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To the White House officials who prepared the first draft of the June 16 Washington communiqué issued by Presidents Obama and Lee, the words seemed like routine rhetoric. “The alliance,” said the communiqué, “aims to establish a durable peace on the Korean peninsula leading to peaceful reunification on the principles of free democracy and a market economy.” However, this was not routine rhetoric. The phrase “free democracy and a market economy” was a direct and potentially disastrous assault on the fundamental principle of the coexistence of differing systems, leading to reunification through confederation that was enshrined in the June 2000 and October 2007 North-South Presidential summit declarations. To North Korea, this reversal meant that the goal of Washington and Seoul is once again the absorption of North Korea by South Korea. So it was not surprising that a government mouthpiece in Pyongyang, Tongil Sinbo, bitterly attacked the communiqué as signaling “reunification through absorption” as the goal of Washington and Seoul. “This was definitely a change in our position,” commented a State Department official concerned with Korea. “Our previous position was what George Bush told the National Assembly in 1992, which is the U.S. people favor ‘peaceful unification on terms acceptable to the Korean people,’ and this formulation does sound like absorption,” the official said. I asked where in the U.S. government the change had come from, or whether it came from the ROK side. He replied, “Ask the NSC.” This was a reference to the National Security Council, where Deputy Chairman Denis McDonough has been supervising Korea policy since the Obama Administration took office. McDonough has no previous Korea-related experience prior to joining the Administration. Even before the summit, Lee Myung Bak had made a big mistake when he casually announced after his election that he was not committed to the two North-South summit declarations and would “review” them. To my surprise, few in the South have appeared to recognize that this reversal would strengthen the hardline forces in North Korea and endanger the reduction of North-South tensions made possible by the two summits. Vice-Chairman Kim Yong Tae of the Supreme People’s Assembly communicated to me in Pyongyang in January, “This has changed everything, and now we are back to where we were 15 or 20 years ago, back to the days of the military dictators in the South, back to regime change.” “Free democracy” means to North Korea that South Korea, with its population of 48.3 million in 2009, would dominate North Korea, with its population of 23.4 million, if Korea-wide elections were held in a reunified peninsula based on “the principles of free democracy.” Kim Dae-jung’s basic premise in his confederation plan, which made possible peace with North Korea, was that North Korea and South Korea would have co-equal representation in a confederal setup, and that North Korea would keep its system while growing economic contacts would bring the two systems closer together. Significantly, on September 11, 1989, Roh Tae Woo paved the way for Kim with his proposal for a Korean Commonwealth. The new plan explicitly accepted the principle of equal representation in a projected transitional, twenty-member council of ministers and a one-hundred-member council of representatives. “The council of ministers,” Roh told the National Assembly, “would be co-chaired by the prime ministers of North Korea and South Korea, and would be comprised of ten minister-level officials from each side. ” Roh also said, “Under the council standing committees could be created to deal with humanitarian, political, diplomatic, economic, military, social, and cultural affairs.” He envisioned the council of ministers of North Korea and South Korea would discuss and adjust all pending North-South issues and national problems. Kim Il Sung’s death in 1994 rekindled the hopes of hardliners in Seoul and Washington for a collapse of North Korea. Kim Young Sam’s pronouncements made clear that he envisaged a collapse followed by South Korea’s absorption of North Korea. In his August 15, 1995, Independence Day address at Chonan, he declared that a reunified Korea would be “another ROK.” Referring to the “miracle of the Han River,” he said, “As an extension of all this, we should now create a new ROK—a reunified Fatherland enjoying democracy and prosperity.” Angered by what he considered excessive U.S. concessions in its 1994 negotiations with Pyongyang on the nuclear issue, Kim told the New York Times on October 7, 1994, that the North Korean regime “is on the verge of an economic and political crisis that could sweep it from power,” and US. compromises on the nuclear issue “might prolong its life.” In his book Betrayal, Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz wrote, “He expected the collapse during his Administration.” Gertz reproduced the text of a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Seoul to the Secretary of State echoing this assessment and reporting that Kim had “launched covert actions to facilitate a collapse.” Does South Korea want to go back to the days of Kim Young Sam and Park Chung Hee and face renewed military tension with North Korea? To reverse the present dangerous trend toward a revival of cold war confrontation, Lee Myung Bak should be pressed to reaffirm the two North-South summit declarations, avoid a repetition of the “free democracy” language of the Washington declaration and categorically repudiate the goal of absorption. The views presented in this column are the writer’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of The Hankyoreh. Selig S. Harrison is director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy and a senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is the former director of the Century Foundation¹s Project on the United States and the Future of Korea. Specializing in South Asia and East Asia for fifty years as a journalist and scholar, he has visited North Korea over ten times and on two occasions, met with the late Kim Il Sung. He is the author of six books on Asian affairs and U.S. relations with Asia, including Korean Endgame: A Strategy For Reunification and U.S. Disengagement, published by Princeton University Press in May 2002. Dr. Harrison serves as an advisory board member of the Korea Policy Institute (KPI).

