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The armed forces of North Korea, South Korea, and United States stand poised to wage a war that could destroy the Korean peninsula and engulf the world in a nuclear holocaust. It is a war that can and must be avoided. Last week, a joint U.S-South Korean military exercise escalated into artillery exchange between the two Koreas. North Korea’s artillery bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island killed four and wounded many more. South Korea’s response left an as-yet unknown number of casualties in the North. Now the United States and South Korea have begun joint war games in the Yellow Sea. U.S. forces include the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit based in Okinawa, the 7th Air Force stationed in Osan, and the aircraft carrier USS George Washington based in Yokosuka. U.S. and South Korean marines will stage a combined amphibious landing exercise on the west coast of Korea. These massive military maneuvers are escalating tensions and threaten to trigger general armed conflict. We appeal to all sides to desist immediately from warlike actions and stop this cycle of ever-increasing threats and shows of force. All parties must back down before sparking a conflict that would threaten millions of lives. Background to the Rapid Military Escalation On November 22nd, the South Korean and American armed forces began annual military exercises involving 70,000 soldiers deployed throughout the South, including the West Sea. Fifty warships, 90 helicopters, 500 warplanes, and 600 tanks were being mobilized for the war simulation exercises, scheduled to last until the end of the month. Amidst the tension heightened by the exercise, South Korean marines on Yeonpyeong Island, just seven miles from the North Korean coast, fired an unknown number of artillery shells into waters claimed by both Pyongyang and Seoul. Hours later, the North Korean military began shelling Yeonpyeong, an island with military bases as well as a fishing community of 1,300 residents. The South Korean military responded by firing its own artillery at North Korean bases. North Korea’s attack on Yeonpyeong Island left two soldiers and two civilians dead and over fifteen wounded. Most of the civilians have had to flee the island. The number of casualties and the level of destruction in the North are not known but could be higher, given the technological superiority of the South’s artillery. Immediately following the artillery exchange, President Barack Obama dispatched the George Washington, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and President Lee Myung-bak announced that the rules of engagement for the South Korean armed forces have been changed, allowing for an asymmetrical response to a North Korean attack. The North ratcheted up the tension with the statement that it “will wage second and even third rounds of attacks without any hesitation, if warmongers in South Korea make reckless military provocations again.” As the US-South Korea joint military exercises get underway, tensions are rising yet higher. The Imperative for Negotiations We deplore all actions that lead to the loss of lives. We denounce the provocative military actions directed at North Korea by South Korea and the United States. We denounce North Korea’s artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island that killed at least four people. We call on the governments of North Korea, South Korea, and the United States to halt their reckless introduction of even greater military force that escalates tensions and risks further loss of life. We call on all three governments – North Korea, South Korea, and the United States – to stop inflaming an already dangerous situation through their provocative actions and heated rhetoric. They should immediately cease the military exercises and maneuverings that will inevitably escalate tensions. We call on the three governments to resume negotiations immediately in order to defuse tensions and to work toward finally ending the Korean War. The recent incident on Yeonpyeong is a deeply tragic reminder of the perilous state of ongoing conflict on the Korean peninsula. Since Korea was divided after World War II, a continuing state of war has been the structural cause of artillery exchanges and border clashes. A heightened risk of conflict will remain unless the Korean War is finally brought to an end with a peace treaty, which would establish the mutual recognition of borders and the normalization of relations. The current crisis therefore underscores the imperative for diplomacy to transform the fragile armistice into a durable structure of peace based on the negotiation of a peace treaty, normalized relations, and the denuclearization of the peninsula. Talks may seem improbable under the present circumstances, but they are needed most when they seem hardest to start. This is such a moment. Alexis Dudden, University of Connecticut John Duncan, UCLA Henry Em, New York University John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus Martin Hart-Landsberg, Lewis and Clark College Monica Kim, University of Michigan Suzy Kim, Rutgers University Namhee Lee, UCLA Jae-Jung Suh, SAIS-Johns Hopkins University Seung Hye Suh, Korea Policy Institute Theodore Jun Yoo, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Update: Since I submitted my article to KPI and ZNET it has come to light that two South Korean civilians, in addition to two soldiers, were killed by the North Korean shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last Tuesday. Further escalation of tensions in the West Sea, particularly U.S.-South Korean war exercises starting today can only place more lives in harm’s way. Clearly the war games should cease immediately and all parties should exercise restraint and return to negotiations. A joint U.S.-South Korea war game, dubbed “Safeguarding the Nation,” ceased to be a game when North Korea and South Korea exchanged artillery fire in the West Sea on Tuesday. In response to a live fire artillery drill conducted by South Korean forces, North Korea fired some 100 artillery rounds at Yeonpyeong Island, a South Korean military post with a civilian fishing community located two miles from the disputed maritime demarcation line and eight miles from the coast of North Korea. Two South Korean marines were killed; more than a dozen other soldiers and at least 3 civilians were wounded. Shortly thereafter South Korea returned fire and scrambled F-16 fighter jets to the scene. North Korea has denounced the joint military exercise as a provocation and it “sent messages to the South Korean government all morning,” according to the South Korean daily, Joongahn Ilbo, November 23, 2010, demanding that it be cancelled. In reply, the South Korean government explained the exercise was not an attack on North Korea. North Korea detected the South Korean artillery fire starting at 1:00 pm according to a statement released by its official news service, KCNA. It began shelling Yeonpyeong Island at 2:34 pm and South Korea responded by firing a barrage of 80 self-propelled rounds towards North Korea’s coast, starting at 3:42 pm, according to South Korean military officials. In a press briefing, spokesperson for the Blue House, Kim Hee Jung, acknowledged “Our Navy was conducting a maritime exercise near the western sea border today. North Korea has sent a letter of protest over the drill. We’re examining a possible link between the protest and the artillery attack.” Firing from the vicinity of Yeonpyeong Island near the coast of North Korea, the South Korean artillery drill took place as part of a display of military might, which North Korea claims simulates the invasion of its territory. The games were to involve 70,000 South Korean soldiers, 50 war ships, 90 helicopters and 500 planes in joint exercises with the U.S. 7th Air Force and the U.S. Marines 31st Expeditionary Unit, through November 30, 2010. While acknowledging that it conducted a live artillery drill, South Korea denies that any of their test shots fell in North Korean territory. South Korean President Lee Myung Bak denounced the North Korean shelling as “an invasion of South Korean territory.” However the boundary line bisecting the West Sea into North and South Korean territories, known as the Northern Limit Line (NNL), was drawn unilaterally by the United States after the Korean War. The NNL is not recognized by North Korea which claims that the line should be drawn further south. The disputed maritime border was the scene of deadly clashes in 1999, 2002, 2009 and last March when a South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan, participating in the Foal Eagle joint war games, went down, claiming the lives of 46 sailors, under circumstances which remain controversial. China and Russia have cautioned against escalation. But emerging from meetings in the underground bunker of the Blue House on Tuesday President Lee remarked, “I think the (South Korean) Army, the Navy and the Air Force should unite and retaliate against (the North’s) provocation with multiple-fold firepower,” according to a Yonhap news agency report.. And Tuesday evening President Obama and President Lee agreed to hold war exercises starting Sunday that will “include sending the aircraft carrier George Washington and a number of accompanying ships into the region, both to deter further attacks by the North and to signal to China that unless it reins in its unruly ally it will see an even larger American presence in the vicinity,” according to journalist, Mark McDonald (NYT – November 24, 2010). The frequency of U.S.-South Korea joint exercises in the West Sea increased dramatically in the aftermath of the sinking of the Cheonan. While threatening to retaliate against the drills, and actually firing artillery rounds into the ocean last summer, North Korea also released a U.S. citizen held captive for entering the country illegally, into the custody of President Jimmy Carter. During Carter’s humanitarian visit, it also proposed to restart diplomatic negotiations to pursue the denuclearization of the peninsula and replace the Korean War truce with a peace treaty. However the continuation of joint exercises, which is intended to send a stern message to North Korea, has clearly produced an unexpected outcome. North Korea is no longer firing artillery rounds into the water. If the Obama and Lee administrations believed that North Korea would not venture to fire upon superior military might, that has proven to be a tragic miscalculation. The lesson of Tuesday’s exchange of fire is that continuation of military posturing by combined U.S. and South Korean forces is likely to escalate armed conflict on the peninsula, and possibly in the region. As an alternative to military escalation, Stanford professor, and nuclear expert, Siegfried Hecker had this to say in his report “A Return Trip to North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex,” published November 20, 2010 by Stanford University, after touring North Korea’s experimental light water reactor construction site on November 12, 2010: “It is clear that waiting patiently for Pyongyang to return to the Six-Party talks on terms acceptable to the United States and its allies will exacerbate the problem. A military attack is out of the question. Tightening sanctions further is likewise a dead end, particularly given the advances made in their nuclear program and the economic improvements we saw in general in Pyongyang. The only hope appears to be engagement. The United States and its partners should respond to the latest nuclear developments so as to encourage Pyongyang to finally pursue nuclear electricity in lieu of the bomb. That will require addressing North Korea’s underlying insecurity. A high-level North Korean government official told us that the October 2000 Joint Communiqué, which brought Secretary Madeleine Albright to Pyongyang, is a good place to start.” (Full report >) President Carter has also urged again a return to diplomacy – in a Washington Post Op-ed, “North Korea’s Consistent Message to the U.S.,” (November 24, 2010). He wrote that during his visit to Pyongyang in July high ranking officials made clear that North Korea is ready “to conclude an agreement to end its nuclear programs, put them all under IAEA inspection and conclude a permanent peace treaty to replace the ‘temporary’ cease-fire of 1953.” They also clarified that its uranium enrichment program “would be ‘on the table’ for discussions with the U.S,” Carter explained. (Full Op-ed >) North Korea’s resolve to defend itself from what it perceives as hostile policies and war games of the U.S. and the Lee Myung Bak administration is evident in its development of a nuclear arsenal and in its response to the military exercises on Tuesday. It is abundantly clear that the US-South Korean determination to contain North Korea by a repeated show of force is moribund, and extremely risky. It is time to exercise restraint and get back to negotiations with North Korea lest the cycle of retaliation upon retaliation, leading to all-out war, be unbroken. Paul Liem is Board Chairperson of the Korea Policy Institute.

