Brookings: Topics - South Korea

Counter-Terrorism and Emergency Management: Keeping a Proper Balance

Jibum Chung — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:16:00 -0400

Counter-terrorism strategies and tactics are rightly in the consciousness of officials and civilians in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing. While preventing future attacks should be a leading priority for government at all levels, officials must take care not to focus only on the threat of terrorist attacks. Doing so could diminish the resources, preparation, and skills needed for management of other disasters, and therefore result in greater risk to the population.

Psychology of terrorism

The major characteristic of contemporary terrorism is its unexpectedness. The time and manner of attacks are unpredictable and catch targeted communities – normally innocent civilians – by surprise. In the past, targets of were often political and symbolic figures, not the general public, and the perpetrators proudly notified who they were and why they had acted. The purposes and targets of contemporary terrorism, on the other hand, are often very unclear. Terrorists attack innocent civilians indiscriminately without prior notification, making attacks more difficult to prevent.

Even though the physical damage from terror attacks is normally smaller than that from large natural disasters, the psychological damage of such terror attacks is significant. Early research performed by Paul Slovic and others in 1980s delved into this concept of psychological damage. Using psychometric methodologies, they defined several important characteristics of many different forms of risk. At that time, in the wake of the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant accident in 1979, their main research target was nuclear power plants. Slovic underlined the importance of psychological effects of risk stating that “despite the fact that not a single person died (in the TMI accident), … no other accident in our history has produced such costly societal impacts.”[1] Reminiscent of today’s terror attacks, they concluded that the nuclear risk is unknown, dread, uncontrollable, involuntary, and likely to affect future generations, so it has a very critical impact on the minds of the general public. Contemporary terrorism shares many of these characteristics: it is usually unknown, frightening, uncontrollable, involuntary, and also indiscriminately fatal to even children (future generations). It surely has significant psychological effects on people’s minds.

Terrorism and media

For the news media, terrorism is a very strong “product” which easily attracts a lot of viewers. Most media aggressively sell the product, terrorism, and help sow fear as people enthusiastically consume the product. In a seminal work on the “social amplification of risk,” Roger Kasperson and colleagues[2] described how the public perception of risk interacts with social and cultural systems (such as the media) and can be amplified during the information delivery process, sometimes resulting in “institutionalized fear.” This amplification process can eventually generate certain public behaviors, some negative and some positive, and may result in disruptions in society. Obviously, some risks are more likely to be amplified than others. Terrorism, because of its special characteristics, is easily amplified. Also, today’s social network communication technologies, such as Facebook and Twitter, can accelerate and strengthen the amplification process.

Thus, the media focus and public concerns create political pressure, and national emergency management policymakers prioritize counter–terrorism, or “civil defense,” over other forms of risk management, such as “civil protection” against all hazards including natural disasters.

Civil defense again?

Culturally and historically, “civil defense” is quite different from “civil protection.” Civil defense, “born out of wartime efforts to organize air-raid precautions, sheltering arrangements and alarms for non-combatants,” has military origins and focuses on protection against foreign military attacks.[3] Civil protection, on the other hand, has disaster origins and focuses on many forms of natural and man-made disasters and other public safety issues. In the Cold War era, civil defense against nuclear attack was the main objective of national emergency management in the United States. At that time, nuclear attack was an “institutionalized fear” made by media and government authorities. Many American homes and public buildings prepared nuclear fallout shelters, illustrating this fear very clearly.

Following the end of Cold War and recognition of the increasing trend of large man-made and natural disasters, “civil protection” gradually replaced the term “civil defense” in most countries. Civil protection focuses more on generic disasters than on the armed aggression, and administratively it is more decentralized than civil defense. In the United States, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was established in 1979. It was mainly a civil defense organization during the Cold War, but in the last two decades has worked to redirect some resources toward the management of various disasters (civil protection). James Witt, director of FEMA under President Clinton, clarified this change of direction. As the FEMA website explains, “the end of the Cold War also allowed Witt to redirect more of FEMA's limited resources from civil defense into disaster relief, recovery and mitigation programs.”[4] FEMA also introduced an “all hazards approach,” recognizing the many different kinds of disasters that may require mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.

The September 11, 2001 terror attack dramatically changed the direction of emergency management in the United States. After the attack, the United States hastily constructed the Department of Homeland Security and downgraded FEMA, whose main duty was civil protection. This attracted criticism from some public administration experts that the U.S. government concentrated too much on terrorism, perhaps because of the “social amplification” of the risk in the wake of the attack, despite the many other critical risks facing U.S. citizens. Basically, the critics charged, the United States changed the direction of its emergency management from civil protection back to Cold War-style civil defense.

