Term Project about US foreign policy regarding North Korea's nuclear program

North Korea’s diplomacy to engage

the United States

JONGWOO HAN*

For the past two decades relations between North Korea and the United States have become increasingly hostile. Pervasive and vociferous criticism of North Korea’s dangerous and seemingly irrational behaviour has focused on Pyongyang’s use of nuclear brinkmanship, violations of human rights and general disregard for the well-being of the North Korean people, as exemplified by its decision to develop a nuclear programme while the country suffered from widespread famine. However, an alternate view put forth by both American and South Korean experts on North Korea holds that Pyongyang’s use of the nuclear wager primarily has been intended to demand Washington’s attention in order to initiate bilateral talks and eventually normalise relations with the US. Certainly, Pyongyang’s actions have been ham-fisted at times; however, its commitment to the goal of normalisation has been unwavering. The current controversy regarding North Korea’s nuclear programme may serve as a necessary step to build trust between Washington and Pyongyang and might continue for some- time, given the short history of direct engagement. However, one thing is clear: neither Washington nor Pyongyang can afford to go back to the starting point.

Introduction

Following the end of the bipolar system, and with strained relations between

North Korea and both the former Soviet Union and China, Pyongyang has been

forced to deal with Washington more directly (Lee 2000b: 357�8). With the new Russian Federation focused on domestic troubles and China’s highest

priority being economic development, neither country could continue to

function as Pyongyang’s protector. The resulting gap, along with North Korea’s

constant fear of attack, created the need for a new political relationship that

could support economic reconstruction and guarantee the survival of the

current regime. Although North Korea has tried to preserve beneficial aspects of

its relationship with China and Russia, Pyongyang’s current association with its

former allies is characterised more by bickering than by expressions of mutual

respect and trust. With a growing rift between Pyongyang and Beijing, Ji (2004:

2) noted that the ‘DPRK can act as a buffer zone separating China and the

*[email protected]�

ISSN 1035-7718 print/ISSN 1465-332X online/09/010105-16 # 2009 Australian Institute of International Affairs

DOI: 10.1080/10357710802642209

Australian Journal of International Affairs Vol. 63, No. 1,

pp. 105�120, March 2009

United States’. For its part North Korea has attempted to form a new relationship with the United States, perceived as the last remaining superpower that can ensure its survival and eventual economic recovery (Lee, 2000b: 357�8). In Pyongyang’s view only Washington could stabilise the region by serving as an intermediary in potentially contentious relations between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and China, Japan, Russia and the Republic of Korea (ROK).

Over the past 20 years two schools of thought have been dominant in the discourse about how to deal with Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. The engagement school (Armstrong 2007; Baek 2007; Chon 2007; Chung 2007; Cummings 2007, 2005; French 2005; Gallucci 2006; Harrison 2002; Im 2008; Kang 1995; Lee 2000a; 2000b; Mazarr 2007; Sigal 1998a; 1998b; 2003; 2006; Suh 2008) argues that Pyongyang has followed a rational and consistent strategy on negotiation, engagement and normalisation. To this group North Korea’s attempt to develop nuclear weapons is interpreted as a bargaining chip to gain US recognition and force it into negotiations with Pyongyang. Even though these scholars and experts do not recognise the legitimacy of Pyongyang’s brinkmanship and are critical of North Korea’s use of human rights as a bargaining chip and, especially, of the mass starvation of its citizens in recent years, members of this school */ e.g. Cummings (2005) and Sigal (2003) */ also criticise the US government for its refusal to take Pyongyang’s signals requesting negotiation seriously. Some in the engagement school */ e.g. Cha (2002), Mazarr (2007) and Moon (2005) */ maintain that Washington has taken a contradictory path of rope-dancing between regime change and engagement, between denunciation and bold approach, and between backward and forward tracking.

