The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History

by Oberdorfer, Don

  As the enormity of the consequences sank in, Clinton summoned a meeting of his senior foreign-policy advisers the next day, May 20, to discuss the Korean confrontation. To the surprise of most journalists and experts who had been following the crisis—but who did not know about the nature or conclusions of the military meetings—the administration suddenly veered back toward diplomatic efforts, offering to convene its long-postponed third round of high-level negotiations with Pyongyang despite the unloading of the nuclear reactor.

  North Korea signaled its interest in the US offer by resuming working-level meetings in New York with State Department officials on May 23 to plan for the third round. But before progress could be made, the IAEA declared on June 2 that its ability to verify the reactor’s past history had been “lost” due to the faster-than-expected defueling. After receiving the IAEA assessment, the administration decided to seek UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea. “They have triggered this, not the United States or anyone else,” Clinton told reporters. “I just don’t think we can walk away from this.”

  Looking back on the crisis, Perry identified the defueling of the North Korean reactor as the turning point, when it appeared that dialogue and “preventive diplomacy” had failed and when US strategy shifted to “coercive diplomacy,” involving sanctions. In the view of American military planners, the unloaded fuel rods represented a tangible and physical threat that the DPRK could move ahead to manufacture nuclear weapons. If not stopped near the beginning, they believed, North Korea could eventually possess an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons, which it could use for threats and blackmail and even to sell to high bidders in the Middle East. That simply could not be permitted to happen. Thus, despite the serious risk of war, “we believed that it was even more dangerous to allow North Korea to proceed with a large-scale nuclear weapons program,” according to the secretary of defense.

  From the American perspective, the unloaded fuel rods were a potential threat—once reprocessed, the North would possess a lot of plutonium. But it is not clear that the North intended to proceed with reprocessing. Rather, all along it may have intended to stop at unloading. That would have served two purposes: first, the North might have hoped, to destroy the history of the reactor’s operations and, second, to be in a better position to move on to reprocessing more quickly when and if the situation warranted. If eight thousand irradiated fuel rods sitting in the reactor were good, having those rods out of the reactor and in a cooling pond was even better.

  To prepare for the potential storm, the Pentagon moved full steam ahead on its plans for additional US military deployments. Simultaneously, the State Department launched a new round of talks about the nature and timing of international sanctions in the capitals of major powers and at the United Nations.

  THE DEEPENING CONFLICT

  The devastating possibilities of the deepening conflict were alarming to many of those most familiar with North Korea. Even administration officials conceded that sanctions were unlikely to force Pyongyang to reverse course: the isolated country was relatively invulnerable to outside pressures, since it had so little international commerce and few important international connections of any sort. Moreover, if it felt backed into a corner, it might actually follow through with its threats and fight rather than capitulate.

  A gaping omission in all that had been said and done was the absence of direct communication between the US administration and the one person whose decisions were law in Pyongyang. Early in 1993, Les Aspin, Clinton’s original secretary of defense, had proposed bringing the nuclear issue to a head by sending a delegation to make a bold and direct appeal to Kim Il Sung, but this was turned down as too risky. Under Perry, Aspin’s successor, the Pentagon continued to urge direct contacts with Kim, but high-level dialogue by then had been identified by the State Department as a principal reward for good behavior, not to be permitted until North Korea earned it with agreements and performance.

  However, in late-May 1994, when the defueling crisis worsened and the Pentagon presented its alarming war plan, Clinton, at the urging of Perry and Ambassador Laney, asked Senators Sam Nunn (D-GA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) to fly to Pyongyang to see Kim Il Sung. North Korea turned down the hastily prepared visit at the last minute, apparently because of a conflict with the Great Leader’s schedule.

  In early June, as Clinton opted for sanctions, former president Jimmy Carter reentered the Korea saga to play another historic role. Having been defeated for reelection in 1980, the successful broker of the Camp David accords in the Middle East carved out for himself a mission of promoting peaceful resolution of conflicts through his Atlanta-based Carter Center. At sixty-nine years of age, the vigorous former president had already played a postpresidential intermediary role in the Middle East, Ethiopia, the Sudan, Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia.

  Carter had received invitations from Kim Il Sung in 1991, 1992, and 1993 to visit Pyongyang, but each time he had been asked by the State Department not to go on the grounds that his trip would complicate the Korean problem rather than help to resolve it. The ROK government, mindful of Carter’s abortive efforts as president to withdraw US troops, opposed Carter’s return to Korean affairs.

  As the sanctions drive got under way, Carter expressed his growing anxiety in a telephone call to Clinton. Briefed on June 5 by Gallucci, who was sent to Plains for that purpose, Carter learned to his dismay that there was no American plan for direct contact with Kim Il Sung. He immediately dispatched a letter to Clinton, telling him he had decided to go to Pyongyang in view of the dangers at hand. Clinton, on the advice of Vice President Gore, interposed no objection to the trip as long as Carter clearly stated that he was acting as a private citizen rather than as an official US envoy. As Carter was launching his initiative and proceeding to Seoul en route to Pyongyang, a series of new developments added to the importance of his mission.

