B00BY4HXME EBOK

by Lankov, Andrei

  The results of the 2007 elections are often interpreted as a sign of the 386ers’ demise, and the Kim-Roh decade as a deviation from the “normal” state of affairs. Such views are especially common among US conservatives—those few, of course, who care about Korea at all. However, this is an overly simplistic interpretation. In spite of the 2007 setback, the nationalist Left—with its instinctual anti-Americanism and measured sympathy for the Pyongyang dictatorship—is bound to remain an important force in Korean politics for decades to come. For better or worse, the old Right-leaning consensus is dead, and South Korean politics will likely see the pendulum-like movement from the Right to the Left and back.

  Even though the North Korean issue was secondary for his politics, the Lee Myung Bak administration had rather different ideas about how to deal with the North. He accused the two previous administrations of propping up the North Korean regime and making it even more dangerous. He also emphasized the need for strict reciprocity in dealing with North Korea—aid should be conditioned on meaningful political concessions from the North.

  These views were epitomized in the “Vision 3000” plan, officially known as “Vision 3000, Denuclearization, Openness.” Vision 3000 describes what will become possible if North Korea surrenders its nuclear weapons. In such a case, the South promises, the North will see a flood of aid on a hitherto unthinkable scale. Within merely a decade, South Korean aid will help to increase the average per-capita annual income to the level of US$3,000, some three times the current level (which, by the way, would be achievable only with annual growth exceeding the 20 percent mark—hardly a realistic assumption). As the name itself suggested, the North Korean government was expected to improve economic efficiency by initiating Chinese-style reforms.

  Needless to say, this proposal was clearly a nonstarter and was rejected outright. On May 30, 2008, the official North Korean wire agency, KCNA, described the “No nukes, opening and 3,000 dollars” (this is how the official name of the “Vision 3000” plan is rendered into North Korean English newspeak) in its highly idiosyncratic English:

  No nukes, opening and 3,000 dollars peddled by traitor Lee Myungbak as a policy toward the north suffices to prove that he is desperately pursuing the confrontation between the north and the south in ideology […] Lee’s pragmatism is little short of a hideous act of treachery as it is intended to sell off the national interests to the outsiders and make the dignity and sovereignty of the nation their plaything.

  Soon afterward, President Barack Obama took office. It was initially assumed that Obama would pay little attention to the North—and this was bad news for Pyongyang, too.

  Faced with this new and unfavorable situation, the North Koreans resorted to the tactics they had used in the past with so much success. Obviously, North Korean strategists decided that it was time to manufacture a new crisis—as usual, to squeeze necessary concessions from their adversaries/donors.

  The first incident took place in July 2008, when a South Korean housewife was shot dead during the early morning while walking on the beach in the Kǔmgang tourist zone. It remains an open question as to whether the shooting was indeed an accident or a part of a North Korean tension-building strategy. At any rate, the North Koreans took an unusually tough stance when it came to investigating the incident and the Kǔmgang resort’s operations were halted.

  In November 2008 it was the turn of the Kaesŏng city tours. At the time, anti-Pyongyang activist groups had begun to send balloons with leaflets into North Korean territory. The North Korean government demanded the immediate cessation of such activities and when Seoul refused to take measures, the North Korean authorities halted tours to Kaesŏng. In order to further increase the pressure on Seoul, they also introduced measures that greatly restricted the activities of the Kaesŏng industrial zone.

  North Korean strategists seemingly assumed that the deterioration in North-South relations would make the South Korean public uneasy, and therefore would force the Lee administration into a softer approach toward the North. This was a miscalculation. None of the tourist projects are of economic importance to the South and the average South Korean voter cares about the North much less than North Korean policy makers presumed. Hints of the possible closure of the Kaesǒng industrial zone failed to produce the desired result as well, since the project is very marginal within the South Korean economy.

  At the same time North Korean strategists began to raise the stakes in their deals with the United States. In April 2009 they again launched a long-distance missile that could theoretically have hit targets in Alaska and Hawaii—that is, if it worked properly. The launch, like the previous long-range missile tests, was a failure. Nonetheless, the North Korean media told the public that Juche science again succeeded in putting a satellite in space.

  To further emphasize the message, the North went one step further and in May 2009 conducted a second nuclear test. Unlike the 2006 test, the second nuclear test was a technical success and demonstrated to the world that North Korea has indeed developed a workable nuclear device.

  The UN Security Council produced another stern resolution (Resolution 1874), once again duly supported by the Chinese. However, merely a few months later Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited Pyongyang, and Chinese aid to the North was increased further. After the nuclear test the volume of trade between China and North Korea began to grow with remarkable speed, tripling throughout between 2006 and 2011.

  As was expected by those who are accustomed to North Korea’s negotiation style, the barrage of threats and bellicosity was followed by a charm offensive. In July 2009 the flood of macabre abuse aimed at Seoul and Washington suddenly ceased and, all of a sudden, the North Korean media started to express their goodwill toward both South Korea and the United States.