Balance collapsed in emergency management

The cost of that shift in priorities was on full display when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, easily destroying the weak levee system and submerging much of New Orleans under water. Federal and local governments’ mitigation, response and recovery to the Hurricane Katrina were mostly inadequate – resulting in the most severe disaster damage in U.S. history at that time. Due to budget cuts, the Army Corps of Engineers had been unable to strengthen the levee system protecting New Orleans. After the flooding and other damage occurred, the governments’ disaster situation awareness was poor. Communication among authorities and between authorities and civilians was broken. Assistance from the federal government was delayed and insufficient, and people died while awaiting rescue or other assistance. Critics also charged that too many government officials were not familiar with the “National Response Plan” which was implemented in December 2004 after 9/11 terrorist attack. Planning and training for large natural disasters were insufficient after the implementation of the plan. In short, too great a focus on counter-terrorism undermined capacities for natural disaster mitigation, response, and recovery in the post-9/11 United States.

This not only the case in the United States, however. The United Kingdom experienced a similar transition after the 7/7 London bombings in 2005, in which suicide attacks by four home-grown terrorists killed 55 civilians. In response, the U.K. government introduced several measures such as the Prevention of Terrorism Bill. Critics said that some responses to the attacks were anti-liberal, militarizing, and centralizing, and were in the wrong direction from the viewpoint of an all hazards approach. The problem, as one observer wrote, was that “too great a focus on one type of threat and on institutional preparedness can divert attention away from other problematic areas and distance the public.”[5]

In South Korea, the provocations of North Korea can divert the direction of national emergency management. South Korea had been under a thorough civil defense-oriented culture since the end of the Korean War in 1953. All citizens, for example, must participate in compulsory civil defense training preparing for military attacks from North Korea, and there is a military service requirement for men.

The mood of reconciliation that developed on the Korean Peninsula during the post-Cold War Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations (1998-2008) changed the direction of Korean emergency management policies, highlighted by the 2004 establishment of the South Korean National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) by the Roh Moo-hyun administration. Large disasters such as Typhoon Rusa in 2002 and the Daegu subway accident in 2004 demanded a comprehensive emergency management system that can manage the all types of hazards, not only a military attack by North Korea. South Korea is gradually replacing its civil defense culture with one of civil protection. The Lee Myung-bak administration (2008-2013) established the Ministry of Public Administration and Security (MOPAS) in 2008. MOPAS enlarged the scope of disaster management to include fostering a safety culture and anticipating future disasters induced by climate change. The Ministry has proposed civil protection strategies such as promoting public safety awareness, strengthening leadership of local governments, and promoting participation of private companies in disaster preparation and mitigation. Also, MOPAS pushed ahead several projects like the “Safe City” initiative that tries to enhance the safety level of local communities by encouraging the participation of various local stakeholders in preparation, mitigation, and response planning an activities. This means that the civil protection ideals and an all hazards approach were widely adopted as a government policy direction at that time.

However, the bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island by North Korean forces in November 2010, which was unexpected and resulted in four deaths, changed this trend back again. After the Yeonpyeong Island bombardment, most projects for disaster and safety management were canceled and delayed because the highest priority was placed on national defense against North Korea. To some extent, this mirrors the experiences of the United States after 2001 and the United Kingdom after 2005. Although the deaths by Yeonpyeong Island bombardment were relatively few compared 209 deaths in Typhoon Rusa and 192 deaths in the Daegu subway accident, the political impact on the Korean government was huge.

Keeping a balance in emergency management

Civil protection and an all hazards approach are vital to maintaining preparation and the best possible response to major natural and man-made disaster. But they can be weakened if governments focus too heavily on national security (including civil defense against terrorism). And that can result in the other large disasters. Keeping balance in emergency management planning, and implementing an all hazards approach are crucial to effect public administration in this area.

The United States is at risk from a diverse range of natural and man-made disasters. Climate change will produce historically strong hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy more and more frequently. There is a high possibility of large earthquakes and outbreaks of new pandemic diseases. As indicated by the recent Texas fertilizer plant explosion, man-made disasters can also have big impacts. To cite another area where civil protection should not be neglected, the number of road fatalities per one million inhabitants was 111 per million inhabitants – or, well over 30,000 individuals – in the United States in 2009. This rate is almost three times Japan’s rate of 45 fatalities per one million inhabitants, and higher than the European Union average of 70 fatalities per one million inhabitants.

How do we keep balance in emergency management? Though officials in democratic countries such as South Korea and the United States must respond to public opinion, approaches to emergency management should be decided neither by public opinion, which can be easily agitated by shocking incidents, nor by the news media which tend to follow sensational events. Although the number of casualties in the Boston terror attack was much smaller than Texas explosion, the psychological impact and news attractiveness of Boston were much higher. Indeed, the news of the Texas fertilizer plant explosion was almost swept away in an ocean of news about Boston. Instead, priorities in emergency management should be decided based on the scientific evidence, accurate statistics, and rational policy planning.

