South Korea will publish it latest Defense White Paper February 4, the first since 2001. In the paper, North Korea will no longer be listed as the “Main Enemy” of South Korea, but instead will be called a "substantial military threat that has posed a direct threat" to South Korea.
The “main enemy” phrase has been a contentious issue that has basically preceded the publication of the White Paper for the past few years.
The new descriptor, which doesn’t really roll off the tongue like “main enemy” did, is, of course, stirring dissent among the various (OK, two) political parties. For Pyongyang, this is another notch off its international bad boy image, after so recently being downgraded from a charter member of the Axis of Evil to one of several “outposts of tyranny.”
But more importantly, the altered phrase represents another subtle step in the uni-direction of the two Koreas – the semi-integration and the growing parallel between the national interests of each side as the realities of the post-post Cold War world set in.
During the Cold War, the two Koreas had external sponsors, and the fundamental national interest of each Korea was more similar to its mentor/sponsor than to the peninsula as a whole.
The collapse of the Cold war system not only left the North out hanging, but the south as well began to look toward guarding its own interests and realizing that not all of those interests were the same as those of the United States.
Now, for example, take the article in the Asahi Shimbun, which warns that products made in Kaesong, the South/North joint production area just north of the DMZ, could be a stumbling block to a South Korea-Japan Free trade Agreement. Tokyo is looking to toss sanctions on North Korea, but goods produced in Kaesong will be stamped with the label “Made in North Korea.”
Now, Seoul could get out of this by simply changing the labels – products from Myanmar frequently bear the label “Made in Thailand” to bypass international sanctions. But Seoul is unlikely to go along with that, and neither is Pyongyang. Both have an interest in making Kaesong work, in whatever manner. And both are looking at Japan and once again seeing a rising neighbor that appears to have its sights set on regional political, economic and – if you read the DPRK papers – military domination. (Even in Seoul there is a repressed fear of a resurgent militaristic Japan rising at a time when the United States is withdrawing from South Korea.)
And so, tiny steps toward rapprochement between the two Koreas are being driven by more than political posturing, but by the growing realization in both capitals that the fundamental strategic interests are merging. How far and how fast this process can move is still dependent upon the personal interests of the elites in both Koreas, and that will certainly retard the process. But, unless outside nations once again take on the role of sponsors of the divided Koreas, the peninsula will once again see itself fundamentally as a single entity, pressed and threatened by its neighbors.
31 January 2005
26 January 2005
Gadhafi to Kim: “Dump the Nukes”
From Yonhap today:
All fine and dandy for Gadhafi to say, but he forgets a few fundamental facts, not the least of which is that Libya has proven oil reserves of 36 billion barrels. Once again, the Libyan model is not viable for Pyongyang, because once it gives up its nuclear weapons and program, only South Korea has a real reason or need to deal with North Korea. Libya, however, still has something to offer.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said Tuesday North Korea should follow the African country's footstep and give up its nuclear program. Gadhafi made the comment at a 40-minute meeting with South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon at his residence.
All fine and dandy for Gadhafi to say, but he forgets a few fundamental facts, not the least of which is that Libya has proven oil reserves of 36 billion barrels. Once again, the Libyan model is not viable for Pyongyang, because once it gives up its nuclear weapons and program, only South Korea has a real reason or need to deal with North Korea. Libya, however, still has something to offer.
24 January 2005
Unification or Uni-Direction?
The Unification of the two Korea’s has been a hot topic for discussion for the past half century, and the nearness of the fifth anniversary of the 2000 Inter-Korean summit is likely to raise another round of public musings on the best method, timing and likelihood of reunification.
So I thought I’d get a head start.
What follows is not a suggestion – I am anything BUT a policy proscriber, and have often taken issue with those who, for whatever reason, feel they are better qualified to guide and chastise the paths of nation states than their own leadership or people (but more on that another time, as this very brief aside seems to paint me as an isolationist or an apologist for totalitarian regimes). What I am is an observer, and will offer my observations without hesitation (for better or worse). What is DONE with those observations is up to others.
