Turbulent relations: redirecting US foreign policy towards North Korea.

Park, Christopher Lim

CHRISTOPHER LIM PARK, Staff Writer, Harvard International Review

Kim Jong-Il's election as General Secretary of the Korean Worker's Party on October 8, 1997, was marked by festive pageantry which included swimmers performing "Cheers All Over the World." Despite the "Dear Leader's" absence, the festivities continued and appeared bizarre against the backdrop of a nation which has suffered over two million deaths from starvation in the past year. This form of contrast has heavily influenced US foreign policy toward the peninsula. Although penetrating the starving country's borders has proven to be difficult, North Korea remains a vital part of any future peace prospects for the region, and thus the role of US diplomacy in the region must be carefully considered.

To date, the Clinton administration has been lethargic in its relations with North Korea. The United States has hesitated on this issue in part due to its divergent goals, which include neutralization of the nuclear threat, the establishment of a democratic government, and respect for human rights. Such varied goals need to be incorporated into a more cohesive policy. The North Korean nuclear threat, its historic hostility and tension with South Korea, and the Chinese presence looming over the region pose a daunting challenge to US policy. A more cohesive foreign policy that deals with these complexities while at the same time engaging North Korea instead of excluding it would be more beneficial to both countries. Most importantly, the United States should help North Korea reenter the international community. North Korea's pariah status is unmerited and fails to serve US interests.

Internal Turmoil

As a pariah state on the fringe of the international community, North Korea is struggling to reconcile its goal of increased international interaction with its fear and wariness of the very wealthy nations whose cooperation it sorely needs. Consequently, the country is in turmoil, ravaged by a persistent famine that threatens roughly 5 million of the country's 24 million people with starvation. North Korea is facing a shortfall of 1.5-2 million tons of cereal for 1998 alone. North Korea's insistence on suffocating individual liberties compounds the situation. The South Korean National Unification Ministry claims that North Korea is holding over 200,000 political prisoners in 12 prison camps. Moreover, the North's government is posing more than an insular threat, as shown by its stubborn insistence on maintaining nuclear weapons capability and its expressed desire to absorb the South. Despite the 1994 Geneva Framework Agreement which froze North Korea's nuclear weapons project, the nuclear threat remains a thorn in the side of the United States in its relations with the peninsula.

Thus, North Korea appears to be a feeble, paranoid country whose actions repulse international inclusion as much as its weaknesses desperately require it. The misinterpretation of North Korea's actions as irrational policy, however, is largely responsible for the hostility between North Korea and the rest of the world community. A Western diplomat, for example, recently asserted, "You can compare [North Korea's diplomacy] to a man who goes into a bank with dynamite strapped to his body and says, `Give me your money or I'll blow myself up."' While not always this extreme, the United States has historically presumed that North Korea acts irrationally. Indeed, it is true that the nation's record of repeated terrorist attacks against the South and its excessive protection of its "sovereignty" render the country seemingly irrational to outside observers. However, these characterizations ignore the intent of North Korean diplomacy.

Intended Diplomacy

The fear that pervades North Korean policy is borne out of recognition of its own weaknesses and inability to provide for itself. The Kim Jong-Il regime is likely looking for what one scholar calls a "soft-authoritarian" model of reconciliation with the South, in which economic reform is embraced more quickly than social change. In fact, North Korea is wel-coming outside influence more than at any point in its history.

North Korea has also been slightly more receptive to US interests in the area. Choi Young Jin, Deputy Executive Director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, observes that the US is the fundamental pillar of security in the region. He has remarked that, "The presence of the United States in Northeast Asia is welcome to most countries in the region. Even North Korea has recently hinted that it would not oppose it." Kim Jong-Il's regime has clear reasons for welcoming US assistance, based on the many problems the country currently faces. Selig S. Harrison, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has further argued, "North Korea is actively attempting to erase its international image as a `rogue state' and to liberalize its economic relations with the US." For the first time ever, the North Korean regime permitted isolated government-approved kiosks within the Rajin-Sonbong Free Economic and Trade Zone. These represent the government's effort to bring its national standard of living closer to South Korea's. The foreign population in the capital city is also on the rise as evidenced by the six non-governmental organizations (NGOs) currently operating there, along with 17 government-approved monitors for the UN World Food Program. In November, the government also began softening its restrictions on visits by US veterans of the Korean War. These developments, although slow in coming, reflect Kim Jong-Il regime's willingness to accept Western influence for the sake of addressing some of the country's needs.

Misdirected US Policy

Thus far, however, the Clinton administration has not seized upon the opportunity provided by North Korea's openness. Instead, it has overestimated the nuclear threat and reacted to this aspect of North Korean policy with a stubborn course of action. Washington, in close consultation with Seoul, should clearly articulate its long-term objectives for the region. US policy toward the Koreas, as seen by the American military presence in the region, is based on the assumption that South Korea is the weaker side, deserving protection against its northern neighbor.

In reality, however, South Korea's recent economic development, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout notwithstanding, renders South Korea a more potent force on the peninsula than previously perceived by the United States. In fact, the label of a "struggling nation" has crossed from South to North Korea. While North Korea has often aggravated the international community with military threats and secrecy, the consequence of greater importance has often been the poor US response. US policies of alienation have proven futile against North Korea in those instances.