Riding out the wake of the sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan, it is a relief that so far there have been no further military incidents and tragic loss of life. Small steps are being made by North and South Korea to mend their frayed relations. Most recently the Red Cross offices of North and South Korea agreed to restart family reunions at the jointly operated Mt. Kumgang resort in the north. Yet the Cheonan incident continues to hang like an albatross upon efforts to improve inter-Korea relations. In the first meeting between North and South Korean military officials in two years, 9/30/2010, the South demanded an apology for the Cheonan sinking. The North replied by demanding to conduct its own inspection of the evidence. The meeting ended without results and without agreement to meet again. There was speculation that President Jimmy Carter’s successful visit to North Korea in August to free a U.S. citizen, detained for crossing into North Korea illegally, might also usher in a thaw in U.S.-North Korea relations. Indeed Carter reported that North Korea wants to make peace. But so far its proposals to restart the six-party talks to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, as conveyed to Carter, have been rejected by the U.S., pending apology by Pyongyang for torpedoing the Cheonan. Yet, Pyongyang vehemently denies any involvement in the incident which cost the lives of 46 sailors. The Obama administration’s insistence that North Korea confess to the Cheonan sinking echoes the Bush administration’s dictum that “bad behavior” by North Korea should not be rewarded with bilateral diplomacy with the United States. President Bush believed that eventually China would see it in its interests to join forces with South Korea and the U.S. to reign in its neighbor. But the Asia of the Bush years is not the Asia of today. The Cheonan incident brought to light a far more assertive China—an economically and militarily powerful country which clearly opposes measures by the Lee and Obama administrations which threaten to destabilize its ally. A diplomatic offensive by the U.S. and South Korea to seek a United Nations condemnation of North Korea for the Cheonan sinking came to an abrupt halt last summer as China made it clear that it did not support South Korea’s accusations that North Korea had attacked the Cheonan, and moreover that it objected to continued war games in the West Sea and in particular to the introduction of a U.S. aircraft carrier into the area. While disagreement between China and the U.S. regarding Korean affairs is nothing new, the rancor over the Cheonan dispute indicates that the U.S. regarded China’s position as outright betrayal. Incensed at China’s refusal to condemn North Korea, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told her hosts in Beijing last May that their ally, North Korea, was a “liar.” Then at meetings with President Hu Jintao at the G20 Summit in Toronto last June, President Obama criticized China for being “blind” about the Cheonan, and implied that China was not acting in its best interests by supporting North Korea. China’s actions indicate that it regards stability on the Korean peninsula as paramount to its interests and that it sees further sanctions on North Korea coupled with ongoing war games by the U.S. and South Korea in the West Sea as major threats to the status quo. With China’s handwriting all over it, the United Nations Security Council statement of July 9, 2010 was neutral on the question of what or who caused the sinking of the Cheonan and emphasized instead “the importance of preventing further such attacks or other hostilities against that country [South Korea] or in the region, calling for full adherence to the Korean Armistice Agreement and encouraging the settlement of outstanding issues through a resumption of dialogue.” If the Lee and Obama administrations were counting on a compliant China to follow their hardline approach to dealing with North Korea, it is time to inject a new realism into such policies before they sink under the weight of the Cheonan debacle. With the world’s second largest economy, the world’s largest standing army and second largest naval service, China is today the most powerful nation in Asia, and it is acting the part, asserting its interests, and making its own rules. It has pushed back on the U.S. and South Korea at the United Nations over the Cheonan; it is pushing back on Japan’s territorial claims to the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands; its naval presence is expanding in the region; and it is resisting pressure by the U.S. to allow the value of its currency to rise. Its leverage over the U.S. in Korean affairs is that it enjoys diplomatic and economic relations with both North and South Korea. Thus, in the absence of diplomatic relations with North Korea the U.S. has been forced to rely upon China to broker the six party talks. Ironically, to check China’s influence on the Korean peninsula, and in the region, North Korea’s proposal “to restart negotiations on a comprehensive peace treaty with the United States and South Korea and on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” as Carter reported in the New York Times, 9/16/2010, may be Washington’s best option. But first it must let the Cheonan rest. Without international support for further isolating North Korea, anti-submarine war exercises in the West Sea and perfunctory threats of more U.S. sanctions serve only to push China and North Korea closer together. North Korean General Secretary Kim Jong Il traveled to China in August, his second visit in 4 months during which the parties reaffirmed their friendship and bilateral relationship, not only for today, but for generations to come. In apparent support of North Korea’s leadership succession plans, which were put into motion during the Workers Party Congress in September, President Hu Jintao declared “it is the common historic responsibility of the two sides [China and North Korea] to advance the friendship along with the times and convey it down through generations to come” reported the Korean Central News Agency. In South Korea the Lee administration is facing mounting public pressure to find an exit from its strategy of demanding an apology from North Korea for the Cheonan as condition for dialogue on other issues. The final report of the Joint International Group (JIG) on the incident has left 40% of the South Korean public unconvinced of its accuracy, according to a poll conducted by Realmeter in September, and has prompted the opposition parties and civic groups to call for a new investigation. Meanwhile, a virtual gag order on the surviving sailors of the Cheonan tragedy has prevented the only immediate witnesses of the event from telling their stories. Of particular concern is that Sweden, the only truly neutral participant in the JIG investigation, has distanced itself from the conclusion that North Korea must have fired the torpedo that sunk the Cheonan. A senior official who had participated in the JIG investigation said: “The Swedish investigative team indicated that it was not in a position to express its position on the findings regarding the responsible party in the Cheonan sinking,” according to the Hankyoreh, 9/14/2010. While the investigation team leaders of the U.S., United Kingdom and Australia signed the final report as full participants in the JIG stating, “I concur with the findings and conclusions of this report,” the Swedish representative, on the other hand, signed the report with the caveats that Sweden’s participation was in “in support” of the JIG and that he concurred with the conclusions “relative to the Swedish team’s participation.” Sweden’s apparent reservations regarding North Korea’s culpability are supported by an independent investigation conducted by Russia. Although its report was not published, the Russian investigators rejected the JIG’s conclusion that North Korea was the culprit, according to the Hankyoreh, 7/27/2010. They attributed the sinking to an accidental running aground by the Cheonan which led to the detonation of a mine causing the vessel to sink, the Hankyoreh report said. Inquiring of a “well placed Russian friend” why the report had not been made public, Donald Gregg, former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, was told “Because it would do much political damage to President Lee Myung-bak and would embarrass President Obama.” (International Herald Tribune 8/31/2010). Moreover in their review of the JIG’s findings, published in the Asia-Pacific Journal, July 12, 2010, scholars J. J. Suh, Director of the School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University, and Seunghun Lee, Professor of Physics at the University of Virginia, found the conclusions to be so flawed that they “recommend that an impartial board be formed to verify the integrity of the JIG data.” Whatever the truth behind the Cheonan tragedy may be, it is unlikely that the U.S. and South Korea, and for that matter, North Korea, will retract their positions. But fortunately it is possible to agree to disagree, and then get on with the business of diffusing tensions. That can and should be done now. After all, the mother of all disagreements between North and South Korea – over which side started the Korean War – did not prevent the tremendous progress made towards peaceful reconciliation over the past decade including agreements on economic cooperation, cultural exchanges, and family reunions. In other words, for Koreans, regardless of how the Korean War was started, another war is not an option, under any circumstance. It has been nearly two years since the six party talks collapsed and during this time inter-Korea relations and U.S.-North Korea relations have been spiraling out of control with no good ending in sight. North Korea is willing to reopen dialogue. It says the six party talks have been “sentenced to death, but not yet executed,” according to Carter. They deserve a reprieve. The alternative is to allow the re-polarization of Northeast Asia along Cold War lines, as they were drawn 60 years ago when war broke out on the Korean peninsula. That should be unacceptable to all parties concerned, regardless of their differences over the Cheonan. It’s time to start talking again. Paul Liem is Board Chairperson of the Korea Policy Institute.