  In the diplomatic field, the administration drew up a program of gradually enforced sanctions against North Korea for refusing to cooperate with the IAEA. As prepared for the Security Council, the sanctions resolution would have given North Korea a thirty-day grace period to change its policies, after which such relatively lightweight measures as a ban on arms sales and transfers of nuclear technology to Pyongyang would take effect. This would be followed, if necessary, by a second group of more painful sanctions, including a ban on remittances from abroad, such as those from pro–North Korean groups in Japan, and a cutoff of the vital oil supplies furnished by China and others. A potential third stage, if the others failed, was a blockade of shipping to and from North Korean ports.

  Among the other major powers directly involved—Russia, Japan, and China—there was little enthusiasm for even the mildest set of sanctions.

  Russia was in the process of attempting to rebuild relations with North Korea, which had nearly been destroyed in the abrupt 1990 Soviet turn toward South Korea. In March, in an effort to find a role for itself in the crisis, the Russian Foreign Ministry had proposed an international conference of the two Koreas, the four major outside powers, the UN, and the IAEA to resolve the nuclear issue. None of the other parties had accepted it, but Russia continued to advocate such a meeting prior to any UN sanctions.

  For Japan, the crisis on the Korean peninsula was serious and close to home. Tokyo had been severely criticized in the West for failing to assist the American effort in the 1991 Gulf War, despite its dependence on Gulf oil. To fail to do its part to back up sanctions and assist the US military where its own security was potentially at stake would be far more damaging to its reputation and self-esteem and could have been devastating to the US-Japanese alliance. Yet the difficulties were great.

  The Japanese political system was in an especially volatile and vulnerable state. At the time of the crisis, the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party had splintered and lost power, and the eight-party coalition government of Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata was in danger of collapsing. Its continuation in office depended on the acq
uiescence of the Japan Socialist Party, which had historically close relations with Pyongyang and was reluctant to take action against it.

  If full-scale sanctions were to be voted by the UN Security Council, the Japanese government believed it would have no choice but to enforce a cutoff of the remittances from Koreans in Japan to North Korea, which were estimated at about $600 million annually. After extensive study, however, Japanese officials told their American counterparts it was unlikely they would be able to cut this off completely, since there were many ways beyond its control by which such money could flow, ranging from the transfer of suitcases full of currency to electronic transfers through Switzerland, Hong Kong, and other financial capitals. In a secret report, a government task force expressed concern that in case of such a crackdown, pro-Pyongyang residents of Japan would mount “severe protest activities” against Japanese government and UN offices in Japan and the US Embassy, possibly involving violence and the destruction of property, verging on civil war.

  An even more vexing problem was what Japan could or could not do to assist the US military in a blockade or shooting war within the bounds of General Douglas MacArthur’s post–World War II “no war” constitution, which sharply limits Japanese military actions outside its home islands. As its military buildup neared, US Forces Japan drew up a planning list of nineteen hundred items of potentially needed assistance, ranging from cutting the grass at US bases to supplying fuel, matériel, and weapons and using Japanese ships and planes for sweeping mines and gathering intelligence. The Japanese government, concerned that it might be unable to meet US requests, set up a special headquarters to define what it would be able to do and was preparing short-term legislation to permit military cooperation. Had this been put to the test, said a Japanese diplomat who was deeply involved, it would have been “a nightmare.” As a result of this experience, Japan and the United States began an extensive review of Japanese guidelines for military-crisis cooperation.

  China, the main source of North Korea’s energy and food imports, was by all estimates the most important Asian participant in the sanctions discussion. Because China had a veto in the UN Security Council, no sanctions resolution could be adopted without its acquiescence. While reluctant to use the veto, China consistently opposed sanctions against North Korea, saying that negotiations provided the only solution.

  At the same time, the Chinese were privately irritated by North Korea’s actions and apprehensive that its policies could lead to a disaster on China’s borders. (This was not the first time Beijing was simultaneously annoyed and worried by North Korean actions. It was also not the last.) A key moment came on May 29, when Clinton, in a reversal of previous administration policy, announced he would grant US most-favored-nation trade status to China without human rights conditions. This made it more attractive and politically acceptable for Chinese leaders to cooperate with the United States on the Korea issue.

  In the view of White House national security adviser Anthony Lake, a principal purpose of the sanctions resolution was to press the Chinese to use muscle with the North Koreans in order to head it off. In a similar vein, ROK foreign minister Han told his Chinese counterpart, Qian Qichen, on June 9 in Beijing that there was only one way for China to avoid voting on sanctions in the UN Security Council—and that was to persuade North Korea in advance that it could not count on a Chinese veto, and therefore North Korea would have to defuse the situation on its own.

  On June 10, according to accounts conveyed by the Chinese to a variety of American, South Korean, and Japanese diplomats, Chinese diplomats in Pyongyang and Beijing presented the North Koreans with a most unpleasant message: although China continued to oppose sanctions, the strength of international opinion was such that China might not be able to veto them. Therefore, Beijing strongly urged Pyongyang to take action to accommodate international opinion on the nuclear issue in its own interest or face drastic consequences without Chinese protection. There is some evidence that the North had already decided to move in this direction anyway. Thus, whether Chinese veiled threats caused the North Koreans to change course or merely reinforced their belief that the Chinese—who barely two years before had betrayed them by recognizing South Korea—were not to be trusted is not known.