In contrast, and at the opposite end of discourse on North Korea, a group of hardliners such as Bolton (2007), Eberstadt (1999; 2005; 2007), Hwang (2006), Nam (2006), Niksch (2003) and Sokolski (2001) argue that the North Korean leadership is essentially depraved, unstable and too unreliable for meaningful negotiations. Criticising Pyongyang’s misuse of human rights, its neglect of its starving population and its public support of terrorism, these hardliners adopt an inflexible, belligerent stance that they believe will force the regime to surrender as a result of severe economic sanctions, producing its eventual demise. Paul Wolfowitz, in particular, has advocated simply waiting for Pyongyang to collapse, as indicated in his recently expressed view: ‘North Korea is teetering on the edge of economic collapse. That, I believe, is a major point of leverage’ (Associated Press, 2003). Nam (2006) has also taken a stringent hardline approach, even claiming that the Six-Party Talks was a temporary measure adopted by countries to avoid tensions associated with North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, which would not solve the basic problem of Pyongyang’s having access to nuclear weapons. Hwang (2006), similarly, vociferously criticises any aid, including humanitarian aid, as an ill- advised measure that will simply prolong the North Korean regime. Finally, in

106 Jongwoo Han

his most recent Wall Street Journal article, Bolton (2007) argues: ‘If we continue

this approach, what is already a bad deal will become a dangerous deal,

whether we make it with North Korea directly or in the six-party talks’. Since 2005, when its $25 million in assets at the Banco Delta Asia (BDA) in

Macao were frozen by Washington, Pyongyang has generally been seen as more

compliant. Also there has recently been progress regarding the full declaration

of North Korea’s nuclear inventory list. In early May 2008 Pyongyang delivered

to Washington 18 000 pages of documents related to the activities at North

Korea’s Yongbyon plutonium-based nuclear reactor. Although the report was

six months late, it nonetheless represents an important step toward the

normalisation of the relationship with Washington. However, the stakes of

normalisation between Washington and Pyongyang have increased because

conservative forces in the US Congress and hardliners in the administration still

want to hold Pyongyang to a more stringent standard of accountability, asking

it, for example, to clarify details about North Korea’s alleged highly enriched

uranium (HEU) programme, or its purported collaborative attempts toward

nuclear proliferation with Syria (Cooper 2008). One point recognised by both

schools of thought is that the increased tensions between North Korea and the

US have created a dangerous impasse. Paradoxically, and as this article will

illustrate, over the past several years of US�North Korean relations */ including during the periods of greatest hostility */ civic/academic collaboration, such as the recent visit to the DPRK of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra have

continued. The author’s leadership role in one such academic collaboration

informs this article.

Pyongyang goes all-in and Washington raises . . . or does it call?

In 2002 North Korea had placed an unexpected all-in wager using its ace in the

hole */ a nuclear development programme */ to gain recognition from the US. By taking this path, Pyongyang seemed to be demonstrating that North Korea

was not only a rational negotiator but also a high-stakes gambler. In 2003, just

after the revelation of North Korea’s HEU programme caused a showdown

with Washington, a diplomat from Pyongyang unexpectedly told the author in

an unrelated conversation, ‘We are going to go all-in’. At that time the message

was not clearly understood by the author. However, four years later, in October

2007, Kang Seok-joo and Kim Gye-gwan, two North Korean vice foreign

ministers then serving as the main North Korean strategists and participants in

the Six-Party Talks, were summoned by DPRK Chairman Kim to the second

South�North Summit meeting, where Kim was holding discussions with South Korean President Roh (Moon 2008: 78). The two vice ministers were asked to

report the results of the recently completed Six-Party Talks in Beijing.

According to the then ROK Minister of Unification, Jeong Se-hyun, who also

participated in the summit, the two top diplomats said: ‘We have gone all-in

North Korea’s diplomacy to engage the United States 107

and will now wait and see how the US will respond’. Minister Jeong’s observation supports the main thesis of this paper.

Five years earlier, in October 2002, officials in Pyongyang, having received what they thought were signals that the US was interested in negotiating, had looked forward to celebrating the beginning of rapprochement during an upcoming visit by Assistant Secretary of State, James Kelly. However, Pyongyang’s hopes were dashed when, rather than celebrating, Kelly unexpect- edly confronted Pyongyang about its HEU programme during his visit, thus upping the ante. Once again the stakes were raised when, in 2003, the US invaded Iraq, and yet again two years later, when it sent an unmistakable signal by arranging for North Korea’s assets in BDA to be frozen. In Pyongyang’s view this series of events pushed North Korea to the point of no return (Mazarr 2007: 90). However, to Washington Pyongyang’s seemingly irrational all-in bet to seek nuclear prestige while its people starved seemed clear evidence that North Korea was not a regime with which the US could reliably negotiate (Eberstadt 2005; Mazarr 2007: 75; 2007; Moon 2005; Niksch 2003). Although this perspective is understandable, a closer look at some of North Korea’s reasons for its apparently bizarre behaviour reveals that Pyongyang has pursued nuclear proliferation primarily in order to attain security and economic aid.

