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Reorienting U.S.-Korea Relations: On February 25, 2005, a group of scholars and Koreanists came together to assess the past four years of interactions between the United States and the two Koreas in light of the reelection of George W. Bush to a second term as U.S. president. The conference was presented by the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea (ASCK) and sponsored by the George Washington University-Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the Korea Economic Institute, with financial support from the Korean Foundation. Several presenters drew from their chapter contributions to a recent volume of Asian Perspective: Special Issue on Transforming U.S.-Korean Relations (December 2004) in recommending ways to reorient U.S. policy toward achieving peaceful outcomes on the Korean peninsula. An audience of more than 120 people listened to the two panels, the first on changes in East Asia , the second on changes in the United States. PANEL ONE In the first panel discussion, Columbia University professor Charles Armstrong argued that there were three possible approaches the United States could take toward North Korea : coercion, isolation, or engagement. Isolation and coercion, he argued, had not worked. Demonizing North Korea and its leader Kim Jong Il had aggravated the crisis such that today, unlike the 1990s after the Agreed Framework was signed, North Korea has a much more viable nuclear weapons program. Indeed, as a result of these failed approaches, North Korea has felt more than ever the need to have nuclear weapons to defend itself against perceived coercive measures. The United States should therefore learn from its mistakes, Armstrong suggested, and pursue the third option of engagement. Instead of diplomatic recognition as the endpoint of negotiations, something that North Korea would receive as a reward, Armstrong recommended that recognition precede negotiations. The various disputes between the two countries would, in fact, be more easily negotiated within normalized relations. He concluded by citing Tony Blair's strategy for dealing with the United States during the lead-up to the Iraq war. It was best, Blair advised, to “hug them close” in order to best influence Washington 's policies. So, too, should the United States hug North Korea close, Armstrong said, so that we could have more influence over Pyongyang 's policies. Youngshik Bong, a professor at Wellesley College and George Washington University, examined the notion that anti-Americanism is prevalent in South Korea . Anti-Americanism is not, he argued, an inherent part of Korean identity but is instead closely related to Korean concerns over national security . Moreover, However, anti-American sentiment is a generational phenomenon, with younger South Koreans more likely than the older generation to express opposition to American policies, a generation gap that does not appear in neighboring Japan or China . South Korean college students by a margin of nine to one declared in a 2003 poll that they would support North Korea in a hypothetical soccer match with the United States (in 1990, the margin was eight to one). At the same time, the young generation is not unconditionally pro-North Korean but pragmatic . It dislikes the Kim Jong Il regime, is not particularly enthusiastic about making personal financial sacrifices on behalf of either North Korean defectors or reunification policies, and considers the war in Iraq an invasion not a just war (but supports as inevitable the dispatch of Korean troops to the conflict). In other respects, however, there is consensus across the generations. According to polls, even Korean supporters of the opposition Grand National Party prefer by a margin of three to one that the United States use persuasion and not pressure to reach a settlement with North Korea . And an overwhelming majority of South Koreans believe that the security alliance with the United States is in South Korea 's interest. Understanding relations between China and North Korea, Jim Seymour of Columbia University argued in the third presentation, is not an easy task. He quoted a recent William Triplett essay in The Washington Times to the effect that China was to blame for supplying North Korea with nuclear weapons designs and permitting Pyongyang to carry out various illicit activities (drug dealing, arms smuggling) on its territory. But, Seymour pointed out, China has in fact become a great deal more responsible in its relations with its neighbor. To the extent that it has influence over Pyongyang , Beijing has worked to contain its neighbor's nuclear ambitions and has tried to persuade it to move forward with economic reforms. At the same time, Beijing 's influence, while greater than that of any other country, remains limited. China wants to ensure a nuclear-free Korean peninsula -- for its own security and to prevent Japan from becoming militarized – but also the survival of the regime in Pyongyang . The collapse of the North Korean government would mean, for China , a large refugee outflow, the rise of a too-powerful South Korea , and the potential placement of U.S. troops on its border. At the same time, China wants to avoid antagonizing North Korea or appearing to be too pro-U.S. Discussant Mike Mochizuki of the Sigur Center suggested that of the three possible approaches the United States could take toward North Korea , the military option was implausible and ignoring the country was unlikely. Which left the current administration with some kind of engagement policy. He recommended finding a middle ground between “hawk engagement,” which seeks to squeeze the country in order to precipitate collapse, and the “hug close” strategy of positive engagement. A serious deal, he argued, would combine carrots and sticks. The problem with the Bush administration's policy in the first term was that it combined virtually no carrots with sticks the size of a toothpick. Better would be for the United States to adopt a negotiating strategy that offered big carrots but also threatened big sticks if North Korea did not comply. In terms of the other actors in the region, Mochizuki argued that South Korea was providing carrots and no sticks while a sea change was taking place in Japanese attitudes in the direction of a more hard-line stance. The Bush administration, meanwhile, was putting too much emphasis on China 's ability to influence North Korea 's behavior and bring it to the negotiating table. In the question-and-answer period, audience members asked six questions about: the possibility that the Bush administration has an underlying goal of regime change in North Korea; Pyongyang's reception of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI); the potential for a nuclear-free zone to come together in Northeast Asia; the likelihood of China playing an even more active role in the Six Party Talks; the steps the South Korean government has taken with regard to anti-American sentiment; and the applicability of the Libyan model to the current nuclear crisis. In response, panelists noted that the Bush administration's use of personal invective against North Korea and its leadership – including Condoleezza Rice's most recent rhetoric of “outposts of tyranny” – suggested an underlying commitment to regime change or so Pyongyang would infer. PSI, too, would