Counter-terrorism is necessary and obviously very important. Governments must take policy measures to prevent terrorism, but they should resist contributing to institutionalized fear. They must also remember that human beings are surrounded by a plethora of risks, many of which cause more physical damage than terrorism. Governments should prepare policy measures for mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery for all hazards we can encounter, and should keep a balance based on sciences and accurate statistical data.

For this purpose, a number policy measures are appropriate. First, we need a clear cost-benefit analyses of the current policies in emergency management. According to research conducted by John Mueller and Mark G Stewart and published in 2011,[6] the United States has spent over $1.1 trillion on homeland security after 9/11; Mueller and Stewart evaluate the effectiveness of this massive spending as very low. If this money, or some of it, had been applied to other public safety areas, such as climate change mitigation or industrial safety management where the cost effectiveness is high, the United States could be a safer place.

Second, people should know what the real risks are. The well known risks such as traffic accidents, industrial accidents, and floods kill far more people in America than terrorism does. According to several psychological research studies, familiarity can reduce the level of the public’s risk perception. So, there is a much smaller sense of urgency about many of the risks that surround us every day. Science and statistics on risks, and governmental efforts to provide information and education about risks, can help individuals and local communities effectively increase their overall safety level.

[1] Slovic, P. “Perception of Risk,” Science, Vol. 236, No. 4799 (1987): 283.

[2] Kasperson, R., Renn, O., Slovic, P., Brown, H. and Emel, J. “Social Amplification of Risk: a Conceptual Framework,” Risk Analysis, 8(2), (1988): 177-187.

[3] Alexander, D. “From Civil Defense to Civil Protection--and Back Again,” Disaster Prevention Management, 11(3), (2002): 209.

[4] FEMA, about the agency, http://www.fema.gov/about-agency.

[5] O'Brien, G. “UK Emergency Preparedness: A Step in the Right Direction?” Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 59, No. 2 (2006): 79.

[6] Mueller, J. and Stewart, M.G., Terror, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

Authors

Jibum Chung

Image Source: © Kim Kyung Hoon / Reuters

United States Policy towards Northeast Asia

Richard C. Bush III — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:37:00 -0400

Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the April 2013 edition of SERI Quarterly.

With the Obama administration making the transition to its second term, it is appropriate to review its policy goals towards Northeast Asia and whether policy implementation can be sustained. In this essay, I review what senior officials have said on these subjects, and consider the challenge of coping with the rise—or revival—of China, while focusing more sharply on the Korean Peninsula.

Declaratory policy

Three texts reveal how the United States government views its interests and objectives towards Asia. Chronologically, they are: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s October 2011 article in Foreign Policy; President Obama’s speech to the Australian parliament on November 17, 2011; and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon’s remarks to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.[1] Five topics merit attention: terminology; the purposes of policy; its scope; the approach to China; and sustainability.

In terminology, two words have gained the greatest currency: “pivot” and “rebalancing.” “Pivot” is a vivid word that plays upon Obama’s love of basketball, it also has a rather absolutist connotation. “Rebalancing,” on the other hand, is more relativistic, both in terms of where America places its priorities geographically and which policy arenas it emphasizes. The word that is least appropriate for Northeast Asia is “return,” which had some currency in the early part of the administration. “Return” may have been accurate for Southeast Asia but not for Northeast Asia.

In terms of the purposes of rebalancing, senior officials spoke in different but substantively convergent ways:

Clinton referred to “harnessing Asia’s growth and dynamism”; to “maintaining peace and security across the Asia-Pacific”; to responding to the wishes of the region itself; and, in effect, the long, benign impact of America’s presence in and posture toward the region (“We are the only power with a network of strong alliances in the region, no territorial ambitions, and a long record of providing for the common good. Along with our allies, we have underwritten regional security for decades . . . and that in turn has helped create the conditions for growth.”)
Obama spoke simply of a “large and long-term role in shaping this region and its future, by upholding core principles and in close partnership with friends and allies.”
Donilon also implied a “shaping” objective, even though he did not use the word. He said, “We aspire to see a region where the rise of new powers occurs peacefully; where the freedom to access the sea, air, space, and cyberspace empowers vibrant commerce; where multinational forums help promote shared interests; and where citizens increasingly have the ability to influence their governments and universal human rights are upheld.”

[1] Hillary Rodham Clinton, “America’s Pacific Century,” Foreign Policy Magazine, October 11, 2011 (www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/10/175215.htm); “Remarks by President Obama to the Australian Parliament—As Prepared for Delivery,” November 17, 2011, White House website (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/17/remarks-president-obama-australian-parliament); “Remarks by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon—As Prepared for Delivery,” November 15, 2012, White House website (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/11/15/remarks-national-security-advisor-tom-donilon-prepared-delivery).