  On the same day as the Chinese intervention, the IAEA board in Vienna sharply criticized North Korea and voted to suspend its technical assistance of about $500,000 yearly to Pyongyang’s nuclear program. In practical effect, this was an international sanction. However, the Chinese ambassador in Vienna, rather than vote against it, merely abstained. In response to the vote, North Korea announced it would withdraw from the IAEA, expel the remaining international inspectors, and refuse to cooperate with “continuity of safeguards.” If carried out, this would have ended the last vestige of international surveillance from the unloaded fuel rods and the nuclear facilities in Yongbyon. This development set off new alarm bells in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, and other world capitals, sharply increasing international concern about Pyongyang’s nuclear intentions.

  Even before these developments took place, the North Korean Foreign Ministry began sketching out areas of conciliation and compromise, possibly part of the overall plan already in place to unload the reactor and then move quickly back to negotiations. On June 3, Pyongyang broadcast an unusual statement in the name of its chief negotiator. Kang Sok Ju announced that North Korea was prepared to dismantle its reprocessing plant for manufacturing plutonium in connection with the replacement of its existing facilities by a light-water-reactor project. This went one step beyond a written statement by Kim Il Sung to the Washington Times on his April 15 birthday, when he said the reprocessing plant “may not be needed” if the LWRs were supplied. But by early June, the tide in the United States was already moving swiftly toward collision, and analysis calling attention to Kang’s formulation was ignored.

  The North Korean concession was further developed by Selig Harrison of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who arrived in Pyongyang the day after Kang’s statement. Harrison, the Washington Post correspondent for Northeast Asia in the early 1970s, had been one of the first American correspondents to interview Kim Il Sung. As a scholar since the mid-1970s, Harrison had kept a close eye on Korean developments, revisiting the North in 1987 and 1992 and making many visits to the South. Harrison was known in Washington policy circles for having an unusually positive view of Pyongyang’s willingness to compromise in return for American relationships and concessions, which he believed its leaders badly wanted. Washington conservatives and many officials scoffed, but because Harrison had had a longer acquaintance with policy makers in Pyongyang than almost anyone else, it was difficult to dismiss him.

  In his new trip, Harrison concentrated on finding a way to give operational significance to Pyongyang’s willingness to abandon its reprocessing plant. In meetings with Kang and others, he argued that North Korea should freeze further development of the reprocessing plant and all the rest of its nuclear program when binding commitments were received for delivery and financing of the LWRs.

  On June 9, when Harrison broached the freeze idea in a meeting with Kim Il Sung, the Great Leader seemed not to have heard of it from his aides, raising the possibility that Kang’s June 3 statement had been approved not by the Great Leader but by Kim Jong Il. In a show of confidence in Kang that would be repeated with Carter, Kim turned to his chief negotiator for an explanation and discussed the possibilities with him for about five minutes in Korean. Then he turned to Harrison and said, “This is a good idea. We can definitely accept it if the United States really makes a firm commitment that we can trust.”

  Kim then repeated his denial that North Korea had nuclear weapons or any intention of producing them. “It gives me a headache when people demand to see something we don’t have,” said Kim. “It’s like dogs barking at the moon. What would be the point of making one or two nuclear weapons when you have ten thousand plus delivery systems that we don’t have. We would be a laughi
ngstock. We want nuclear power for electricity, and we have shown this by our offer to convert to light-water reactors.” Harrison left Pyongyang on June 11 believing that a freeze on the North Korean program in return for light-water-reactor commitments could produce the breakthrough that was desperately needed. The deafness to those signals was baffling to some analysts in Washington.

  In June 13, when Carter arrived in Seoul en route to the North, Harrison’s optimism was shared by very few in the South Korean capital. The ROK government, while counseling calm, had announced the largest civil defense exercise in many years to mobilize its citizens in case of war. Reacting to the growing atmosphere of crisis, the Seoul stock market dropped by 25 percent in two days, and jittery South Koreans were jamming stores to stockpile rice, dried noodles, and candles. Carter found most members of the ROK government hostile to his mission. Before his arrival, ROK president Kim Young Sam had pronounced the mission to be “ill-timed” and said it could help the North pursue “stalling tactics” on the nuclear issue.

  The sense of inexorable drift toward military conflict that had been felt within the high ranks of the US government since the defueling of the Yongbyon reactor in early May was now spreading to an increasingly aroused American public. In June, 46 percent of a nationwide sample of public opinion sponsored by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal said North Korea’s nuclear development was the “most serious foreign policy issue facing the United States today,” outdistancing the next most serious issue, instability in Russia, by more than three to one. At the same time, a nationwide poll for Time and CBS News reported that a majority (51 percent) favored military action to destroy North Korea’s nuclear facilities if the DPRK continued to refuse international inspection, and a slimmer majority (48 percent yes, 42 percent no) said it was “worth risking war” to prevent North Korea from manufacturing nuclear weapons.