Chris Hill Resignation Watch: N. Korea Halts Disablement, Balks at Verification, Accounting for Abductees
You had to know that verification was where this thing was destined to fall apart. And that certainly looks like what’s happening today.
North Korea said Tuesday it has suspended work to disable its nuclear reactor in anger over Washington’s failure to remove it from the U.S. list of terror sponsors. The North said it will soon consider a step to restore the plutonium-producing facility.
The announcement poses the biggest hurdle yet to the communist nation’s denuclearization process under a landmark deal last year.
“The U.S. postponed the process of delisting the (North) as a ‘state sponsor of terrorism,'” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. “Now that the U.S. breached the agreed points, the (North) is compelled to take” countermeasures, it said.
The Foreign Ministry also said the government will “consider soon a step to restore” the nuclear facility at Yongbyon, but it did not elaborate. The disablement was suspended as of Aug. 14, it added. [AP, Jae-Soon Chang]
Contrary to the consensus of the grand viziers of Brookings, CFR, and the State Department, endless flexibility didn’t disarm the North Koreans after all, in much the same way that endless aid did not fundamentally alter the character of North Korean society or trigger economic reforms. But of course, our flexibility can’t really be endless when politicians have to be able to explain themselves to Congress and the voters. Taking Kim Jong Il’s word for it and dispensing with verification proved to be the thing the Bush Administration couldn’t explain:
The United States and North Korea have failed to break an impasse over measures to verify Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program in special talks held in New York, U.S. officials said Monday. [AFP]
Recall that last April, Secretary of State Rice had publicly stated her intention to lift sanctions up front, and to postpone verification until after North Korea already had what it wanted. Yet just three months before that, Chris Hill had an apopleptic fit at a reporter for even suggesting such “stupidity:”
“This idea that we would ignore the most contentious items and take them up later is ridiculous. I don’t believe in “˜carve outs’ and even if I did (which I don’t) how in the world would this work in practical terms? Do you really think we could make concessions on the basis of an incomplete declaration, then somehow we would be able to return to the contentious issues AFTER ““ AFTER!!!??? — giving away all our leverage? Why? I can tell you this stupidity has never been under consideration by anyone who is part of the process or truly close to the process. [James Rosen of Fox News, quoting Chris Hill, at National Review]
Whether Hill was angry that he was outed or simply being disingenuous, what actually happened in June was that — despite the absence of meaningful North Korean disarmament — Trading With the Enemy Sanctions were lifted, and President Bush notified Congress of his intent to de-list North Korea as a state sponsor of terror. He did not, however, actually de-list North Korea when the 45-day notice period expired, and that appears to be because of opposition in Congress and skeptical statements from both presidential candidates, both of whom conditioned their support for the move on verification.
Having failed to achieve most of their demands up front in exchange for illusory concessions, the North Koreans are naturally reasserting that they’ll build more nukes.
“The DPRK (North Korea) will bolster the war deterrent for self-defence… and resolutely foil any provocation with strong countermeasures,” the communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said. [AFP]
In North Korean, “war deterrent” means nukes, and U.S.-ROK military exercises are a perennial excuse for renouncing any North Korean obligation:
“The army and people of (North Korea) will never remain an onlooker to the U.S. military and the South Korean bellicose forces staging frantic anti-(North Korea) war moves,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted Gen. Kim Jong Gak as saying at a meeting in its capital. “Should the U.S. imperialists and their following forces misjudge (North Korea’s) will and act rashly,” North Korea’s people and army “will mercilessly wipe out the aggressors to the last man,” Kim said. [IHT, via AP]
KCNA’s denunciation came three days after Ulchi Focus Lens Freedom Guardian ended, but classic KCNA rhetoric like that is worth the wait. So where does that leave Agreed Framework 2.0? Let’s look at the key terms:
“A complete declaration of all nuclear programs ….” Not even close.
“[D]isablement of all existing nuclear facilities ….” Note the deal’s failure to specifically mention completed weapons or the uranium enrichment program they once admitted having, then later denied, but which was recently confirmed when they inadvertently provided the CIA with traces of enriched uranium in aluminum samples and “declaration” documents. Leaving those terms vague was supposed to, ahem, lubricate the negotiations, but what it did was build in vagueness that the North Koreans eventually took advantage of. A recent example is their repeated demands that we accept them as a nuclear power, which would seem to moot the whole point.
“[S]hut down and seal for the purpose of eventual abandonment the Yongbyon nuclear facility, including the reprocessing facility.” The North Koreans disabled one ancient 5-MW reactor that overuse and age had already just about disabled anyway. Now that they’re throwing the tantrum I forecast here, maybe the North Koreans can make good on their word to reverse the disablement, but I’m betting that it would be easier to fire up that nearly completed 50-MW reactor right next door, or even restart construction on that 200-MW reactor 13 miles to the north (note, by the way, that the agreement mentions “graphite-moderated reactors” — plural — but zero progress was made on disabling the larger reactors; I’ve previously posted satellite photos of all of these facilities here). By now, some of you are thinking that the North Koreans can’t afford all this construction. You assume too much.