I have a simple, if startling, observation on the two Koreas – or more accurately, a question: Does unification really matter?
Now, before you leap all over me or have my blog blocked in Seoul, let me explain. For fifty years, both Koreas eyed one another as an imminent threat, and both waited for the best moment to invade and destroy the leadership of the other. While Pyongyang gave it a shot in 1950, Seoul has several times prepared to return the favor, restrained by the united States and a defense agreement that hamstrung the South Korean military from gaining the offensive weaponry necessary to roll North.
I make no judgment on good or bad, right or wrong here, just on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the policy. In the end, Seoul ended up under Washington’s nuclear umbrella, yet possessed few if any weapons capable of reaching Pyongyang, while the entirety of the Korean peninsula was within range of North Korean weapons.
With the end of the Cold War, the issue of Korean unification would have dropped off the map in the United States, and this is something Pyongyang was painfully aware of. As Communist nations collapsed in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union disintegrated and the Chinese Communist Party not only embraced capitalism but also the government in Seoul, the North Korean leadership was staring down the blade of the grim reaper, and mortality is rarely a pretty sight.
Thus, nuclear crises and the offering of an inter-Korean summit. This is 1994, not 2000, and it is Kim Il Sung, not his semi-legitimate heir Kim Jong Il, who shares none of his father’s revolutionary credentials, and little of his good looks or charm. The elder Kim’s demise, not long before the expected arrival of South Korean president Kim Young Sam, threw a wet blanket over inter-Korean relations as Pyongyang sorted out its leadership – and direction.
Successive nuclear and missile crises have been Kim Jong Il’s ways of remaining relevant as well as offering a bargaining chip through which to gain concessions from the United States. Ultimately for Kim the younger (and likely for Kim the elder in his last few years), the goal was and remains a peace accord with Washington. Just as China benefited from Nixon’s visit, North Korea observes, so too can Pyongyang gain, and still not risk its leadership.
But with Washington thinking otherwise, and calling North Korea’s nuclear bluff, and with Kim Jong Il not having the credentials to be able to reverse the past fifty years of existence and simply give u Juche and Songun policies and embrace the South, a change of relations with the united States and unification with the South appears far off.
Enter the change in thinking. Say what you will about North Korea’s leadership, it is clever – otherwise, how do you explain their survival? Pyongyang is seeking accommodation with the South, and the South, with the change in U.S. security posture and regional polices since the end of the Cold War, appears willing. Both Seoul and Pyongyang eye a militarily resurgent Japan warily, and both know they need the other to stand a fighting chance – be it on the economic or military front.
And this is where the policy (or natural shift) of uni-direction comes in. If you ever suffered through calculus, there was something called limits, and basically you can imagine two lines converging, but never quite meeting. This is the path I see the two Koreas on. The fundamental national interests are merging. The end of the Cold War global structure has left this remnant of the old system sitting as an anomaly, and the old underwriters of the two sides – China, Russia and the United States – seem to have little time for their former proxies.
As competition between Japan and China rises and Washington re-shapes its strategic vision of East Asia, the two Koreas see fewer real differences in their regional strategic outlooks. The combined population, resources, technologies and human capital of a combined Korea, coupled with the close sense of ethno-nationalism and the willingness to sacrifice for the common good would make a re-unified Korea a powerful competitor in Northeast Asia. Or so they hope.
But there are limitations. The most obvious are ideology and economy. With the latter, Seoul has looked at the reunification of the Germanies and realized that the economic disparity between the two states – not just in GDP but in the very systems of the economies – would lead to a significant upheaval in socio-economic patterns should reunification happen soon and suddenly. Seoul is encouraging investment in the North in order to plant the seeds of cooperation and slowly reshape the Northern economy, but this is a generations-long project. Should one side or the other suddenly collapse, a fear of economics wont keep the two Koreas apart.
Ideology, then, is the limiting factor. The biggest thing holding the two Koreas apart is the inability of the elite on either side of the DMZ to find a way to rejoin without de-legitimizing one or the other ideology – and leadership. The leaders – and the entire elite class – in the North would lose tremendous privileges should there be reunification, and this is something they cannot countenance. And in the South, the idea of “Communizing” the economy is laughable, and tossing away hard-won democracy would be unacceptable to the populace.
