SEOUL - The United States and South Korea will face a period of testing early
in Barack Obama's presidency, with severe disagreements likely on the critical
issues of North Korea as well as trade.
While incoming secretary of state Hillary Clinton applauds the idea of both
six-party and bilateral negotiations, North Korea is reverting to one of the
oldest demands in its nuclear playbook, that of reciprocity on verification.
The North Korean logic is that as long as others demand verification of claims
to have stripped down the nuclear complex at
Yongbyon, then South Korea should open up to full inspection of all military
facilities to prove it, too, is nuclear-free.
North Korea advanced this notion in a statement calling for "denuclearization
of the whole Korean Peninsula … in a verifiable manner", just as the North has
been demanding since the talks that led South and North to get together on a
joint declaration on denuclearization concluded at the end of 1991.
The United States, years before the signing of that declaration, had hundreds
of nuclear warheads in South Korea - and had still more on board some of the
vessels that called at South Korean ports. Then, in 1991, according to a survey
in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, then-president George H W Bush
"ordered the removal of all remaining weapons, which was accomplished in late
1991". [1]
The purpose of the order was to pave the way for the denuclearization agreement
and reassure North Korea even as the North revved up its own nuclear program.
In six-party talks over the past four or five years, North Korea has alternated
between muting and raising the issue - and even suggested the US abandon
nuclear weapons on warships at sea as a condition for finally giving up its own
program.
South Korea might call the North Korean bluff by agreeing, yes, please send
inspectors and we'll show them we have no nukes, but there's no way the North
would agree. Instead, South Korea's Foreign Ministry has said the North Korean
demand "distorts the fundamental fact of the situation".
Now the question is whether Clinton's team can do any better than did the
previous one under Condoleezza Rice, by pursuing what she calls "smart power"
rather than the "cowboy diplomacy" of the administration of President George W
Bush.
Tempting though it may be to see the verbiage as a cover for no real change in
US policy, at least one observer forecasts sweeping shifts. That would be Kim
Dae-jung, who initiated the "Sunshine" policy of reconciliation with North
Korea during his presidency from 1998 to 2003.
DJ, as he is still widely known, has never forgiven Bush for embarrassing him
during their first meeting at the White House in March 2001 by expressing
"skepticism" about Kim Jong-il and asking why he should make a deal with no
guarantee of "verification". Then, in his State of the Union address in January
2002, Bush compounded the offense, as far as DJ was concerned, by lumping North
Korea in an "axis of evil" extending to Iran and Iraq.
DJ clearly does not believe that Bush's outlook changed a lot during his second
term, despite unreserved US support for six-party talks that resulted in
agreement by North Korea nearly two years ago to give up its nuclear program.
Hope lies, he believes, in Obama's willingness to pick up where Hillary's
husband, Bill, left off as president before Bush took over eight years ago.
"Unlike the hardline policy of the Bush administration," said DJ, talking to
foreign correspondents, "the Obama administration is expected to take a
different approach in dealing with North Korea."
The Obama people, DJ predicted, are "likely to move down the path of direct
dialogue and package deals” similar to those that Bill Clinton had espoused. DJ
did not say so, but presumably he was referring especially to the 1994 Geneva
framework agreement that blew apart in late 2002 two years after DJ won the
Nobel Peace Prize after going to Pyongyang for the first inter-Korean summit in
June 2000.
DJ's main message was that Obama should waste no time giving "priority to
resolving the nuclear issue" after his inauguration. "The resolution of the
North Korean issue is likely to strengthen momentum for the eventual
denuclearization of Iran," he argued.
Nor did he see much point in haggling over North Korean demands. "Let's give
North Korea what they need and take what we need," said DJ, claiming as
"indisputable fact" that Kim Jong-il "aspires to improve North Korea's
relationship with the United States." The final goal: "To encourage North Korea
to pursue openness and reform and become a second China or a second Vietnam."
The clear implication of DJ's remarks was that Obama, having said during his
campaign that he would be glad to hold dialogue with leaders of countries with
which the US has problems, should go along with North Korea's desire to open
diplomatic relations with the US - yet another condition on which North Korea
insists as a precondition for getting rid of its nuclear warheads.
Two complications, however, may slow down the process. One is that power may be
shifting in North Korea. Kim Jong-il's physical condition remains highly
uncertain despite frequent attempts to show he's in good health in photographs
of visits to factories, farms and military units, but he's never seen in
motion.
It hardly seems coincidental, considering the Dear Leader's uncertain grip on
life, if not power, that reports are spreading that he's earmarked his third
son, 25-year-old Kim Jong-un, as his anointed successor.
Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, carried a lengthy report quoting
seemingly authoritative sources as saying that Kim Jong-il, incapacitated
mentally as well as physically in the aftermath of a stroke, had decided the
Swiss-educated Kim Jong-un, son of Kim's third wife, who died five years ago,
was better qualified than either his second son, deemed "effeminate", or his
eldest, seen as spoiled and overly Western in his tastes.
Kim Dae-jung predicted that whichever son takes power would be a "symbolic"
leader while a coterie of men elevated to high cabinet and party posts would
coordinate in a kind of collective rule.
The Obama administration, waiting out the results of North Korea's succession
struggle, also is anxious not to get on the wrong side of South Korea's
conservative president, Lee Myung-bak. Lee has staked his prestige on
confronting North Korea on controversial issues that DJ avoided, notably the
human rights of millions of North Koreans who have been jailed, persecuted and,
in thousands of cases, tortured to death or executed, often in public.
Obama - and Hillary Clinton - may have to deal with the hypersensitive Free
Trade Agreement (FTA) concluded by US and South Korean negotiators well before
Lee Myung-bak became president. Lee has been pressing for ratification of the
agreement by the South's fractious, and sometimes violent, National Assembly.
Although dominated by like-minded conservatives, the assembly's minority,
including politicians loyal to DJ, have been trying to prevent the agreement
from coming up for a vote.
The opposition of South Korean farmers to the agreement, which they say will
let in a flood of imported goods, is similar to that of US motor vehicle
workers, who say they'll lose jobs while very few if any
more American cars will be sold in South Korea.
Both Obama and Clinton have called for revisions that will guarantee increased
motor vehicle exports to Korea, but South Korean officials say they're not open
for new negotiations on a deal reached following one and a half years of very
difficult US-Korean talks.
The view among many observers here is that the FTA will have to wait for a long
time before it even comes up in US Congress. Nor is anybody taking odds on
North Korea ever giving up its nuclear program despite Kim Dae-jung's plea "to
get back on the right track before it is too late".
Note
1. Norris, Robert S, and Hans M Kristensen, "“Nuclear Notebook: North Korea's
nuclear program, 2005," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 2005.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of
forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
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