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Authors

Richard C. Bush III

Publication: SERI Quarterly

Image Source: © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

A Possible "Off Ramp" in North Korea

James E. Goodby — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:04:00 -0400

At the Brookings panel discussion on North Korea on April 15, “North Korea and Policy Priorities for the United States,” several important points were made that suggest a connecting of the dots would be useful. First, the consensus appeared to be that Kim Jong-un is calling the shots. Second, there is a high risk of catastrophic miscalculation in the present situation. Third, we should pay attention to what the North Koreans are telling us, "in their own words." Fourth, Kim Jong-un would like to open a discussion with the United States but he has left himself no exit from the current confrontation.

It can be argued that Kim Jong-un has in fact left himself an exit in a variety of ways, of which the most commonly mentioned is that the ending of the current United States-Republic of Korea joint military exercise will permit him to ratchet down the rhetoric. There is one other "off ramp" strategy that is never mentioned at all, which is surprising, considering that it was presented in Kim's own words in a highly public manner. It can be found in Kim Jong-un's New Year's Day speech this year, an address that Kim must have seen as a major statement of his intentions but which has been almost totally ignored.

This is what he said: "All the compatriots in the north, south and abroad should launch a dynamic struggle to carry out to the letter the June 15 Joint Declaration and the October 4 Declaration, great unification programs common to the nation in the new century and milestones for peace and prosperity."

The June 15, 2000 Joint Declaration was signed by then-ROK President Kim Dae-jung and former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il at a summit meeting held in Pyongyang. It included some features from the 1992 Basic Agreement, including family reunification, but was much less sweeping in its reach than the 1992 agreement. Its emphasis was on an independent effort by North and South Korea to achieve reunification. The October 4, 2007 agreement was signed by then-ROK President Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang and was much more programmatic and substantive in content than the June 15, 2000 Declaration. Like the earlier summit declaration, the 2007 agreement stressed what it called "by-the-Korean-people-themselves." In the present crisis-filled atmosphere, paragraph 4 of that document can be read as either an anachronism or as a beacon of hope. This is what it said:

The South and the North both recognize the need to end the current armistice regime and build a permanent peace regime. The South and the North have agreed to work together to advance the matter of having the leaders of the three or four parties directly concerned to convene on the Peninsula and declare an end to the war. With regard to the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, the South and the North have agreed to work together to implement smoothly the September 19, 2005 Joint Statement and the February 13, 2007 Agreement achieved at the Six-Party Talks.

Of course, both the Declaration in 2000 and the Agreement in 2007 were negotiated by leaders of a party that is now out of power in South Korea, and the North Korean leader has been succeeded by his son. Both documents have been gathering dust in the archives for years. But Kim Jong-un's reference to them gave them new relevance. This is the powerful leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea saying that he and all Koreans should live up to the letter of these documents and he was saying that on January 1, 2013.

As an off-ramp strategy, one can find flaws in it, especially in the possibility that it was intended by Kim Jong-un as an attempt to drive a wedge between new ROK President Park Geun-hye and the leaders of South Korea's allies. It also opens the door to economic cooperation and possibly renewed assistance, difficult to contemplate under today's circumstances, which include the shut-down of the Kaesong Industrial Complex. But skillful diplomacy should certainly be able to exploit for the good whatever good there is in it.

Authors

James E. Goodby

Image Source: © KCNA KCNA / Reuters

Getting Kim Jong Un's Attention

Michael E. O'Hanlon and Mike Mochizuki — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:19:00 -0400

Nothing about the international response to North Korea's third nuclear test in February or subsequent provocations has been unreasonable. The crisis is entirely of Pyongyang's making. But it is possible that the hard-line approach taken by Washington, Seoul and other capitals to the North Korean bluster, brinkmanship and bombast has been far less than optimal.

We need a firm policy. North Korea must pay a price for its irresponsible and dangerous behavior, and know that the world is united in standing against it. The resolve must begin with the U.S.-South Korean military alliance but extend to other nations, most notably China, North Korea's only ally and main benefactor.

But there are a couple of problems. One is that China is uneasy about jeopardizing stability next to its borders and only goes along with sanctions reluctantly. Indeed, one possible explanation for North Korea's behavior is that it is seeking to spook leaders in Beijing so severely that they will be even more averse to applying any further sanctions, perhaps after another North Korean nuclear test.

And the worse this crisis gets, the more it increases the odds of North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un, further entrenching himself in hard-line positions from which it will be difficult to backtrack later. Among other things, it would raise the odds that he will seek to accelerate and expand nuclear weapons production activities.

We need a more creative policy should there be another crisis or a substantial worsening of this one (beyond a firing of a medium-range missile, for example). More sanctions might be needed. But new sanctions should sunset automatically, say after two years, unless Pyongyang tests another bomb, expands nuclear production or carries out another aggressive act leading to loss of life.