The free trade push has begun again. Both U.S. President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak are calling for ratification of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, which was signed by the two countries’ trade representatives in April 2007 but has yet to be approved by either the U.S. Congress or the South Korean parliament. Aware of how unpopular the agreement remains, President Obama wants the U.S. Congress to delay the approval vote until after the mid-term elections in early November but before the mid-November G-20 meeting in Seoul. The Great Recession has left the U.S. economy in a mess. Slowly but surely people are coming to understand that we are in this mess because of a number of inter-related trends, all driven by increasingly unchecked corporate power: wage suppression, deregulation and globalization of production, and financialization. It is therefore dismaying to hear President Obama announce that the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, which is designed to further enhance corporate power, will somehow “create new jobs and opportunity for people in both our countries.” There’s Nothing Free about “Free” Trade Not surprisingly—after all, it’s called a “free trade agreement”—media and popular attention have focused on the agreement’s potential impact on trade. If implemented, the agreement will eliminate most industrial and non-industrial tariffs and also encourage greater trade in services. In broad brush, this deal represents a trade in interests: Korean manufacturers want greater access to the U.S. market and they are willing to sacrifice their country’s agricultural and (financial and health) service sectors to get it. U.S. agricultural and service sector businesses see it the same way and are content with the deal. No wonder the U.S. auto industry is largely alone in the corporate community (joined only by the beef industry) yelling for renegotiation. This trade-off holds no promise for workers or small farmers in either the United States or South Korea, and this doesn’t change even if the auto and beef industry succeeds in forcing a renegotiation of the agreement. Opening markets only means more intense competition and downward pressure on worker wages. The experience of past decades of trade liberalization should be proof enough. A case in point: both U.S. and Chinese workers have seen their working and living conditions deteriorate while dominant transnational corporations and their national allies in both countries have gained enormous profits. The U.S. auto industry is fighting for whatever it can get. But regardless of the outcome of their struggle, the leading auto makers are not going to radically rethink their respective long-term growth strategies, which involve pushing down auto wages and moving production to new plants in other countries. GM, for example, already sells cars in Korea. Its joint venture with Daewoo produced some 900,000 cars in Korea and sold more than 100,000 of these cars to Korean customers in 2008. The president claims that working people will benefit from the agreement. Beyond misguided confidence in the “magic of the market,” the only justification for this statement is the analysis of the FTA by the U.S. International Trade Commission, which concluded that it would likely raise U.S. GDP by $10.1-$11.9 billion. This is basically a rounding error in an economy with a GDP of over $14 trillion. Moreover, believe it or not, this conclusion is based on modeling that assumes full employment and balance-of-payments equilibrium in both economies, and no shifts in foreign investment from one to the other. This kind of work is not serious social science—it is ideological cover for a corporate agenda. More Than Trade At Stake Although trade is getting all the attention, this agreement covers more than tariff levels. As in all U.S. free trade agreements, this one contains many chapters dealing with labor, government procurement, services, investment, intellectual property rights, and dispute settlement. These chapters detail a number of complex regulations and restrictions that have one clear aim: weakening public power and strengthening corporate power. Here are some examples: The government procurement chapter would essentially limit the ability of any state entity to take into account “non-economic” factors in making spending or purchasing decisions. More specifically, governments would no longer be able to privilege companies that had exemplary labor or environmental records, or were locally owned or committed to using local labor. The investment chapter would grant foreign investors important new rights. In particular, foreign corporations would be able to directly sue governments (local, state, or national) if they introduced new laws or regulations that, in their opinion, reduced their ability to profit from a pre-existing business opportunity. And they could choose to have the suit heard in a foreign tribunal by experts without regard to existing national laws. A number of interwoven mandates from several chapters take dead aim at the public provision of health care. This is especially threatening to South Koreans who currently have such a system. These mandates would also make it much harder to create such a system in the United States. Among other things, the FTA provides for the establishment of special economic zones in South Korea where private U.S. insurance companies could set up operations under favorable conditions, thereby undermining the universal coverage and viability of the existing national public insurance system. Even more deadly, several chapters appear to have the potential to bust South Korea’s health cost-control system. Currently, South Korea has a positive drug list, which is a listing of generic, low-cost drugs that the government believes are medically effective and which its insurance will cover. The FTA provides U.S. pharmaceutical corporations with several avenues to demand that their higher priced drugs be placed on the list. Such an outcome would put a huge financial strain on the country’s health care budget, potentially leading the government to abandon its public commitment. The agreement would also restrict South Korea’s existing laws limiting the import of GMO foods. It would also likely ban any attempt to require the appropriate labeling of such foods. The agreement also contains financial deregulation provisions that would restrict South Korea as well as the United States from using capital controls to regulate “hot money” flows. While the U.S. government remains unwilling to consider such an option, the South Korean government currently employs such controls on the rapid movement of speculative capital. Do we really want to legally forbid their use, especially given our recent history of speculative excesses? This is far from an exhaustive list of concerns. But even this brief list demonstrates that this agreement advances corporate power and profitability at the expense of public needs and capacities. It is far more than a commitment by two governments to reduce some tariffs. Just Say No Trade unions and other social groups in both South Korea and the United States have mounted a serious and sustained opposition to this agreement even before April 2007. That is one reason that its ratification has been delayed. Notably, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and the AFL-CIO have forged a common bond in opposition to this agreement. But the governments of both countries, representing the interests of their respective leading corporations, are determined to ensure its passage. Unfortunately, movements in both South Korea and the United States have often allowed their opposition to be shaped by the media’s presentation of this agreement. Thus, a lot of effort has been put into organizing around technical issues related to autos and beef. Instead what is needed is a strategy that helps working people see the true scope and aim of this and other free trade agreements and, even more importantly, how they are meant to reinforce the very trends that generated the current economic crisis. Perhaps most disappointedly, many of the most active opponents of this agreement have settled on a strategy calling for its “review and renegotiation.” Their sentiments are good, but the demand makes little sense even if we did have the power to review and renegotiate it. As we have tried to demonstrate here, this agreement is predicated on the principle that corporate interests should be privileged over all other things. There is no way to repair an agreement that is, by design, destructive of the public interest. At this point, we need to build a movement in opposition to all free trade agreements. In the United States, that means opposing agreements with Korea, with Colombia and Panama (which President Obama also supports), and with any subsequent countries. And we should encourage our Korean allies to do the same, with this agreement and the one their government just negotiated with the European Union. Just say no. Some argue that saying no is not enough, that we need to propose our own alternative trade program. We disagree. Policies on foreign trade and investment need to flow out of a comprehensive understanding of both the roots of our crisis and the kinds of structural and social transformations necessary to solve it. If we want meaningful employment, community security and stability, well-financed and accountable social programs, environmentally responsive production, and solidaristic relations with other countries, we have no choice but to stop relying on market forces and the pursuit of private profit to direct economic activity. Saying no to this and other free trade agreements will not bring an end to trade or hurtle the world economy into deeper recession, despite what political and business leaders say. These agreements are about power and privilege not economic efficiency or rationality. Rather, saying no to them is one way we can challenge the increasingly destructive domination of market imperatives over our lives and initiate the wider public debate required to put real economic change onto the public agenda. Christine Ahn is a Senior Fellow at the Korea Policy Institute, a policy and research analyst with the Global Fund for Women and a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist. Martin Hart-Landsberg is a professor of economics at Lewis and Clark College, a Korea specialist, an Advisor to the Korea Policy Institute, and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

Former President Jimmy Carter deserves great credit for traveling to Pyongyang and securing the release of a U.S. citizen, Aijalon Mahli Gomes, who had been sentenced to eight years in prison for illegally entering North Korea. The Obama administration had gone out of its way to assert that Mr. Carter was on this mission as a private citizen and that he carried no message from the White House. The North Koreans also made clear to Mr. Carter before his departure that he would not be able to meet the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il. In fact, Mr. Kim left for China shortly after Mr. Carter’s arrival. Still, the Carter visit may help the White House to soften the hostility of its stance toward Pyongyang, especially since the sinking of a South Korea naval ship last March. Given the difficult agenda he inherited when he came into office, President Barack Obama did not give high priority to dealing with North Korea, whose leaders were seen as obscure and irascible. For example, a suggestion last year that the White House invite Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il’s youngest son and probable successor, to the United States was not seriously considered. Instead, President Obama formed a strong relationship with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, whom he saw as the dynamic leader of a strong American ally, and was content to let Seoul set the pace in terms of dealing with Pyongyang. Mr. Lee’s policies toward North Korea were considerably tougher than those of his two predecessors, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, both of whom met with Kim Jong-il. Mr. Lee, by contrast, cut economic aid to the North and increased pressure for political concessions from Pyongyang. Still, a year ago, it seemed possible that relations between Seoul and Pyongyang might improve. A North Korean delegation to the August 2009 funeral of former President Kim Dae-jung, champion of the “sunshine policy” of engagement with North Korea, was warmly received by President Lee. Later in 2009, North Korea proposed a North-South summit meeting and also invited Kim Dae-jung’s widow to visit Pyongyang. But while these conciliatory gestures by North Korea were still under consideration, on March 26 the South Korean Navy frigate Cheonan exploded and sank under mysterious circumstances in the Yellow Sea just off the coast of the Korean Peninsula, where North and South Korean naval vessels have often clashed. A South Korean investigation concluded that the ship was sunk by a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine. The United States concurred, and the sinking of the Cheonan came to be viewed in the United States as proof of North Korean infamy. The United States imposed additional sanctions on the North and joined South Korea in staging military exercises of an unprecedented scope on sea and land. One of South Korea’s leading diplomats put it to me this way: “The Lee government has burned all its bridges with North Korea, and has been undertaking hard-line policies with no exit strategy. The current North-South relationship resembles a classic game of chicken.” One problem, however, is that not everybody agrees that the Cheonan was sunk by North Korea. Pyongyang has consistently denied responsibility, and both China and Russia opposed a U.N. Security Council resolution laying blame on North Korea. In June, Russia sent a team of naval experts to look over the evidence upon which the South Korea based its accusations. Though the Russian report has not been made public, detailed reports in South Korean newspapers said the Russians concluded that the ship’s sinking was more likely due to a mine than to a torpedo. They also concluded that the ship had run aground prior to the explosion and apparently had become entangled in a fishnet, which could have dredged up a mine that then blew the ship up. South Korea has not officially referred to the Russian conclusions. When I asked a well-placed Russian friend why the report has not been made public, he replied, “Because it would do much political damage to President Lee Myung-bak and would embarrass President Obama.” Recent statements by senior U.S. officials in Washington have continued to blame the Kims for the sinking of the Cheonan; it was purportedly done to prove the toughness of the ruling family as it prepares for another transition. But whatever the impact of military maneuvers, economic sanctions and verbal attacks might be, those in Washington and Seoul who are hoping for a collapse of the Kim regime are doomed to disappointment. China will not let that happen. China might not be happy with a nuclear-armed North Korea, but it is far more worried by instability on the Korean Peninsula. Putting further pressure on Pyongyang also only strengthens its dependence on China. The increasing frequency of Kim Jong-il’s trips to China, and the quality of the reception he receives, are clear indications of this trend. American pressures are also likely to instill a mistrust and hostility toward the United States in the mind of Kim Jong-un, who is in his mid-20s and about whom little is known. The disputed interpretations of the sinking of the Cheonan remain central to any effort to reverse course and to get on track toward dealing effectively with North Korea on critical issues such as the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Details of the South Korean investigation of the Cheonan tragedy have not been made public, and undercurrents of opposition to its conclusions are growing stronger in Seoul. We do not know yet whether Mr. Carter discussed the Cheonan issue while he was in Pyongyang. We do know that the former U.S. president is respected in North Korea for having had a friendly and useful conversation with Kim Il-sung, the first North Korean ruler, in 1994. Thus it is likely that he did hear from North Korean leaders their version of what happened. In my own meetings with North Korean officials over the years, I know them to be frank and articulate in expressing their government’s positions. Thus I believe that Mr. Carter, known for his independence and his willingness to enter into controversy, may well have come back with more than Mr. Gomes. The insights he will have picked up from his talks with top leaders other than Kim Jong-il should coincide with an emerging realization within the Obama administration that its current stance toward the North, featuring sanctions and hostility, is having little positive impact, and that a return to some form of dialogue with Pyongyang needs to be considered. Stephen Bosworth, a former ambassador to Seoul and now the U.S. special envoy for North Korean issues, has long favored more dialogue with Pyongyang. There also is a growing realization in Washington that alienating China is an inordinately high price to pay for putting pressure on Pyongyang. So the White House, in choosing to send Mr. Carter at this time, may deserve credit for seeking to change a hostile stance toward North Korea into a more effective policy. Donald P. Gregg, the national security adviser to Vice President George H. W. Bush from 1982 to 1988 and ambassador to Korea from 1989 to 1993, is chairman emeritus of the Korea Society.