The United States' threats of military rebuke during the 1994 nuclear crisis in North Korea, for example, did little to affect the final outcome. It was only when the country was engaged in meaningful, cooperative negotiations that the final Geneva framework became a reality. Yonsei University professor Moon Chung-In has commented that, "The recent nuclear stalemate demonstrates that isolation and intimidation do not alter North Korean behavior. On the contrary, they offer a good excuse for domestic repression and a hard line stance." Part of this stalemate, of course, can be attributed to the reputed character of North Korean leaders--hard-line and stubborn. At the same time, North Korea is interested in being included by the rest of the world and simply fears for its national survival when facing international confrontation.

Redirecting US Policy

The first step in reforming US policy toward the peninsula should be normalization of relations with North Korea. This move would address North Korea's most urgent needs--recognition of the Kim Jong-Il regime and removal of immediate military threats--while also facilitating future negotiations between the two Koreas. To make way for the process, the Kim Jong-Il regime has already begun taking reciprocal steps toward peace, albeit incrementally. Four-way peace talks began in Geneva in December 1997 between the United States, North Korea, South Korea, and China. Though the North Korean government brings an ostensibly hardline agenda to the negotiating table, normalizing relations would help bring the Kim Jong-Il regime more securely into the international fold. Normalization would also bolster US hopes for security in the region by giving the North less reason to blindly hold to its nuclear threat and by incorporating China in cooperative diplomatic dialogue.

This does not mean that the journey from commencing negotiations, or even normalization, to a democratic North Korea will be swift. Kim Jong-Il's government has still not remedied the majority of its people's ills, the famine and human rights violations foremost among them. Most disturbing, the famine continues to worsen, and the country will require long-term aid in the form of fertilizers, irrigation equipment, and loans from agencies like the Asia Development Bank.

What would seem to be a basic human obligation, feeding a starving population, has not been clearly established as a future US policy objective. The US Congress's recent isolationist practices threaten to siphon off crucial funding that would be needed to deliver food to the destitute country. This has already impacted US policy toward North Korea in other areas. Some US Congressmen, for instance, have threatened to diminish funding for the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), a cooperative body involving the United States, Japan, and South Korea that was essential in defusing the nuclear situation in 1994 and which continues to be an effective framework for working with North Korea.

Other policy circles are now questioning the political effectiveness of delivering aid to the North Korean people at all. Those who advocate a less tolerant stance argue that US policy should actually force starvation in North Korea. They maintain that the North Korean government and army hoard what meager resources exist and are thus unaffected by the famine while the countryside is left to perish. Forced starvation would diminish the remaining resources and thus force the government to improve conditions. The regime's propensity for poor bureaucratic administration that was largely responsible for the famine's onset would likely cause the government to further selfishly hoard any humanitarian assistance. Thus, from the perspective of those who criticize humanitarian aid, such outside assistance may only promote further oppression. Furthermore, famines in non-democratic countries have historically failed to liberalize their governments, from Stalin to Pol Pot to the Somali warlords of this decade.

These austere assessments, however, ignore the realities of the peninsula. The Kim Jong-Il regime has demonstrated at least limited recognition of its people's plight. Not only has the government opened its doors more to world aid groups, but the premise of its desire to be included by other nations is an admission that they are not self-sufficient. The United States, while reacting more swiftly to famines of comparable degree in Africa, has vacillated in response to the North Korean famine which takes a backseat to the question of its nuclear capabilities. Despite issues of nuclear capacity, however, it is not in the United States' nor any other country's interests for such widescale starvation to exist in any region of the globe. The rights of North Koreans dictate that the United States should increase its emphasis on sending humanitarian aid to the peninsula, even if these contributions are made less effective by a selfish government. If the North Korean regime is as spasmodic as is widely believed, an intensified famine could only encourage more hostility.

The convenient aspect of US policy with respect to famine alleviation is that the delivery of food requires no value judgment except that human beings require nourishment. US policy in the broader context of North Korean human rights violations, however, poses a more complex problem. In aiding the scores of dissidents currently detained in political prisons, the United States should eschew direct confrontation with Pyongyang and instead model its diplomacy after that of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) of 1996. The problems ASEM faced there were similar: how to coax human rights reform out of a stubborn country. ASEM agreed on multilateral dialogue regarding human rights issues.

According to Gerald Segal, Director of the Economic and Social Research Council's Pacific Asia Programme, ASEM made certain that "discussions of politically sensitive issues in which the European Union is particularly interested--such as human rights and the promotion of democracy--were restrained so as not to interfere with existing cooperative relations between the two sides." The United States should pattern its approach toward North Korea along these already established lines, recognizing that progress in restoring the country's health, through economic and famine assistance, will consequently increase North Korea's receptiveness to Western notions of human rights.

Pyongyang is a difficult government to work with because it delivers encouraging signs in the midst of deplorable rule. In order for US policy to represent US interests and fulfill its obligations to the oppressed people of North Korea, the United States must formulate a policy which includes aggressive humanitarian aid and engages the Kim Jong-Il regime in economic reform. The United States should refrain from over-emphasizing the North Korean nuclear threat. Also, the United States must understand that North Korea's pariah status is largely a result of fear of the world community and not due to an inherent national interest in continued isolation.

Through normalization, aggressive aid, and thoughtful dialogue on human rights, the United States can help direct North Korea toward economic growth and, in the process, improve prospects for peace in the peninsula. Indeed, the outside world must take advantage of all available opportunities to establish economic ties with North Korea, even when Pyongyang's performance in other significant areas is unsatisfactory. Most importantly, strong support in the form of aid must accompany these economic ties because the famished plight of North Koreans is a pressing responsibility that transcends political motives.