The key sanctions that could still be imposed would affect basic trade and aid in basic consumer goods, largely what China and North Korea exchange. Most sanctions to date are on banking, technology and the assets of certain individuals.

Temporary sanctions accomplish several goals. They constitute a firm response themselves. But because they do not last forever, they provide an incentive for better North Korean behavior. They also give a nod to China's worry that strong-armed international action against the Kim regime, however justified, is risky. Chinese leaders may or may not be right, but there can be little doubt this is how they think.

At this point it is too late to turn existing, permanent U.N. sanctions into temporary ones without any North Korean concessions, as that would reward Pyongyang's behavior. But we do need to look for ways to de-escalate this crisis. We also need to look for ways to more generally contain the downward trajectory of Pyongyang's relationship with the outside world. As bad as things are now, they can get worse if the regime reactivates its plutonium-producing reactor or expands its suspected uranium enrichment, with the possibility that bombs could be sold abroad.

Although the U.S. position on key issues should stay firm, we should also be willing to talk with North Korea at any point. Beyond that, Washington needs to signal a willingness to engage in a much broader discussion leading to a road map for a comprehensive deal. Right now, Pyongyang shows little interest in internal reform. It needs to be encouraged to move in the direction that China, Vietnam and now Myanmar have taken: reform from within. And the U.S. should work closely with South Korea, Japan, China and Russia to develop a truly coordinated strategy to steer North Korea in this direction.

The regime need not commit up front to relinquishing every nuclear weapon for this kind of deal to begin. But if it is willing to stop producing nuclear arms, gradually scale back its military and begin to reform and ultimately dismantle its gulag system of labor camps and penal colonies, Washington should make it clear that U.S. and international help can extend to much broader economic and technical assistance as well as a comprehensive peace deal.

This may sound like strange talk in the middle of such an acute crisis. But it is partly because the U.S. has no clear strategy for navigating the relationship with North Korea that small crises can metastasize, and that Kim, listening to his hard-line generals, may decide that he has no option but to double down on the juche (self-reliance) Stalinist system that his grandfather and father have built, and on their extremely dangerous confrontational policies toward the West. We need to create a light at the end of the tunnel, even if the light will be very faint for some time to come.

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon
Mike Mochizuki

Publication: Los Angeles Times

Image Source: © KCNA KCNA / Reuters

The World of North Korea's Kim Jong-un

Kongdan Oh — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

In December 2011 the second generation leader of the Kim dynasty, Kim Jong-il, reportedly died of a heart attack at age 70. His father, Kim Il-sung, the founder of the dynasty, was a guerilla fighter who fought against the Japanese in China and later fled to Russia, where he became an officer in the Soviet army. Although he returned to the northern half of the Korean peninsula after the Japanese had surrendered to Soviet troops, he claimed credit for liberating Korea single-handedly, just as he falsely claimed to have defeated the UN coalition forces during the Korean War. This founding Kim set North Korea on the course that it now follows under the leadership of his grandson, who has consciously imitated his grandfather’s clothing, mannerisms, and “military-first” policy.

The Kim dynasty has successfully maintained a large measure of secrecy about how it operates. It is believed that for the last 20 years of Kim Il-sung’s reign, his son was running most of the country’s day-to-day affairs. When that son took over the leadership on his father’s death from a heart attack in 1994, he ruled in an even more secretive fashion than his father, sometimes not appearing in public for months on end. Throughout his lifetime, Kim Jong-il made only one public speech—of less than ten words—and that may have been due to a mistake made by a sound engineer. Now the world wants to know what is going on in the grandson’s mind as he publicly defies his erstwhile ally China and threatens destruction on South Korea, the United States, and Japan.

North Korea is in the news for two reasons: it has expanding nuclear weapons and missiles programs and it threatens to attack South Korea, the United States, and Japan. The nuclear program is hardly news. The Kim regime has been working since the 1980s on this program, and despite occasional denials of any desire to have nuclear weapons, it has forged ahead relentlessly, even during the days when it had reached a non-nuclear agreement with the United States. It is highly unlikely that the North Koreans were ever willing to completely abandon the program, no matter what incentives they were offered, and in recent years they have firmly renounced any interest in even discussing the program. In 2013 they officially stated that the program is their most important weapon and is not subject to negotiation. This should surprise no one, and it should also save other countries much time and effort that they would otherwise have put into trying to negotiate a new nuclear deal with North Korea.

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Authors

Kongdan Oh

Publication: Global Experts

Image Source: © KCNA KCNA / Reuters

Understanding North Korea

Kongdan Oh — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:27:00 -0400

Editor's Note: This piece originally appeared in the March 2013 issue of the Foreign Policy Research Institute's E-Notes bulletin.

