North Korea: Mad as a hatter?


By John Hemmings
Asia Times
Dec 18, 2009


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A bright idea came into Alice's head. "Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?" she asked.
"Yes, that's it," said the Hatter with a sigh. "It's always tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles."
"Then you keep moving round, I suppose?" said Alice.
"Exactly so," said the Hatter. "As the things get used up."
"But what happens when you come to the beginning again?" Alice ventured to ask.
"Suppose we change the subject," the March Hare interrupted, yawning.
- Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll

Much like the tea party in Carroll's seminal work, the Korean nuclear issue seems to go on and on, round and round, spinning in circles with its own peculiar logic, and landing the reader (and the general public) much in the same place as when we started. In dealing with North Korea and the nuclear issue, one is seldom assured of the facts. They are slim on the ground and highly contestable: analysis is everything. Also, one is never sure of why previous negotiations have failed: bad intentions, mistaken policies and even just plain bad luck have all played a part.

It is a difficult riddle to unravel. How did we get to this stage (of the North having weapons) and how do we get back? This is not merely because of the secretive nature of the regime or due only to the cyclical nature of the negotiations that have continued on and off since the early 1990s. It is also due to the complete lack of trust on both sides. Do the Americans really intend to honor their pledges to the Hermit Kingdom once Pyongyang gets rid of its weapons, or will North Korea keep some programs hidden as it did after the 1994 Agreed Framework?

In other words, are the two countries sincere in their dealings with each other? With facts slim on the ground, one can only work according to hunches and analyze statements of intention, using past experience as a rough guide to understanding these tantalizing clues.

So what does it mean, for example, when the North Korean Foreign Ministry issues a statement saying that as a result of a high-level US visit, "both (the United States and North Korea) deepened mutual understandings, narrowed differences in their respective views and identified not a small number of things in common"? Does this mean that the North is ready to resume the six-party talks? Well, surely it must, after all the same press statement goes on to say that they "reached a series of common understandings on the need to resume the six-party talks and the importance of implementing the [2005] September 19 joint statement".

Or perhaps it means that it is ready to carry out denuclearization as spelled out in the joint statement. Might it mean that North Korea is willing to return to the full embrace of the international community, become a loving brother (or sister) in the family of nations? Well, the answer is "no", "no", and er, "no".

The reason that none of these scenarios is likely is due to the following: quite simply, there is a lack of trust in the relationship between North Korea and the United States. The policy of developing nuclear weapons has actually "worked" for North Korea, and the nature of the regime is such that it does not wish to return to the family of nations. It is quite content in its present guise.

One of the largest obstacles to agreement between the US and North Korea has been the lack of trust between the two states and this comes from a singular lack of imagination on both their parts. On the one hand, the North has done little to counter the first impression made by its sneak attack on the South in 1951. And how first impressions count in global affairs: the US has viewed the North as untrustworthy ever since and seen every sign of underhanded behavior, from reneging on the 1994 Agreed Framework to fighting verification in the Joint Statement as aspects of this treacherous nature.

For its own part, once the US cast North Korea in this role in the 1950s, it has more or less kept to it ever since, punishing the North far more for its deeds than ever it did to China, the USSR, Vietnam and other opponents of the Cold War. While it is true that various US administrations have tried different approaches to the North, none have tried to understand the underdog mentality that the North has, the hang-ups about its economic collapse in the face of the South's success, and tried the right combination of give-and-take in negotiating with the state.

As the North Korean diplomats say, not without some wiliness, Washington only took Pyongyang seriously after it developed nuclear weapons.

As for casting North Korea as a villain, the fact that it has one of the worst human rights records in the world, a Cold War military bent on retaking the Peninsula by force and a reputation for building cash reserves by a combination of missile exports, drug trafficking and counterfeiting does not help. North Korea is its own worst enemy.

While it has been useful for the US to isolate a regime that wanted to be isolated, it has not played out well in the end, for the net result has been North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and missile systems capable of carrying them, which has shaken the US security edifice in Northeast Asia to its very core. In the end, the US has hurt itself by allowing North Korea to play the villain. US policies, which looked to regime change, only worsened what little trust could exist between the two. Since the nature of the agreements, both in terms of security and technical exchange, necessitate a high level of trust and cooperation, it is next to impossible that this will happen any time soon.