In response to the March 26 sinking of the South Korean ship, the Cheonan, allegedly by a North Korean submarine, the United States is poised to adopt even more stringent sanctions against North Korea. Robert Einhorn, the U.S. State Department’s special advisor for nonproliferation and arms control, recently announced in Seoul that after legal and other questions were sorted, sanctions would be in place “in the next several weeks.” Contrary to U.S. assurances that the North Korean people will not suffer, U.S. and international sanctions have already taken a toll on the development of the country and the people. Sanctions have already impeded foreign investment into North Korea and adversely affected business and humanitarian aid efforts of those who venture there. Perhaps most alarming to U.S. policymakers is how sanctions have served to push North Korea further under China’s influence. Piling on 60 Years of Sanctions In the six decades following the start of the Korean War on June 25, 1950, the United States has built a complex system of restrictions on trade, finance, and investment related to North Korea. President Truman imposed a complete embargo on all exports to North Korea just three days after the war’s outbreak, and sanctions have since been a mainstay of U.S. foreign policy toward the country. The United States, then, has had virtually no trade with North Korea for 60 years, which begs the question: what kind of leverage could this new round of sanctions possibly have? Many Korea experts argue that these new prohibitions will not affect North Korea as intended, and sanctions policies will continue to fail to meet their objectives. For 60 years, Washington has tirelessly advocated that sanctions against the north will eventually incentivize the regime to change its foreign policy agenda and domestic behavior. This approach, however, has proven to have had a negligible impact, largely because North Korea has offset many losses in trade with countries now banning exchanges with Pyongyang, namely Japan and South Korea, by increasing trade with China. China’s reactions to sanction initiatives, noncommittal at best, have generally undermined the potential leverage U.S. sanctions could have against North Korea. Robert Einhorn himself noted that China’s support would be critical for this new round of sanctions to have any teeth. China has played a significant role in propping up Pyongyang’s economy. Interested in assuring North Korea’s stability as a buffer state, increasing leverage over the Korean peninsula, and expanding its influence in the region, China has a strategic interest preserving Northeast Asia’s status quo. While China voted for UN Security Council resolutions against North Korea (1718 and 1874), has complied with provisions that concern North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs, and made clear that the “lips and teeth” alliance has since long passed, Beijing has refrained from imposing strict punitive measures against Pyongyang. UN bans on luxury goods, for instance, have not been enforced, and China has maintained a robust trade relationship with North Korea since sanctions policies were implemented, with Sino-DPRK trade steadily increasing over the past decade. In 1995, China’s imports and exports totaled $549 million and by 2008, that figure had grown to $2.7 billion. North Korean imports and exports have also increased considerably, with exchanges with China totaling $488 million in 2000 and $1.8 billion in 2007. This relationship is largely sustained by the large trade deficit China allows North Korea to run. Although China has rendered previous sanctions ineffectual, the new round of financial sanctions targeting the banking sector may have a bit more bite. Targeting financial institutions and companies engaged in “offending” business activities, these new financial sanctions promise strict penalties for non-compliance. The international banking community’s response to the U.S. financial sanction against Macau’s Banco Delta Asia (BDA) sets an important precedent. The BDA sanctions had a considerable effect on North Korea’s financial health, severely restricting access to capital, and the new round of U.S. financial sanctions may have a similar impact. Affecting the North Korean People Purportedly only leveled against the government, the new round of financial sanctions will unequivocally have second- and third-order effects, further burdening North Korea’s already impoverished population. Indeed, financial sanctions have proven to deter other countries and companies from engaging in business activities with North Korea, and the persistent imposition and threat of hard-line economic sanctions policies has placed considerable constraints on North Korea’s ability to attract foreign capital. Longtime North Korea aid worker Kathi Zellweger, of the Swiss government’s Agency for Development and Cooperation, observes that sanctions limit development opportunities and deters many foreign investors from even entertaining business prospects in North Korea. According to Cho Myung-Chul of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy in Seoul, foreign investors reportedly shy away from potentially lucrative ventures in North Korea because of the looming threat of U.S. sanctions. Constraints on foreign capital and financial transactions will, for instance, severely limit infrastructure and development projects in the cash-strapped north — projects that would improve the living conditions in North Korea. Without financial resources, energy generation systems and distribution networks in desperate need of expansion and upgrades will remain antiquated. There is not enough energy to meet domestic demand at both the household and factory level. And the transportation sector continues to need maintenance and repair. Sanctions against the north also prevent Pyongyang from developing a robust export market that could generate hard currency. In order to revive industry currently operating at very low capacities, North Korea would need to receive large injections of outside capital. With the increased risk premium on doing business with North Korea, however, investments in and loans to North Korea are seen as unstable business opportunities. Questionable Terms The Obama administration proposes to publish a blacklist of North Korean companies and individuals suspected to have business activities involving weapons and luxury items. The construction of the blacklist is problematic, however. Korea scholar Hazel Smith has written that ships reported to have been transporting weapons materials were found, on investigation, to be abiding by international law. They were either legally trading goods or shipping dual-use items — goods that can be used for both civilian and military purposes. Smith recalls a South Korean business representative being jailed for trading sodium cyanide — an imported material North Korea is reliant on for mining and agriculture — because it could theoretically be used to produce nerve gas. Felix Abt, a Swiss businessman running a pharmaceutical company in North Korea during the mid-2000s, was unable to receive certain chemicals for his business and told Time magazine, “someday you may find out that some product or even a tiny but unavoidable component is banned by a U.S. or UN sanction because it can, for example, also be used for military purposes.” The list of dual-use imports prohibited to enter Iraq because of U.S. sanctions reveals the breadth of items affected by sanctions policies. Pencils were restricted because graphite could theoretically be used to make bombs. Dual-use goods also included pesticides and fertilizers, water purification systems, and basic healthcare items like blood transfusion bags, syringes, and x-ray equipment. Because many items essential to the livelihood of ordinary people appear on the dual-use list, the impact of the sanctions clearly go well beyond the government and the elite. More than the United States Although North Korea has managed to offset lost trade by increasing trade with China, the impact of loss trade with Japan, and now with South Korea, continues to affect Pyongyang’s ability to recalibrate the economy. In 2001, trade between Japan and North Korea reached $1.3 billion, with Japanese exporting some $1.1 billion worth of goods, and importing $226 million from North Korea. But by 2008, right before the 2009 missile tests, and passage of UNSC sanctions, Japan’s imports of good from North Korea dropped to zero, and Japanese exports dropped down to $7.6 million. In South Korea, meanwhile, the reversal has been even more dramatic. As soon as Lee Myung Bak came into office in March 2008, he began to cut direct governmental aid to North Korea. Lee not only reversed bilateral aid that had grown in previous administrations, but has also stymied the efforts of South Korean NGOs providing humanitarian aid to the North. In May 2010, Lee announced South Korea would officially cut trade with North Korea, exempting the Kaesong Industrial complex and aid for North Korean children. In a nationally broadcast speech, Lee said, “Trade and exchanges between South and North Korea will be suspended.” South Korea would also block North Korea from using its sea-lanes, which would force North Korean merchant ships to use alternative routes, requiring them to use more fuel. According to International Herald Tribune reporter Choe Sang-Hun, “Cutting off trade with North Korea is the most punishing unilateral action the South could take against the impoverished North.” South Korea imports $230 million annually of seafood and other products, and North Korea earns $50 million a year manufacturing clothes and other business with South Korean companies. In 2008, inter-Korean trade reached $1.8 billion, with South Korea accounting for 32 percent of North Korea’s trade volume. But it’s not just trade and governmental bilateral aid the Lee administration has halted. According to Yi Yejung, Project Director for Inter-Korean Cooperation Division of the Korean Sharing Movement, the South Korean government banned humanitarian aid to North Korea after the Cheonan incident, despite government rhetoric that it will continue the aid for the most vulnerable people. “In short,” says Yi, the “South Korean government is officially prohibiting NGOs from sending aid materials.” The Lee administration has also made it more difficult for South Korean aid groups to travel to the North. For example, in 2007, 2,962 individuals traveled to North Korea 65 times with the Korean Sharing Movement to provide humanitarian aid. In 2008, however, these numbers sharply dropped. Only 618 individuals were able to make humanitarian aid trips to North Korea 49 times. Last year, only 84 people were able to get clearance to go to North Korea 25 times. The government has also sent a chilling effect to those who participate in humanitarian aid activities by investigating those who traveled as far back as in 2007. According to one humanitarian aid worker, who asked not to be named given the organization’s dependence on South Korean funding sources, “There are literally ships at Incheon port waiting with fertilizer, seed and building materials waiting to be shipped to North Korea.” According to Kim Heung Kwang, a North Korean now living in South Korea trying to send cell phones, books, music and other information to North Korea through his organization, North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, sanctions impede their efforts. “The prerequisite for this program is enough computers in North Korea,” says Kim who uses USBs to transfer this knowledge. “But there are several regulations in place blocking our efforts. So I think that the United States needs to change its regulations on these matters.” Sanctions Thwart Development “The leaders are using the sanctions as a justification,” Karin Janz recently told the Times of India. Janz is the country director of the German NGO Welthungerhilfe and has for five years travelled extensively throughout nine North Korean provinces. “People believe the country is in a bad condition because of outside forces.” Although the food situation is bad, says Janz, it’s nowhere as bad as how the western media portrays it. Sanctions have adversely impacted North Korean agriculture, he says, because of its heavy reliance on imports such as farm machines and chemical fertilizers. Sanctions may have something to do with the government’s new interest in sustainable agriculture with mandates to cooperatives to pursue organic farming, composting, and a reduced dependence on chemicals. Still, farms need substantial investment to get to a level of functionality, which requires capital. One area that has had an infusion of capital is North Korea’s cell phone industry. The Egyptian company Orascom Telecom has been providing cell phone service through its subsidiary Koryolink to 100,000 North Koreans living in Pyongyang and near Nampo port along the western peninsula. “In spite of assurances by Pyongyang that investments conducted through Taepung International Investment Group are not in violation of UN sanctions and a newly introduced advertisement campaigned to attract investors,” writes Felix Imonti, “few investors other than the Chinese are likely to follow Orascom Telecom into the Hermit Kingdom.” Many businesses don’t publicize that they are doing business in North Korea. For example, little is known about North Korea’s sizeable cartoon industry, which Walt Disney outsourced to edit The Lion King and Pocahontas. Even Samsung has its cell phones produced in North Korea, as does the German software developing company Nosotek through a joint venture in 2007. One company has made its business in North Korea a centerpiece of marketing. Noko jeans, started by three Swedish marketers, are made in North Korea. They are specifically black because the North Koreans wouldn’t allow blue jeans, a trademark of American culture. In 2009, Noko jeans hit the department stores in Sweden, or they almost did. PUB, a Swedish department store decided to pull the North Korean jeans because it didn’t want to be associated with North Korea. Although you can purchase the jeans online, for U.S.-based customers, the threat of losing your $222 jeans to U.S. customs is real enough to discourage the purchase. The website reads, “You may order from our shop, but you will do so at your own risk. Goods from North Korea always has a risk of getting confiscated in the American customs. If you want to be 300 000% sure that this wont happen you can apply for at the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) [sic].” The Key Player: China As North Korea loses its trading partners and sources of humanitarian aid, one source remains constant and growing: China. In fact, China has made significant investments in North Korea’s development. From 1995 to 2008, China provided the greatest amount of food aid to North Korea, providing nearly 27 percent of all food aid. But it’s not just food and fuel. China is working with an international investment group that North Korea has created to develop ports, railways, light industry, and agriculture. China is particularly interested in the Rason port in order to access steel and coal. China has already signed a lease to access North Korean port facilities until 2028 and Russia until 2060. On a February visit to Pyongyang, Wang Jiarui, China’s chief of the Communist Party’s international department, pledged $10 billion to develop the infrastructure, equivalent to 70 percent of North Korea’s estimated GDP. On his May trip to China, Kim Jong Il declared, “North Korea welcomes corporate investment from China, as well as advancing the working level cooperation between the two sides.” To attract investors, the North Korean International Trade Office website proclaims that the country has “the lowest labour costs in Asia” and the “lowest tax scheme in Asia,” as well as listing 300 types of minerals and other natural resources. The North Korean government is attracting investors to the region by offering cheap North Korean labor valued at $40 per month, a $17 dollar discount from the wages paid to 42,000 North Korean workers in the Kaesong Industrial Park. Engagement, Not Encirclement Sanctions haven’t achieved the intended goal of the senders: regime change. Instead, sanctions have only made the lives of North Koreans harder. As the Obama administration unveils its blacklist and plans to further tighten the noose around the North Korean regime, North Korea will fall increasingly under China’s influence. Is it possible that the Obama administration can only envision a future for Northeast Asia that is more highly militarized and fraught with tensions with China? The United States hasn’t tried the alternative: engagement. In a recent New Yorker interview with John Delury, the project director of the report North Korea Inside Out: The Case for Economic Engagement, concluded that engagement was the best route. “The inconvenient truth of our report is that, if the U.S. seeks to improve the lot of the North Korean people, the best way to do so is by going through the regime, by actively engaging the regime.” Despite all the concerns with North Korea’s human rights record and nuclear tests, Delury asks, “How do you help the regime find an alternative means of survival and development, one in which the people grow more prosperous, and the regime achieves greater stability? The hard pill of an engagement approach is that you have to let the people and the regime prosper together.” Even a recent Forbes op-ed by Shaun Rein, the founder of the China Market Research Group, read, “More sanctions and increased naval exercises in the region won’t help everyday North Koreans, and they won’t make the Korean peninsula safer. In reality, they will only continue to empower Kim Jong-Il’s regime while further impoverishing everyday North Koreans…The best way to create a stable and secure North Korea is to do the opposite of what we are doing now. We should lift our economic sanctions and invest more money in the country.”