Despite missiles, hostages, bomb tests, and cyberattacks, North Korea’s Dear Leader is quite consistent, says the region’s top expert, Mike Chinoy. It’s U.S. policy that’s been erratic. Having visited North Korea 14 times, let me caution against reading too much into yesterday’s report that the secretive nation’s leader, Kim Jong Il, may be dying of pancreatic cancer. The news came out of the notoriously unreliable South Korean media, citing sources from that country’s conservative-leaning intelligence agency which has often had its own political agenda—including destabilizing North Korea. The same goes for the similarly sourced, and equally unverifiable, media claims last week blaming Pyongyang for a wave of cyberattacks aimed at American and South Korean targets. As one Bush official recently told Congress, North Korea wants agreements with the U.S. that are “election-proof… agreements that will outlast a change of presidencies.” Nonetheless, Kim Jong Il did look gaunt and haggard when he made a rare public appearance on Wednesday, and the continuing rumors, speculation, and uncertainty—about his health, political stability in North Korea, and the intentions of the Pyongyang regime—serve to highlight the growing dangers of the current crisis on the Korean peninsula. The North recently tested several missiles and a nuclear bomb, two American journalists remain detained in Pyongyang, negotiations are stalled, the Obama administration is pushing for sanctions, and there seems, for now, to be no prospect of a thaw in relations. How did a president who campaigned in part on a pledge to engage American adversaries, including the North Koreans, end up embroiled in a much more serious confrontation with Pyongyang—and pushing a much tougher policy—than the administration of George W. Bush? And why has the North repeatedly rebuffed Obama’s conciliatory overtures? It’s easy to blame North Korea—to depict Kim Jong Il as an ailing madman presiding over an out-of-control rogue state. In fact, however, there is a clear logic to Pyongyang’s behavior. It’s a response to what the North views as nearly a decade of American inconsistency, flip-flops and unfulfilled commitments. That has led a North Korean regime anxious about its own survival to conclude that having nukes is a better guarantee of security than any negotiated denuclearization deal with the United States. It wasn’t always like this. When George W. Bush took office, the North was in negotiation mode. Its Yongbyon nuclear reactor had been frozen under the 1994 Agreed Framework deal reached with the Clinton administration. Madeleine Albright had visited Pyongyang in October 2000. Kim Jong Il had even invited Bill Clinton to the North Korean capital for a summit. The disputed 2000 election prevented that meeting from happening, and George W. Bush quickly discarded Clinton’s engagement policy. Instead, he added the North to the “Axis of Evil,” publicly declared that he “loathed” Kim Jong Il, scuttled the Agreed Framework, and adopted a series of sanctions. Against the backdrop of the invasion of Iraq and the Bush administration’s talk of “regime change,” the North in response restarted Yongbyon, produced enough plutonium for a half-dozen bombs, and, in October 2006, staged a nuclear test. Following the test, the administration reversed course. The president allowed envoy Christopher Hill to negotiate a deal under which the North, in return for fuel oil and other aid, again shut down Yongbyon, admitted international inspectors, and began disabling the facility. Last year, in a series of unprecedented steps, Pyongyang turned over more than 18,000 pages of operating records from Yongbyon, provided a declaration with new details of its plutonium program, and pledged future cooperation to resolve unanswered questions about its uranium-enrichment efforts and its proliferation activities. As part of the deal, Hill told the North it would be removed from the U.S. list of “state sponsors of terror.” However, contrary to Hill’s assurances, hardliners in Washington demanded that Pyongyang accept an intrusive set of procedures to verify its nuclear capabilities before delisting could occur. The North Koreans accused the U.S. of moving the goal posts, and they reacted by restarting operations at Yongbyon. Hoping to salvage a deteriorating situation, Hill flew to Pyongyang last October and reached a verbal understanding on verification that enabled Bush to proceed with delisting. In December, however, under renewed pressure from hardliners in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, the administration again demanded the North accept an intrusive verification regime. When Pyongyang refused, the U.S. threatened to halt promised shipments of fuel. Negotiations collapsed. Its personality cult, rigid conformity and fire-breathing rhetoric notwithstanding, North Korea is not a monolith. It has moderates willing to entertain the idea of trading nukes and missiles for American concessions, and hardliners, especially in the military, adamantly opposed to such steps. The Bush administration’s flip-flops during its last six months in office appear to have been the final straw, convincing Pyongyang that the U.S. was reneging on its commitments, and strengthening those who believed Washington could never be a reliable partner. Instead, the hardliners argued that the North’s security could only be ensured by an enhanced nuclear “deterrent,” not agreements easily undermined by America’s constantly shifting political currents. As Georgetown University’s Victor Cha, who served as an Asia expert in the Bush administration’s National Security Council and had been Christopher Hill’s deputy in the later stages of the six-party talks, put it in recent congressional testimony, the North wanted agreements with the U.S. that were “election-proof… agreements that will outlast a change of presidencies.” Kim Jong Il’s illness and concerns about the succession, which arose around the same time, likely fueled the anxiety in the ruling elite about Washington’s intentions and the regime’s survival, giving more ammunition to those advocating a harder line. Pyongyang’s long-range-missile test in April, nuclear test in May, increasingly belligerent rhetoric, and continuing rejection of U.S. overtures for talks have been the result. Where does this leave the Obama administration? While insisting the door for negotiations remains open, the U.S. has made intensified sanctions the heart of its North Korea policy. The problem is that while sanctions will certainly hurt, there is no evidence they will produce a change in the North’s behavior. Instead, they are only solidifying the view in Pyongyang that Washington’s intentions are so “hostile” there is little point in talking, which may explain why the administration’s efforts to send special envoy Stephen Bosworth have been rebuffed. Short of North Korea’s collapse or a dramatic change in regime, however, talks offer the only realistic prospect—however uncertain—of rolling back Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile program. But unless it sees a U.S. willingness to address its concerns, the North is unlikely to come back to the table. If Obama hopes to denuclearize North Korea, he will have to persuade Pyongyang that negotiations, not more bombs, will provide the best guarantee of its security. After the last eight years, that will be a difficult task. Mike Chinoy is a senior fellow at the Pacific Council on International Policy and the author of Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis. He was a foreign correspondent for CNN for 24 years, serving as bureau chief in Beijing and Hong Kong and as senior Asia correspondent. For further information and readers’ comments click here.

The Korea Policy Institute is pleased to support the launch of the new Still Present Pasts website and virtual exhibit. Along with a collective of Korean American artists, a filmmaker, and a historian, KPI Advisory Board Member Ramsay Liem produced the website and virtual exhibition that explores Korean American memories and legacies of the Korean War. For more information, please visit http://stillpresentpasts.org.