When the third son of dying leader Kim Jong-il was designated as the successor of his ailing father in December 2011, the media asked me to comment on the young (28 or 29) Kim’s inclination to reform North Korea’s politics and economy. Journalists pointed out that Kim Jong-un had received several years of education in Switzerland, where he could savor prosperity and freedom. Moreover, as a relatively young leader, he might favor new ways of doing things. He might, in short, reveal himself to be a reformer. Interestingly, this is what many people said about Kim Jong-il when he took over after his father’s death. The reformation of North Korea would make a great story for the media, but most of life is humdrum and repetitive rather than newsworthy and so I did not expect anything new from the young Kim. My favorite cautionary example was the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad of Syria, whose four years of post-graduate school in London failed to turn him into a political reformer when he took over from his father.

Not long after Kim Jong-un came to power, he was frequently seen in public with a woman who turned out to be his wife. Again I was asked if this was a sign of change. Kim’s father, who had at least one wife and numerous mistresses, never appeared in public with any of them, and North Koreans knew better than to ask whether their leader was married. Once again we can turn to Assad, whose wife was raised and educated in England but has not had an appreciable influence on the political attitudes of her husband.

I have been studying North Korea for over three decades. Back in the year 2000 I co-authored a book with my research partner, Ralph Hassig, titled North Korea through the Looking Glass. The title was meant to suggest that North Korea is just the opposite of what Westerners are familiar with. Most of the book was written during the period when Kim Jong-il seemed to have abdicated leadership and abandoned the North Korean people to suffering and famine—a dramatic change from the days when his father (assisted by Kim Jong-il) kept a firm grip on the lives of his people. Optimists saw the younger Kim’s abdication of power as a possible harbinger of political, economic, and social change. Yet, we were not convinced that Kim had adopted any kind of new thinking. Rather, we believed the North Korean press when it quoted Kim as saying, “Expect no change from me.”

Over a decade later, North Korea’s newest leader has taken firm control from the outset. He has purged those whose loyalty he questions. He has strengthened control over the border with China to reduce the flow of North Korean defectors. Although it was rumored that he favored some modest rural reforms, he has failed to announce or implement them. And most discouragingly, he has devoted most of his attention to preparing his people psychologically for another Korean War. Against the express wishes of the Chinese, who provide most of the economic support for the North Korean people, Kim has sided with the army and moved ahead with missile and nuclear development. Toward South Korea, the United States, and Japan, the North Korean regime has issued increasingly harsh threats of impending war.

South Korea’s new president, Mrs. Park Geun-Hye, has offered to implement a trust-building process with North Korea, and her unification minister has said that South Korea is willing to resume humanitarian aid to the North. In the United States, critics of the Obama administration have likewise suggested that a softer approach to North Korea might pay dividends. This strain of optimism is to be found at the beginning of every new administration, but in my opinion it is not the case that previous administrations have missed something. They have tried and become discouraged. Unlike his father, who back in 1994 at least pretended to be willing to make accommodations with the international community when it came to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, Kim Jong-un has spurned offers of reconciliation and is staking North Korea’s future on Chinese willingness to support his regime, despite the obvious dissatisfaction of the Chinese.

It would seem that Kim Jong-un can only be moved by the wrath of his people or by strong pressure from the Chinese. No one else has leverage over him. China voted for the most recent UN resolution on additional sanctions against North Korea following Pyongyang’s third nuclear test, but whether the Chinese leadership will back up their sanction vote with action remains to be seen. In the past they have spectacularly failed to do so, fearing regional instability more than possible nuclear proliferation.

During my visit to China in November 2012, young Chinese intellectuals and party cadres expressed to me their unhappiness with the Kim regime, although they know better than to directly contradict official Chinese policy. “The ‘First Fat,’ Kim Il-sung, was sort of a comrade to us, fighting against the colonial Japanese. The ‘Second Fat,’ his son Kim Jong-il, was disliked by most Chinese but we continued to support North Korea. Now this ‘Third Fat,’ Kim Jong-un, seems to be the worst of the lot.” China’s new leadership may continue with its traditional “noninterference policy” for a while, but the young Chinese elites have already lost patience with their troublesome neighbor, a fact that Kim Jong-un and his supporters must surely be aware of.

Inside the two Koreas

North Korea today is not one republic but two: A “Pyongyang Republic” and a “Republic of Everyone Else.” The distinction is both geographical and political. The capital city Pyongyang is clean, orderly, and modestly prosperous. Pyongyangites, most of them Party members, dress better than they used to, buy food at restaurants and street-side stalls, and talk on their cell phones. Foreign visitors, expecting to see a land of starving people, are impressed. The regime has the power to make the city—or the most visible parts of the city—to its own specifications. After all, there is no private enterprise to interfere with government plans. Kim Jong-un and the top elites live even better than the other citizens of Pyongyang. No matter how many economic sanctions are placed on North Korea, there always seems to be enough money to support the political elites, with plenty left over for nuclear weapons and missiles.