For those who survived the Korean War, the sight of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington leading a fleet of U.S. and South Korean ships along the eastern coast of the Korean Peninsula on the 57th anniversary of the temporary armistice is alarming indeed. In a move intended to punish North Korea for its alleged sinking of a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, the United States and South Korea are flexing their military might by mobilizing American and South Korean ships, over 200 aircraft, including the F-22 Raptor fighters, and 8,000 troops. If anything, the military provocation by all sides demonstrates the frailty of the Korean armistice agreement, which was signed by North Korea, China and the United States on July 27, 1953. It shows how much the absence of a peace treaty could trigger another war, not just between the two Koreas, but between the United States and China. To be clear, contrary to the rhetoric of promises of engagement emanating from the White House, President Barack Obama is continuing his predecessor’s hard-line policies of sanctions and military posturing. These have been counterproductive and have done nothing to reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation. Worse, they are actually increasing the chances of military conflict in northeast Asia. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced last week during a visit to the demilitarized zone that the United States plans to impose greater sanctions on North Korea. Although Secretary Clinton asserts that “[t]hese measures are not directed at the people of North Korea,” it is in fact the North Korean people who will suffer from U.S. sanctions. The freezing of North Korean assets, in particular, restricts the country’s ability to purchase the materials it needs to meet the basic food, healthcare, sanitation and educational needs of its people. Moreover, sanctions have not succeeded in pressuring North Korea to disarm. To the contrary, North Korea considers economic sanctions to be an act of war, and has responded by accelerating its nuclear weapons program. History has taught us that military posturing, such as the current military exercises, do not change North Korea’s policies. Instead, Pyongyang views the maneuvers as a test of its will, and has warned that it will counter them with “a physical response” of its own. Worse, Beijing now views the U.S.-South Korea military exercises as too close to its own shores and as a threat to China’s security and that of the region. The international community’s response to tensions arising from the sinking of the South Korean naval vessel was clearly outlined in the July 9th United Nations Security Council statement, which calls urgently “for full adherence to the Korean Armistice Agreement” and “the settlement of outstanding issues” through “direct dialogue and negotiation” so as to avert “escalation.” The Obama administration should heed the U.N. Security Council by moving from the war room to the negotiating table. North Korea has agreed to return to the six-party talks. The Obama administration should do the same. As the former U.S. ambassador to South Korea James Laney put it, what should be “at the top of the agenda … in order to remove all unnecessary obstacles to progress … is the establishment of a peace treaty to replace the truce that has been in place since 1953.” Koreans on the peninsula and throughout the diaspora say 60 years of enmity and war is enough. As a Korean-American, I cannot ignore the heart-wrenching stories of family division, especially of those elderly people who may soon pass away without reuniting with their families. I don’t know a single Korean, either in the United States or in Korea, who isn’t deeply moved when they see siblings embrace for the first time in a half century. Our national leaders can continue to choose war and division or a path of peace and reconciliation. We must urge them to choose wisely. *Christine Ahn is a Senior Fellow with the Korea Policy Institute and a member of the National Campaign to End the Korean War.

On the night of March 26, 2010, the 1,200 ton Republic of Korea (ROK) Navy corvette Cheonan was severed in the middle and sank off Baengnyeong Island in the West Sea (or Yellow Sea). Forty-six crew members died in the incident. After almost two months of investigation, the ROK government released an interim report that traced the cause of the Cheonan’s sinking to the explosion of a North Korean (DPRK) torpedo.1 The report, however, contains a number of inconsistencies that call into question the government’s conclusion and the integrity of its investigation. In order to address these inconsistencies and to restore public confidence in the investigation, the ROK government must form a new team to restart the investigation from the beginning. We recommend that the international community continue its insistence on an objective and thorough investigation while reiterating its commitment to peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. The Joint Civil-Military Investigation Group (JIG), made up of 22 military experts, 25 experts from 10 military-related research institutes, and three civilian experts recommended by the Parliament,2 conducted an almost CSI-like scientific investigation3 that involved a test explosion, a computer simulation, and such high tech analyses as EDS and XRD. In its interim report released at a press conference on May 20, it revealed three main findings: (1) the Cheonan’s sinking was caused by an explosion outside the ship; (2) the explosion was that of a torpedo; and (3) the torpedo was manufactured by North Korea. The JIG drew, on the basis of these findings, the logical conclusion that North Korea was responsible for the sinking of the Cheonan. We agree that this indeed is the logical conclusion one would make if all three findings were correct. After a careful analysis of the JIG’s report and evidence and our own physical testing, however, we find that the JIG has failed (1) to substantiate its claim that there was an outside explosion; (2) to establish the causal linkage between the Cheonan’s sinking and the torpedo; and (3) to demonstrate that the torpedo was manufactured by the DPRK. The JIG presented its three “findings” without credible evidence, and its findings are self-contradictory and inconsistent with facts. All three are riddled with such serious flaws as to render the JIG’s conclusion unsustainable. Furthermore, there is a very high chance that its EDS or x-ray data may have been fabricated. Our results show that the “critical evidence” presented by the JIG does not support its conclusion that the Cheonan’s sinking was caused by the alleged DPRK’s torpedo. On the contrary, its contradictory data raises the suspicion that it fabricated the data. First, the JIG failed to produce conclusive, or at least convincing beyond reasonable doubt, evidence of an outside explosion. While the JIG argues in its report that the pattern of the ship’s deformation and severance is consistent with the damage caused by a bubble effect from an outside explosion, its claim is not supported by the evidence. A JIG simulation showing how a bubble might be formed by an underwater explosion, and how it might sever the Cheonan, was not completed by the time the JIG released its report, as it acknowledged at the Parliament’s Special Committee on the Cheonan on May 24.4 The simulation that was shown at the conference only shows a bubble being formed and hitting the bottom of the ship, deforming the ship and making a small rupture in the hull.5 Nowhere does this simulation show the Cheonan being completely severed in the middle by the bubble, as stated in the JIG report. Dong-a Science, a South Korean science publication of the conservative Dong-A media conglomerate, released more information about the simulation, presumably courtesy of data supplied or leaked by the JIG, the day after Suh raised questions about the effect of the bubble.6 Astonishingly, the updated simulation still failed to show how the bubble might have severed the Cheonan. The leaked simulation shows that after the bubble hit the ship and made a small rupture, it began to shrink and show signs of breaking up. As of the writing of this paper, more than 30 days after the JIG released its investigative report on May 20, the ROK defense ministry, speaking on behalf of the JIG investigation, admits that it has yet to produce a bubble simulation consistent with the information presented in the JIG report. If that is the case, on what grounds did the JIG argue that the Cheonan was damaged and severed by the bubble effect? We asked that question in public but received no reply.7 Not only did the JIG’s press conference simulation fail to show that the bubble effect could have cut the Cheonan, that simulation is not consistent with the pattern of the ship’s damage. If the bottom of the ship was hit by a bubble, it should show a spherical concave deformation resembling the shape of a bubble, as the JIG’s own simulation suggests (see the right side of Figure 1), but it does not. The bottom of the front part of the ship is pushed up in an angular shape, as the yellow line shows in the left side of Figure 1, more consistent with a collision with a hard object. The tear line in the JIG simulation has a circular shape because the hull shows a tear in the area that was hit by the spherical bubble. Equally important, if a bubble jet effect was produced by an outside explosion of 250kg of explosives, as the JIG argues, that explosion should have produced an immediate pre-bubble shock wave whose strength would have been at least 5000 psi (pounds per square inch) when it hit the bottom of the Cheonan.8 The bottom and ruptured surface of the ship betray no sign of such a large shock (compare Figure 1 with Figure 2 that shows the damage done by 5 psi on a house); the internal instruments and parts remain intact in their original place; and none of the crew members suffered the kind of injuries expected of such a shock (Figure 3). Given that an underwater explosion produces both a bubble effect and a shock wave and the latter is usually about 6 to 10 times as destructive as the former, the ship’s and the crew’s condition is not consistent with the damage expected of an outside explosion.9 Even if the JIG could produce a simulation that shows the bubble effect severing the Cheonan, it is no proof that there was indeed an explosion that produced the bubble effect. Proof depends on a pattern of ship destruction that is consistent with a bubble effect simulation. But at this point, the JIG’s May 20 press conference simulation did not show the ship’s severance and a bubble effect simulation leading to severance has not yet been completed by the ROK defense ministry’s own admission. Moreover, the May 20 simulation is not consistent with the ship’s deformation. The JIG’s so-called first finding, therefore, is a mere allegation that is groundless and contradicted by the JIG’s own evidence and at least one analysis of underwater explosions in the military literature. Figure 1. Cheonan’s Damaged Bow and JIG’s simulated damage Figure 2. Damage done by 5 psi on a house Figure 3. The Diesel Engine Room and Gas Turbine Second, even if the JIG succeeded in demonstrating that an outside explosion occurred — and it did not — it still needs to show that the explosion was that of the torpedo recovered by the JIG. But its claim that the “recovered” torpedo exploded outside the Cheonan has no scientific basis. It has presented two pieces of evidence to support its claim: that white compounds — “adsorbed materials” in the JIG’s report (we analyzed the Korean-language JIG report) — found on the torpedo match those found on the surfaces of the Cheonan ship; and that the compounds resulted from an explosion. We concur with the JIG on the first, but believe that the second has no basis.10 The electron-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses, done by the JIG, unambiguously prove that the white compounds found on the ship (AM-1 [AM= adsorbed materials11]) and the torpedo (AM-2) have the identical atomic composition and chemical compounds, supporting the first piece of the evidence. But the intensity ratio of the oxygen peak and the aluminum peak in their EDS data of the AM-1 and AM-2 is very different from that of the alumina, Al2O3, that the JIG argues is formed during the explosion. This means that the AM-1 and AM-2 samples have