  As a sign of goodwill, Pyongyang agreed to release two US journalists who in the spring of 2009 had crossed the Sino-Korean border. They had spent a few months under arrest, and then an “unofficial” US delegation led by former President Clinton flew to Pyongyang and negotiated their release. The Hyundai Group chairwoman also came back from Pyongyang with a Hyundai employee who had allegedly plotted the defection of a North Korean female employee.

  The “crisis manufacturing strategy” has worked well in the past, but by 2008–2009 both Washington and Seoul had had enough. This time, neither was going to reward North Korea merely for its willingness to reduce tension and return to the status quo.

  To a very large extent, earlier US willingness to give concessions was based on the assumption that the North Korean nuclear issue could be solved through diplomacy. In other words, it was assumed by many in Washington that the North Korean government could be convinced and/or bribed into surrendering its nukes. This was a misconception, of course, since the North Korean government has neither the intention nor, frankly, a valid reason to surrender its nuclear weapons. However, for a while this illusion was shared by many in Washington, making negotiations and concessions possible. But such hopes disappeared by 2008.

  The United States has taken an approach often described as “strategic patience” (also known as “benign neglect”). The term implies that the United States will not do anything of significance until the North demonstrates its sincere commitment to denuclearization by taking certain measures that will clearly and irreversibly diminish its nuclear capabilities. The approach of Seoul has been even harsher.

  By early 2010, the North found itself in a new and unfavorable situation, with both major adversaries-cum-donors suddenly becoming unreceptive to the customary mixture of threats, tension-building provocations, charm offensives, and minor concessions. Pyongyang’s strategists therefore decided to increase pressure by reminding the world of their ability to create additional problems for the United States and the ROK.

  This might seem illogical, but such an approach is rational, since North Korea does not risk too much by driving tensions higher. Certainly, North Korean policy planners know that if a war were to break out they
would lose it quickly. But they also know that war would be prohibitively costly for democratically elected politicians in Seoul and Washington.

  At the same time, North Korea might actually have advantages over the South at the level of border skirmishes and small-scale raids. The North is aware that the South is incapable of inflicting damage on anything of value to the North Korean regime. If a major exchange of fire were to occur in the DMZ or the NLL (the latter is a disputed maritime border that divides the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea), the South Korean military might be perfectly capable of sinking a few North Korean warships or wiping out a coastal defense battery or two; or, perhaps even destroying a command headquarters, complete with a few dozen unlucky colonels and a couple of one-star generals. However, neither the rusty warships of World War II vintage nor the lives of humble colonels are of much significance to Pyongyang. The domestic political impact of such a military misadventure is also not going to be large since the government-controlled media will either hide a disaster or even present a humiliating defeat as a great triumph.

  At the same time, such an exchange of strikes and counterstrikes might have a significant political impact on South Korea. First of all, South Korean voters are not fond of tension, and they might, in the long run, penalize their government for its inability to keep North Koreans quiet and nonthreatening. Second, the South Korean economy is very dependent on foreign markets and foreign businessmen who don’t like media reports about a war that is, allegedly, “likely to erupt in Korea next week.” Such reports are gross exaggerations, to be sure, but overseas car importers are not supposed to understand the intricacies of the inter-Korean politics better than your average journalist.

  This asymmetry means that North Korea can raise the stakes with relative impunity when it chooses to do so—as long as the risk of skirmishes escalating to a full-scale war remains low.

  With this in mind, in 2010, Pyongyang simultaneously pursued two tension-building programs, one directed at Seoul and another targeting Washington. The message they wanted to deliver was still the same, however: Pyongyang wanted to show that it cannot just be ignored and neglected, and that it is cheaper and safer to pay North Korea off than suffer the trouble it is capable of creating.

  In order to drive this message home in Seoul, the North Korean military undertook two important and somewhat unprecedented operations. In March 2010, in a bold raid, North Korean submariners torpedoed the South Korean naval corvette, the Cheonan. It sank immediately, taking 46 lives, roughly half of its crew. A few months later in November, North Korean artillery shelled the island of Yeongpyeong, located in disputed waters near the NLL (South Korea’s claim to the island itself is not disputed by the North). It was the first major artillery attack on South Korean territory in decades.

  In dealing with the United States, Pyongyang chose to target Washington’s usual weak spot—that is, fear of nuclear proliferation. In 2002 accusations of uranium enrichment led to the repudiation of previous US-NK agreements. Until 2009 North Korea vehemently denied the very existence of a highly enriched uranium (HEU) program. In 2009 the existence of the HEU program was acknowledged and in November 2010 Pyongyang extended an invitation to Dr. Hecker, former director of the US Department of Energy Nuclear research site at Los Alamos, to visit their nuclear facilities. They showed him around a modern, fully operational (and very large) uranium enrichment facility. Of course, this once again demonstrated that North Koreans had been lying all those years. Hardly anybody was surprised by such a discovery, however.