The compromise of re-establishing the monarchy – even for show – still leaves the underlying tensions of rectifying the ideological underpinnings of the two systems into a single unified core.
But this does not prevent a certain moving in the same direction on the international stage. Whether through consultations (public or private) or simply by natural law, the two Koreas are moving back toward a single direction. Neither has real designs on spreading its ideology around the region or world, and the leadership in both states is pragmatic enough to know that their ideology and system cannot simply and swiftly replace the other anytime soon.
So like those annoying limits in calculus, the direction of the two Koreas moves closer and closer, never quite touching. On obvious issues – Japanese leadership visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, Chinese claims of Koguryo – the two Koreas speak as one. But the subtler issues remain un-broached – at least in the public eye.
The current status of a divided Korea is an anomaly. It is an untenable anomaly in a post-Cold War system. And while Unification may still be a decade or three away – baring any massive regional upheaval – uni-direction seems already well underway.
So I thought I’d get a head start.
What follows is not a suggestion – I am anything BUT a policy proscriber, and have often taken issue with those who, for whatever reason, feel they are better qualified to guide and chastise the paths of nation states than their own leadership or people (but more on that another time, as this very brief aside seems to paint me as an isolationist or an apologist for totalitarian regimes). What I am is an observer, and will offer my observations without hesitation (for better or worse). What is DONE with those observations is up to others.
I have a simple, if startling, observation on the two Koreas – or more accurately, a question: Does unification really matter?
Now, before you leap all over me or have my blog blocked in Seoul, let me explain. For fifty years, both Koreas eyed one another as an imminent threat, and both waited for the best moment to invade and destroy the leadership of the other. While Pyongyang gave it a shot in 1950, Seoul has several times prepared to return the favor, restrained by the united States and a defense agreement that hamstrung the South Korean military from gaining the offensive weaponry necessary to roll North.
I make no judgment on good or bad, right or wrong here, just on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the policy. In the end, Seoul ended up under Washington’s nuclear umbrella, yet possessed few if any weapons capable of reaching Pyongyang, while the entirety of the Korean peninsula was within range of North Korean weapons.
With the end of the Cold War, the issue of Korean unification would have dropped off the map in the United States, and this is something Pyongyang was painfully aware of. As Communist nations collapsed in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union disintegrated and the Chinese Communist Party not only embraced capitalism but also the government in Seoul, the North Korean leadership was staring down the blade of the grim reaper, and mortality is rarely a pretty sight.
Thus, nuclear crises and the offering of an inter-Korean summit. This is 1994, not 2000, and it is Kim Il Sung, not his semi-legitimate heir Kim Jong Il, who shares none of his father’s revolutionary credentials, and little of his good looks or charm. The elder Kim’s demise, not long before the expected arrival of South Korean president Kim Young Sam, threw a wet blanket over inter-Korean relations as Pyongyang sorted out its leadership – and direction.
Successive nuclear and missile crises have been Kim Jong Il’s ways of remaining relevant as well as offering a bargaining chip through which to gain concessions from the United States. Ultimately for Kim the younger (and likely for Kim the elder in his last few years), the goal was and remains a peace accord with Washington. Just as China benefited from Nixon’s visit, North Korea observes, so too can Pyongyang gain, and still not risk its leadership.
But with Washington thinking otherwise, and calling North Korea’s nuclear bluff, and with Kim Jong Il not having the credentials to be able to reverse the past fifty years of existence and simply give u Juche and Songun policies and embrace the South, a change of relations with the united States and unification with the South appears far off.
Enter the change in thinking. Say what you will about North Korea’s leadership, it is clever – otherwise, how do you explain their survival? Pyongyang is seeking accommodation with the South, and the South, with the change in U.S. security posture and regional polices since the end of the Cold War, appears willing. Both Seoul and Pyongyang eye a militarily resurgent Japan warily, and both know they need the other to stand a fighting chance – be it on the economic or military front.
