North Korea and the Security of Northeast Asia and Beyond

Sun Joun-yung*

Speech given at Santa Clara University, September 29, 2004.

I. Overview

Thank you very much, Professor Jiri Toman, for inviting me to this prestigious university. It is a great pleasure for me to be with you today and share with you my thoughts on North Korean affairs.

1. Ever since the demise of Communism, significant changes, mostly positive, have taken place in the Northeast Asia, under the unipolar world order.

2. North East Asia is a place where the interests of the four great powers converge, and the Korean Peninsula has proven frequently to be a political hot spot due to its geopolitical location.

3. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation is still on its way toward a higher standard of democracy and market-oriented economy.

Russia has played a limited role in the East Asia, whereas more priority has been given to Europe, coping with, inter alia, EU’s enlargement and the eastward expansion of NATO. Russia’s Far-East, Siberia, has only 6.7 million population, and has yet to be further developed.

4. China has now become the fourth largest economy of the world and economic analysts predict that it will overtake Japan’s economy within 15 years, becoming a number two largest economy of the world. Chinese economy has grown in the past 15 years by an average of 9 %, and its military expenditures have increased by double digit rates. Knowing that the United States is crucially important in its continued economic growth, China has placed a high policy priority to maintaining good relations with the United States. China enjoys a massive inflow of American investment, 5 billion dollars in 2003, for example, and more than 100 billion dollars of trade surplus vis-à-vis the United States in the same year.

The Taiwan issue, namely, the cross-strait issue, has frequently been the source of tension in this region, but the United States’ readiness to intervene in the case of crisis while opposing any movement by Taiwan toward independence, contributes to preventing it from becoming explosive. Furthermore, Taiwan’s investment in the mainland has continued to grow to the aggregate level of 100 billion dollars by the end of 2003.

Taiwan enjoys de facto independence and even gained membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2002, simultaneously with China.

China, under the newly consolidated leadership of Hu Jintao, will continue to grow more powerful in many ways. It is important to note that China has launched earlier this year negotiations on a free trade agreement with the ASEAN member countries, having economically powerful ethnic Chinese populations.

5. Japan, the number two largest economy of the world, has played in this region an important role as investor, source of technology and capital, let alone as a big market. Japan is now gradually recovering from a decade-long recession, recording 2.5% growth of GDP in 2003, and the first half of 2004. Japan’s export to China increased by over 40 % (57.2 billion dollars), thus making it an important factor for its economic recovery.

The security of Japan, with a pacifist constitution, has depended thus far on the US-Japan Security Treaty. A direct threat, in their view, comes from North Korea which is developing long-range missiles and nuclear weapons. In fact, North Korea stunned Japan by test-firing a ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean over the Japanese territory in the late summer of 1998.

In recent years, Japan has made itself more assertive militarily, by dispatching troops to Iraq, revising laws regarding security threats from outside, and participating with the United States in the development of Missile Defense system (MD). This month, an advisory panel under the prime minister, branded China as a potential military threat for the first time.

Japan, which is paying 20 % of the United Nations budget, is now seeking a permanent membership of the UN Security Council, together with Germany, Brazil and India. China, which has a veto power, recently indicated indirectly its opposition to Japan’s bid by saying that a permanent membership of the Security Council cannot be bought by money.

6. The United States has played a crucial role in maintaining stability in this region, and is likely to do so in so many years to come. The US armed forces have been stationed in Japan and South Korea ever since the end of the 2nd World War, and the Korean War, on the basis of the alliance treaties concluded with Japan and South Korea respectively — as of now at the level of 100,000 troops.

The commander of the US forces stationed in South Korea is concurrently the commander of the United Nations Command, which led the United Nations forces in repelling North Korea’s invasion of the South in early 1950s, and who signed the Korean War Armistice Agreement on behalf of the 16 nations and South Korea who fought under the United Nations Flag. The US forces will continue to play a guardian’s role of the Armistice Agreement.

We often hear from American scholars that United States’ long term strategy in Asia is how to manage China, which Chinese scholars in turn describe as “encirclement strategy”.