To understand North Korea’s seemingly irrational actions over the past 20 years, one must first understand what has motivated its attempts to seek a new relationship with the US and redefine itself on the world stage. According to former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his Sunshine policy, ‘Every one of Pyongyang’s moves has always been politically motivated and strategically calculated. North Korea Chairman Kim thinks only America is capable of providing the military security and large-scale economic aid his country needs’.1 When viewed from this perspective, Pyongyang’s move for nuclear all-in can be seen as a risky but, given its lack of alternative approaches, necessary attempt to win Washington’s attention and force negotiations. After nearly 40 years of diplomatic relations with Moscow and Peking/Beijing, best characterised as ‘muddling-through’ and ‘tightrope dancing’ (Chung 1978; Kun 1967), the DPRK began to recognise the need for new allies. This need became especially urgent when, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and, the following year, South Korea established embassies in both Beijing and Moscow. Perceiving itself as alone at this point and no longer secure in its place within a bipolar system (Eberstadt 1999: 49; French 2005: 197; Kang 1995: 262; Park 1998), Pyongyang’s all-in strategy of playing the nuclear card to gain US recognition can be seen as a strategy it intended to use to extricate itself from dysfunctional alliances, and then to partner with a new big brother, the United States (Gallucci 2006; Harrison 2002: 201; Sigal 2003).

However, contrary to Pyongyang’s expectations, the US folded. According to Sigal (2003), Cummings (2005) and Harrison (2002), it was Washington which failed to follow through, not Pyongyang. Despite having signed the 1994 Agreed Framework with Pyongyang, former President Clinton */ and later

108 Jongwoo Han

President Bush */ followed a policy of engagement that presumed the impending collapse of the North Korean regime. Acting cautiously, North Korea has taken initial steps to adjust to the changing geopolitical realities and revamped its 50-year-old survival strategy by attempting to consolidate its two former allies, China and Russia, into one pole and placing the United States as a geographically distant, less-threatening, hegemon, at the other. Armstrong (2007), for example, has stated that North Korea may be attempting a ‘partner- swap’ in order to survive post-cold war international politics under the protection of a unipolar United States. In retrospect the entire trajectory of nuclear development taken by North Korea since the 1994 crisis invites changed perceptions of the country */ not as a country led by ‘irrational xenophobes with a mindless anti-American hatred’ (Harrison 2002: 197) who are ‘weak’ (Armstrong 2007), ‘unreliable’ (Mazarr 2007), ‘aggressive, offensive, and expansionist’ (Kang 1995) */ but rather as a boxed-in, would-be junior partner who has consistently pursued a carefully choreographed course towards greater political gains and increased economic benefits.

In contrast, US North Korea policy has been characterised by numerous American diplomats and scholars as ‘erratic’ (Moon 2005), ‘zigzag’ (Cha 2002: 80), or as a ‘strategic muddle’ (Mazarr 2007: 76; Noland 1997). Like a poker player who can’t choose whether to call, raise or fold, the US has vacillated between attempts at regime change and bold negotiation. However, when the action was on in October 2002, rather than continue to negotiate, the US opted to raise the stakes. Neo-conservative strategy in general, and President Bush’s characterisation of North Korea as one of the three ‘axes of evil’ in particular, followed by the US’s pre-emptive strikes against Afghanistan and Iraq, clearly signalled Washington’s desire for regime change and its intention simply to wait for the demise of the current North Korean regime (Eberstadt 2005, 2007; Niksch 2003). According to Cummings (2007: 1), Vice President Cheney’s blunt statement, ‘We don’t negotiate with evil; we defeat it’, aptly sums up US strategy at this time.

In early spring 2002, as this strong no-negotiation message was being sent by the Bush administration hardliners, rapprochement advocates within the government simultaneously began to send signals suggesting that Pyongyang would be recognised and receive desperately needed economic aid if it denuclearised and joined the world community (Mazarr 2007: 82). The offer was to be presented by Kelly, but this never happened because of deep divisions within the Bush administration. Instead, Kelly revealed the HEU programme, dramatically raising the stakes (Cummings 2007; Wit et al. 2005: 371, 378).