North Korea is often accused of dishonoring the commitments it makes in negotiations. However, in North Korean eyes, it is the U.S. that has failed to live up to its promises. This is the main reason why military hard-liners have been able to take control of North Korean foreign policy in the past six months and justify an increasingly provocative series of nuclear and missile tests in internal policy debates. Kim Jong-il’s failing health and his reduced work schedule have made it easier for the hard-liners to consolidate control. Their strength is rooted in a cavalier U.S. disregard of its commitments that has vindicated their opposition to the 1994 Agreed Framework and the 2007 six-party denuclearization agreement. For nearly eight years, from June 1994, to December 2002, the moderates in North Korea led by First Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju prevailed, and North Korea suspended its nuclear weapons program over the bitter protests of the hard-liners. In return, North Korea was promised two light water reactors as a token of U.S. readiness for normal relations. The reactors were never built, however, despite large South Korean and Japanese financial outlays. The Bush Administration not only abrogated the Agreed Framework, but dissolved the Korean Energy Development Organization (KEDO) and bludgeoned South Korea into approval in order to leave no doubt that the U.S. had repudiated its commitment. Despite this, the moderates were able to get Kim Jong-il to support the six-party process with help from China and to disable the Yongbyon reactor. In return, the six parties pledge of 600,000 tons of oil. Although Japan, angered by the U.S. decision to remove North Korea from its List of Terrorist States, refused to provide its share, 200,000 tons, and the moderates were once again discredited. This is a very dangerous moment in our relations with North Korea, the most dangerous since June 1994, when Jimmy Carter went to Pyongyang with the grudging consent of the Clinton Administration. Carter negotiated an agreement with Kim Il-sung that headed off a war and paved the way for the Agreed Framework. Now, we are in urgent need of another high-level emissary, but the Obama Administration is not even prepared to give its grudging consent to Al Gore. Gore has expressed interest in negotiating the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two imprisoned U.S. journalists and employees of Current TV, which he founded, and in the process pave the way for a reduction of tensions. Gore met Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on May 11 and asked for the cooperation of the Obama administration in facilitating a mission to Pyongyang and in empowering him to succeed in such a mission by exploring with him ways in which the present stalemate in relations between North Korea and the U.S. can be broken. She said she would “consider” his request, but the Administration has subsequently delayed action. The Administration’s position is that the case of the two imprisoned journalists is a “humanitarian” matter and must be kept separate from the political and security issues between the two countries. In a News Hour interview with U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on June 10, Margaret Warner asked Rice how the latest U.N. sanctions resolution would “complicate efforts to win the release of the two American journalists.” Rice turned the question around, declaring that the issue of the two journalists “cannot be allowed to complicate our efforts to hold North Korea accountable” for its nuclear and missile tests. This is an unrealistic position. It shows a callous disregard for the welfare of Laura Ling and Euna Lee. It ignores the danger of a war resulting from the Administration’s naive attempts to pressure North Korea into abandonment of its nuclear and missile programs. Past experience with North Korea has repeatedly shown that pressure invariably provokes a retaliatory response that makes matters worse. The Administration should instead actively pursue the release of the two women through intervention in their behalf by a high-level unofficial emissary empowered to signal U.S. readiness for tradeoffs leading to the reduction of tensions, such as the provision of the 200,000 tons of oil that had been promised and not delivered to North Korea since the six-party talks broke off last fall. Looking ahead, the goal of the U.S. should be to cap the North Korean nuclear arsenal at its existing level and to move toward normalized relations as the necessary precondition for progress toward eventual denuclearization. The prospects for capping the arsenal at its present level have improved as result of Pyongyang’s June 13 announcement admitting that it has an R&D program for uranium enrichment. Since this program is in its early stages, and Pyongyang is not yet actually enriching uranium, there is time for the U.S. to negotiate inspection safeguards limiting enrichment to the levels necessary for civilian uses. Until now, North Korea’s denial of an R&D program has kept the uranium issue off the negotiating table and kept alive unfounded suspicions that it is capable of making weapons-grade uranium. Progress towards denuclearization would require U.S. steps to assure North Korea that it will not be the victim of a nuclear attack. In Article Three, Section One of the Agreed Framework, the U.S. pledged that it “will provide formal assurances against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S.” simultaneous with complete denuclearization. Pyongyang is likely to insist on a reaffirmation of this pledge. Realistically, if the U.S. is unwilling to give up the option of using nuclear weapons against North Korea, it will be necessary to live with a nuclear-armed North Korea while maintaining adequate U.S. deterrent forces in the Pacific. In my view, in the event of another war with North Korea resulting from efforts to enforce the U.N. sanctions, it is Japan that North Korea would attack, not South Korea. Some of the hard-line generals in the National Defense Commission, I learned on my January visit to Pyongyang, were outraged at Kim Jong-il’s apology to Prime Minister Koizumi in 2002 and have alarmed moderates in the regime with their swaggering confidence that North Korea could win a war with Japan. Selig S. Harrison is director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy and a senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is the former director of the Century Foundation¹s Project on the United States and the Future of Korea. Specializing in South Asia and East Asia for fifty years as a journalist and scholar, he has visited North Korea over ten times and on two occasions, met with the late Kim Il Sung. He is the author of six books on Asian affairs and U.S. relations with Asia, including Korean Endgame: A Strategy For Reunification and U.S. Disengagement, published by Princeton University Press in May 2002. Dr. Harrison serves as an advisory board member of the Korea Policy Institute (KPI).

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Christine Ahn, 310-482-9333June 18, 2009christine.ahn@kpolicy.org Christine Hong, 510-658-3275 chong@berkeley.edu SAN FRANCISCO, June 18—On Tuesday, June 23, 2009, 6:30 pm at Grace Cathedral, 1100 California Street in San Francisco, two leading international scholars on North Korea human rights and security will break down current events in North Korea and offer policy recommendations for improving human rights for North Koreans and a peaceful resolution to the military standoff. This timely forum is co-organized by the Korea Policy Institute (KPI) and Grace Cathedral. One of the organizers of the event, Christine Ahn, a KPI fellow, says, “In these tense times with President Obama taking a hawkish approach in the wake of North Korea’s second nuclear test and with the freedom of two American reporters at stake, the speakers show us that there are constructive approaches for achieving peace and human rights on the Korean peninsula.” The two international North Korea experts are from South Korea and the United Kingdom. Dr. Suh Bohyuk, former senior researcher at the South Korea National Human Rights Commission, is currently Research Professor at Ewha University. Dr. Hazel Smith is Professor of Resilience and Security at Cranfield University and author of numerous books on North Korea, including Hungry for Peace: International Security, Humanitarian Assistance, and Social Change in North Korea. Dr. Christine Hong, KPI fellow and Assistant Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, will moderate the forum. “Human rights do not take place in a vacuum,” says Dr. Suh. “They are tied to other issues such as development, peace, humanitarianism, and reconciliation.” Departing from those who advocate that human rights problems must be resolved before any talk of negotiating peace, Dr. Suh proposes that “peace be included in the category of human rights, and the security situation be considered in any strategy to improve human rights.” Focusing on the relationship between food and nuclear weapons, Dr. Smith will address why its nuclear program makes sense to North Korea. According to Dr. Smith, North Korea is “walking a tightrope in using nuclear tests to try to persuade the United States back to the sorts of negotiations that took place between 2006 and 2008.” Dr. Smith will also cover North Korea’s relations with China and the limited options available to achieving the goals of peace, prosperity and improved human rights. “In the end, it is only if the United States as the key protagonist reengages the DPRK through proactive diplomatic negotiations that we are likely to see significant moves towards peace and stability for Korea’s people.” Dr. Suh will also be in Los Angeles to present his research. The LA Forum will occur on Friday, June 26. The reception will be at 6:00 with the talk at 7:00. The location will be the Nanum Cultural Center, 3471 W. 8th St., Los Angeles, CA 90005. For more information, visit the Korea Policy Institute at http://www.kpolicy.org or Grace Cathedral at http://www.GraceCathedral.org. Click here for the San Francisco event flyer (pdf).

More from the Forum Presentation of Dr. Hazel Smith, Author and Professor of Resilience and Security, Cranfield University.

KPI Fellow Christine Ahn introduces the Engaging North Korea Forum Dr. Bo-hyuk Suh, Research Professor, Ewha University, and former senior researcher at the South Korea National Human Rights Commission, makes the argument that peace be included in the category of human rights, and that the security situation with North Korea be considered in any strategy to improve human rights. View the video and transcript. Dr. Hazel Smith, Author and Professor of Resilience and Security, Cranfield University, discusses the relation of food and nuclear weapons in the North Korean situation, the roles of China and the U.S. and the need for American proactive diplomacy. View the video and transcript.