Outside Pyongyang, North Korea is a different world. In 2009 Ralph and I wrote The Hidden People of North Korea. These are the people we were talking about. In Pyongyang, the main streets are as wide as parking lots. Outside the city, most roads are unpaved. Vehicles are few and far between (even visitors to Pyongyang can see that). Trains creep along twisted tracks. Although North Koreans have more freedom to travel than they used to (not officially but unofficially), they mostly hitchhike to get to their destinations. Travelers pay bribes of homemade wine and cigarettes to get rides on military trucks, or they simply trudge along the side of the road. People are thinner and much more poorly dressed than they are in Pyongyang. They are also hungrier and sicker. Only local party leaders and the black-market entrepreneurs who bribe them are pear-shaped; everyone else is banana shaped.

How can the Kim regime be moved?

The United States has long appealed to China to put more pressure on North Korea to stop its nuclear and missile programs and initiate economic reforms. The Chinese have by and large resisted this appeal and instead repeatedly called on “all parties” to remain calm and work out their differences in the Six Party Talks, hosted by China but not convened since 2008. For that matter, neither the United States nor South Korea officially favors any sort of political revolution in North Korea, preferring to wait until something causes the regime to change its own mind.

If China cannot be moved, and neither the United States nor South Korea is willing to do more than call on the Kim regime to reform, can 23 million North Koreans take their fate into their own hands? Since the famine of 1995-1998, when the government stopped providing food to most of its citizens, they have pursued a bottom-up economic revolution and now survive for the most part by their own means, even though these means are mostly illegal. Not having the wherewithal to care for its people, the Kim regime has acquiesced to this revolution, although it occasionally cracks down on private enterprise and continues to insist that socialism is the only acceptable economic system.

Interpreting the regime’s acquiescence to private enterprise as a softening of its views, some politicians, political pundits, and analysts in the United States argue that our government should initiate high-level talks with the Kim regime, agree to North Korean demands to sign a peace treaty replacing the 1953 Armistice Agreement, and normalize diplomatic relations with the government in Pyongyang. These actions would satisfy some, but hardly all, of the demands North Korea has made on the United States. In my opinion, the United States tried its best to reach an agreement in 1994 but the effort ultimately failed. Part of the fault lay with the United States, which, as a democracy, was unable to fulfill all of the obligations that the Clinton White House had made. Much of the fault lay with North Korea, which arguably had no intention of actually giving up its nuclear weapons, but rather was playing the United States for all it could get. Regardless of how blame for the agreement’s ultimate failure is allocated, the failure itself exemplifies the theme of our Looking Glass book: that the two countries are on opposite sides of most issues and can no more meet in the middle than a person can pass through a looking glass—except in a dream.

Almost everyone who tries to deal with North Korea, politically, economically, or socially, comes to realize that this is an almost impossible country to deal with. There is an obvious reason for North Korea’s recalcitrance: only by keeping itself separate from the modern world can the regime hope to perpetuate itself generation after generation. People often forget that the regime has been a great success, even though the country is a basket case. The first two Kims lived lives of luxury (after the elder Kim established himself as leader) and died natural deaths. The third Kim presumably believes he can do no better than follow in their footsteps. He and his supporters have little reason to change their policies because they do not suffer from international sanctions or their ruinous economic policies.

So what about the 23 million citizens of North Korea who are not living a life of luxury? Do they have the will and the means to change their condition? Human beings are highly adaptable. The North Korean people have learned how to make their own living, even if for most of them it is not a very good living. They live in constant fear of punishment; most of them endure a measure of hunger and sickness. But this has always been the case. They have never had political power, and the few who have tried to resist the regime have been quickly arrested and put away in prison camps. Hope is the last word in the people’s dictionary. For them, the scope for change is their immediate economic environment, nothing more.

Koreans living in both halves of the peninsula are a hardy and resourceful people. South Korea in the 1950s was in many respects not that much different from North Korea. Both countries were dictatorships and both were poor (North Korea actually got an economic jump on South Korea in the 50s and 60s). In the 1960s, under the authoritarian president Park Chung-hee (the father of the current president), South Korea experienced an economic revolution—instituted by the government rather than the people. Only in the 1980s did the government gradually relinquish its authoritarian powers and move toward full democracy, which arrived in the early 1990s after years of popular demonstrations. Arguably the key difference between political fates of the two Koreas was that the United States had a large military presence in South Korea and successive Korean governments recognized their dependence on the Americans. This presence, and South Korea’s desire to join the international community, constrained the South Korean presidents in their use of force against protesting citizens.