Cha (2002: 81) characterised this sort of vacillation within US policy as ‘hawk engagement’. Four years later Kissinger (2006), noting the contradictory nature of US policy, advised the Bush administration that ‘focusing on regime change as the road to denuclearisation confuses the issue’ and recommended that it instead engage in diplomacy. The following year Mazarr (2007: 92) similarly criticised US policy towards Pyongyang as misguided, describing it as

North Korea’s diplomacy to engage the United States 109

‘alternately fragmented, bitterly ideological, and impelled by top-down,

instinct-driven mandates’. For most of the Bush administration initial American

policy towards Pyongyang has been based on both poor conceptual strategies

and an inconsistent decision-making process, most recently demonstrated in

Washington’s current shift towards a policy of engagement, as signalled by

actions such as sending the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to Pyongyang in

early 2008 (Wakin 2007). Eberstadt (2007), like others, advocates Washing-

ton’s current ‘no-negotiation-but-wait’ policy and notes that, ironically, ‘the

Bush team [has] embraced the very approach it had once mocked as weak-kneed

and ‘‘Clintonesque’’’.

Strained alliances

If we examine the status of North Korea’s relationships with China and the

former Soviet Union, it becomes clear why Pyongyang is attempting a partner-

swap. For over 40 years, Sino-Soviet harmony and disputes placed Pyongyang

in a vulnerable position as it strove to avoid displeasing either of its

neighbouring communist big brothers, while also taking full advantage of the

alliances to maximise its national interest (Chung 1978: 159; Lee 2000b; Moon

2005). This strained alliance required Kim II Sung to walk a fine line to both

maintain a self-reliant nationalistic platform and avoid alienating either the

Soviet Union or China. North Korea became skilful at aligning itself with one

ally against the other (Simmons 1975: 29), and for years this strategy proved

quite successful as Chung (1978), Lee (2000b) and Moon (2005) argue. Such

skilful managing of complex strategic relationships contradicts the common

view of North Korea’s foreign policy as irrational and inept. North Korea’s

long-term diplomatic acumen enabled it to remain independent while lodged in

the crevice between two powerful communist states. North Korea’s resolve and

careful political calculation, despite rejection by the international community,

continue to this day. In this context, the Korean Juche (self-reliance) ideology

can best be understood as an important survival tool which has allowed

Pyongyang to capitalise on its capacity for skilful manoeuvre in the vortex of

East Asian super powers. This approach has also been applied, though not yet

successfully, in Pyongyang’s dealings with the US. In 2000 President Kim Dae-jung surprised the international community by

announcing that Chairman Kim had revised his policy and now accepted the

benefit of US forces, even in a unified Korea, to balance power in the region.

From this perspective Cummings’ (2005: 502) interpretation of Chairman Kim’s

statement makes sense: North Korean leaders apparently wanted American

troops to stay on the peninsula to deal with shifting international power

relations (especially with regard to a strong Japan and China). In Cummings’

(2005: 508) view, ‘the real reason’ that Pyongyang offered no resistance to a

continued American presence was because, ‘by Kissinger’s time, Pyongyang

110 Jongwoo Han

could not count on full and simultaneous backing from both Beijing and

Moscow’. The recent change in China’s approach towards Pyongyang mirrors that of

North Korea’s earlier view of China. China currently seems to view North

Korea as both a buffer zone and a potential threat. On the one hand, China

recognises North Korea’s strategic value, despite its erratic behaviour at this

point; on the other hand, it considers Pyongyang a liability because of actions

such as Pyongyang’s vote against Beijing’s bid for the 2000 Olympic Games

(Ji 2004: 1�2). As the Sino-South Korea relationship thawed, the then Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping informed North Korean leader Kim that Beijing intended

to recognise Seoul. In response and retaliation Pyongyang stated that North

Korea would recognise Taiwan. Kim could not carry out his threat for fear that

China would completely suspend its alliance with North Korea. However,

China ended up losing the opportunity to host the Olympic Games in 2000

because of Pyongyang’s support for the alternative site, Sydney (Ha 2007). Just

as Pyongyang’s actions reflect a desire both to act independently and to

maintain normal relations with Beijing, the same is true of China, whose

greatest fear is that a sudden collapse of the North Korean regime will result in

large numbers of refugees crossing its border. Reacting to Pyongyang’s maverick endorsement of Sydney, Beijing wanted to

re-examine its alliance with North Korea, and Pyongyang had to face a direct

challenge from its strongest ally. Ji (2004: 3) even claims that ‘it [China] is

closer to the United States than to the DPRK at this particular moment’.