More from the Forum Presentation of Dr. Bo-hyuk Suh, Research Professor, Ewha University, and former senior researcher at the South Korea National Human Rights Commission. Improving Human Rights in North Korea: The Interdependence of Peace and Human Rights Bo-Hyuk Suh | September 7, 2009 Dr. Bo-Hyuk Suh is a former senior researcher at the South Korea National Human Rights Commission, is currently Research Professor at the Center for Peace Studies at Ewha University. The paper below was presented at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, CA on June 23, 2009 at a panel on human rights in North Korea sponsored by the Korea Policy Institute. Human rights discourse has a long history; and we have seen rising interest in the post-Cold War era. But discussion about human rights does not take place in a vacuum: it is tied to other issues such as development, peace, humanitarianism, and reconciliation. Problems of international concern have arisen due to diversity in values and priorities among nations. The situation in North Korea is one such case, and we have witnessed different approaches to different issues, particularly human rights issues and peace. There has been much unproductive dispute over which problem has to be resolved first: some say that human rights problems must be resolved before there can be talk of negotiating peace, while others say that an end to the Korean War must be the foundation for addressing other matters including human rights. To overcome this impasse, this paper proposes that peace be included in the category of human rights, and the security situation be considered in any strategy to improve human rights. Then we can find new directions in the discussion of human rights in North Korea. This paper explores ways to improve human rights in North Korea through consideration of the current situation on the Korean peninsula and the interrelation between human rights in North Korea and peace on the Korean peninsula. Let’s start by looking at peace from the perspective of human rights. Peace: A human right or a pre-condition for human rights? The charter of the United Nations indicates that peace and human rights are in complementary relation to one another and that one cannot be sacrificed for the other. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) state that human rights are the basis of peace. The Tehran Proclamation of 1968 “[r]ecogniz[es] … that peace and justice are indispensable to the full realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms.” It is thus conceivable that peace is not a kind of right but an essential condition for human rights. However, there is a growing awareness that peace is a kind of right. On February 27, 1976, the UN Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution and announced that “Everyone has the right to live in conditions of international peace and security.” The United Nations General Assembly approved the ‘Declaration on the Preparation of Societies for Life in Peace’ on December 15 of the following year. According to article 23, paragraph 1 of the ‘African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights’, which has been adopted by each state in Africa, it was the first regional human rights institution that recognized the right to peace. Eventually, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the ‘Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace’ in 1984. The declaration states that defusing the threat of war, especially nuclear war, interrupting the use of force, and settling international disputes through peaceful methods are required to realize the right to peace. The right to peace could be defined as the right to live in a secure and nonviolent world, and also the right to live a life free of war. The right to peace can be understood to include the repudiation of wars of aggression, the repudiation of the right to collective self-defense, the elimination of armaments, the elimination of activities against peace by a nation (arms exports), the elimination of activities contrary to a peaceful existence (conscription system), the protection of the people’s fundamental human rights, and so on. To enjoy the right to peace, it is required to establish a just society by striking at the root causes of conflicts as well as by minimizing conflicts and their influences. The right to peace includes collective commitments from individuals to their nations and to the international society. There are also passive and active requirements necessary for peace. The passive requirement is that the principle of respect for human rights be the foundation for peace. Peace-making should be established on the basis of human rights and peacekeeping and peace-building also need to be based on human rights.1 The active requirement comports all the efforts for achieving and maintaining peace at the national, regional, and international levels. The right to peace and the right to human security have a lot in common. Human security starts with the observation that the existing nation-oriented security paradigm based on military power can’t contribute to positive peace. Human security is not for the citizens of one particular nation but for every individual in human society, and the goal of human security is not the conservation of the nation but an improvement in the quality of life of human beings. The main concern is not a power struggle or one-sided military action but multilateral efforts to curb violence, protect human rights, and provide social and environmental resources necessary to a dignified human life. Therefore, human security naturally is greatly concerned with human rights. The right to peace and security is very important because threats to human security stand in the way of protecting all kinds of rights. However, while we might all be able to immediately agree upon some components of the right to peace, there are others upon which international society has yet to come to consensus. Specifically, some have said that it would be difficult to count the right to peace among the international human rights because the meaning of the right to peace itself is not clear enough to be designated as a right under current international law.2 That is, the right to peace has contents and categories which are incomplete and evolving, and which have to take shape over time. The right to peace is one of the third generation of rights known as solidarity rights as well as development rights. Of course, the fact that efforts to clarify the right to peace are still in process cannot be used as an excuse for reducing or delaying efforts to improve every aspect of human rights.3 Also, it is not right to identify the right to peace with absolute pacifism because the right to peace allows the just use of violence in particular cases such as humanitarian crises.4 Human rights in North Korea and peace on the Korean peninsula: Mutually interdependent universal values It is clear that the North Korea nuclear crisis is directly connected to peace on the Korean peninsula. However, this problem, which is not only a military one but also tied to the reconstruction of the North Korean economy and to inter-Korean economic cooperation, has been treated too shallowly. The complexity of the North Korea nuclear crisis can be grasped if we consider the official position announced by North Korea with regard to its nuclear program. North Korea stated its basic position as “defusing threats to independence and the right to live” and offered three conditions for nuclear negotiations, namely U.S. recognition of North Korea’s sovereignty, assurance of nonaggression, and removal of obstacles to economic development.5 Also, North Korea included economic content such as provisions for economic cooperation and supplies of electricity and food, and proposed a so-called “package deal framework” and “simultaneous action order” for the comprehensive resolution of nuclear issues.6 The negotiation strategy of North Korea reveals that it uses weapons of mass destruction as a diplomatic strategy, within the context of a lack of economic resources. After the advent of the Obama administration in 2009, North Korea has purposively chosen to foster an atmosphere of crisis. There was the launch of the rocket on April 5, its second nuclear test on May 25, and subsequent missile launches. To be sure, these actions are part of North Korea’s crisis diplomacy, but we must indeed understand them for what they are on face value: as moves to increase military power. On January 17, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said toward the Obama administration, “normalization of relations and the nuclear problem are different matters.” North Korea also asserted “the reason we made nuclear weapons was not to normalize relations with U.S. or to attain economic aid but to protect ourselves from the U.S. nuclear threat,” and gave notice of the nuclear test. Regarding North Korea’s actions, international society is pushing ahead with multilateral and unilateral sanctions. Prior to that, international society declared the rocket