Well thought-out editorial from the Pakistan Times concerning recent US/NK discussions:
dailytimes.com.pk
EDITORIAL: Kim’s brinkmanship
In the fall of 2002, the general sense among regional experts was that Kim Jong Il, the North Korean strongman, had understood the need for moderation and economic reform and was prepared to get his regime out of isolation and into regional and international mainstream. It was also thought that Kim was getting round to appreciating the Chinese reform model and would perhaps move towards dismantling some of the state apparatus of controls. Come October 2002, however, that situation had unravelled.
US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, during the first high-level United States contact with North Korea since President George W Bush took office, confronted his interlocutors with intelligence evidence that Pyongyang had secretly begun working on its uranium-enrichment programme. Pyongyang, instead of challenging the allegation, accepted it.
That meeting was the beginning of the crisis that has since gripped the peninsula and involved multiple actors with the North taking various measures to up the ante. To be sure, this is not the first time Pyongyang has played the nuclear card. Kim, known for playing a weak hand to his advantage, has been at it before. In October 1994, the United States and North Korea signed the Agreed Framework ending an eighteen-month crisis which started with Pyongyang’s announcement that it was withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to which it had acceded in 1985. The situation had come to a head after the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors discovered in 1992 that the North had diverted plutonium for a possible weapons programme in violation of its treaty obligations. It was in this backdrop that the Agreed Framework of 1994 was worked out. Pyongyang was to put an end to its “illicit” nuclear-weapons programme. In exchange, it was to receive two light-water reactors and annual shipments of heavy fuel oil from the US. The LWRs were to be financed and constructed through the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), a multinational consortium.
The question is whether Kim is once again playing the same hand, though upping the ante even further this time round. This possibility cannot be entirely ruled out. Indeed, Li Gun, the North’s chief negotiator in the recent Beijing talks, is reported to have indicated that Pyongyang might be willing to dismantle its programme were Washington prepared to give it written guarantees that it (US) would not attack the North, a quid pro quo rejected by State Department Spokesperson Richard Boucher. Yet, there are other indications that point to the possibility, this time round, that Kim wants to hold onto his weapons and use them as bargaining chips rather than crossing the threshold and then retracing his steps in the bargaining process. Why is that?
The geo-strategic situation today is different from 1994. Pyongyang knows it is in the US crosshairs. The only thing that stands between it and the US is the North’s nuclear capability and its conventional firepower; in conjunction, both can generate violence on the peninsula at an unacceptable level. Conventional wisdom within the United States has been that regardless of the motives of other regional players in supporting or opposing the Kim regime, there is a common bottom-line for all concerned, including China: the peninsula must remain non-nuclear. For China, a nuclear North Korea raises the prospect of a nuclear Japan, which has been content so far with the US extended deterrence. But what if Beijing were to be prepared, over a period of time, to upset the nuclear applecart in the region if only to allow the uncertainties inherent in that process to take over? China already faces a deterrence equation in relation to the US; but what might be the impact of a nuclear Japan over US interests? And if it means allowing a nuclear North Korea to face a nuclear Japan, why not? Of course, these are hypotheses, but they do make sense when viewed in terms of the growing perception among states of the US juggernaut trampling everyone under its wheels.
At the least, in theory, China could allow the crisis to drag on to keep its leverage with Washington while trying to prevail upon the North to not go over the brink. The danger in this is that it would give Kim a lot of space to manoeuvre not only in relation to Washington but also in relation to Beijing. And there is indication that despite its leverage with the North, Beijing’s ability to play hardball with Pyongyang is becoming limited because of Kim’s savvy obstreperousness. Pressure beyond a certain point could, therefore, become counterproductive. This is why China has been trying to get the United States to talk to North Korea because it thinks a bargain could work nicely for all concerned parties. The idea seems to be to extract something out of the North’s decision to go nuclear – this is what Li Gun said when he pulled James Kelly aside in Beijing and said that Pyongyang had a nuclear weapon. The US may not be ready at this point to begin talking of a quid pro quo, but the nuclearisation of the peninsula adds to the complexity of the situation sufficiently to dissuade Washington from breaking away and going unilateral.
As things stand, we are likely to see protracted negotiations interspersed with escalatory moves by the North. But while the players can exercise many options and the outcome remains murky, one thing is clear: the US cannot walk away and it cannot resolve the crisis through force. * |