7. The divided Korean Peninsula continues to remain the Cold War’s last holdout, with South and North Korea confronting each other over the 150 miles of border line, even though significant progress has been made over the years in contacts and cooperations between the two Koreas.

In the absence of a peace treaty after the Korean War, the two sides are still technically at war (in a state of armistice). The borderline area is now the most heavily armed area in the world. North Korea’ 12,000 artillery pieces are deployed in the northern side of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), facing to the South, whose capital city of Seoul is only 40 miles away from the DMZ.

Most of the 37,000 US troops are deployed along the border line, playing the deterrent role of so-called tripwire. Recently, the United States has decided to reduce its forces in South Korea by one third and re-deploy them to the south of Seoul together with its headquarters.

While South Korea has made itself the 12th largest economy of the world by taking the road of democratization and market economic principle in the past several decades, North Korea has kept itself isolated, falling behind of the changes of the world, and maintaining a hereditary dynasty at the cost of its people’s suffering.

North Korea continues to pose a threat to the security of the region and the world by developing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, the resolution of which remains uncertain.

II. North Korea’s Nuclear Issues

1. As the Eastern European countries turned toward democracy and market economy, and especially as East Germany was integrated into a unified Germany in the wake of the demise of Soviet Union, North Korea had a real fear of a domino effect of such a change on itself.

2. Faced with this situation, North Korea seemed to take steps toward opening-up and reform, when North Korea made a series of peace offensives. North Korea agreed to simultaneous admission, with South Korea, to the United Nations in September 1991, and signed in the same year the South-North Joint Declaration of Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. In February 1992, North Korea even signed with South Korea a comprehensive Basic Agreement covering the areas from economic cooperation to disarmament.

3. But it was made known later that, in the meantime, North Korea was developing a clandestine nuclear weapons program by way of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods into plutonium of weapons degree. North Korea joined the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) in December 1985, and signed a Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in January 1992. It was revealed in January 1993 by an IAEA inspection team that North Korea was developing nuclear weapons in violation of the agreements it signed. North Korea withdrew from the NPT, and a crisis was created.

4. The United States engaged in negotiations with North Korea, and ended up with signing the Agreed Framework in Geneva in October 1994 after having many ups and downs in the process. The negotiations went through, among others, President Jimmy Carter’s visit to Pyongyang and the sudden death of North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung a few days before the scheduled South-North summit meeting in July.

5. In accordance with the Agreement, North Korea did freeze the plutonium extraction process in Yongbyon area and placed all the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods under the surveillance of IAEA, in return for the construction of 2 units of light-water nuclear power plants and provision of a half million tons of heavy fuel oil each year.

South Korea was to bear 70 % of the construction cost of 5 billion dollars worth of power plants, with Japan taking up 20 % thereof, while the United States was responsible for supply of the fuel oil worth 100 million dollars each year.

6. Believing that North Korea’s nuclear issue had been capped by the Agreement, the Clinton Administration concentrated on dealing with North Korea’s development and transfer to third countries of long-range missiles, and conventional arms reductions. The then Secretary of State Madelaine Albright went to North Korea in October 2000, just two weeks before the US presidential election, and returned with the North Korean Leader Kim Jong Il’s invitation for President Bill Clinton to visit Pyongyang to settle the missile issue once and for all. But Clinton’s visit was abortive with the election outcome of the Republican candidate’s victory.

7. There is a serious violation of human rights in North Korea, but unfortunately, it is frequently over-shadowed by such issues as nuclear weapons development. It is important to note that the US House of Representatives passed the “North Korea Human Rights Act of 2004” in July this year, and it is waiting for an action in the Senate.

III. North Korea’s Dire Economic and Social Situation

1. With the collapse of the Soviet system, the preferential trading among the socialist countries stopped, and grant aids of the Soviet Union were no longer available to North Korea. North Korea’s economy, which was already in a bad shape without any major natural resources such as oil, quickly aggravated. The severe famine caused by floods and drought in 1995-7 made North Korea the only country in Asia where more than two million people reportedly starved to death. Such famine resulted in a mass exodus of North Korean refugees into China, estimated as many as two hundred thousands.