launch, which North Korea asserted as a peaceful use of space, as a military provocation. North Korea regarded international criticism as threats toward them and went ahead with the nuclear test, insisting that it was a self-defense measure. What we need to focus on is that these power contests between nations violate North Korean people’s and Korean people’s rights to live peacefully. Meanwhile, the global community regards the situation of human rights in North Korea as poor. Human rights are universal, total, interdependent, and interrelated. Therefore, an approach limited to specific areas not only is against the basic character of human rights but is also of questionable effectiveness. International society needs to balance its efforts to improve human rights in North Korea. Thus far, the international community has mainly criticized them, and sometimes used humanitarian aid as a bargaining chip. It is true that civil and political rights in North Korea are poor and it is necessary to continue monitoring this situation. But it is necessary to distinguish criticism from political pressure. A pressure-oriented approach could generate a backlash from a North Korean government that considers such an approach as a political offensive aimed at bringing about the collapse of the North Korean government, and could hamper efforts to improve human rights by reinforcing the North Korean government’s control over people and breaking off diplomatic exchanges and contacts. We should note that efforts to improve human rights could result in violations of human rights that we didn’t intend. The right to survival in North Korea is in the same shape. North Korea has been going through a food shortage of over one million tons annually even after the “Arduous March,” the term people in North Korea use to refer to the worst period of the famine in the mid- to late 1990s. “Good Friends,” a South Korean organization addressing human rights in North Korea, reported that (1) People in North Korea who are safe from food storage are 10% of total population, 2 million, in August 2008; (2) some ten million people, which represents over half the total population, often have difficulty in getting even one full meal a day; and (3) over 3 million suffer from serious malnutrition and are at risk of starvation. In spite of this situation, humanitarian aid is decreasing and is being used as a political tool. Discontinuing or decreasing humanitarian aid aggravates the North Korean people’s right to live, as well as stymies collaboration opportunities between North Korea and the international community. Humanitarian aid should be given and be distinguished from nonhumanitarian aid. The problem of enhancing transparency has to be addressed in the process of providing humanitarian aid and should not be used as a reason for cutting off aid. Improvement strategy of human rights in North Korea: A phase-in approach We can see the mutual interdependence between peace on the Korean peninsula and human rights in North Korea theoretically and practically from the above discussion. The nuclear problem and human rights in North Korea are not separate matters that must be prioritized; rather they exist in complementary relation to one another and need to be resolved comprehensively. We need to examine the foundation and direction of any approach to human rights in North Korea. Considering the complexity and sensitivity of human rights issues in North Korea, we should approach them by taking the situation and external environment in North Korea into consideration. The foundation for approaching human rights in North Korea includes (1) the observance of principles, (2) the practical improvement of human rights, (3) the cooperative improvement of human rights, and (4) harmony between human rights and peace. The ways and paths toward the improvement of human rights in North Korea will depend on various actors’ understanding of human rights, their circumstances, and their capacity.7 The roadmap shown below presupposes some facts. First, there is the matter of the “issue hierarchy” between North Korea and the other primary nations concerned. North Korea aims to ensure the security of its government as its priority foreign policy goal and puts great emphasis on solving the food shortage and the rebuilding of its economy. The members of the six-party talks, including South Korea, U.S., China, and so on, pursue a denuclearized Korean peninsula as the first goal, and overall have granted human rights in North Korea relatively little significance. If we approach it from a different angle, according to Vitit Muntarbhorn, the Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights, “No assessment of the human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea would be complete unless its interrelationship with international human rights standards, democracy, peace, human security, demilitarization/disarmament and sustainable development is also taken into account.”8 Second, within a comprehensive view of human rights, human rights in North Korea covers various fields, but it is an undeniable fact that the guarantee of a minimum level of the people’s basic human rights is an overriding concern. The minimum level of the people’s basic human rights means the right to live and the right to security.9 Third, if promoting human rights is the common goal of all nations, when the international community is concerned about particular nation’s human rights, it should be accompanied with efforts for the actual improvement of human rights in that nation. Also, it is necessary for South Korea to approach “human rights on the Korean peninsula” in the context of its pursuit of unification with the North and lead the improvement of human rights in Asia. On this roadmap for the improvement of human rights in North Korea, we can approach it on four levels: (1) the category of comprehensive human rights, (2) the correlation between human rights and other rights, (3) the assignment of each actor’s role, and (4) the continuation of the North Korean government. The roadmap pursues the improvement of human rights in North Korea by a phase-in comprehensive approach. A phase-in approach is required because human rights in North Korea are relatively poor and related with other issues, and a comprehensive approach is needed because human rights in North Korea covers a wide range and there are many related actors. The steps to the improvement of human rights in North Korea start from the current situation and continue to the stage of formation of conditions — the stage of performance — the stage of completion, and every step has goals, variables, and roles for the actors. There are two more points to understand the roadmap for the improvement of human rights in North Korea. Every step is made up of goals and variables. Also, the improvement strategy of each step is the main action plan and also is gradually promoted. For example, if the strategy in step I is still effective in step?, then a new strategy for step II can be added. The reversal toward the previous step will not happen in this situation. Roadmap for the improvement of human rights in North Korea Task Step Goal Role of Actors Variable North Korea International Community South Korea Step I Recovery of the right to survival Peace settlement Increasing food production Transparency in distribution Establishment of human rights legislation Humanitarian aid Monitoring of human rights situations Protection of North Korean defectors Humanitarian aid Resolution of humanitarian issues Protection of North Korean defectors Humanitarian situation Military tensions Step II Establishment of human rights infrastructure Conversion of the International Covenants on Human Rights into domestic legislation and signing on to it Institutionalization of human rights education Development aid Human rights dialogue Technical cooperation Increasing economic cooperation Beginning arms reduction in South and North Korea Building peace regime Step III Protection of civil and political rights Stop violating CPR Conversion of military budget into civil one Support civil society (personal and information exchanges, education, etc.) Accelerating reformation and opening Step IV Implementation of the International Covenants on Human Rights Real protection of CPR Separation of the three powers Establishment of national human rights institution Support for implementation of democratization Democratization Peace is a requirement for the general realization of human rights as well as a human right in itself. Ongoing military tensions such as the armistice on the Korean peninsula, U.S. security threats toward North Korea, and North Korea’s nuclear development are challenges to peace and could make improvement of human rights in North Korea difficult. Therefore, it is meaningless to discuss peace on the Korean peninsula without the improvement of human rights and to discuss human rights in North Korea without peace on the Korean peninsula. Mutual interdependence of peace and human rights on the Korean peninsula is expected to deepen further.