And this is where the policy (or natural shift) of uni-direction comes in. If you ever suffered through calculus, there was something called limits, and basically you can imagine two lines converging, but never quite meeting. This is the path I see the two Koreas on. The fundamental national interests are merging. The end of the Cold War global structure has left this remnant of the old system sitting as an anomaly, and the old underwriters of the two sides – China, Russia and the United States – seem to have little time for their former proxies.
As competition between Japan and China rises and Washington re-shapes its strategic vision of East Asia, the two Koreas see fewer real differences in their regional strategic outlooks. The combined population, resources, technologies and human capital of a combined Korea, coupled with the close sense of ethno-nationalism and the willingness to sacrifice for the common good would make a re-unified Korea a powerful competitor in Northeast Asia. Or so they hope.
But there are limitations. The most obvious are ideology and economy. With the latter, Seoul has looked at the reunification of the Germanies and realized that the economic disparity between the two states – not just in GDP but in the very systems of the economies – would lead to a significant upheaval in socio-economic patterns should reunification happen soon and suddenly. Seoul is encouraging investment in the North in order to plant the seeds of cooperation and slowly reshape the Northern economy, but this is a generations-long project. Should one side or the other suddenly collapse, a fear of economics wont keep the two Koreas apart.
Ideology, then, is the limiting factor. The biggest thing holding the two Koreas apart is the inability of the elite on either side of the DMZ to find a way to rejoin without de-legitimizing one or the other ideology – and leadership. The leaders – and the entire elite class – in the North would lose tremendous privileges should there be reunification, and this is something they cannot countenance. And in the South, the idea of “Communizing” the economy is laughable, and tossing away hard-won democracy would be unacceptable to the populace.
The compromise of re-establishing the monarchy – even for show – still leaves the underlying tensions of rectifying the ideological underpinnings of the two systems into a single unified core.
But this does not prevent a certain moving in the same direction on the international stage. Whether through consultations (public or private) or simply by natural law, the two Koreas are moving back toward a single direction. Neither has real designs on spreading its ideology around the region or world, and the leadership in both states is pragmatic enough to know that their ideology and system cannot simply and swiftly replace the other anytime soon.
So like those annoying limits in calculus, the direction of the two Koreas moves closer and closer, never quite touching. On obvious issues – Japanese leadership visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, Chinese claims of Koguryo – the two Koreas speak as one. But the subtler issues remain un-broached – at least in the public eye.
The current status of a divided Korea is an anomaly. It is an untenable anomaly in a post-Cold War system. And while Unification may still be a decade or three away – baring any massive regional upheaval – uni-direction seems already well underway.
20 January 2005
Demoted to "Outpost of Tyranny"
The invasion and drawn out occupation of Iraq has led to the disbandment of the Axis of Evil – something that until recently left Iran and North Korea searching for their place in the world. But that waiting game is at an end, now that U.S. Secretary of State designate Condoleezza Rice has included both North Korea and Iran in the new “Outposts of Tyranny,” along with Myanmar, Cuba, Belarus and Zimbabwe.
This marks a serious step down as far as Pyongyang is concerned. “Axis of Evil” denoted a centrality of design and – well – evil. There was a mental connection to the last “Axis,” that of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. There was a direct lineage form the last “Evil,” the “Evil Empire” of the Soviet Union.
Inclusion in the exclusive Axis of Evil brought with it a certain cache, and, for Pyongyang, promised (or so they hoped) a major position in U.S. foreign policy initiatives. In fact, U.S. President George W. Bush, in his January 2002 State of the Union Address, stated clearly that the second goal of the United States, after shutting down terrorist training camps, was to “prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction.” And the first among these was North Korea.
In October 2002, Pyongyang let “slip” that it had the “right” to have a Uranium nuclear program, triggering the 2003 nuclear crisis, one planned for several years by North Korea. This revelation was supposed to scare Washington into signing a peace accord to replace the Armistice Agreement that had ended the Korean War 50 years earlier. That, in turn, was to lead to diplomatic relations, or at least a non-aggression treaty. And that was to provide the assurances Pyongyang craved (and felt necessary) to allow some additional economic experiments without risking the U.S. taking advantage of the situation and undermining the North Korean regime amid the economic reforms.
