Kim Jong Il’s shift to a much closer and more active economic and political relationship with China from 2009 until his death was driven by necessity, not by any love on his part for the North’s overbearing neighbor. After Kim’s death, relations drifted back to something more familiar—coldhearted smiles in public and expressions of thinly disguised contempt behind the scenes.
Many Western observers believe that since the North’s most recent missile and nuclear tests, Chinese–North Korean relations have truly entered a new phase and that Beijing’s overall approach to the Korean issue is undergoing a fundamental shift. But history suggests that we are equally likely to be watching the development of another period of frosty ties between Beijing and Pyongyang, of uncertain depth and duration but with the likelihood of reconciliation (of sorts) sooner or later. Either scenario will create new dangers and opportunities not just for North Korea but also for the South. With the continued growth of Chinese power and influence, the dynamics on the peninsula are changing in ways that no one can yet predict.
AN UNEASY PEACE
By May 2013, the situation on the Korean peninsula had calmed, for the moment. But history suggests that until and unless new, predictable patterns emerge, the two Koreas may find themselves living closer to the brink of conflict than ever before, with the surrounding big powers pulled into frequent storms.
The storm of early 2013, and the unusually long sense of crisis it produced, was fed almost daily over two months by a sharp escalation of North Korean rhetoric, breathless Western media reporting, and apprehension in Washington over the leadership situation in Pyongyang, especially how to judge Kim Jong Un’s reactions and decision-making style. Curiously, throughout this period, the public mood in the South was remarkably calm. The situation clearly would not have benefited if South Koreans had started panic-buying instant noodles, as happened in the crisis of June 1994. Nevertheless, the calm this time around may be masking a deeper problem: South Koreans have lived with the northern threat for so long and are so tired of worrying about it (or have convinced themselves it is all a bluff) that the ROK government faces an ever more difficult task convincing its people that they cannot simply shrug off the longer-term issue of how to deal with North Korea.
The complex story of the Korean peninsula in the first dozen or so years of the twenty-first century is one of considerable, even momentous, changes. But none of these changes has altered the basic fact that nearly seventy years after division, there remain two Koreas. Perhaps nothing so clearly illustrates the problem as the sheer persistence of the formal structures left over from the Korean War. The summer of 2013 witnessed the sixtieth anniversary of the July 27, 1953, Korean Armistice Agreement. The anniversary was to celebrate not an armistice document long ago replaced, but one that, at least nominally, has remained in force for six decades. That longevity is testament not to the agreement’s vitality or utility—it has enjoyed neither trait for decades—but rather to the stasis, almost paralysis, that has become tacitly accepted as the norm by all the players on and around the peninsula. Sadly, nowhere are there any signs of movement toward ensuring that this state of affairs does not last as a festering national wound far into the twenty-first century. Should two hostile regimes continue to exist on the peninsula, it will be a tragedy not only for the Korean nation but for all of Northeast Asia, warping policies and hobbling developments for decades to come.
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* From Pyongyang’s viewpoint, it had warned of this course in July 2012, when several Foreign Ministry officials met a delegation of Americans in Singapore. In a formal presentation, the North Koreans said Pyongyang had conducted a policy review and had concluded that if there was no change in Washington’s approach, the North would no longer deal with it on the question of denuclearization. Soon after that meeting, in an unconnected move, the US government sent a secret mission to Pyongyang. According to South Korean reports, this was the second such US mission of the year. What the purpose of these missions was, who took part, whom they met, and what was accomplished are still not known. For a review of the information and speculation about the missions, see the Los Angeles Times, http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/23/world/la-fg-us-north-korea-20130224.
** North Korean reports rarely mention the date of an appearance by the Supreme Leader, much less the time.
* About the same time, DailyNK, a Seoul-based online “newspaper” utilizing sources inside the North, reported that the internal mobilization of the North Korean population was easing.