nothing to do with any explosion, but are most likely aluminum that has rusted after exposure to moisture or water for a long time.12 An independent scientist, Dr. Yang Panseok, a member of the University of Manitoba’s department of geological sciences, has found that the EDS intensity ratio of hydrogen and aluminum in the compounds is not even close to that of the Al2O3 that the JIG claims constitutes the compounds. Rather, it matches that of an aluminum hydroxide, Al(OH)3.13 This alone clearly tells us that the AM-1 and AM-2 are not associated with any explosion. Furthermore, the x-ray diffraction pattern of the AM-3 third sample that was extracted from the JIG’s test explosion is completely different from the x-ray patterns of the AM-1 and AM-2. The main difference is that in AM-3 sharp peaks are present indicating (1) only a fraction of the Al (aluminum) oxidized during the explosion, and (2) the un-oxidized Al remains in its crystalline form, while in AM-1 and AM-2 no signal related to any Al-related compounds was observed.14 The JIG claims that the compounds have different crystal structures because the real torpedo explosion produced a higher temperature and experienced a more rapid cooling by the sea water than the JIG’s test explosion, and as a result, almost 100% of the Al was oxidized, and almost 100% oxidized alumina became amorphous. However, there have been several scientific experiments that approximate a real explosion, and they report that the resulting Al-related compounds are both crystalline alumina, called alpha-Al2O3, and amorphous alumina, called gamma-Al2O3.15 One of us, Lee, has performed a laboratory test in which an aluminum sample was heated above its melting temperature and was rapidly cooled by water, mimicking the explosion conditions. When the resulting materials were examined using EDS and x-ray, it turned out that only a fraction of the aluminum was oxidized, and the resulting compound contained un-oxidized Al and alpha-Al2O3, both crystalline. This is consistent with previous scientific studies, and it indicates that experimental heating and cooling of Al resembles a real explosion at least qualitatively, if not quantitatively. In fact, the JIG x-ray data of the AM-3 sample (the JIG’s test experiment data) shows strong crystalline Al -Al2O3, consistent with the Lee experimental signals and weak crystalline results. However, when the media reported our experimental results and the inconsistencies between the AM-3 and the other two samples, the ROK ministry of defense responded that the crystalline Al signal found in the AM-3 sample was due to an experimental mistake, which we believe is a plain lie.16 To summarize, our scientific analysis and experiment lead us to conclude that (1) JIG’s AM-1 and AM-2 samples did not result from an explosion and (2) some of JIG’s data, most likely the AM-3 EDS data, may have been fabricated.17 Thus, the “critical evidence” presented by the JIG to link the Cheoan sinking to the alleged explosion of the torpedo is scientifically groundless and perhaps fabricated. Figure 4. JIG’s EDS and XRD Third, although the JIG presented the torpedo parts recovered from the area of presumed explosion as “critical evidence” that tied the explosion to North Korea, the “critical evidence” has a serious inconsistency that casts doubt on the integrity of the evidence. The outer surface of the torpedo propulsion unit that was found was greatly corroded, presumably because the coat of paint that would have protected the metal had been burnt off during the explosion. The paint burn-off and resulting metal corrosion are consistent with a high heat explosion commonly found in bombs and torpedoes. And yet the blue ink marking of Hangul — “1bǒn” in Korean — remains intact despite the fact that ink has a lower boiling point, typically around 150 degrees in Celsius, than paint does — typically 350 degrees Celsius — and thus the ink marking should have burnt away just like the outer paint. Our simple estimates suggest that the torpedo would have been subjected to heat of at least 350 degrees Celsius and quite likely over 1000 degrees, high enough to burn the paint and thus the ink as well. This inconsistency — the high heat tolerant paint was burnt but the low heat tolerant ink was not — cannot be explained and casts serious doubt on the integrity of the torpedo as “critical evidence.”18 Furthermore, both North and South Koreans can write the Korean letter “1bǒn”, and thus we doubt that a regular court of law would consider the mark evidence of exclusive North Korean writing.19 Figure 5. The Torpedo with Korean marking In conclusion, the JIG had the burden of demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt all three of its findings in order to substantiate its conclusion that the DPRK’s torpedo destroyed and sank the Cheonan, but each of the three findings contain serious inconsistencies. Given that all three key claims have serious flaws, the JIG conclusion based on these claims is at least as seriously marred. While we emphatically note that our findings do not prove that North Korean did not do it, we conclude that the JIG has failed to prove that it did. The seriousness of the inconsistencies in fact casts doubt not only on the validity of the JIG conclusions but also on the integrity of its investigation. We suspect that at least some of the EDS data was fabricated, and recommend that an impartial board be formed to verify the integrity of the JIG data. Given the seriousness of the inconsistencies, we recommend that the ROK government reopen the investigation and form a new, and more objective, team of investigators.20 We call on the Korean Parliament to open a separate investigation into the JIG investigation itself in order to critically assess the integrity of the investigation, tests, and data. In the United States the Obama administration should support and assist an objective and thorough investigation while making clear U.S. commitment to helping maintain peace and stability in the Korean peninsula. Given the problematic nature of the JIG conclusions, the UN Security Council should urge the ROK to produce a more convincing and objective report before the council starts its deliberations. An investigation that is as thorough, objective, and scientific as humanly possible is needed to get to the bottom of the Cheonan incident to discover the cause and perpetrator. After all, forty six lives have been lost, and peace and security of Korea and Northeast Asia is at stake. The dead sailors deserve such a report. So does the international community. The authors prepared this report for The Asia-Pacific Journal. Articles on related subjects: David Cyranoski, Controversy over South Korea’s sunken ship Physicists’ research casts doubt on idea that North Korean torpedo downed vessel. Nature. Tanaka Sakai, Who Sank the South Korean Warship Cheonan? A New Stage in the US-Korean War and US-China Relations. The Asia-Pacific Journal. John McGlynn, Politics in Command: The “International” Investigation into the Sinking of the Cheonan and the Risk of a New Korean War. The Asia-Pacific Journal. Recommended citation: Seunghun Lee and J.J. Suh, “Rush to Judgment: Inconsistencies in South Korea’s Cheonan Report,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, 28-1-10, July 12, 2010. Notes The May 20th report released by the ROK is actually an interim report. It plans to issue the final report by the end of July, 2010. Not only did the ROK government rush to judgment on the cause of the Cheonan incident, as we argue in this article, but it has also rushed to punitive measures against the DPRK, including urging the United Nations Security Council to act on the basis of the interim report. One of the 3 civilian experts, recommended by the opposition Democratic Party, was expelled from the JIG before it released its report. The person expelled was then charged by the South Korean Navy with “defaming” it for propagating the “false allegation” that the Cheonan had been grounded. Kim Kwikǔn, “Haegun, sinsangch’ǒlwiwon ‘myǒngyehueson’ hyǒmǔi koso [Navy Charges Shin Sang-Chul of ‘Defaming’ It,”] Yonhap News, May 19, 2010. CSI or Crime Scene Investigation is a popular U.S. TV series that depicts police use of advanced forensic and scientific techniques to investigate and solve crimes. Yun Dǒkyong, co-chairman of the JIG, admitted at the hearing of the Parliament’s Special Committee on the Cheonan on May 24 that “we are continuing our simulation and the final result of the simulation will come out in July,” conceding that “the simulation is not yet completed to show the water column [that is allegedly produced as a result of the bubble effect], but it will be all shown when the simulation is completed.” Pak Jǒngi, another co-chairman, added that “the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials [that is in charge of the simulation] said it would complete the simulation by July 15th.” Kim Namgwon and Kim Pǒmhyǒn, “Kimgukpang, ‘Puk, simnijǒn konggyǒkhamyǒn chǔkkak taeǔng [Defense Minister Kim, ‘Will Immediately Respond if North Attacks [Our] Psychological Warfare’],” Yonhap News, May 24, 2010. The latter quote is from “Ch’ǒanhamt’ǔkwi, ‘mulgidung chonjaeyǒbu’ nonnan [Cheonan Special Committee, Controversy over ‘Presence of Water Column’], Yonhap News, May 24, 2010. The JIG’s simulation results are available here. Although the ROK defense ministry (MND) has updated the simulation, as of July 2, 2010 it still fails to show how the Cheonan was severed. Suh Jae-Jung, “Bǒbǔlhyogwanǔn ǒbssǒtta [There was no bubble effect],” Pressian, May 27, 2010. Chǒn Tonghyǒk, “P’okbalhu 1ch’okkaji … ch’ǒnanham paemit irǒtke jjigǔrǒjyǒtda [Up to a second after explosion … The Chonan’s bottom deformed this way],” Dong-a saiǒnsǔ [Dong-A Science], May 28, 2010. Suh, op.cit. Suh’s calculation on the basis of the formula in the Australian report, Reid, Warren D. “The Response of Surface Ships to Underwater Explosions.” Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Department of Defence, 1996. Ibid., page 1. The Ministry of National Defense initially stated that 70% of a torpedo’s explosive energy will be a shock wave effect. After Suh’s article asked why the Cheonan betrays no signs of shock wave damage, the MND decreased the ratio to 54% and 46%. The ratio varies depending on the kind of explosive and the mix of other ingredients such as aluminum powder. For the MND’s initial position, see Kim Byǒngnyun, “ǒroi kiroi, sujung p’okbalǔi wiryǒk [Torpedo and Sea Mine, the Power of Underwater Explosion],” Ministry of National Defense, April 28, 2010. For its newer numbers, see Kim Byǒngnyun, “Ǒroi sujungp’okbal ch’ungbyǒkp’a bǒbǔlhyogwaro sǒnch’e p’agoe [Torpedo’s Underwater Explosion Destroys Ship with Shock Wave and Bubble Effect],” Ministry of National Defense, May 22, 2010. S.-H. Lee, “Comments on the Section “Adsorbed Material Analysis” of the CheonAn Report made by the South Korean Civil and Military Joint Investigation Group (CIV-MIL JIG),” ArXiv, June 6, 2010 here. “Adsorbed materials” does not appear in the English version of the ROK’s Cheonan investigative report but does appear as an English insertion in the Korean version. AM-1, AM-2 and AM-3 are designations created by Seunghun Lee in a scientific paper authored by him that discusses the JIG’s analysis of the adsorbed materials. Kang Yanggu, “Ch’ǒanham deit’ǒ ch’imyǒngjǒk oryu… aluminyumǔn kǒjitmal anhae [The Cheonan data has fatal flaws… aluminum does not lie],” Pressian, June 24, 2010. Yang suspects, on a careful analysis of the JIG’s EDS data, that the AM-1 and AM-2 are not aluminum oxides but more likely aluminum hydroxide, Al(OH)3, found in nature commonly as gibbsite. Kang Yanggu and Hwang Chunho, “Isanghan naraǔi ch’ǒnanham … ‘aluminium sanhwamulǔn ǒbssǒtta [The Cheonan in Wonderland … There was no aluminum oxide],” Pressian, June 30, 2010 and Hankyere, June 30, 2010. Lee, June 6, 2010, op. cit. S.-H. Lee and P. Yang, “Was the “Critical Evidence” presented in the South Korean Official Cheonan Report Fabricated?” June 28, 2010. S.-H. Lee, “Ch’ǒnanham habjodanǔi ‘gyǒljǒngjǒk chǔnggǒ’nǔn chojaktoetta [The JIG’s ‘critical evidence’ is fabricated],” Pressian, June 16, 2010. For the Ministry of National Defense’s response, see “Mo int’ǒnet maech’eesǒ pododoen ‘isǔnghǒn kyosu chujang(1)’e daehan dapbyǒnimnida [Response to ‘Professor Lee Senghun’s allegation (1) reported in an internet media],” Ministry of National Defense, June 21, 2010.