The ultimate destination of those refugees is South Korea. And the roads to the final destination have been very often through diplomatic missions in Beijing of South Korea or other Western countries, or smuggling into South Korea via third countries like Mongolia and Vietnam. So far this year, from January to September, 1,500 refugees have arrived in South Korea. In July this year, 468 refugees were airlifted to Seoul from Vietnam, and this provided North Korea with a pretext for suspending all the official contacts with South Korea such as Inter-Korea ministerial meeting.

2. In the past several years, North Korea depended on the humanitarian assistance from South Korea, United States and EU, mostly in kind of foodstuff. North Korea continues to be one of the recipients of the UN consolidated humanitarian assistance, with this year’s target level of 209 million dollars. But there is a ”donor-fatigue” phenomenon on the part of the donor countries because of North Korea’s behavior, including the nuclear issue. China remains the largest supplier of energy and food grain, and in the case of oil, more than 80 % of North Korea’s demand is being supplied by China.

3. From July 2002, North Korea initiated economic reforms, introducing floating exchange rates and prices, increasing autonomy for farming, and allowing limited private markets. They even attempted to establish “a special administrative zone” in a city near to the Chinese border, aimed at inducing foreign investment, particularly casino facilities.

Without opening the country to the foreign private sectors, and without sizable inflows of foreign capital, however, the reforms cannot succeed.

North Korea has kept itself closed for the past half a century, as they believe the opening-up may lead to undermining the regime.

The largest possible source of cash is Japan, which is to pay North Korea a compensation for Japan’s colonial rule for 35 years, when the normalization of relations is agreed between the two countries. 10 billion dollars is being mentioned as a possible size of the compensation. However, North Korea’s nuclear issue and the abduction of Japanese women now stand in the way.

IV. The South-North Relations

1. As a result of the sunshine policy of engaging North Korea into the outside world pursued by the former president Kim Dae-jung on the basis of peaceful co-existence between the two Koreas, significant exchanges and cooperation were agreed and carried out.

• Reunion of separated families reached the level of 10,000 persons (to North Korea, this is a political issue, as they have to select those relatives who can withstand the so-called “contamination” from the South);
• Reconnecting the railroads, roads, even though the North side has yet to complete its part of the construction works;
• Tourism to Geumkang mountain by sea ways (now visit by road started) — 700,000 people visited the mountain since late 1998, and 30,000 people this year alone; and
• Various dialogue channels such as ministerial meeting, generals’ meeting were agreed on and carried out.

2. Especially after the South-North summit meeting in Pyongyang in June 2000, North Korea established diplomatic ties with the traditional friends of South Korea, such as Britain, Canada and Australia. This will contribute hopefully to the opening of North Korea by increasing interactions. Germany in June this year opened a cultural center in Pyongyang.

3. It was also agreed at the summit that South Korea build a industrial park of 180 million dollars worth in the North Korean city of Kaesong, which is located near the border with South Korea.

• Eleven South Korean companies have already been selected, and are expected to start operation in Kaesong before the end of the year;
• By 2006, more than 30,000 North Korean workers are expected to have been employed (but the workers will be selected by the NKG authorities, and their wages will be paid through the government);
• The opening ceremony of the GIP was scheduled to take place on Sept 21, but postponed because North Korea rejected inviting 11 South Korean National Assembly members of the opposition party opposing the abolition of South Korea’s National Security Law; and
• Of course, South Korean companies, or eventually any third country companies, will be subjected to the Wassernaar Regime banning export of dual-use technology or items, and the US export control laws.

4. South Korea’s basic position on North Korea’s nuclear weapons issue remains to be, not to tolerate North Korea’s nuclearization, support peaceful resolution of the issue through negotiation, and to play a positive role in resolving the issue. It is undeniable, though, that these elements sound somewhat contradictory to each other.

Now, the South Korean Government is pursuing the two things in tandem, namely the resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue and cooperation, mainly economic, between the two Koreas.

6. Two hundred thousand (200,000) tons of fertilizer has already been shipped to the North, and South Korea committed to supply four hundred thousand (400,000) tons of rice within this year.

7. However, North Korea, ever since South Korea’s airlifting 468 NK refugees to Seoul from Vietnam in July, has suspended its participation in all the scheduled meetings such as the ministerial-level meeting and military working-level meeting. But North Korea keeps two channels open; the Gaesung industrial park project and the tourism to the Kumkang mountain for obvious reasons(income sources).