** Foreign commentators suggested that this two-line strategy was a copy of the (failed) strategy adopted by Kim Il Sung in 1962, of building the economy and the defense sector simultaneously. As if in anticipation of such comparisons, the younger Kim in his plenum speech noted the earlier approach, but called his own “a succession to and in-depth development of” the earlier line.
* In November 2010, technicians at Yongbyon had told the Stanford delegation that the 5-megawatt reactor was “in stand-by status with regular maintenance.” See Siegfried S. Hecker, A Return Trip to North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex (Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, November 20, 2010), http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/23035/HeckerYongbyon.pdf, 5.
PRINCIPAL KOREAN FIGURES IN THE TEXT
DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA (NORTH KOREA)
Han Se Hae, Workers Party official and secret emissary to the ROK
Ho Dam, foreign minister and secret emissary to the ROK
Hwang Jang Yop, Workers Party secretary for international affairs and juche theoretician; defected to the ROK in 1997
Jo Myong Rok, vice marshal and first vice chairman of the National Defense Commission
Kang Sok Ju, deputy foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator with the United States
Kim Gye Gwan, vice foreign minister and deputy negotiator with the United States
Kim Hyon Hui, DPRK agent; bomber of Korean Air Lines flight 858; incarcerated and pardoned in the ROK
Kim Il Sung, leader of the Workers Party; prime minister, later president of the DPRK
Kim Jong Il, eldest son of Kim Il Sung; leader of the DPRK following his father’s death
Kim Jong Un, third son of Kim Jong Il; became leader of the DPRK after his father’s death
Kim Yong Nam, deputy prime minister and foreign minister of the DPRK, later chairman of Supreme People’s Assembly and nominal head of state
Kim Yong Sun, Workers Party secretary and head of the DPRK delegation in 1992 talks with the United States
Yun Ki Bok, Workers Party official; political adviser to the DPRK delegation to the Red Cross talks; secret emissary to the ROK
REPUBLIC OF KOREA (SOUTH KOREA)
Choi Kyu Ha, prime minister of the ROK; briefly president after death of Park Chung Hee
Chun Doo Hwan, leader of the 1979 military takeover; president of the ROK
Chung Ju Yung, chairman of the Hyundai conglomerate; chairman of the campaign committee to win the Seoul Olympic Games; presidential candidate in 1992
Gong Ro Myung, foreign minister of the ROK
Han Sung Joo, foreign minister of the ROK
Kim Chong Whi, national security assistant to President Roh Tae Woo
Kim Dae Jung, opposition political leader and presidential candidate in 1971, 1987, 1992, 1997; popularly elected president, 1997
Kim Jae Kyu, director of KCIA; assassin of President Park Chung Hee
Kim Jong Pil, prime minister of the ROK; presidential candidate in 1987
Kim Woo Choong, chairman of the Daewoo conglomerate; unofficial envoy abroad and to the DPRK
Kim Young Sam, opposition political leader, later government party leader; popularly elected president in 1992
Lee Hu Rak, director of the KCIA
Lee Myung-bak, president from 2008 to 2013
Lee Yon Kil, businessman and anticommunist activist who arranged the defection of Hwang Jang Yop from North Korea
Lim
Dong Won, senior adviser to President Kim Dae Jong on North-South affairs; secret emissary to DPRK in May 2000
Park Chul Un, presidential staff and intelligence official; ROK secret emissary to the DPRK
Park Chung Hee, leader of the 1961 military coup; later president of the ROK
Park Geun-hye, daughter of Park Chung Hee; elected ROK president in 2012
Roh Moo-hyun, elected president of the ROK in 2002
Roh Tae Woo, division commander in 1979 military takeover; popularly elected president in 1987
Sohn Jang Nae, KCIA minister in the ROK embassy, Washington; deputy director of the KCIA in Seoul
Yoo Chong Ha, national security assistant to President Kim Young Sam; later ROK foreign minister
KOREANS IN JAPAN
Mun Se Kwang, attempted assassin of ROK president Park; killer of Yook Young Soo (Mrs. Park)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
DON OBERDORFER
A great many people and institutions of many nationalities and points of view contributed to the research and writing of this book. I conducted more than 450 interviews in South and North Korea, the United States, China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and Austria in the course of the four years I was working on it. I was also aided immeasurably by documentary material from American, Russian, and East German archives, as well as journalistic and scholarly articles and books. All those who contributed, in large ways and small, have my thanks.