Eberstadt (1999: 47) has noted that, long before the Six-Party Talks, the

China�North Korea alliance had soured: ‘Pyongyang’s allies had made it clear that they would not aid the DPRK if it were to provoke another crisis on the

Korean Peninsula’. The relationship of the two former allies was damaged

further when, in July 2006, Pyongyang took the aggressive step of testing seven

missiles, including one long-range missile. And the relationship reached its nadir

when, in October 2007, Pyongyang tested its nuclear bomb, notifying Beijing

only 30 minutes before the launch occurred. With the collapse of the former Soviet Union and North Korea’s loss of a

major ally, Pyongyang recognised the need for self-reliance. According to

Cummings (2005: 481):

The DPRK probably decided in 1991, if not earlier, to develop a small state-

deterrent for a country surrounded by powerful enemies, like Israel; to

display enough activity to make possession of a nuclear device plausible to

the outside world, but with no announcement of possession, in order to lessen

the chance that those same enemies [would then] determine to develop

nuclear weapons (e.g., South Korea or Japan) */ in short, to appear to arm itself with an ultimate trump card and keep everyone guessing whether and

when the weapons might become available.

North Korea’s diplomacy to engage the United States 111

What Cummings’ observations reveal about North Korea’s drive for a secret

nuclear development programme is its intention deliberately to arouse the

suspicion of its having nuclear weapons in order to deter rash attacks.

Retaliations and concessions

Since 2000 relations between the US and North Korea can best be described as a

series of aggressive retaliations and subsequent concessions leading towards

normalisation. A critical assessment of Pyongyang’s attempts to normalise

relations with the United States and other major countries around the Korean

Peninsula in the early 2000s challenges hardliners’ general perception that

Pyongyang has little interest in normalisation (Moon 2005; Sigal 2003, 2006).

Although most readers will be familiar with the series of aggressive stances

taken by Washington in 2002, such as the ‘axis of evil’ speech and the

confrontation over North Korea’s HEU programme, what is generally less well

known is that, during the same period, North Korea undertook an unprece-

dented series of positive economic and diplomatic initiatives. Laney and Shaplen

(2003: 17) and Moon (2005) identify several occasions when Pyongyang

instituted economic reforms and initiated high-level contacts and talks with

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo in an attempt to normalise relations. These talks

addressed topics such as railway reconnection, de-mining, participating in the

Asian Games, and setting up special economic zones. From a hardliner’s perspective based on only part of the relevant facts, there

appears to be ample evidence of Pyongyang’s ‘erratic and aggressive’ behaviour

to support the view that the international community should not engage North

Korea at all. Important historical examples of North Korea’s aggressive actions

would undoubtedly include: the 1968 Pueblo seizure, the 1969 downing of the

EC-121, the 1976 Poplar Tree Axe incident, and the 1983 Rangoon bombing.

However, those advocating appeasement, such as Kang (1995: 253) and

Harrison (2002: 197), assert that Pyongyang’s actions in general, and even

some of its terrorist acts, have been rationally calculated attempts to use

‘peripheral actions’ to influence either peace or destabilisation of the area

without threatening the region’s fundamental strategic balance. In Kang’s

(1995: 259) view Pyongyang is ‘well aware of the risks of challenging the

central balance of power’. Kang’s insightful analysis of Pyongyang’s strategy

can help Washington as it interprets North Korea’s attempts to provoke it. Two episodes illustrate Kang’s point particularly well. According to New

York Times contributing writer Peter Maass (2003: 4): ‘At the banquet of the

first North and South Summit in June 2000, [South Korean] Choe Hak-rae, then

publisher of Hankyoreh Shinmun, a newspaper sympathetic to North Korea’,

asked Kim Jong Il why the North Korean government was spending its limited

resources on missiles instead of feeding its starving citizens. The Dear Leader

replied without hesitation: ‘The missiles cannot reach the United States, and

112 Jongwoo Han

if I launch them, the US would fire back thousands of missiles and we would not

survive. I know that very well. But I have to let them know I have missiles. I am making them because only then will the United States talk to me’ (emphasis added).