On Monday, the Korean peninsula averted a cataclysmic showdown that could have escalated into full-blown war. The United Nations Security Council wasn’t able to conclude a statement that would defuse tensions, with countries lining up along Cold War divisions. Seconds before I appeared on Al-Jazeera International Sunday night, the producer informed me that South Korea, despite pleas from both Russia and China to cancel the live fire artillery drills, had in fact started the exercises. Having been to North Korea several times, and knowing how their worldview centers on the right to defend their sovereignty, I feared the worst. But by the time I returned home, the South Korean military drills were over. It lasted 94 minutes. North Korea, which had promised to retaliate with even more force than the November 23 shelling of Yeonpyeong island, decided that the South’s aggression was “not worth reacting” to. According to the North’s Korean Central News Agency, “The world should properly know who is the true champion of peace and who is the real provocateur of a war.” Peace Parlay Without a doubt, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s trip to Pyongyang was crucial to cooling the tensions. Richardson has experience dealing with Pyongyang. In 1996 he went to secure the release of an American civilian who had illegally crossed the Yalu River into North Korea. But as the former energy secretary in the Clinton administration and governor of the state that houses the Los Alamos National Lab, Richardson knows energy, especially policy governing nuclear energy. At the eleventh hour, Richardson was able to secure a deal with Pyongyang in which they agreed to allow UN inspectors to monitor its nuclear program and an offer to sell 12,000 plutonium fuel rods to South Korea. North Korean officials are also considering Richardson’s recommendation to establish a hotline between North Korea and South Korea as well as a tri-lateral commission consisting of North Korea, South Korea, and the United States to address military disputes. In addition to Richardson’s swift diplomacy, several other factors may have played a role in de-escalating the crisis. One, according to independent journalist Tim Shorrock, may have been the strong caution expressed in a December 16 press conference by U.S. General James Cartwright, the number two ranking officer at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Cartwright explained that North Korea, in response to South Korea’s live artillery drill, could react and fire back on the islands, which “would start potentially a chain reaction of firing and counter-firing. What you don’t want to have happen out of that is for the escalation to be—for us to lose control of the escalation.” According to an email from Shorrock, Cartwright “seemed to be saying very diplomatically that South Korea should back off.” An important Bloomberg story about the Northern Limit Line (NLL), which received very little play in the media, is key to understanding the root cause of the current crisis over the disputed waters in the West Sea. This area has been the site of multiple deadly naval clashes, which occurred in 1999, 2002, 2009, last March and November. The cycle of violence nearly ended on October 4, 2007 when then-South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il pledged to hold talks to “discuss ways of designating a joint fishing area in the West Sea to avoid accidental clashes and turning it into a peace area.” According to Henry Em, Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at New York University, “The 2007 agreement was thrown out as part of the new government’s strategy of getting tough with North Korea… [which] has been met with North Korea’s get-tough policy toward South Korea, with tragic and dangerous consequences.” A Disputed Boundary North Korea felt justified in retaliating against the South Korean shelling on November 23 because the nearly 4,000 shots the South Korean military fired within a four-hour period emanated from waters Pyongyang considers to be North Korean territory. Although Yeonpyeong Island, and four other nearby islands, were designated as South Korean under the 1953 armistice agreement, the waters surrounding them were not. In 1953, to restrain then-South Korean leader Syngman Rhee from continuing to attack the North, the United States unilaterally drew the NLL, which follows the coast of North Korea approximately 3 miles off-shore. Not only is the NLL illegitimate because North Korea never agreed to it, international maritime convention considers 12 miles to be the boundary of any country’s waters. Yeonpyeong Island, from which South Korea conducted live artillery drills on November 23 and earlier this week, lies within 12 nautical miles of North Korea’s coastline. North Korea’s insistence that the South was conducting live artillery drills within its territorial boundaries is therefore not without basis. But it’s not just the North Koreans who think the NLL isn’t legal. On December 17, two Bloomberg reporters discovered secret telegrams sent by former secretary of state Henry Kissinger in 1975 stating that the Northern Limit Line is “clearly contrary to international law.” The confidential February 1975 telegram from Kissinger reads, “As we have noted before (Ref B) Northern Patrol Limit Line does not have international legal status. NPLL was unilaterally established and not accepted by NK. Furthermore, insofar as it purports unilaterally to divide international waters, it is clearly contrary to international law and USG law of the sea position. Armistice provides two sides must respect each other’s “contiguous waters”, which negotiating history indicates would mean as maximum 12 miles.” The Bloomberg reporters also quote a December 19, 1973 cable to Washington from Ambassador Francis Underhill who wrote, “The ROK and the U.S. might appear in the eyes of a significant number of other countries to be in the wrong” if an incident occurred in disputed areas. According to Mark J. Valencia, a maritime lawyer with the National Bureau of Asian Research, “If it ever went to arbitration, the decision would likely move the line further south.” According to The New York Times, “Park In-kook, the South Korean ambassador, noted that the line had been established in 1953 and that North Korea had accepted it under a 1992 agreement, diplomats said.” Park may be referring to the North-South Joint Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression, and Cooperation and Exchange, which did not specifically mention the Northern Limit Line, and in fact neither side has implemented it. The clearest expression of agreement between North and South Korea addressing the disputed West Sea waters was set forth by North and South Korean leaders in their 2007 summit meeting. In that meeting both sides agreed to establish a “peace zone” in the West Sea. Unfortunately, as soon as President Lee Myung Bak took office in 2008, he backed away from the agreements made in the 2000 and 2007 North – South summit meetings in favor of a more hard-line approach to the North. Resolving the Stalemate Since it’s unlikely that Lee Myung Bak will revive the 2007 agreement between North and South Korea, veteran Korea expert Selig Harrison proposed a solution in a New York Times op-ed last week: “The solution could be quite straightforward: the United States should redraw the disputed sea boundary, called the Northern Limit Line, moving it slightly to the south.” It’s that easy. And Harrison asserts that this is possible because “President Obama has the authority to redraw the line” as the United States is still the head of the United Nations Command for Korea. After consulting with Seoul and Pyongyang, the United States should get to work to not only redraw the line but also seriously move toward peace talks. This could be the first priority of the trilateral commission, if it were established. As I remained fixed to my computer watching for developments and following twitter feeds over the weekend, I couldn’t help but feel both anxious and enraged. This ongoing game of brinkmanship played by our world leaders could have had horrific consequences. As I watched footage of elderly Koreans forced out of their homes and into bunkers, I imagined how traumatic it must have been, especially for the survivors of the Korean War. Tragically, Koreans on the peninsula and in the Diaspora must not only live with the painful memories of the Korean War, which claimed millions of lives and separated millions of families. We must also live with the hard truth that the Korean War is still not over 60 years later and the country remains divided. And all for what purpose and whose objectives? Certainly not for the security of the lives of ordinary Koreans, north and south. Christine Ahn is a Korea Policy Institute Fellow, a columnist with Foreign Policy in Focus, and a member of the National Campaign to End the Korean War.

In the wake of live artillery exchange between North and South Korea on November 23, 2010 resulting in the deaths of four South Koreans on Yeonpyeong Island, the United States and South Korea are planning once again to conduct live artillery exercises, starting today through Tuesday, from Yeonpyeong Island, and surrounding areas, in spite of repeated warnings by Pyongyang that it will again, retaliate. “Second and third self-defensive blows that cannot be predicted will be dealt” if the exercises go forward, North Korea warned South Korea earlier today, according to North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). “The intensity and range of the firepower will create a situation more serious than the one on Nov. 23,” North Korea’s military said. Efforts by China and Russia to convince the United States and South Korea to cancel the live artillery exercises have not borne fruit as yet. Thus there remains the possibility of an outbreak of fighting in the disputed waters of the West Sea. The possibility that the fighting might spread uncontrollably beyond the West Sea cannot be discounted. The Yeonpyeong Island, and several others in the area, lay just south of the “Northern Limit Line” (NLL) which follows the west coast of North Korea just 3 nautical miles from shore. The line, which was drawn unilaterally by the United States after the Armistice, is not recognized by North Korea. Since the early 1970s the international community has recognized 12 nautical miles as the conventional offshore territorial boundary. The live artillery drills will take place in South Korean territory, based on the Northern Limit Line, 3 miles off coast, but within North Korean territory based on the 12 nautical mile convention. Hence, the characterization, “disputed waters,” often employed to describe the location of deadly naval clashes in the West Sea which occurred in 1999, 2002, 2009, last March and November. In their article on the history of the NLL, Bloomberg, 12/17/2010, Daniel Ten Kate and Peter Green report that U.S. officials believed that the NLL was “contrary to law.” “Then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a 1975 classified cable that the unilaterally drawn Northern Limit Line was ‘clearly contrary to international law.’ Two years before, the American ambassador said in another cable that many nations would view South Korea and its U.S. ally as ‘in the wrong’ if clashes occurred in disputed areas along the boundary,” they reported. The live artillery drills are widely viewed as military posturing by the administration of South Korean President, Lee Myung Bak, however the South Korean armed forces remain under the command of the United States. Ultimately the finger on the trigger for the planned live artillery firing, weather permitting, is that of President Barack Obama. At the same time New Mexico Governor, Bill Richardson, is in Pyongyang reporting that North Korea wishes to restart the six party talks to denuclearize the Korean peninsula and replace the Korean War Armistice with a peace treaty. China and Russia are also calling upon the United States and South Korea to restart diplomacy. After two years of pursuing a policy of “strategic patience” to contain North Korea, it appears that President Obama is facing a stark choice between War and Peace in northeast Asia. In the event that fighting breaks out on the Korean peninsula we urge our readers to question efforts to indict North Korea as being solely responsible for provoking the military clashes in the West Sea. This is clearly not the case. The U.S. and South Korea are recklessly pushing tensions on the peninsula to the brink of war as well. President Obama can and should put a stop to the escalation. We cannot again, blindfolded, be marched off to war. A good way for readers to begin learning about the background to recent fighting in the West Sea would be to read the full Bloomberg article by Kate and Green, and to study the map of the disputed boundaries in the West Sea that accompanies their article and which is republished above.

