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2 COMMENT Korea: The case for
withdrawal By Geoffrey Fattig
For a country that is often portrayed in
Western media as unpredictable, the North Korean
regime has actually proven to operate on a quite
limited, if rather provocative, cycle. On the
heels of December's successful missile test, the
recalcitrant nation is now preparing for a third
test of its nuclear weapons program.
If
that script seems familiar, that's because each of
the North's previous nuclear tests, in 2006 and
2009, were directly preceded by ballistic missile
launches. With the next test expected to be
imminent, the main difference this time is that
the international community will not have had to
wait as long for the other shoe to drop.
For their part, the United States and its
allies have shown
themselves to be following an
equally unimaginative playbook, predictably
responding to the latest missile test with a push
for increased sanctions in the United Nations
Security Council. The "successful" result of this
diplomatic initiative was announced in late
January, with American UN ambassador Susan Rice
claiming that "the new sanctions and tightening of
existing measures concretely help to reduce the
growth of North Korea's weapons programs."
With the United States threatening even
further sanctions in the event of a nuclear test,
one has to wonder how effective these exercises
really are. Given that similar pronouncements were
made after previous sanctions were imposed on
North Korea, it is easy to be skeptical as to
whether the new measures, which expanded
restrictions on North Korean companies and added
four more of its leaders to a travel blacklist,
will have much of an impact. As long as China
continues to prop up its erstwhile dependent, all
this latest round of politicking may have done is
ensure that the test-sanction-test cycle remains
unchanged.
As unsurprising as this latest
turn of events is, it is also disappointing. The
recent leadership changes in both Korean capitals
offered some hope that inter-Korean relations
might be set on a more positive path after the
five years of tension and hostility that marked
the Lee Myung-bak presidency in the South.
Recognizing Lee's hardline policy as a failure,
incoming South Korean president-elect Park
Geun-hye has advocated for renewed engagement with
Pyongyang, going so far as to call for the
implementation of previous Korean summit
agreements.
In contrast, one of President
Lee's first actions upon taking office in early
2008 was to cancel the previous year's summit
accords made between the late Kim Jong-il and
former South Korean leader Roh Moo-hyun, sending
relations into a tailspin from which they have yet
to recover. Hopes were further stoked when North
Korean leader Kim Jong-un marked the start of 2013
by calling for an end to confrontation and
reconciliation between the two sides.
Unfortunately, any cause for optimism was
quickly snuffed out after North Korea responded
angrily to the latest round of sanctions, lashing
out at the UN, threatening further nuclear and
missile tests directly targeting the United
States, and ruling out any talk of denuclearizing
the Korean Peninsula. If the same story continues
to unfold, we are going to be in for another four
years of the "strategic patience" approach that
marked the first Obama term, a policy which
essentially translates to "sit back and watch
while North Korea improves on its existing missile
and nuclear weapons programs."
Necessity of a new approach At
this point, the Obama administration needs to
realize that it is holding a weak hand and
fundamentally change its strategy for the Korean
Peninsula.
As the supplier of roughly 90%
of North Korea's fuel and energy imports, China is
the sole player with any leverage at all over the
regime's behavior. However, because Beijing's
biggest fear is the collapse of the Kim regime and
the ensuing fallout - ranging from a massive
influx of refugees to the possibility of a unified
Korea with an American military presence on its
northeast border - the Chinese government has been
unwilling to take the kind of measures that would
lead North Korea to consider altering its course
of action. Despite showing support for a tougher
line against the North at the UN, the situation
will likely persist as long as the political
calculus for Chinese leaders remains the same.
Meanwhile, the United States' main source
of leverage against the North is the military
option, which both sides are fully aware is off
the table except as a defense mechanism in the
case of an attack on the South. Because of this,
the 28,500 American troops stationed in Korea are
in the unique position of causing friction by
their mere presence, even as the probability of
them being deployed is quite low.
The
US-South Korea Status of Forces agreement, whereby
the United States commands both the American and
ROK military forces, was helpful in preserving the
status quo on the Korean Peninsula in the decades
following the Korean War, but more recently has
become an impediment to any progress for peace.
Apart from discouraging more proactive involvement
on the part of the Chinese government, it also
allows the North to blame the United States for
all of the problems of the peninsula and absolves
South Korean leaders from having to make tough
choices about their security situation. This
creates a kind of inertia where all sides are
discouraged from taking any real action that could
alter the security dynamic of the region.
Given these factors, it is time for the
Obama administration to start withdrawing the
American military from Korean soil. Not only would
such a move save billions of dollars annually
(US$15 billion, according to a 2006 article by the
Cato Institute's Doug Bandow) at a time when the
cost of maintaining America's global garrison is
coming under increasing scrutiny, but it would
shift the impetus for negotiating solutions to the
long-running dispute squarely onto the shoulders
of the key players in the region. It would allow
the United States to free itself from the burden
of being South Korea's protector and become a more
even-handed partner for peace.