  THE ENTRY OF CHINA

  Another important change of the last decade was the reemergence of China in North Korean politics. In the early 1990s, China obviously wrote Pyongyang off and perhaps did not expect the Kim family regime to last for more than a few years. But from around 2001, trade and general economic interactions between North Korea and China began to grow, and this growth accelerated around 2006, when the first nuclear test led to a tightening of the sanctions regime. Chinese dignitaries began to frequent Pyongyang, and in the last years of his life Kim Jong Il visited China at least once a year. By 2010 annual trade between North Korea and China had exceeded North Korea’s trade with all other countries combined.

  China is often described in the media as “North Korea’s ally.” This is not really the case, since in reality the Chinese—general public and officials alike—tend to look at North Korea with bemused disdain. It reminds them of parts of their own past few if any Chinese want to return to. The Chinese are often annoyed by North Korea’s provocative behavior that jeopardizes stability in the region. Most Chinese scholars and scholar-officials behind closed doors agree that in the long run unification of Korea under Seoul’s control appears to be likely, and almost inevitable (this position was confirmed by WikiLeaks cables, but this was hardly a revelation for those who interact with the Chinese frequently). However, China would prefer this long run to be very long indeed—and with good reason. For Chinese policy makers, all things considered, a nuclear-armed North Korea seems to be a lesser evil than an unstable or collapsing North Korea (and, perhaps, even less an evil than a Korea unified under a US-friendly Seoul government).

  Chinese goals on the Korean peninsula fall along a hierarchy. To simplify things a bit, first of all, China needs stability in and around Korea. Second, China would prefer to see the Korean peninsula divided. The desire to stop North Korea from developing nukes comes as a rather distant third.

  Beijing’s greatest fear seems to be the instability that would be caused by North Korea’s implosion. China sees such a prospect as dangerous because it will have to deal with refugee flows, the threat of WMD proliferation, and geopolitical uncertainties of different kinds—like, say, smuggling of the nuclear material to (or through) Chinese territory.

  The Chinese government also has valid domestic reasons to prefer the status quo. Chinese leaders are well aware that the domestic support for their own regime overwhelmingly depends on their ability to maintain a very high level of economic growth. Any disturbances in adjacent areas might divert resources and in the worst case scenario might even trigger some unrest in China itself.

  The second most important concern of Beijing’s policy makers is to keep Korea divided (if not forever, at least for the longest possible time). North Korea constitutes a buffer zone on the borders of China, and, the official pro-unification rhetoric notwithstanding, the emergence of a unified Korean state will not serve Beijing’s long-term interests. There is little if any doubt that such a unified state would be dominated by South Korea, so unification will produce a democratic and strongly nationalist state, likely to be a US ally, on China’s borders.

  The continued division of Korea also provides China with manifold economic advantages. The dire economic situation of the North Korean state allows Chinese companies to get access to North Korean mineral resources and transport infrastructure at minimal cost. It is also possible that over the next decade, China will begin to make use of North Korea’s cheap but relatively skilled labor. Needless to say, in a unified Korea labor will not remain cheap and it will be much more difficult for Chinese businesses to acquire mining rights.

  Last but not least China also worries about the influence such a unified Korean state would exercise on the ethnic Korean minority in China—and quasi-official territorial claims, frequently voiced in Seoul,20 do not help to quell these worries, either. One should remember that a significant number of South Koreans, including several politicians, have openly expressed reservations about the 1909 Treaty between Korea (then under Japanese domination) and China that defines the current land border between the two countries. They claim that a large area of Kando (Jiandao in Chinese), in Northeast China, should rightfully belong to Korea—the area is currently home to millions of Chinese citizens. In 2004 up to a dozen ROK National Assembly members established a group solely dedicated to the promotion of the Kando claims.21 More radical nationalist Korean groups continue to make loud territorial claims to even great
er parts of Manchuria and Russia’s Maritime Provinces.22

  The third Chinese strategic aim in dealing with North Korea is denuclearization. Admittedly, the nuclear issue is less important to China than to the United States. Nonetheless, it is still significant. According to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, China is one of five recognized nuclear weapon possessing states. This makes China a member of a small and highly exclusive international club, giving it little reason to welcome dilution of the power accorded by nuclear weapon possession. In addition to this, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions could potentially trigger a nuclear arms race in East Asia, with South Korea and Japan developing nuclear weapons as well—a prospect that would not be welcomed by Beijing.

  Economic considerations are often discussed when it comes to Chinese goals in Korea. Indeed, China dominates North Korea’s foreign trade almost completely. In 1995 the trade volume between the two countries was $0.55 billion. By 2000 it had decreased slightly, to $0.49 billion. From there growth began. By 2005 the volume had tripled, reaching $1.6 billion; in the next five years it tripled again, reaching the level of $5.6 billion by 2011, increasing from $3.4 billion in 2010.23

  Currently it is difficult to know to what extent such a growth is driven by the strategic considerations of Beijing, and to what extent it comes “naturally,” as a byproduct of China’s own unstoppable growth and its appetite for natural resources. It seems that both the strategic considerations of the Chinese state and the purely economic interests of Chinese businesses have conspired to bring about this growth.