“[S]tart bilateral talks aimed at resolving pending bilateral issues and moving toward full diplomatic relations.” Our State Department didn’t see the operation of a concentration camp system that would have made Stalin wince as an impediment to full diplomatic relations, but one man with courage did, at least for a moment, make a majority. Full diplomatic relations may be more than America can stomach for the moment.
“The US will begin the process of removing the designation of the DPRK as a state-sponsor of terrorism and advance the process of terminating the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to the DPRK.” As the North Koreans themselves love to stress, all of the obligations in this deal are mutual. Simply stated, they haven’t performed, yet we’ve delivered hundreds of thousands of tons of fuel oil and lifted TWEA sanctions. But did anyone really think the North Koreans would perform at all, even if — no, especially if — we gave them everything they wanted up front?
“[T]he Parties agreed to cooperate in economic, energy and humanitarian assistance to the DPRK.” Leaving aside whatever the Chinese are giving, or the South Koreans gave, in economic assistance, the U.S. has delivered both energy and humanitarian assistance. Speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the end of last month, Hill said, “To date, the DPRK has received approximately 420,000 tons of [heavy fuel oil] and equivalent assistance, including 134,000 tons of HFO provided by the United States.” That’s nearly half of the million tons we’d promised the North Koreans in exchange for their performance.
“The DPRK and Japan will start bilateral talks aimed at taking steps to normalize their relations … on the basis of the settlement of unfortunate past and the outstanding issues of concern.” Which is code-talk for North Korea’s abduction of Japanese right off the shores and streets of their own country. For a moment, it looked as if the North Koreans, having decided that the Bush administration was a dry tit, would try to court Japan. They had even hinted last May that they might just “find” a few more abductees in North Korea. Today, that’s also falling through. North Korea is now refusing to “re-investigate” the abduction allegations:
Japan has never been satisfied with North Korea’s investigation of the issue, in which Pyongyang determined in 2004 that eight of the 17 alleged abductees on Japan’s list had died. With hopes fading that North Korea can be persuaded to put aside those results and start over, unnamed sources said Japan has agreed only to urge the North to conduct a reinvestigation as swiftly as possible, the Kyodo news agency reported Sunday.
Sources told Kyodo the latest round of negotiations in the Chinese city of Shenyang was seen by Japanese officials as chance to get North Korea to agree to re-investigate the cases from scratch. But Pyongyang’s latest stance suggests it may want to uphold the results of its past investigation, which raises concern little new light would be shed on the abduction issue as a whole, the news agency said. [UPI]
I wonder where all of this leaves the regime’s finances. North Korea appears to have become seriously dependent on the South Koreans over a decade of leftist rule in the South, and the loss of unconditional South Korean aid seems to be having a significant effect. Their access to international finance remains spotty at best. Kim Jong Il was probably counting on a substantial infusion of aid from the Americans, but his own intransigence could jeopardize the continuation of new fuel oil deliveries. Japan probably can’t give significant aid or trade without progress on abductions.
Aside from the possibility of Vladimir Putin looking eastward for new ways to make mischief, that leaves just one major potential contributor, and so Lee Myung Bak is in Beijing chatting with Hu Jintao this week. I wonder if Chinese aid to North Korea will be mentioned.
Just imagine what some real pressure could do right now. With the North Koreans stalling and with America preoccupied with its own election, the political climate is right for it. With the regime on the verge of bankruptcy, the economics would amplify its efffectiveness. And with a presidential transition on the horizon, sanctions imposed today might have a way of lingering for a year or so before all of the new political appointees get moved into their new offices and get around to easing them.
GOOD READING
North Korea Policy – If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It…
by Hazel Smith
————————————————————–
Dr. Hazel Smith (Hazel.Smith@warwick.ac.uk) is Professor of International Relations at the University of Warwick, UK. She spent nearly two years living in North Korea while working for the UN’s World Food Programme and UNICEF. Currently a Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii, her recent books on North Korea include Hungry for Peace; International Security, Humanitarian Assistance and Social Change in North Korea (USIP press, 2005) and Reconstituting Korean Security (UN University press, 2007). Opinions expressed are her own. Opposing viewpoints are welcome.
————————————————————-
The current progress toward possible resolution of the long-lasting nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula is the result of the quite unlikely, somewhat unexpected, and very definitely unsung American foreign policy success that is the Bush administration’s present strategy on North Korea. After more than five decades of security crises, this bold new approach is unraveling tension and (hopefully) building peace in one of the world’s most volatile hot spots.
So while both Barack Obama and John McCain are running for president as “change†candidates eager to leave the “Dubya†years behind – particularly when it comes to salvaging America’s position as global foreign policy leader – they would be well advised not to toss out the promising baby of present North Korea policy with the Bush administration bathwater.
Why is the new administration policy of engagement so unlikely? Quite simply because President Bush made no secret of the fact that he ‘loathes’ Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s autocratic leader. North Korea was after all one of the three ‘axis of evil’ countries, along with Iran and Iraq.
It’s also rather unexpected, because Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill’s decision to dump the previous policy of non-diplomacy that had achieved zero results for American security and to deal with the North Korean government as a party that could indeed be negotiated with – irrespective of the deep differences in values and interests – flew in the face of the dominant received ‘wisdom’ of the insular beltway circles that comprise official Washington.