Last fall, I woke up in the middle of the night, and instead of continuing to toss and turn, I decided to switch on my computer. On the homepage of The New York Times read the headline, “North Korea Opens Dam Flow, Sweeping Away 6 in the South.” North Korea had lifted the floodgates of a dam on the Imjin River, sending a tidal wave south and killing six South Koreans, including an 8-year-old boy. The water level had doubled, which meant North Korea’s farms could flood and wipe out the season’s harvest. To avert this perilous situation, North Korea allegedly released the water without any advance notice. This is so ridiculous, I thought to myself. Why can’t these two countries—that speak the same language, eat the same food, have family in common, and share over two millennia of history—just communicate? Why couldn’t North Korean leader Kim Jong Il just pick up the phone and give South Korean leader Lee Myung Bak a heads up? Because both Koreas are deeply patriarchal, heavily militarized, and still at war. June 25th marks the 60th anniversary of the Korean War, a three-year war that claimed the lives of three million Korean civilians and 1.2 million combatants. Today it is called the “Forgotten War,” but the carnage and destruction it wreaked has left deep wounds on the Korean people. The Korean War was among the most vicious: napalm was first used on a civilian population in this war (and far more than during the Vietnam War); more bombs were dropped in Korea than on all of Europe during WWII; and an atomic bomb was threatened by President Truman. Within three months of the war, 57,000 Korean children were missing and half a million homes were damaged or destroyed. One year into the war, U.S. Major General Emmett O’Donnell, Jr. testified before the Senate, “I would say that the entire, almost the entire Korean Peninsula is just a terrible mess. Everything is destroyed. There is nothing standing worthy of the name… There were no more targets in Korea.” The Korean War came to an unresolved end on July 27, 1953 with a temporary armistice signed by the United States, North Korea, and China. South Korea was not a signatory because it had ceded military power to General Douglas Macarthur. Sixty years later, the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) remains the world’s most heavily militarized border in the world with 1.2 million landmines with South Korean, North Korean, and U.S. troops poised for war. The latest episode of brinkmanship over the sunken South Korean warship, the Cheonan, exemplifies how quickly the cold war could transition to a hot war. All three governments spend exorbitant amounts on building up their militaries and weaponry, which drains money away for vital investments in the health and welfare of the people. At the end of the Korean War, hundreds of thousands of Koreans found themselves on the opposite side of the 38th parallel—and far away from their relatives. An estimated 2 million children had been displaced. Yet the line had been drawn with no prospects for peace or reunification. Separated families remained divided without any hope for reunification with their families. Finally, in 2000, the two Korean leaders, Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong Il, signed the June 15 Declaration which set the two countries on a path towards gradual reunification, which included economic integration, family reunification, and social and cultural exchanges. By 2006, over 10,000 Koreans had social and cultural exchanges in the North, 660 separated families reunited in person, and 800 met via webcast. One million South Korean tourists had visited Mt. Kumgang resort in the north. But all of this came to a screeching halt in 2007 with the election of conservative South Korean president Lee Myung Bak, who vowed to punish North Korea by cutting humanitarian aid and isolating their neighbor. Last fall, family reunifications temporarily resumed, but only 100 families were able to meet briefly at a resort in North Korea. Yet there are thousands waiting to be selected to be able to reunite with their families, and many are dying without being able to return to their hometown or say farewell to their siblings or children. One elderly South Korean man who did not make the selective list of families to be reunited committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a subway train in Seoul. After being thoroughly depressed about the situation of the two Koreas, I finally fell back to sleep. And then I had the most vivid dream, which I’ve held onto as hope for the future of a united Korea. In my dream, I was wading in a river alongside other Koreans. It was before the break of dawn and we were anxiously waiting for Koreans from the north. And just over the crest of the horizon, a light glowed. It was people holding candles wading down the river. As the two Koreans met in the river, there was an overabundance of joy and intense embrace. But I kept going forward, up the river bypassing this frenzied scene to find the source. I came upon a ceremony of women huddled around a huge kettle stirring thick black liquid and pouring ladles of it into little pails carried by children. It was at that moment when I awoke and realized that it will take Korean women on the peninsula and throughout the Diaspora to bring about peace and reunification for Korea. It’s been 60 years now since the Korean War began, and without a peace treaty, the threat of war constantly looms over the Korean people. But it will take more than signing a document to end the over half century of enmity and mistrust—it will take a new approach to achieving security than through military means. This is why it will take women’s leadership, because women realize that genuine security means having health, education, and freedom to live without fear and want. It’s about time Korean women start using UN Security Council Resolution 1325 to demand a seat at the peace-making table, whether in inter-Korea dialogue or multi-level talks. *Christine Ahn is the Senior Policy and Research Analyst at the Global Fund for Women and a fellow with the Korea Policy Institute.

Rising military tensions on the Korean Peninsula at this time prove again the urgency and the necessity of achieving permanent peace in Korea. The best way forward in realizing this important objective is the replacement of the outdated, temporary cease-fire agreement of 1953 with a long-deferred peace treaty. It remains unclear whether the sinking of the South Korean warship, the Cheonan, was a deliberate military attack or a terrible accident. Yet, the brinkmanship generated around this unfortunate incident illustrates the perils of the unfinished war in Korea. Although a joint South Korea (ROK)-U.S. investigation team has blamed North Korea (DPRK) for the sinking, North Korea has steadfastly denied its involvement and, instead, accused ROK and the U.S. for fabricating the evidence. So far, China and Russia have been skeptical about the charges against North Korea. Many international experts and South Korean NGOs have also raised doubts about the conclusions of the ROK-US investigation. Further doubts have been raised because of Seoul’s refusal to permit a North Korean investigation team to visit the South to examine the evidence. What is needed is a truly independent, impartial international investigation of the incident. Buried in the media coverage of this event is the fact that the Cheonan sinking occurred against a backdrop of ongoing war games. At the time of the sinking, South Korean and U.S. warships, including a U.S. submarine and a mine-laying ship, USNS Salvor, were conducting a joint military exercise, “Foal Eagle,” in the disputed West Sea area off the coast of North Korea. Given the continuing state of war from the Korean War of 1950-53 and the increasing doubts about the result of the ROK-US investigation, the U.S. government’s characterization of the naval incident as an “act of aggression” is misleading, at best. As a matter fact the U.S. is already in a state of war with North Korea. Thus, if it was a deliberate military attack by North Korea, a better expression of the incident would be an act of war. In any case, the Cheonan sinking, in the absence of a clear finding for the responsibility for the sinking, should not be used as a pretext by hardliners to intensify their anti-North Korea campaign or re-ignite the Korean War. Caution is warranted in this case because of the past history in which the U.S. justified its aggression against other nations under questionable circumstances: the dubious sinking of the Maine in the beginning of the Spanish-American War and the hasty passage of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in the early part of the Vietnam War, which was discredited later. To reduce military tensions on the Korean Peninsula at this time, the U.S. government should stop any further joint naval exercises in the West Sea of Korea. At the same time, both governments of Korea should also exercise maximum restraint against any offensive propaganda or hostile actions against each other. As we observe the sixtieth anniversary of the start of the Korean War this June, it is high time to end this lingering and costly war. The basic road map for this goal was already announced in the Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks on Sept. 19, 2005. Paragraph four of the Statement said, “The directly related parties will negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula at an appropriate separate forum.” The “directly related parties” in the Statement obviously refer to both Koreas, China and the United States, who were the main parties in the Korean War of 1950-53. Unfortunately, this separate forum for a “permanent peace regime” never took off due to the apparent opposition of the U.S. to such talks prior to the denuclearization by the DPRK. Considering North Korea’s current weakness in the conventional forces vis-a-vis ROK and the U.S. forces in and around the Korean Peninsula, it is quite understandable why North Korea is reluctant to give up its nuclear weapons first at this time, in the absence of any international guarantee for its national security. The Obama administration’s present policy on North Korea is in limbo at this time, due to the strong influence of the neoconservatives in the administration. It is more or less a continuation of the Bush administration’s hard-line policy—insisting on DPRK’s dismantlement of its nuclear weapons and facilities first before the U.S. can begin the peace talks. This is not only unrealistic but also very dangerous since such policy can only lead to further military tensions on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea already expressed its willingness to return to the Six-Party Talks, if the U.S. is willing to begin the separate talks for a peace treaty to replace the precarious Armistice Agreement of 1953. This is quite a reasonable demand. The Obama administration needs to change its position on this soon. What are urgently needed now are not more sanctions or confrontations, but real diplomacy of bold engagement and dialogue in good faith with DPRK. Ironically, the Cheonan incident provides a good opportunity for the directly concerned parties in the Korean War—both Koreas, the U.S. and China—to begin negotiations for a “permanent peace regime” on the Korean Peninsula. They may start with a joint investigation into the Cheonan incident, and then move on to serious negotiations for a peace treaty. Perhaps, this is the best way to console the 46 souls of the Cheonan as well as the millions of the fallen victims of the Korean War, including some 40,000 of our soldiers, as we observe the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the tragic Korean War. *John H. Kim is an attorney and a veteran of the U.S. Army who served in South Korea for one year. He is also a founding member of the National Campaign to End the Korean War.