The second episode, also reported by Maass, involved a card montage

performed for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during her 1999 visit to

Pyongyang, in which the image of a North Korean missile being launched was

displayed. According to Maass, Kim said to Albright, ‘That was our first missile

launch and our last’. To make sure his message was understood correctly, Kim

Jong Il then turned to President Clinton’s North Korea policy coordinator,

Wendy Sherman, who accompanied Albright, and repeated the statement. His

meaning was clear: the missile programme can be stopped if you offer us a new

relationship. As Sherman later said of the event: ‘This was totally orchestrated,

the cards and turning to us’ (Maass 2003:11). Pyongyang’s vacillating between gestures of courtship and aggression, in

combination with Washington’s fluctuating between hawkish engagement and

gestures of conciliation, constitute a general pattern of retaliations and

concessions. Before most of the major breakthroughs in its relationship with

Washington in recent years, Pyongyang has initiated a series of aggressive acts

and concessions. Even during the Cold War North Korea can be seen to have

offered a series of substantive conciliatory gestures after dangerous and

belligerent actions. These include:

. putting its reactors under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1977 after the Poplar Tree Axe incident;

. initiating three-way talks with South Korea and the United States in 1984 following the Rangoon bombing;

. signing the Basic Agreement with the ROK in 1991 after the withdrawal of nuclear fuel rods from the Yongbyon reactor (Moon 2005).

Efforts by the US to understand North Korea’s ‘erratic behaviour’ will be

productive to the degree that this pattern of ‘one-step-back, two-steps-forward’

is acknowledged. While some suspicion is to be expected during the trust-

building stage of any potential relationship, the heavy fall-out from Pyon-

gyang’s gaining nuclear status and the resulting increase in its direct contact

with the US has allowed a tenuous relationship between the DPKR and its new

would-be ally to take root. The main source of the US’s current suspicion can be directly traced to two

major, nuclear-related crises*/one in 1994 and one in 2006*/which clearly illustrate the general pattern of retaliations and subsequent concessions. In the

first case North Korea, which was on the verge of a major breakthrough in its

nuclear programme in Yongbyon, nonetheless allowed a total of six inspections

by the IAEA from 1992 to 1993. However, in late 1993 Pyongyang withdrew

from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty following a decision by the American

North Korea’s diplomacy to engage the United States 113

and South Korean governments to resume the annual military training exercise

Team Spirit and to re-target nuclear weapons at North Korea. Finally, after

news of successful negotiations with former US President Carter was broadcast

by CNN, Pyongyang withdrew 8000 nuclear fuel rods from the Yongbyon

reactor and signed the Agreed Framework. The second case of retaliation and concession occurred in 2005�06, when the

US froze North Korea’s account at BDA three days before success in the Six-

Party Talks was to be announced (Department of Treasury, 2007). According to

David Asher, then the State Department’s point man on North Korea, the US

decided to freeze the North Korean account to flaunt American dominance of

the global financial network and its ability to ostracise Pyongyang */ and any branches of the Bank of China doing business with it */ from the global financial network (McGlynn 2007; Solomon and King Jr 2007). By mid-

September, following urgent negotiations, the Six-Party Talks had completed a

joint communiqué on denuclearisation. It seemed as if trust building was on the

way. Freezing Pyongyang’s assets had proven even more painful to North Korea

than Washington or Pyongyang could have anticipated, but it worked. On 19

November 2007, some two years after North Korea’s assets at BDA were

frozen, the US and North Korean delegations met in New York to discuss

Pyongyang’s re-entry into the global financial network (Heilprin, 2007). This

sequence of events illustrates how the mechanism of retaliation (e.g. BDA) and

concession (e.g. Six-Party Talks) paved the way towards normalisation through

denuclearisation. A long-range review of this pattern readily leads one to the conclusion that

Pyongyang’s provocative actions have mainly have been intended to reposition

North Korea in negotiations with the United States. In this way the two

countries’ relations over two decades can be seen as essentially paradoxical

because provocations and aggressive gestures of retaliation have repeatedly

seemed to help produce concessions and have increased mutual trust. The following section describes another paradox: the fact that during, and in

spite of, the recent period of nuclear proliferation and hawkish engagement,

civic and academic exchanges between North Korea and the US have continued

to take place.