V. The New Government of South Korea and the Korea-US Relations

1. The Korea-US alliance has served as a cornerstone of peace and security on the Korean Peninsula for the past half a century. It played a crucial role in transforming South Korea into a full-fledged democracy and a significant economic power. The United States has long been South Korea’s number one trading partner and the largest foreign investor.

The bilateral relationship is deeply rooted in the blood, shed together defending South Korea from the communization attempt by North Korea in early 1950s. It has been further cemented by sharing the common values of democracy, market economy and human rights.

South Korea has very often joined US efforts in dealing with global issues, for example, by sending 3,700 troops this year to Iraq, the 3rd largest forces after the United States and the United Kingdom.

2. Yet, unfortunately, even such a strong and well-founded partnership as the one between the two countries has no immunity to new challenges.

3. Many young people in South Korea has difficulty in recognizing the true value of the Korea-US alliance. Nor do these people duly appreciate the role of the United States in organizing emergency loans to help South Korea get out of the severe financial crisis in 1998. They constituted a major force behind electing Roh Moo-hyun as President in December 2002, and giving a majority of the National Assembly seats to the ruling party in the general election held in April this year.

Those young people in the leading power circle, representing the so-called “386 generation”, who have taken power with President Roh’s inauguration, claim that they fought for democracy against the military dictatorship, sacrificing a good life in exchange for imprisonment and interruption of advanced education and being discriminated in their jobs and promotions. Many of them have never been to the United States or Europe.

The so-called 386 generation refers to those people who are in their 30s, attended colleges in the 1980s, and were born in the 1960s.

4. It is true that anti-American sentiments are spread among young people like a fashion. Some of them have even pro-North Korean tendency, though they do not want to live in North Korea.

I don’t think such anti-American sentiments are deep-rooted or of ideological opposition to the United States. Paradoxically, Outh Korea’s young people enjoy American culture, want to visit or study in the United States. Former US Ambassador to Korea James Laney said “they are not anti-American, but pro-Korean.” Most of the left-leaning young people in South Korea join the main stream of the society, as they grow up. I am sure that the Korea-US alliance will survive.

VI. Bush Administration and North Korea’s Nuclear Issue

1. From the beginning of his presidency, President Bush took an extremely negative view of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il who led millions of its people starve to death, and whose primary objective is to stay in power at any cost. He called him a rogue, a tyrant or other bad names.

2. It was only in June 2001 that the Bush Administration completed its review of North Korea policy, and came out with a position that the United States was ready to discuss missiles and other issues with North Korea any time.

3. However, with the September 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent war in Afghanistan dominating the international scene, the North Korean issue was placed on a back-burner.

4. President Bush included North Korea in the three-country group of the so-called “Axis of Evil” in January 2002, and no serious contacts were made between the United States and North Korea thereafter.

5. Then in early October, the North Korean nuclear weapons program resurfaced as a serious global issue, when Pyongyang admitted working on an uranium enrichment program, in violation of the 1994 Agreed Framework, at a meeting with the US Assistant Secretary James Kelly, who visited Pyongyang as a special envoy of the president.

6. In the wake of the United States’s suspension of annual shipment of heavy fuel oil in December 2002, North Korea expelled the IAEA inspectors from the Yongbyon nuclear facilities, resumed reprocessing plutonium, and withdrew from the NPT in January 2003.

7. The IAEA referred the North Korean case to the UN Security Council, but no action has been taken by the Council up to now.

8. The construction of two light water nuclear power plants in NK as a part of the Agreed Framework was subsequently suspended in December 2003.

9. Early last year, the United States made it clear that it preferred a multilateral negotiation to a bilateral one, and initiated a six-party talk of the United States, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and North Korea. Such multilateral approach was in part to share the burden of settling the North Korean nuclear issue with the regional countries of China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. President Bush stated for the first time, at a press conference, in March 2003, that North Korea’s nuclear issue is a regional issue.

No government officially confirmed or denied North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons, but United States intelligence sources estimate that three to five bombs have already been built.