South Korea elections update: Widely viewed as a referendum on President Lee’s hardline policies towards North Korea, his handling of the Cheonan investigation in particular, and general mid-term performance, the ruling Grand National Party suffered major setbacks winning only 6 of 16 major gubernatorial and mayoral races while losing many key local elections in major cities and provinces across the country. Commenting on the elections, which drew the largest voter turnout in 15 years (54.5%), the leader of the major opposition Democratic Party, Chung Se-kyun, said that President Lee Myung-bak should “abandon his confrontational policy on North Korea and ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.” Urging China to support punitive actions against North Korea for the sinking of a South Korean naval war ship, the Cheonan, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton implored China last week to read a 400 page report concluding that a North Korean midget submarine torpedoed the Cheonan on March 26, 2010 in the West Sea, killing 46 sailors. Yet the South Korean government has failed to release the full 400 page report to the National Assembly and has sought to silence dissenting opinions. “If a report provided to a country overseas is not presented to the National Assembly, this demonstrates an unbelievable disregard for the legislature and people of South Korea,” decried a Hankyoreh editorial, May 28, 2010. A former member of the Cheonan investigation team, Shin Sang-cheol, who challenged the team’s findings, was questioned by the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s office, May 28, 2010, for spreading “groundless rumors.” Shin, who does not believe that the Cheonan was torpedoed, told prosecutor’s that the incident was “an accident and that the South had tampered with evidence to blame the North,” according to the Joong Ahn Daily, May 29, 2010. Earlier Park Sun-won, Secretary of National Security under former President Roh Moo-hyun, came under investigation for alleging that the government was concealing information about the incident. Conducted by a joint military and civilian team with support teams from the U.S., Britain, Australia, and Sweden, the probe concluded that a bubble jet caused by a non-contact explosion of a North Korean homing torpedo carrying 200 — 300 kg explosives, detonating 6 to 9 meters below the surface and 3 meters to the left of the gas turbine room, caused the Cheonan to split in half and sink. For evidence investigators relied heavily upon the remains of the propulsion mechanism of a torpedo, dredged up in the vicinity of the sinking, which they claimed matches “perfectly” the blueprint of a torpedo North Korea manufactures for sale. Moreover the torpedo bears the marking, “#1,” in Korean characters which investigators allege is consistent with markings found on a North Korean torpedo previously obtained. But the air of secrecy enveloping the evidence, and the effort to silence dissent has left the South Korean public divided over the team’s conclusions. Although a recent poll indicates that 70% of the population accepts the government’s conclusions, only half of those polled in the age group 20 to 40 accept the findings and of those with college educations, only one third. South Korea’s main opposition parties and numerous civic organizations and religious leaders assert that the veracity of the findings, distributed May 20, 2010 in an unsigned 10 page summary, cannot be verified without a full accounting of the investigation and evidence, and that in any case the incident has been inappropriately politicized by the administration of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to bolster the standings of the ruling Grand National Party in the June 2nd regional elections. Criticisms of the summary, “Investigation Result on the Sinking of ROKs Cheonan,” stem in part from an absence of detailed accounts of the incident by the 58 surviving crew members including whether or not they witnessed a huge pillar of water and experienced injuries consistent with a torpedo explosion. Furthermore, investigators surmised that a North Korean midget sub must have infiltrated the area but presented no new evidence discrediting initial reports by the ROK military that no North Korean subs or torpedo launchings were detected on the night of the incident. Moreover the report failed to address the presence and activities of South Korean and U.S. war ships participating in the “Foal Eagle” war games in the area, reports that a South Korean diver, Han Joo-ho, may have died while attempting a rescue mission on a second vessel in the area, suspicion that the Korean language marking (#1) on the recovered torpedo, which may have just as easily been written by a South Korean, was fabricated, and concerns that the investigation was conducted primarily by the South Korean military and South Korea’s allies without participation of China or North Korea. Calling the South Korean report a “fabrication” North Korea vehemently denies playing any role in the incident and has offered repeatedly to send its own team to review the evidence. South Korea has rejected the North’s proposals. Russia has reserved the right to conduct its own review of the evidence and has sent a team of investigators to Seoul. China, after participating in a summit meeting in Seoul with leaders of South Korea and Japan last weekend has yet to endorse the Cheonan investigation findings and has proposed a four party probe including South Korea, North Korea, the U.S. and China, according to the Korea Times, May 30, 2010. In the meantime China continues to urge all parties to remain calm, forgoing any actions to escalate tensions on the peninsula. To be sure, dissenting opinions, suspicions and alternative theories of the sinking of the Cheonan may be unfounded as the government contends. But most troublesome is the lack of transparency with which the Lee Myung-bak administration, with U.S. support, has decided upon a course of punitive measures against North Korea which could lead to more tragedy. Also disturbing is the complete absence of discussion of the wisdom of conducting U.S.-South Korea joint war games in the disputed waters of the West Sea, the scene of frequent naval clashes between the North and South. The U.S. and South Korea regard the “Northern Limit Line” (NNL) as the territorial boundary separating North and South Korea in the West Sea, which is frequented by North and South Korean fishing boats. However, it was drawn unilaterally by the United Nations Command after the signing of the Korean War Armistice, July 27, 1953, to restrain the South Korean navy from attacking North Korea. South Korea had boycotted the signing of the armistice. The North has never agreed to the NLL, arguing that the boundary should be moved further south – hence the oft used description “disputed waters,” where deadly naval clashes occurred in 1999, 2002 and last Fall. So fraught with danger is the West Sea that when the leaders of North and South Korea met in their summit meeting of October, 2007, they addressed the need to arrive at mutually agreeable terms for the peaceful use of the waters by establishing a “special peace and cooperation zone.” However, upon assuming office in 2008, President Lee adopted a hard line approach in dealing with North Korea and today the West Sea is a scene of intensified naval drills and anti-submarine bombing involving South Korean and U.S. forces. South Korea and the U.S., among other punitive measures, are also pursuing a tightening of U.N. sanctions against North Korea, a move which the latter has declared it will regard as an act of war. Presently, all normal channels of communications between the north and south are severed. The NNL has no legal basis in the Korean War Armistice Agreement, and the West Sea has been the most likely site for outbreaks of fighting with loss of life. All joint U.S.-South Korea military activity in the West Sea should cease immediately, the Obama administration should support the South Korean public’s call for transparency in vetting their government’s findings on the Cheonan incident, urge the Lee Myung-bak administration to invite North Korea as well as China to conduct independent assessments of the evidence, and support the 2007 North-South Summit agreement to demilitarize the West Sea. Americans and Koreans in the North and South should join in honoring the 46 sailors of the Cheonan who lost their lives, not with retaliation, not with more death, but by creating a “peace and cooperation zone” in the West Sea, restoring communications, and working together to end to all hostilities on the Korean peninsula stemming from the Korean War.

By Women Making Peace, South Korea International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament, May 24th, 2010 A series of events regarding the sinking of the Cheonan naval warship shows that peace and security on the Korean Peninsula is facing a serious threat even about 60 years after the Korean War. We express our deep condolences for the deaths of 46 sailors who died as a result of the sinking of a warship and we sincerely hope that this situation will not be repeated. It has been two years and five months since the inauguration of President Myung-bak Lee, and during the period we find that the inter-Korean relationship has worsened to the extent of being a “war crises.” Only two years has passed since the leaders of the two Koreas agreed to convert the West Sea into the sea of cooperation and now it has became the “sea of animosity and confrontation.” The governments of the two Koreas should be responsible for the current situation. The South Korean government’s statement, released today, raises much suspicion in terms of the timing before June 2nd local election and the accuracy of its contents. Furthermore, the South Korean government’s beefing up the military and imposition of sanctions on the North will only heighten the military confrontation and threaten the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula. First, we show a great concern that the South Korean government changed its military strategy from a defense mode to “proactive deterrence.” This “deterrent” action, through a military build up, will likely lead to a concomitant increase of the North’s military power, and will further aggravate the arms race between the North and South Koreas. In response to the Cheonan incident, the South Korean government announced that “if our territorial waters, airspace or territory are violated, we will immediately exercise our right of self-defense.” It means that South Korean government would use military power if there is North Korean government’s violation, referring to its “self-defense. We believe this action will increase the possibility of armed conflicts on the Korean Peninsula. In the past (i.e. 1998-2007), the inter-Korean West Sea battle did not expanded to a greater scale due to the careful approach of the two Governments not to heighten the tension, as well as their efforts for reconciliation and cooperation. We call on both Governments to take such a peaceful approach this time as well. Second, the South Korean government’s decision to cease to implement the inter-Korean Maritime Agreement and to stop trade and exchanges will eliminate a buffer in this tense period. Inter-Korean economic cooperation and private exchanges have played an important role in the prevention of increasing tensions on the Korean Peninsula. In the long run, North and South Korea should coexist and cooperate so that they can realize reunification. Economic cooperation should be expanded and the government should not stop, under any circumstances, providing humanitarian assistance, including private aid. Third, defamation and a vicious circle of revenge only aggravate the crises on the Korean Peninsula and drive the whole country toward a state of war. We strongly believe that the Peace on the Korean Peninsula can be maintained based on the coexistence of both Koreas. Both governments should seek ways to convert the Armistice into a peace region and pursue active dialogue and negotiation. In the process, the West Sea can be turned into the Sea of Peace and cooperation. On May 24th, International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament, we, women, express our hope that the Korean Peninsula will become a land of life, peace, and hope and pledge ourselves to make efforts to achieve reconciliation, cooperation, and peace.