Pyongyang and Washington: towards a new relationship

It has been only 16 years since Pyongyang and Washington first directly

encountered each other over nuclear and missile programmes. Before this

nuclear issues were divided along cold war lines and settled by either the US or

the Soviet Union. The US first deployed nuclear weapons in South Korea in

1958 (Cumings 2005; Hayes 1991). It took about 30 years for Pyongyang to

declare itself a nuclear power by completing the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon in

1987 and then withdrawing plutonium fuel rods in 1989. During most of this

114 Jongwoo Han

period the international community paid little attention to Pyongyang’s ongoing effort to develop its nuclear capability, even though it had placed its reactors under the regulation of the IAEA as early as 1977 (Cummings 2005; Wit et al. 2004).

However, since the collapse of the bipolar system in 1991, the primary focal issue within discussions of non-proliferation by the international community has been North Korea’s nuclear programme. From the beginning North Korea’s motive behind its programme has not been to be able to attack the United States but rather to arm itself with a nuclear deterrent in order to establish itself as an ‘equal’ partner at the negotiating table and to normalise relations with the United States.

Given North Korea’s location, scholars such as Armstrong (2007), Cummings (2007; 2005), French (2005), Harrison (2002), Hoare and Pares (2005), Mazarr (2007), Sigal (1998a) and Wit et al. (2004), argue that there were sufficient threats from outside to justify Pyongyang’s belief that a nuclear programme was essential to its survival. Joint US�South Korean manoeuvres involving nuclear weapons clearly indicated Washington’s willingness to use them against North Korea, despite its simultaneous effort to ban the use of nuclear weapons in NATO countries (Hayes quoted in Harrison 2002: 198). French (2005: 197) argues that North Korea’s resulting well-founded fear of attack has been the primary reason behind its decision to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1990 and develop its own nuclear capability.

Since 2003 a gradual but important process of trust building through the Six- Party Talks has replaced the earlier pattern of reciprocal confrontations and concessions described previously. Two countries, almost on the verge of war, instead began to explore the possibility of replacing the armistice with a peace treaty and normal relations (BBC News 2007).

It is notable that, as Sigal (2006: 363) has pointed out, most of the ‘accommodations’ and ‘responses in kind’ regarding nuclear and missile issues have been made by North Korea. Pyongyang’s dogged determination to press for normal relations with the US is reflected not only in its diplomatic actions but also through its recent encouragement of civil exchanges between the two countries. Of particular note in this area are the recent visit to the DPRK by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the continuation of an innovative academic exchange programme between North Korea’s Kim Chaek University of Technology (KUT) and the US’s Syracuse University (SU), the first of its kind (Shin et al. 2003; Thorson and Carriere 2007). It is remarkable that, during 2002�2006, through both governments’ encouragement, this exchange pro- gramme has continued, as clearly shown in Figure 1, despite simultaneous serious threats to diplomatic relations caused by the DPRK’s nuclear activities. For instance:

. In October 2002, soon after Washington revealed North Korea’s HEU programme to the world community, the second KUT delegation visited SU.

North Korea’s diplomacy to engage the United States 115

. A month after the outbreak of the Iraq war in March 2003, the KUT delegation visited SU for five weeks.

. In November 2005, just after the freezing of North Korea’s BDA account, Chancellor Hong of KUT visited SU.

The irony of these extremely aggressive, and then surprisingly conciliatory,

gestures is indicative of the many paradoxes in US�North Korea relations as a whole. The SU�KUT academic collaboration reflects both Pyongyang’s desire to advance its information technology infrastructure and Washington’s interest in

gauging Pyongyang’s readiness for international engagement.