It is clear to both US President Barack Obama and Stephen Bosworth, the US special envoy, that North Korea has a strong hand at the moment, but that the clock is ticking. On the one hand, the North has the bomb, as both the 2006 and 2009 tests indicate. That puts Pyongyang in a much stronger negotiating position than the undeclared nuclear status that it played throughout the early part of this decade.

On the other hand, the North is seriously suffering in economic terms. It may have a large army and nuclear weapons, but it has been effectively stripped of its ability to trade with the world by the United Nations Security Council and is living off of the barest of Chinese supplies, which are set to decrease even further with the on-going devaluation of the North Korean won. While it is early days, this devaluation is already showing signs of causing unrest in the countryside. Furthermore, experts from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization are now predicting a famine in the spring of 2010, in the interval between the rice and barley harvests.

Naturally, neither South Korea nor the United States will seek to interfere with food aid to the North for political reasons, but the facts of the matter are clear: 2010 will see the North suffer food shortages after suffering severe economic problems. The North has already approached - and been rebuffed - by the South's Unification Ministry in an effort to revive the Mount Kumgang tourist project, one of the conduits for hard cash into the country.

On the other hand, while this pressure is likely to give North Korea some cause for alarm, it is unlikely to deeply affect its negotiation position for the following reasons: developing nuclear weapons is not only a strategic bargaining tool, but an economic and diplomatic one too. The nuclear program has given Pyongyang more attention, status, energy aid, food aid and diplomatic courtship than it ever dreamed possible. Now why would it want to go and ruin all that? While this is a deeply disturbing conclusion, it is not the final word on the matter.

The refusal of the world and of the members of the six-party talks to accept the North's acquisition of such weaponry, backed by real economic isolation, would eventually break the regime. Is the world willing to advance on such a united front? Unfortunately for Obama, who has graciously picked up his Nobel Prize this week for good intentions, the world is not yet ready. Both Iran and North Korea fall between the strategic cracks of the great powers in the Middle East and in Northeast Asia, making a common front difficult at best.

The final reason why North Korea is unlikely to shift at all in future talks is because that final incentive of joining the family of nations means little to the Hermit Kingdom. Indeed, representatives from Mexico, Norway and South Africa recently grilled North Korean officials at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. The fact that the April 2009 revision of North Korea's constitution had included a clause ( protecting human rights seemed odd. Pyongyang's decision to send a team to the Human Rights Council to defend its record in Geneva seemed downright madness.

After all, this is a state that prohibits travel for its citizens within its borders, continues to imprison its political opponents in camps, and assassinates defectors. As could be expected, the meeting took on a farcical edge, with the North Korean diplomats obstinately arguing with the Human Rights Council about the causes of their poor record. And what would North Korea know about human rights anyway, what understanding - if any - would it have for the rights of the ordinary citizen over the rights of the Kim family, over the Korean People's Army, or over the Korean Worker's Party? None of these three agencies has displayed in policy or in writing a comprehension of what the rights that ordinary people might have against the state.

So why did North Korea join the Human Rights Council? Obviously, it is beginning to show signs of understanding its moral isolation from the rest of the world, but it is still unable to grasp that this means that it must modify its behavior in any real sense. First of all, the idea of loosening the bonds on its citizens is impossible for the North to conceive. After all, it is unable to reach for examples in Korean political tradition. The Chosen Dynasty, upon which the North is based, saw hundreds of years without appreciable freedoms for its rule, followed by a half century of Japanese colonial rule, followed by another half century of communist rule.

To top it off, North Korea looks at the example of what took place in the USSR and Eastern Europe when the guardians and secret police were called off: the Communist elites fell and in Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's case, were executed.

So, in short, Bosworth's visit has lifted hopes, but let us remember that we have been down this rabbit hole before. The Alice in Wonderland that is negotiating with the North Koreans is a book that must be read. We cannot afford to ignore it, but we must also be realistic. Grimly so.

John Hemmings, studies coordinator and research analyst, Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, London.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/KL18Dg01.html