I am particularly grateful to Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), which accorded me a convenient and prestigious scholarly perch after my retirement from the Washington Post and sponsored the book. I am also very grateful to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, New York, and the Korea Foundation, Seoul, for grants that supported my extensive travel and research. I wish to thank SAIS students Narushige Michishita and Choo Yong Shik, who were my research assistants.
It was my good fortune that Carter Eckert, director of the Korean studies program at Harvard University, was on a fellowship in Washington during the final stages of my writing. He gave generously of his time and suggestions. A number of present and former officials of the United States and the ROK governments and personal friends also offered valuable comments on various parts of the manuscript.
I wish to thank the National Security Archive, Washington, for assisting my Freedom of Information Act requests and providing materials obtained by other researchers; the FOIA staff of the Department of State for processing my requests; the Gerald Ford Presidential Library, particularly archivist Karen Holzhausen, and the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, particularly assistant director Martin Elzy and archivist James Yancey, for identifying and helping to declassify valuable documentation; the FOIA staff of the Eighth Army, Korea, for declassifying the intelligence portions of its command histories for 1972–1987; Jim Mann of the Los Angeles Times for providing materials on US-China diplomacy affecting Korea; and Tim Shorrock of the Journal of Commerce for sharing the extensive material he has obtained under FOIA.
Joong-ang Ilbo, one of South Korea’s leading newspapers and the publisher of the Korean edition of this book, graciously provided many of the photographs.
I am very grateful to Mark . M. Suh of the Free University of Berlin for obtaining important documents from the archives of the former East German Communist Party, the Socialist Unity Party, including transcripts of meetings of East German leader Erich Honecker with Kim Il Sung and diplomatic dispatches from the East German Embassy in Pyongyang.
In Seoul former ambassador to the United States Kim Kyung Won accepted me as a guest scholar at the Institute of Social Sciences, which greatly facilitated my interviews there. I am grateful to him and his efficient secretary, Mrs. Park Soon Rye. I also appreciate the work of the Korean Overseas Information Service, Seoul, especially Suh Sang Myun, in arranging interviews with government officials.
My South Korean journalist friends, especially Kim Yong Hie and Kim Kun Jin of Joong-ang Ilbo, Cho Kap Che and Kim Dae Joong of Chosun Ilbo, Shim Jae Hoon of the Far Eastern Economic Review, and Lee Keum Hyun, special correspondent of the Washington Post, were especially helpful. Sam Jameson, the longtime Tokyo correspondent of the Los Angeles Times, now an independent journalist and scholar in Japan, provided information and suggestions.
My 1991 visit to North Korea was as a Washington Post diplomatic correspondent. My return visit in 1995 was under the sponsorship of George Washington University’s Sigur Center for East Asian Studies, then headed by Young C. Kim, to whom I am grateful. I also wish to express appreciation to officials of the DPRK Mission to the United Nations for many courtesies, including providing me with copies of the works of President Kim Il Sung from 1965 to 1983.
In Beijing my 1993 research trip was sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which also provided introductions and translating assistance, for which I am grateful.
My research and interviewing in Moscow was facilitated by the Moscow Bureau of the Washington Post, which generously treated me as a colleague even though I had retired. Anatoly Chernyayev and Pavel Palazchenko, who continue as aides to Mikhail Gorbachev, helped in obtaining materials from the Gorbachev archive.
David Kyd, the public information officer of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, provided information and arranged interviews for me there.
I wish to thank former president Jimmy Carter for his written responses to my questions about Korea policy in his administration, and especially for assistance in dealing with his 1994 mission to Pyongyang. Marion Creekmore and Dick Christenson, who accompanied him to North Korea, also helped me.