Also dumped was an out-of-date picture of North Korea that no longer represents – if it ever did – the reality of North Korean society and economy. The view still presented by those who ought to know better is that North Korea is socially and economically static, with a brainwashed population incapable of rational thinking. Maybe North Korea came close to this sometime in the 1950s and ‘60s, when the socialization process lauding the Kim family was most intense, and the government could afford to reward loyalty and insulate most North Koreans from the non-communist world.
Today, North Korea is a different country – still poor and politically repressed, but with a people that no longer rely on the state, since the state has not been able to feed them or provide a living wage for two decades. During and after the famine of the mid 1990s that killed up to a million people, North Koreans increasingly engaged in private market transactions for survival purposes. Today, the myriad official and unofficial opportunities for private market transactions provide their primary, and usually only, way of obtaining food and goods.
The majority of North Korea’s 23 million people have thus long given up on the government as an economic provider and equally abandoned any idea that there is much worth preserving in the political system. As a result, the North Korean state is now far more motivated to seek an international security and economic deal in order to help restore its legitimacy in the eyes of its own people
Thanks to an endemic poverty of analysis, the conventional wisdom in Washington failed to comprehend the scope of this socio-economic transformation, which is both the cause and the consequence of the wholesale, irreversible and embedded “marketization without (political) liberalization†of today’s North Korea.
Also forgotten until revived by Ambassador Hill and his team is the basic function of diplomacy, the very essence of which is to negotiate agreements with adversaries whose interests and values you do not share. The crazy policy that saw war as the only instrument of statecraft and all diplomacy as “appeasement†shows an appalling ignorance of history and realpolitik.
This perspective became dominant, however, because it was shared by a rather unholy alliance founded on a neo-conservative agenda (regime change by any means, because of human rights abuses) as well as that of millennial liberalism (human rights abuses, therefore regime change by any means). Both see dealing with North Korea as akin to supping with the devil.
Thus the emergence of Hill’s new approach is truly an unsung success story, because there are still many on President Bush’s side of the aisle who are privately – and publicly in the case of stalwarts like John Bolton – horrified at the thought of the United States doing any deal whatsoever with a regime they consider to be the reincarnation of Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia combined.
As a result, Secretary of State Rice must strive in this election year to maintain Republican unity by downplaying the significance of how far negotiations have come. Neither is it in the interests of the Democrats to laud a Republican administration’s success in any arena.
With a new president looking to distinguish himself from the previous administration, the temptation may be to shift toward a ‘new’ way of dealing with the issue. But a return to the failed policies of the past would mean more stalemate, more tension, North Korea probably producing more nuclear bombs, the North Korean people continuing to be denied the external investment they need for recovery and growth, and the continuing closure of the country to human rights dialogue.
Some might find it uncomfortable to celebrate a Bush administration foreign policy success. If so, how about thinking about what is happening on the Korea front as a victory for American diplomacy?
So far it is Senator Obama who seems to have the least problems operating a bipartisan foreign policy – his work with Senator Lugar on controlling arms proliferation sets a useful precedent. Ironically, it is Senator McCain who may likely want to repudiate the Bush administration’s success in foreign policy. He may calculate that “talking tough with dictators†might give him the campaign edge – no matter how much this has proved a failed policy in Korea for over half a century.
Not all change is good, and change for the sake of change is an empty policy. The message for Senators McCain and Obama? When it comes to North Korea policy – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
Well, one thing you can’t deny about Ms. Smith is her impeccable timing! Could she have picked a better day to sing that her “unsung success story” than the day the North Koreans pretty much pulled out of what little they haven’t already reneged on?
All true, though not really supportive of Ms. Smith’s argument. The policies that she advocates would prolong — but not stop — the agony whose result is inevitable. And can we all agree, once and for all, that it’s not Vietnam-style economic reforms, gradual confederation with the South, or anything else gradual that’s at all good? You’d have to been serving on a sequestered jury for the last year to believe otherwise.
“very definitely unsung American foreign policy success”–Success by who’s standard, I wonder? Kim Jong Il’s? Even he seems unhappy of late.
“The crazy policy that saw war as the only instrument of statecraft and all diplomacy as “appeasement†shows an appalling ignorance of history and realpolitik.”–Hmm. I don’t know where to begin with this one. Actually, I do. But what’s the point. Appalling it is, indeed, the stupendous ignorance of history and realpolitik on the part of the writer.
If you are prone to calling what has transpired (or not) over the past year and half as a “success,” well, I guess you might also call the sham trial of OJ a success, in that it deterred potential future murders. But, whereas, like, you know, we’re talking here not of potentiality but actually actuality, like, you know, hundreds of thousands of innocent victims (ie, real human beings) wasting away in political prisoner concentration camps and/or starving to death. “Unsung” it surely is, this “success” story.
I met Hazel Smith a few years back at Penn. I thought she had a lock on the Upper-Class Twit (to quote Monty Python) prize, but that was before His Excellency Jacques Rogge exploded onto the scene…