None of that, however, happened. Washington did invade Iraq, raising hopes by North Korea that it, or Iran, would take center stage next. Washington then engaged Iran in secret negotiations regarding Iraq, and had some bickering over Iran’s nuclear program, which the United States left to Europe to deal with. North Korea got the short end of Axis agenda, receiving primarily neglect from Washington.
With the essential disappearance of the Axis of Evil, Pyongyang was looking at another four years of being on Bush’s back burner. So Rice’s inclusion of North Korea among the Outposts of Tyranny was at least a small consolation for being the one ignored member of the Axis of Evil. Among the Outpost states (which in their title bring to mind something Grand Moff Tarkin would set up), at least North Korea and Iran have something somewhat frightening in their military capability and rumors of nuclear arms. The rest of the group are in pretty sad shape, and being lumped in with Cuba, Myanmar, Belarus and Zimbabwe is anything but flattering, even in a diabolical sense.
While Minsk and Harare may feel they have been elevated (however unwelcome) in Washington’s eyes (and gun sites?), Pyongyang has definitely taken a step down the ladder of significant evil. And this bodes ill for Pyongyang’s strategy of bluffing the world into concessions with pseudo-crises and threats of igniting seas of fire – a strategy that requires others to take the North Korean seriously. And if Rice’s comments are any indication, serious is certainly NOT the word to put next to Washington’s assessment of North Korea for the next four years.
This marks a serious step down as far as Pyongyang is concerned. “Axis of Evil” denoted a centrality of design and – well – evil. There was a mental connection to the last “Axis,” that of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. There was a direct lineage form the last “Evil,” the “Evil Empire” of the Soviet Union.
Inclusion in the exclusive Axis of Evil brought with it a certain cache, and, for Pyongyang, promised (or so they hoped) a major position in U.S. foreign policy initiatives. In fact, U.S. President George W. Bush, in his January 2002 State of the Union Address, stated clearly that the second goal of the United States, after shutting down terrorist training camps, was to “prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction.” And the first among these was North Korea.
In October 2002, Pyongyang let “slip” that it had the “right” to have a Uranium nuclear program, triggering the 2003 nuclear crisis, one planned for several years by North Korea. This revelation was supposed to scare Washington into signing a peace accord to replace the Armistice Agreement that had ended the Korean War 50 years earlier. That, in turn, was to lead to diplomatic relations, or at least a non-aggression treaty. And that was to provide the assurances Pyongyang craved (and felt necessary) to allow some additional economic experiments without risking the U.S. taking advantage of the situation and undermining the North Korean regime amid the economic reforms.
None of that, however, happened. Washington did invade Iraq, raising hopes by North Korea that it, or Iran, would take center stage next. Washington then engaged Iran in secret negotiations regarding Iraq, and had some bickering over Iran’s nuclear program, which the United States left to Europe to deal with. North Korea got the short end of Axis agenda, receiving primarily neglect from Washington.
With the essential disappearance of the Axis of Evil, Pyongyang was looking at another four years of being on Bush’s back burner. So Rice’s inclusion of North Korea among the Outposts of Tyranny was at least a small consolation for being the one ignored member of the Axis of Evil. Among the Outpost states (which in their title bring to mind something Grand Moff Tarkin would set up), at least North Korea and Iran have something somewhat frightening in their military capability and rumors of nuclear arms. The rest of the group are in pretty sad shape, and being lumped in with Cuba, Myanmar, Belarus and Zimbabwe is anything but flattering, even in a diabolical sense.
While Minsk and Harare may feel they have been elevated (however unwelcome) in Washington’s eyes (and gun sites?), Pyongyang has definitely taken a step down the ladder of significant evil. And this bodes ill for Pyongyang’s strategy of bluffing the world into concessions with pseudo-crises and threats of igniting seas of fire – a strategy that requires others to take the North Korean seriously. And if Rice’s comments are any indication, serious is certainly NOT the word to put next to Washington’s assessment of North Korea for the next four years.