10. Three rounds of the six-party talks have so far taken place in Beijing – namely, in August 2003, and February and June this year.

11. The June meeting made some progress with the step-forward proposal made by the United States who had insisted on complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement(CVID). In a nutshell, the US proposal was that, under North Korea’s pre-commitment of dismantling all weapons, material and facilities, corresponding compensation could be negotiated. North Korea proposed to discuss freezing and corresponding compensation first, without commiting a dismantlement. The compensation includes economic aids, guarantee of security, removing North Korea from the list of state-terrorism, lifting political, economic and military sanctions, and normalization of relations with the United States. For North Korea, security guarantee means the regime security, even including succession of Kim Jong Il’s power to one of his sons. He has three sons, one in 30’s, the other two in their 20’s.

In the past 10 years under Kim Jong Il’s rule, idolization of the leader, brainwashing of the people, has been further solidified.

• During the Universiad Games held in Taegu City in August 2003, there was a big placard hanging over the road, featuring the picture of the South and North Korean leaders shaking hands during their summit meeting held in Pyongyang in 2000. When a busload of the North Korean athletes and cheerleaders saw the placard on a heavily rainy day, they stopped the bus and pulled down carefully the placard, crying. They could not stand to see their “dear leader” being rained.
• When a huge train explosion took place in Ryongchon, a small town of North Korea near to the Chinese border, in April 2004, a woman desperately escaped from her burning house, carrying only the portrait of Kim Jong Il. She was made a hero by the North Korean regime.
• An American visitor(based in Seoul) entered North Korea on a hot summer day last year through a small immigration office at the Chinese-North Korean border. There he saw only one electric fan running, which was directed toward the portrait of Kim Jong Il hung on the wall.

12. North Korea refuses to participate in the 4th round of the six-party talks which was to be held in Beijing before the end of September, as was agreed at the June meeting, under the following pretexts:

• Airlifting of 468 North Korean refugees to Seoul from Vietnam in July;
• US Government’s “hostile” policy toward North Korea( especially presidential candidates’ negative comments on Kim Jong Il); and
• Recent reports on South Korea’s past experimental enrichment of 0.2 gram of uranium, and extraction of a very small amount of plutonium.

North Korea criticized the United States for a “double standard,” allowing the South, and rejecting the North, for developing nuclear devices. North Korea officially stated that, until South Korea’s nuclear issue is clarified, it will not participate in any meetings regarding North Korea’s nuclear issue.

13. South Korea ratified the Additional Protocol of the IAEA in February this year, and submitted its initial report, including the records of experiments done in 1982 and 2000, to the IAEA on August 19. An IAEA inspection team visited South Korea twice in August and September. The reports of the inspection teams will be discussed at the November meeting of the IAEA Executive Board. The South Korean Government is providing full transparency and cooperation with the IAEA. Regardless of the South Korean Government’s repeated denial of having any intension for developing nuclear weapons, this issue is serious enough to give confusion to South Korea’s general public in differentiating the North’s and South’s nuclear issues.

VII. Conclusion

The time seems to be on the side of North Korea. No serious negotiations have been so far conducted on the North Korea’s nuclear issue, with the six-party talks, the only dialogue channel, being suspended. With no IAEA inspection mechanisms whatsoever in place now, North Korea continues to work on reprocessing plutonium from the spent fuel rods and enriching uranium. Abdul Qadir Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist, recently revealed his cooperation with North Korea regarding uranium enrichment. What if North Korea declares itself a nuclear power or tests a nuclear bomb ? United Nations sanctions, reinforcement of the Proliferation Security Initiative(PSI), can be thought of as counter measures, and even a military option cannot be ruled out.

With regard to North Korean regime’s behavior, the United States presidential election has proved an important factor. Over the years, North Korea has made miscalculations by betting on the losing side. We are waiting for the outcome of the November presidential election, so that, whoever wins the election, the North Korean nuclear issue will be brought to the front-burner.

The United States, the sole superpower, is holding the key to resolving the North Korean nuclear issue which is a global issue.

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* Ambassador and Professor of the Graduate School of North Korean Studies, Kyungnam University, Seoul at the School of Law.