On November 22, 2010, military troops from the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea) and the United States began joint war-simulation exercises involving approximately 70,000 soldiers, 600 tanks, 500 warplanes, 90 helicopters, and 50 warships. On November 23, South Korean artillery units fired artillery for four hours into contested waters claimed by both Pyongyang and Seoul near the Northern Limit Line (NLL). Drawn unilaterally by the US Navy in 1953, the NLL is neither internationally recognized nor accepted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea). North Korean artillery units responded by firing on a South Korean artillery base on Yeonpyeong Island. The South Korean marines responded by firing back at North Korean bases on the coast across from the island. On Yeonpyeong Island, a site with South Korean military bases and a fishing community of 1,300 residents, North Korean artillery killed two South Korean marines and two civilian contractors building new barracks on a military installation. The attack left eighteen others injured. North Korea has not yet disclosed its casualties, but one South Korean report indicates that one North Korean soldier was killed and two others were seriously wounded.* (* This intro is substantively taken from the National Committee to End the Korean War‘s Fact Sheet on the West Sea Crisis.) To make sense of why this dangerous and tragic situation occurred, the Korea Policy Institute interviewed Dr. Henry Em, Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at New York University (NYU). Dr. Em serves on the steering committee of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea (ASCK) and KPI’s advisory board. His teaching and research interests include Korean historiography, nationalism, colonialism, and imperialism in twentieth-century Korea, transnational and cultural studies of the Korean War, and the Korean diaspora. Among other honors, Dr. Em was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Program Fellowship, as well as grants from the Freeman Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His book Sovereignty and Modern Korean Historiography will be published by Duke University Press. His chapter on modern Korean historiography, forthcoming, will appear in volume 5 of the Oxford History of Historical Writing from Oxford University Press. [Korea Policy Institute]: For decades, the U.S. and South Korea have been conducting war games simulating an invasion of North Korea. North Korea has long maintained that these war games are an attack on their sovereignty. Why did the North Koreans decide to fire on Yeonpyeong now and not in the past? [Henry Em]: Setting aside larger political considerations for the moment—both within North Korea and between North Korea, South Korea, and the United States—North Korean artillery fired on Yeonpyeong for the first time on November 23, 2010. But several months ago, in early August, North Korean artillery had fired live shells into the waters close to Baegnyeong Island and Yeonpyeong Island, islands controlled by South Korea but located closer to North Korea in the West Sea (Yellow Sea). Back in August, North Korea was responding to artillery fire from South Korean bases on those islands. In September, South Korea held artillery exercises again. In October, no artillery exercises were held. But on November 23rd, according to a leaked South Korean Ministry of National Defense report, artillery units on those islands—as part of the large, nation-wide military exercise Hoguk—again fired artillery into waters claimed by North Korea. On that day, November 23rd, from 10:15 am until North Korea began shelling Yeonpyeong Island at 2:34 pm, South Korean artillery units had fired 3,657 times, or over 900 shells per hour, into waters claimed by North Korea. If we were to focus on clashes just within this area of the West Sea, both clashes on the sea and artillery fire around the five islands controlled by South Korea, we need to keep in mind that, on October 4, 2007, North Korea and South Korea had signed an agreement that, among other things, pledged to “discuss ways of designating a joint fishing area in the West Sea to avoid accidental clashes and turning it into a peace area.” However, starting in February 28, 2008, when Lee Myung-bak became President of South Korea, that 2007 agreement was thrown out, as part of the new government’s strategy of getting tough with North Korea. That is to say, the Lee Myung-bak government’s get-tough policy toward North Korea has been met with North Korea’s get-tough policy toward South Korea, with tragic (and dangerous) consequences. [Korea Policy Institute]: North and South Korea recently seemed to be enjoying the beginning of a thaw in relations. For example, family reunifications had restarted again, humanitarian aid had resumed, and rhetoric over the Cheonan incident had toned down. What then explains the hostile military response to the U.S.-S.K. joint military exercise? [Henry Em]: When President Lee Myung-bak took office in February, 2008, his strategy was to strengthen the South Korea U.S. alliance, and to gain some measure of dominance over North Korea. For the Lee Myung-bak government, strengthening the South Korea-U.S. alliance has meant, among other things, getting the United States to go along with abandoning engagement with North Korea. This is what former President Jimmy Carter meant when he said recently that the Obama administration’s policy toward Korea had been “captured” by South Korea. Now North Korea is trying to force the Obama administration to drop its policy of “strategic patience.” We should keep in mind that “strategic patience” here means maintaining sanctions against North Korea, interdiction of North Korean ships on the high seas, etc. That is to say, North Korea is trying to force the United States to loosen its grip, and to make peace. But there is force and there is force. North Korea’s artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island demonstrates, I think, North Korea’s lack of understanding of the importance of public opinion in the United States. Having seen photos and footage of plumes of black smoke rising from North Korean shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, and reports of four deaths, public opinion in the United States will make it near impossible for the Obama administration to sit down and negotiate directly with North Korea. In the short term, then, North Korea’s attack on Yeonpyeong will only strengthen the U.S.-South Korean military alliance. But I think in the longer term, North Korea is making it perfectly clear that, as Leon Sigal put it, “the only thing worse than negotiating with North Korea is not negotiating with North Korea.” This is a lesson that past several American Presidents have had to learn. War cannot be an option. But the Lee Myung-bak government and the Obama administration are together trying to make North Korea and China believe that war is an option the U.S. and South Korea can and will contemplate. The problem is, North Korea has proven that it will not blink first. So it’s a very dangerous situation. [Korea Policy Institute]: So much of the focus has been upon how this incident has impacted relations between North & South. But tensions are also developing between the U.S. and China. Can you help us understand what the relationship is between this incident and U.S.-China relations? [Henry Em]: I think John Feffer is right when he points out that U.S. policy toward China tries to do two things at the same time: contain China, and at the same time persuade China to cooperate with the United States on various political, strategic, and economic issues around the world. After North Korea’s shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, the Obama administration sent an aircraft carrier strike force into the West Sea (Yellow Sea) to conduct joint war exercises with the South Korean armed forces, and it has just announced that the United States will not take part in “emergency consultations” proposed by China to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula. That is to say, at the moment Washington and Seoul (and Japan) are united against North Korea, and trying to force China to get tough with North Korea. But I think that’s a policy based on refusal to understand, and a refusal to recognize, North Korea’s political culture and its security concerns, and China’s security concerns as well. I wish we would remember that when both Washington and Seoul were committed to an engagement policy toward North Korea, in cooperation with China, we saw real improvement and progress toward peace and security on the Korean peninsula. Now we just have containment, and the real possibility of war.