imply, for Pyongyang , a commitment by the U.S. government to isolate and ultimately bring down the regime; the non-participation of China and South Korea , however, make PSI a less effective strategy. The Six-Party Talks might eventually yield a nuclear free zone in the region; the Talks won't likely succeed in producing an agreement, however, unless China decides to “make it happen,” which will probably require some bilateral discussions within the multilateral framework. The South Korean government tried in early 2003, at the peak of anti-American sentiment, to talk about the economic aspects of national security in the hopes that the younger generation, which did not have personal experience of the Korean War, would respond to appeals based on affluence rather than military security. Finally, the Libyan model offers both parallels and important differences. North Korea wants, like Libya , to “come in from the cold” and China might play the role Britain played. At the same time, the North Korean nuclear program is more advanced than Libya's and Pyongyang might not be willing to give up its nuclear bargaining chip; Qaddafi needed the external assistance but Kim Jong Il might be receiving sufficient external aid from China to keep the regime going without a deal. PANEL TWO In the second panel, the editor of the Asian Perspective special edition John Feffer argued that the Bush administration has three levels of policy toward North Korea . At the negotiating level, U.S. diplomats are sincerely trying to reach a deal with North Korea but the negotiating framework is so structured to make such an agreement unlikely. Meanwhile, an influential group within the administration – which believes, in the words of Dick Cheney, that “one does not negotiate with evil, one defeats evil” – has embraced a policy of malign neglect; this group believes that isolating the regime and withholding support for its economic reforms will eventually precipitate the government's collapse. At the same time, a third group within the administration is supporting the active destabilization of the North Korean regime – harassing the North Korean military (the Pentagon's Operational Plan 5030), running “black reconnaissance” through the Pentagon, planning the penetration of operatives in North Korea (according to Porter Goss's admission late in 2004), exploring the potential of cooperation with China on engineering a coup, engaging in psychological operations (such as encouraging rumors that the regime is near collapse), and providing money to non-governmental organizations to infiltrate ideas, resources, and people into the country. These three simultaneous strategies produce a policy that is “inscrutable” to outsiders. Feffer cited the case of South Korea , where the U.S. is actively working with Seoul to reach a negotiated settlement at the 6-Party Talks, is putting pressure on Seoul to dilute its engagement policy with the North, and is circumventing the South Korean government to work with civic groups more supportive of bringing down the regime in Pyongyang . Congress has been focusing increasingly on human rights in North Korea , reported Karin Lee of Friends Committee on National Legislation. This is a major shift in emphasis from the 1990s, when Congress focused almost exclusively on security issues and North Korea 's nuclear program in particular. When security issues cropped up again in 2002, as the 1994 Agreed Framework fell apart and North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Congress failed to address the crisis. Instead, legislative attention focused on the North Korea Freedom Act, which included language that would have severely limited the administration's ability to conclude an agreement with North Korea . Although the successor bill, the North Korea Human Rights Act that passed in 2004, does not have that language or any endorsement of regime change, concerns remain that it will have a negative impact on security negotiations and the humanitarian and refugee crises. A follow-up bill, the “End Dictatorship, Assist Democracy” Act, may put more pressure on the United States to make any agreement with North Korea contingent on democratization within that country, according to reports in the South Korean press. Congress, Lee argued, should refocus its attention on security issues, by allocating funds for denuclearization should an agreement be reached and investigating ways of implementing such denuclearization. Wellesley professor Katharine Moon spoke on the influence of the Korean-American community on U.S. policies toward the peninsula. When she first became involved in Korean affairs in 1985, there were practically no Korean-Americans in the State Department of the Foreign Service. Now there are many active Korean-Americans in the State Department, elsewhere in the administration, and working as staffers in Congress. Many Korean-Americans are also involved in humanitarian efforts toward North Korea . When the door to substantial investment in North Korea opens, Korean Americans will play a pivotal role. As in South Korea , a generation gap has emerged in the Korean-American community as younger people support active engagement while the older generation maintains an anti-communist stance. To increase its influence, the Korean-American community should debate differences of opinion and bridge differences in generational perspective. The Washington policy-making community should provide more opportunities for Koreanists to help in the formation of policy. And the U.S. government should acknowledge its moral and historical obligations to South Korea and taking those into account in developing policy toward the Korean peninsula. As respondent, Joseph Winder of the Korean Economic Institute (KEI) argued that U.S. policy was not so much inscrutable as kaleidoscopic, that a split has emerged between those in the administration who focus on functional matters (non-proliferation) and those who focus on regional issues (relations with allies), and that there is no reason why a deal can't be achieved in the multilateral format of the Six-Party Talks. He noted that the discussion of human rights and the nuclear crisis has often been at odds when it should proceed instead on separate but parallel tracks. And he noted that while KEI was proud to have had a Koreanist in a senior staff position, Korean-Americans and Koreanists were indeed under-represented in the political process. In the question-and-answer period, one person commented on the negative associations of the phrase “carrots and sticks.” Another raised the abduction of foreigners issue, particularly as it related to Japan . A third touched on the importance of conflict resolution techniques in negotiations. A fourth wanted more information on how the U.S. government was circumventing the South Korean government. In their responses, the panelists noted that “carrots and sticks” indeed had derogatory implications, that even the term “soft landing” implied that the piloting skills of the current leadership in Pyongyang as well as their personal futures were in question, that the NED was funding organizations in South Korea whose political views were sharply at odds with the Roh Moo Hyun administration, and that the abduction issue was indeed quite a sensitive one but should be understood in the larger historical relationship between the two Koreas and Japan. |