15 January 2005
Kim Jong Il Guides Heavy Industry
Kim Jong Il has made three public appearances thus far this year, the first to the Pukjung Machine Complex, the second to the September General Iron Enterprise and the third to the Rakwon Machine Complex. Obviously January is the month of heavy industry. (To track Kim Jong Il’s public appearances, see Where Is Kim Jong Il)
But it is also notable that Kim’s first three visits are to North Phyongan Province, location of Sinuiju and Ryongchon . It is also home to heavy industry, and a frequent stop of Kim’s industrial tours.
Kim visited the Rakwon Machine Complex in Sinuiju during a province-wide industrial sector tour in January 2000, and paid other guidance visits to the site in October 2002 and May 2004. He visited the Pukjung Machine Complex in May 2000 and again in December 2001 during a field guidance tour of industrial sites in the province, particularly around Sinuiju.
Kim’s choice of initial locations to visit suggests a few things. First, the push for economic strengthening is alive and well, and obviously seen in the attempt to inspire heavy industry. Second, the focus on North Phyongan continues. This is the area, right near the Chinese border and with its own access to the sea, that Kim hopes to be the heartland of the new industrial North Korea.
It was Sinuiju that was chosen as the now defunct special economic zone/special administrative region, and the city has long been eyed by Pyongyang as the preferable location for foreign investment, even if it has begrudgingly accepted Kaesong for the major inter-Korean industrial facilities.
But there is one more thing – the potential that Kim was in China or meeting with Chinese officials secretly during the first days of the month. From December 31 through January 11, Kim is nowhere to be found. It is not a long disappearance, and Kim has in the past waited nearly two weeks to show his face, but the Dear Leader has been known to bop over to China unannounced from time to time.
Just as an addendum, over the past few years, Kim’s first month or so of public visits have varied widely.
1998 – Power production in Jagang Province, many military visits
1999 – Power production and land reclamation, military visits
2000 – Land rezoning and industry in North Phyongan
2001 – Trip to China, light and heavy industry and power in North Phyongan
2002 – Locomotive factory, many military visits
2003 – Land realignment in South Phyongan, many military visits
2004 – Military
2005 – Heavy industry
But it is also notable that Kim’s first three visits are to North Phyongan Province, location of Sinuiju and Ryongchon . It is also home to heavy industry, and a frequent stop of Kim’s industrial tours.
Kim visited the Rakwon Machine Complex in Sinuiju during a province-wide industrial sector tour in January 2000, and paid other guidance visits to the site in October 2002 and May 2004. He visited the Pukjung Machine Complex in May 2000 and again in December 2001 during a field guidance tour of industrial sites in the province, particularly around Sinuiju.
Kim’s choice of initial locations to visit suggests a few things. First, the push for economic strengthening is alive and well, and obviously seen in the attempt to inspire heavy industry. Second, the focus on North Phyongan continues. This is the area, right near the Chinese border and with its own access to the sea, that Kim hopes to be the heartland of the new industrial North Korea.
It was Sinuiju that was chosen as the now defunct special economic zone/special administrative region, and the city has long been eyed by Pyongyang as the preferable location for foreign investment, even if it has begrudgingly accepted Kaesong for the major inter-Korean industrial facilities.
But there is one more thing – the potential that Kim was in China or meeting with Chinese officials secretly during the first days of the month. From December 31 through January 11, Kim is nowhere to be found. It is not a long disappearance, and Kim has in the past waited nearly two weeks to show his face, but the Dear Leader has been known to bop over to China unannounced from time to time.
Just as an addendum, over the past few years, Kim’s first month or so of public visits have varied widely.
1998 – Power production in Jagang Province, many military visits
1999 – Power production and land reclamation, military visits
2000 – Land rezoning and industry in North Phyongan
2001 – Trip to China, light and heavy industry and power in North Phyongan
2002 – Locomotive factory, many military visits
2003 – Land realignment in South Phyongan, many military visits
2004 – Military
2005 – Heavy industry
07 January 2005
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