In Japan, Izumi Hajime of Shizuoka University was particularly helpful in providing insights and materials about the DPRK, on which he is a leading expert.
Among the many persons who agreed to interviews, I wish especially to thank the following:
IN THE UNITED STATES
Former secretaries of state Cyrus Vance and George Shultz; former undersecretaries of state Michael Armacost, Robert Zoellick, Arnold Kanter, and Frank Wisner; former assistant secretaries of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs Marshall Green, Richard Holbrooke, Paul Wolfowitz, the late Gaston Sigur, Richard Solomon, and William Clark, as well as Winston Lord, who was assistant secretary during my research; former deputy assistant secretaries of state Robert Oakley and Thomas Hubbard and the current holder of the post, Charles Kartman; former chief US Korea coordinator and negotiator Robert Gallucci and his senior deputy, Gary Samore; and former Korea country directors Robert Rich, Harry Dunlop, Spence Richardson, David E. Brown, and David G. Brown, and the current country director, Mark Minton.
At the Pentagon, former secretaries of defense James Schlesinger, Donald Rumsfeld, and Harold Brown, as well as William Perry, who held the post during my research; Morton Abramowitz; Admiral William Pendley; Captain Thomas Flanigan; and Wally Knowles.
At the White House, former national security advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Allen, and Brent Scowcroft, as well as Anthony Lake, who held the post during my research; and former National Security Council staff members William Hyland, Nick Piatt, Jim Kelly, Doug Paal, Torkel Patterson, Kent Wiedemann, Stanley Roth, and Daniel Poneman.
In the intelligence community, former CIA director Robert Gates; the expert North Korea watchers in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research Robert Carlin, Kenneth Quinones, and John Merrill, as well as nuclear expert Steve Fleischmann; former national intelligence officers Evelyn Colbert, John Despres, Nathanial Thayer, Carl Ford, and Ezra Vogel; Morgan Clippinger and other Korea experts of the Central Intelligence Agency; and former US intelligence officials John Armstrong and the late Jim Hausman.
Former congressman Stephen Solarz.
From the US Embassy, Seoul, former US ambassadors to the ROK William Gleysteen, Richard Walker, James Lilley, and Donald Gregg, as well as James Laney, who was US ambassador during the period of my research; former deputy chiefs of mission Francis Underhill, Ric
hard Ericson, Raymond Burkhardt, and Dick Christenson; former US Embassy political counselors Paul Cleveland and Daniel Russel; and former military attaché Jim Young.
In the US Command, Korea, former commanders in chief Generals John Wickham, Robert Sennewald, Robert RisCassi, Gary Luck, and current CINC General John Tilelli; Lieutenant General Howell Estes; retired lieutenant generals James Hollingsworth and John Cushman; special assistant to the USFK commander Stephen Bradner; USFK historian Major Thomas Ryan; former US representative to the Military Armistice Commission (MAC) Jimmy Lee; former MAC secretary Colonel Forrest Chilton; and public information officer Jim Coles and his predecessor Billy Fullerton.
Among Korea experts in the United States, Peter Hayes of the Nautilus Institute; nuclear weapons expert Bill Arkin; Bruce Cumings of Northwestern University; Joseph Ha of Lewis and Clark College; Dae-Sook Suh of the University of Hawaii; Charles Armstrong, then of Princeton University; Han S. Park of the University of Georgia; Edward Olsen of the Naval Postgraduate School; Manwoo Lee of Millersville University; and Sanghyun Yoon of George Washington University.
Also Larry Niksch and Rinn Sup Shinn of the Congressional Research Service; Tony Namkung of the Atlantic Council; Selig Harrison and Leonard Spector of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Ralph Clough of SAIS; Daryl Plunk of the Heritage Foundation; Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution; Scott Snyder of the US Institute of Peace; William Taylor of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Chen You Wei; Norm Levin and Kongdan (Katy) Oh of the Rand Corporation; David Albright; and Steve Linton and Robert Manning of the Progressive Policy Institute.
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