As the Obama administration dispatches an aircraft carrier to the region, following North Korea’s deadly and unprovoked shelling of South Korea, experts warn that the United States only has one choice in dealing with Kim Jong Il’s regime: direct negotiations. That’s the message from several American Korea experts who have recently visited the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and talked to its leaders. Contrary to what has been advocated by the Pentagon, the Obama administration, and members of the Republican party, these experts say that direct negotiations are the only way to end Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, and eventually move toward a peace agreement to formally end the conflict. “The only way out of this box is to negotiate,” Leon V. Sigal, the director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council in New York, told The Daily Beast. Sigal, who visited Pyongyang last week with two former State department officials, added: “North Korea is prepared in detail to do things advantageous to the United States that are not impossible to do.” I know it’s very hard to talk to these guys, but there’s no other way.” The Obama administration, however, has made it clear that no talks with the North Korean government of Kim Jong Il are possible until the regime abandons its nuclear weapons program. In the wake of the shelling incident, President Obama announced that U.S. and South Korean forces will hold joint military exercises in the region that will include the aircraft carrier George Washington and other U.S. Navy warships. “We’ve had an underlying philosophy of not rewarding bad behavior with concessions,” a senior administration official told reporters. In recent days, however, North Korea has opened the door for a possible shift in policy. In their meetings with North Koreans, Sigal and former U.S. officials Joel Wit and Morton Abramowitz were told that Pyongyang is prepared to ship out all of its nuclear fuel rods, the key ingredient for producing weapons-grade plutonium, to a third country in exchange for a U.S. commitment to pledge that it has “no hostile intent” toward the DPRK. Such a pact could set the stage for reopening the Six Party talks, which were initiated during the Bush administration by the United States and South Korea to end the nuclear standoff. Those talks, which also involve Japan, China, and Russia, have faltered over questions of verification and compliance. They have also been complicated by a series of reckless military actions on the part of North Korea, which is widely considered to be one of the world’s most repressive police states where at least a million people have died from starvation over the last 15 years. North Korea, in turn, has accused Washington and Seoul of reneging on earlier agreements, including a promise to supply energy for North Korea’s moribund economy in return for shutting down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. (It remains closed). Pyongyang was also disappointed when President Obama broke a campaign pledge to talk directly with Pyongyang and, instead, intensified U.S. sanctions. This week’s news that North Korea has built a new facility to enrich uranium and is building another reactor is a sign that those sanctions have failed, asserted Sigal. Without direct negotiations, he said, North Korea was likely to keep enriching uranium, restart its reactor at Yongbyon, conduct another nuclear test as it did in 2006, and test more missiles. “I know it’s very hard to talk to these guys, but there’s no other way,” he said. Sigal’s views were supported by the three Americans who were shown North Korea’s new uranium enrichment plant earlier this month. “You have to address the fundamentals of North Korean security,” Siegfried Hecker, the former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, told an audience in Washington on Tuesday. Stanford Professors Robert Carlin and John W. Lewis, who accompanied Hecker to North Korea, wrote in The Washington Post that “being realistic about the North makes no moral judgment about its systems or policies.” The United States must start by “accepting the existence of North Korea as it is, a sovereign state with its own interests,” they argued. A second option, analysts said, is to take steps to de-escalate the tense military standoff near the disputed maritime border on the west coast between North and South Korea. That line, drawn unilaterally by the U.S. Navy when the Korean War ended in 1953, has never been recognized by the North. It has been at the center of many of the military clashes between the two countries in recent years, including Tuesday’s artillery battle. The “skirmish” began, South Korean authorities said, when Pyongyang warned Seoul to halt a huge military drill in the area that involved over 70,000 South Korean troops, 50 warships, 90 helicopters and 500 planes. Seoul refused to stop, and commenced firing artillery rounds into the disputed waters. The North retaliated by shelling the island of Yeonpyeong, subjecting civilians and private homes to what the Korean daily Hankyoreh called “indiscriminate attack.” John Feffer, the author of a 2003 book on the United States and North Korea who has written critically of Kim Jong Il’s authoritarian government, said the incident underscores the dangers of military exercises at a time of volatility. “This is what happens when you take a confrontational approach near a disputed border,” he said. The area near Yeonpyeong is where North Korea allegedly torpedoed and sank a South Korean naval ship, the Cheonan, in March, sending 46 sailors to their death and sharply escalating tensions. According to Sigal, who recently published a detailed history of North-South clashes, the Cheonan may have been targeted by North Korea to avenge an incident in November 2009, when the South Korean Navy fired shots at a North Korean vessel that crossed the demarcation line, killing several North Korean sailors. Naval clashes in the western area escalated after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, a conservative businessman who rejects South Korea’s previous policies of détente, unilaterally backed away from a summit agreement reached by his predecessor, Roh Moo-hyun, with Kim Jong Il in 2007. That agreement included a pledge to establish a joint fishing area in the region and to discuss measures to build military confidence that might help avoid future clashes. Had those steps been carried out, said Sigal, the recent confrontations might have been avoided. Washington’s role on the Korean peninsula is critical because the United States maintains 28,000 ground troops in South Korea and holds operational command over Korean forces in times of war—an aberration that makes South Korea the only country in the world in such a situation. Christine Ahn, a fellow with the Berkeley-based Korea Policy Institute and a longtime peace activist, said Tuesday’s events underscore the need to bring a final end to the Korean War and demilitarize the peninsula. “Not having a peace treaty leaves room open for these kinds of skirmishes,” she said. “No one wants to live under the constant threat of war, North or South.” *Tim Shorrock is a Washington-based investigative journalist and the author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, published in 2008 by Simon & Schuster. His articles have appeared in The Atlantic, Salon, Mother Jones, The Nation and many other publications at home and abroad. He can be reached through his website at timshorrock.com.