
Korea's constitution had included a clause (8) protecting human rights seemed
odd. Pyongyang's decision to send a team to the Human Rights Council to defend
its record in Geneva seemed downright madness.
After all, this is a state that prohibits travel for its citizens within its
borders, continues to imprison its political opponents in camps, and
assassinates defectors. As could be expected, the meeting took on a farcical
edge, with the North Korean diplomats obstinately arguing with the Human Rights
Council about the causes of their poor record. And what would North Korea know
about human rights anyway, what understanding - if any - would it have for the
rights of the ordinary citizen over the rights of the Kim family, over the
Korean People's Army, or over the Korean Worker's Party? None of these three
agencies has displayed in policy or in writing a comprehension of what the
rights that ordinary people might have against the state.
So why did North Korea join the Human Rights Council? Obviously, it is
beginning to show signs of understanding its moral isolation from the rest of
the world, but it is still unable to grasp that this means that it must modify
its behavior in any real sense. First of all, the idea of loosening the bonds
on its citizens is impossible for the North to conceive. After all, it is
unable to reach for examples in Korean political tradition. The Chosen Dynasty,
upon which the North is based, saw hundreds of years without appreciable
freedoms for its rule, followed by a half century of Japanese colonial rule,
followed by another half century of communist rule.
To top it off, North Korea looks at the example of what took place in the USSR
and Eastern Europe when the guardians and secret police were called off: the
Communist elites fell and in Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's case, were
executed.
So, in short, Bosworth's visit has lifted hopes, but let us remember that we
have been down this rabbit hole before. The Alice in Wonderland that is
negotiating with the North Koreans is a book that must be read. We cannot
afford to ignore it, but we must also be realistic. Grimly so.
John Hemmings, studies coordinator and research analyst, Royal United
Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, London.
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Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
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