Raising
the status of South Korea Lim Dong-won, who
served as Unification Minister under Kim Dae-jung,
succinctly described the fundamental problem in
inter-Korean relations. "South Korea," he said,
"must recover its independent identity as the main
player in negotiations with North Korea."
This is particularly important with
regards to the nuclear issue. The Basic Agreement
signed between the two sides in 1992 calls for a
complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
However, one of the reasons that Seoul has been
unsuccessful in pressing the matter is because of
the current security dynamic, as well as its
subservient military agreement with the United
States. As North Korea repeatedly makes clear, its
nuclear missile programs are primarily aimed at
the United States, not South Korea. What
incentive, then, does the North have to take
seriously South Korean demands for
denuclearization when Washington is its stationing
troops and controlling all military forces south
of the DMZ?
Withdrawing its forces and
handing over operational control of the ROK
military to South Korea - currently scheduled to
take place in 2015 - must be part of any American
strategy. The Obama administration cannot allow
this to be deferred again, as was the case in
2010, when the sinking of the South Korean naval
vessel Cheonan led to President Lee requesting
that the transfer date be pushed back until 2015.
While assuming control of its military
would force the South to confront difficult
choices regarding its security, it would also make
any strategy of economic engagement far more
effective. As pointed out by Bruce Cumings, one of
the major factors undermining the Sunshine Policy
in the early 2000s was the abrupt policy pivot by
the incoming George W Bush administration, which
scrapped the Perry Process of engagement with
North Korea and instead placed strict conditions
on further negotiations. After the policy shift in
Washington, the North remained willing to accept
South Korean aid, but became far less amenable to
making concessions over its weapons programs. By
allowing South Korea to assume control over its
security functions, such coordination problems
would be eliminated.
North Korea: A
willing partner? Despite the North's recent
military bluster, there are signs that Kim Jong-un
has been cautiously embarking on economic reforms
during his first year in power. These include a
new agricultural policy allowing farmers to keep
30% of their crop rather than having to turn it
completely over to the government, and a plan to
legalize private investment through the auspices
of state-owned enterprises.
Noted North
Korean expert Andrei Lankov also suggested that
the full-scale overhaul of top leaders in the
military would allow the regime to shift its focus
away from its long standing songun
(military-first) policy. While the significance of
these moves is yet unclear, taken together they
would seem to merit some optimism that the nature
of the regime may be changing ever so slightly.
Attempting to interpret North Korea's
intentions is never straightforward, however.
Indeed, many analysts have taken the missile tests
and bellicose statements to mean that the regime
is the same as it ever was, and that renewed
attempts at engagement are likely to fail as long
as this remains the case. However, given Kim's
youth and inexperience, it is possible that the
new leader feels that such measures are necessary
in order to bolster his credibility and gain
enough leeway with conservative forces in the
North to begin implementing economic reforms.
There was also speculation that the timely
reporting of Park's victory in North Korean media,
in contrast to previous elections when such
announcements were either delayed or simply
non-existent, mean that Pyongyang is seriously
hoping to improve ties with the South after five
years of strained relations with the Lee
administration.
As close as 'lips and
teeth'? Though it may seem
counterintuitive, a further factor working in
favor of engagement is the North's increasing
dependency on China. Over the past five years,
trade between the two countries has tripled, with
China now accounting for roughly 70% of the North
Korea's $8 billion in annual trade. This recent
surge in economic interaction has taking on many
forms, including increased resource extraction by
Chinese firms operating in the North, development
of a special economic zone at the port city of
Rason, and a guest-worker program begun earlier
this year allowing thousands of North Koreans
legal status to work in the border regions of
northeastern China.
Much of this increased
economic activity with China has occurred at the
same time as inter-Korean trade dropped
significantly during the hardline Lee
administration. A trend that was already on the
decline further accelerated in 2010 with the May
24 sanctions imposed unilaterally by the South in
response to the Cheonan sinking. These
sanctions alone were estimated to have put
economic losses to North Korea at roughly $2
billion, according to a report from the Hyundai
Research Institute. During that time, China has
stepped in to fill the void.
On the
surface, then, it would appear that the two
long-time allies have become closer than ever.
However, the statistics mask a much more
complicated picture. The leaders in Pyongyang have
long been wary of dependence on China, with
veteran North Korea analyst Selig Harrison
observing that, "for North Korea, the need to make
ever more political and economic concessions to
China is abhorrent." As FPIF's John Feffer notes,
the Korean word summing up this state of
submission is sadaejuui, which loosely
translates to "toadyism," and has its roots in the
historical relationship between the Joseon Dynasty
and the Chinese empire.
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