Conclusion

Since 1994 Washington’s dilemma with regard to North Korea has been how to

deal with a player which has not only shown a willingness to go all-in with a

nuclear wager but is also known worldwide for its appalling record with regard

to human rights. In the midst of this dilemma the United States seems to have

taken advantage of strained alliances between North Korea and China to adopt

a strategy of using both sticks and carrots (‘hawkish engagement’) to induce

Pyongyang’s concessionary attitude. Despite these advances, the Cold War

continues on the Korean Peninsula */ a fact evidenced by North Korea’s current refusal to provide a complete nuclear declaration. As Harrison (2002: 198) has

astutely pointed out, the seeds of the missile and nuclear programmes in North

Korea were sown in the early 1960s, with the help of the Soviet Union, and the

current turmoil centring on these issues between the DPRK and the US reflects

growing pains that may be necessary to build trust in a new era of relations

between Washington and Pyongyang. Now, as Maass (2003: 12) has pointed out, the real issue is ‘not whether Kim

is crazy enough to amass a nuclear arsenal but whether he is crazy enough to

dispossess himself of his one bargaining chip’ to secure normal relations with

Washington.

SU establishes

research ties with DPRK Mission to

UN First SU team visits DPRK

Six DPRK faculty study at SU for 4 weeks

Six DPRK faculty study at SU for 1

week

Second SU team visits DPRK

Chancellors of KUT and SU dually

endorse importance of collaborations

RSLS meeting held in China

RSLS meeting in China

SU offers ICPC training to DPRK students in Beijing

ICPC finals take place at

Alberta Univ.

Cardiology delegation visits

SU

DPRK Amb. Li visits SU

Six faculty members from DPRK visit SU

April 2008

October 2007

August 2006

December 2005

November 2005

August 2005

June 2004

March 2004

April 2003

June 2002

March 2002

July 2001

May 2001

Figure 1. Chronology of bilateral research collaboration between SU and KUT.

116 Jongwoo Han

The DPRK has now played all its cards and anxiously awaits Washington’s

response to its wager. Washington, for its part, has sometimes appeared

indecisive about what cards it wants to play. Moon (2088: 88), who both

attended the second summit meeting on 2�4 October 2007 as a special delegate and participated in the 2000 summit, claims that:

What prompted [Chairman Kim Jong-il] to venture into a second summit is

his perception of a genuine change in White House policy on North Korea.

Kim seems to have high hopes that denuclearisation can be exchanged for an

end to hostile relations and eventual diplomatic normalisation with the

United States . . . In view of this, much still depends on American policy,

which is why [actions by the US demand] our closest attention.

Given the short history of direct engagement between the US and North Korea,

there will probably be more retaliations and concessions to come. However, one

thing is clear: Washington, like Pyongyang, cannot afford to fold and go back

to the starting point. The current negotiations on normalisation between

Pyongyang and Washington could dramatically transform the power politics of

East Asia. The stakes are enormous. Are we all prepared for a new balance of

power with Pyongyang and Washington as allied forces alligned against a rising

China and a recovering Russia? Or will it be a unified Korean Peninsula that

serves as the primary balancing force among China, Russia, Japan and the

United States? The emerging relationship between North Korea and the United

States will not only shape the new political order in East Asia but will also

greatly influence American national interest in this region. The recent Tibetan uprising against China and gradual changes in China’s

reaction to global forces may hint at how that country will react if North Korea

were to come under the influence of the United States. Such an occurrence

would grant Pyongyang more leverage, with regard to its nuclear programme, in

its dealings with the US, because China would grant Pyongyang more economic

aid and political support in the Six-Party Talks than before. Perhaps

Pyongyang’s all-in for Washington is a two-track strategy to enable it to kill

two birds with one stone. However, to be a truly winning hand, Pyongyang’s

nuclear all-in for Washington and the latter’s move towards normalisation must

also consider the implications of each country’s decisions for Pyongyang’s

former allies, China and Russia, as well as for its other important neighbour,

Japan. Vulnerable China, isolated Japan and distant Russia may comprise a new

status quo that could prevent rapid resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue

or normalisation of relations between Pyongyang and Washington. The global community is about to witness whether a long series of retaliations

and concessions can now reach a finale, ending the last cold war confrontation

and inviting a new form of alliance on the Korean Peninsula involving Pyongyang,

Seoul and Washington, and a reshuffle of the power relationships among all

parties involved, including China. The stakes have global significance. They will

North Korea’s diplomacy to engage the United States 117

define for decades to come the impact of an eventually united Korea on world

economic and political harmony.

Note

1. His comments were made on 11 December 2007 during a meeting with a delegation from

Syracuse University at his residence in Seoul, Korea.

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