Page 2 of 2 How North Korea was lost - to China
By Aidan Foster-Carter
Is this wise? Even on a register of threats, past abductions are surely
outweighed by present danger from North Korean missiles and nukes. Like Moscow,
Tokyo has every reason to be angry with Pyongyang and every right to shun it.
Yet one has to ask - though in today's Japan it can be risky - whether this
stance truly serves the long-term national interest. Its predictable result is
to leave Japan, even more so than Russia, largely outside the North Korean
loop: an onlooker more than an active player, just when things are getting
interesting in Pyongyang.
South Korea: Sunset for Sunshine
North Korea's third potential suitor came later to the game, for obvious
reasons. After false dawns in the 1970s and 1990s, sustained inter-Korean
engagement finally took off in 1998 with
Kim Dae-jung's "Sunshine" policy, continued by his successor, Roh Moo-hyun.
Each held a summit in Pyongyang with Kim Jong-il, who did not make a reciprocal
trip to Seoul.
Such asymmetry made many impatient with sunshine. Yet it was not moonshine, as
critics sneered. The precedent of chancellor Willy Brandt's "Ostpolitik" in
Germany should have taught the lesson that this was a long-term strategy, whose
goal was not appeasement but leverage.
South Korean conservatives lacked that insight and patience. President Lee
Myung-bak, elected in late 2007, lost no time in cutting much-needed rice aid,
canceling win-win joint projects agreed by Roh, and telling Kim Jong-il that
future cooperation depended on his first surrendering his nuclear arsenal. All
quite reasonable in theory - but utterly unrealistic.
Two years on, we see the result. A furious North reacted the only way it knows
how and lashed out, in March torpedoing the Southern corvette Cheonan.
(Yes they did; of course they did; you know they did.) That was a vicious blow,
which as doubtless intended has left Lee reeling.
With most of the world uninterested and even many South Koreans skeptical, less
than six months later Lee is now busy scrambling to get past this and mend
fences, offering flood aid and with family reunions upcoming. That's good - but
nearly three years have been wasted.
Or worse, it may be too little too late. Lee lost the plot, and maybe he has
lost the North too - permanently, or for the foreseeable future. Why, despite
the Cheonan, is he now rushing to build bridges after all? Because an
ailing, bankrupt and possibly desperate Kim Jong-il has just made his second
visit in under four months to the one power he can still trust: China.
And the winner is ...
So there's our winner. Its rivals' missteps have helped, but Beijing has long
played a skillful, patient game. Like Moscow, it irked the North by recognizing
South Korea (in 1992), but unlike the abrupt Russians it worked hard to soothe
sensitivities.
Eighteen years on, guess which power is the top trade partner of both Koreas?
Now, there's subtle hegemony for you. No prizes either for guessing who's
snapping up North Korea's mines, and beginning the lengthy, costly process of
modernizing its decrepit infrastructure.
Face it: who else has the motive, or the means? As all agree, China's
overriding worry about North Korea is not Kim's nukes but fear of collapse, and
the chaos this could cause on its own borders. Beijing's consistent strategy is
not to paint Kim into a corner, no matter what.
Knowing that, how did policymakers in Seoul or Washington delude themselves
that China would hurry to join a chorus of condemnation over the Cheonan?
No way. Beijing squirmed a bit, but the game was worth the candle. Let
Washington and Seoul huff and puff. All that achieved was to push an ever-more
isolated North Korea further into China's orbit and influence.
Nothing is certain, especially about North Korea where forecasts (this writer's
not least) have a habit of turning out wrong. I expected North Korea to
collapse long ago: guilty as charged, m'lud. I understimated this tough
regime's staying power, or the horrors it would impose on its people -
including famine - to cling to power while refusing to see sense.
But this can't go on forever. The old game of militant mendicancy is finally
up. Kim Jong-il's frail health, a delicate succession, and an empty treasury -
United Nations sanctions have hit arms exports, and crime doesn't pay like it
used to - make defying the entire world just too risky.
North Korea needs a sugar daddy. There is only one candidate left standing, and
one who fits the bill perfectly. It may not be a marriage made in heaven, mind
you. Pyongyang will keep squawking, and even try the old game of playing off
its interlocutors - as in its latest thaw with Seoul.
An offer they can't refuse
But at the end of the day Beijing is making an offer no one else can match, and
which North Korea can't refuse. It goes roughly like this: Okay, we'll bail you
out, we'll guarantee your security, we'll even stomach your weird monarchical
tendencies - unless the kid turns out to be a complete klutz, in which case you
know what to do. Jang Song-taek (brother-in-law to Kim Jong-il) knows the
score.
You can count on us too not to shame you by spelling all this out and giving
the game away. But yes, we do need something in return. Two things. First:
markets. For goodness sake just leave them alone, nay let 'em rip - as we've
been telling you to, ever since Deng Xiaoping.
Look where we are now, and where you are. We'll do the heavy lifting of
investment, so you have functioning factories and railways again. But you have
to let it happen. No going back.
Second: no more trouble. We know it may take time for you to give up your
footling pesky nukes. But we need an absolute guarantee of no more tests, or
else. No other provocations, either. Our People's Liberation Army will teach
your Korean People's Army how to adapt and how to make money. The new North
Korea will be a good global citizen, trading like we do. The returns are good.
It beats mugging any day.
And guess what? You'll love it, all of you. You'll prosper. No more worries.
Your people will eat; your elite will make money. What's not to like? Just stop
all that shouting and marching; what a relief, eh? The rest of the cult can
stay, if you must. All hail the young general Kim Jong-eun, finally fulfilling
grandpa's dream of peace and prosperity for all! (With a bit of help from his
friends, but we're modest.) You'll love him. You really will.
The only game in town?
This seems to me a plausible scenario for North Korea's future. In fact, I
struggle to imagine any other. Korean reunification? Maybe in the very long run
- but right now, who wants it?
Not the North, whose elite know the fate of their East German counterparts
after unification. Can we really expect them to put their faith in the tender
mercies of Lee Myung-bak? Even under Kim Dae-jung or Roh Moo-hyun it would have
been tricky. What place would there be for most of them, frankly, in a
reunified peninsula? Not a privileged one, that's for sure.
Ordinary North Koreans, too, have learned, from the trickle who have made it to
Seoul, that South Korea is no land of milk and honey. True, they'd like a life,
and to eat. But China, or a North Korea open to and learning from China, might
look a better bet on that score.
Nor is the South enthusiastic, despite all the rhetoric. It would be
embarrassing and galling to see the North become a Chinese satellite - yet
perhaps also a huge relief. Let Beijing bear the brunt, the burden, and the
costs of transforming the madhouse they have long sustained.
Further down the line, blood could prove thicker. By 2040 or so, a by then
semi-transformed North Korea may tire of great Han chauvinism, slough off the
Chinese yoke, and embrace the cousins south of the demilitarized zone (which
would long ago have become more permeable). They'd be easier to absorb, too,
now smoothed by a few decades of Chinese-style modernity.
Speculative, to be sure. But what other scenarios are there? And though from
one viewpoint China has edged out rival powers as argued above, presumably to
their chagrin, might some of them in truth be quietly relieved to be spared the
responsibility? Let China take it on and deliver a new-style North Korea,
vibrant and fit for a new century. It could last a long time, and spare the
region and world much headache and risk. Does anyone have an alternative?
Aidan Foster-Carter is honorary senior research fellow in sociology and
modern Korea at Leeds University, and a freelance consultant, writer and
broadcaster on Korean affairs. A regular visitor to the peninsula, he has
followed North Korea for over 40 years.
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