The United States has no presence in North Korea. Kim Jong-un’s only constraints are the fear that the Chinese might someday pull the plug on his economy, and the fear that his hard-line military might turn against him. As a far away force, is there anything the United States can do to help the North Korean people stand up for themselves against their government? In the final pages of our Hidden People book we suggested that the only way North Korea would change is if its ordinary citizens took it upon themselves to bring about change, and we recommended that foreigners do everything in their power to provide the North Korean people with information about their government and the outside world to empower themselves. The United States has extended very modest assistance to North Korean defectors who have devoted their lives to transmitting information back to their comrades in the North. But beyond that the United States, with its hands full in the Middle East, has been unwilling to go.

The Obama administration’s official policy toward North Korea is “strategic patience.” The virtue of this policy is that it does not stir up any hornet nests. The weakness is that it fails to control the situation. Rather than working to remove the Kim dynasty, which judging by its own words and history is unlikely to change, the United States (and South Korea) bolster their defenses so that if the Kim regime should act on its threats of war, the allies can win the war as quickly as possible. As for the North Korean people, they are on their own.

Authors

Kongdan Oh

Publication: Foreign Policy Research Institute

Image Source: © David Gray / Reuters

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula

Evans J.R. Revere — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's Note: In an interview with the Voice of America, Evans Revere comments on the escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula, and explains that the U.S., South Korea, and Japan are taking North Korea's threats seriously.

VOICE OF AMERICA: There is a threat from the North to shut down the Kaesong Industrial Complex, which is jointly run by both countries. If that happens, what are the prospects for direct talks between the two Koreas?

EVANS REVERE: I think the prospects would be slim, to say the least. I think that would be an unfortunate step. It would be a signal that an already troubled relationship is going to get worse. Certainly there are some economic benefits that flow to the North from Kaesong – those would obviously stop, but there are also economic benefits that flow to South Korean manufacturers from that project and those would stop as well and I think that would be unfortunate for both sides.

VOICE OF AMERICA: Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, today condemned the North’s recent threats to launch strikes Sunday, saying Japan is on full alert.

REVERE: As is the United States, and as are ROK troops. It’s, I think, important to send very clear and very firm messages to the North Koreans that we’re taking their threats seriously. We don’t want to overreact, obviously, but we do want to make it clear to them that we – the United States, our South Korean ally, as well as Japan are prepared for a whole range of contingencies, and that’s why I think it’s important for President Park to have said the sort of things she is reported to have said today, because I think that does send a clear message to the North Koreans that a provocation will result in a response; therefore do not provoke.

Listen to the full interview

Authors

Evans J.R. Revere

Publication: Voice of America

North Korea Faces Heightened Human Rights Scrutiny

Roberta Cohen — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

On March 21, 2013 the United Nations Human Rights Council, a body of 47 states, adopted by consensus a resolution to establish a commission of inquiry (COI) into North Korea’s “systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights.”[1] The commission is to be composed of three experts who will intensively investigate for a period of one year the human rights violations perpetrated by North Korea’s government with a view to ensuring "full accountability, in particular where these violations may amount to crimes against humanity" [emphasis added].

The establishment of the commission reflects long overdue recognition that a human rights ‘emergency’ exists in North Korea. Commissions of inquiry at the United Nations have mainly been directed at situations like Syria, Darfur or Libya where conflicts, atrocities and destruction are clearly visible and in the headlines. Adding North Korea to the list suggests a new look at what a human rights crisis might be. In contrast to other situations, North Korea has always managed to hide its crimes. Most prison camps are in remote mountain areas, access to the country is barred to human rights groups, and rigid internal controls make it impossible for anyone who does manage to visit to talk with North Koreans about human rights. Indeed, the lack of access and the UN’s inability to form an “independent diagnosis” of the situation has long contributed to the reluctance of its senior officials to speak out strongly about North Korea.[2] Even the US State Department’s human rights report for 2011, published in 2012, contained the caveat that no one can “assess fully human rights conditions or confirm reported abuses” in North Korea.[3]

The change in attitude also reflects an international willingness to move beyond mere censure in addressing North Korea’s human rights violations. For more than eight years, the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council have adopted annual resolutions expressing “very serious concern” at North Korea’s systematic, widespread and grave violations. Now, the international community is viewing North Korea’s violations as possible crimes against humanity for which North Korean leaders could be held accountable. Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, declared for the first time in 2013 that North Korea’s “rampant” violations “may amount to crimes against humanity.”[4] And in his report to the Human Rights Council, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, Marzuki Darusman, identified nine specific areas where North Korea might be committing crimes against humanity. These include: food policies leading to starvation; prison camps; arbitrary detention; the use of torture and inhuman treatment; enforced disappearances and abductions; policies of discrimination; and violations of freedom of expression and movement, and of the right to life through executions and extensive use of the death penalty.[5]

According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, crimes against humanity are among the most severe human rights violations, constituting one of the four core international crimes (in addition to war crimes, genocide and the crime of aggression). Murder, enslavement, unlawful imprisonment, torture, sexual violence and disappearance are considered crimes against humanity when they are perpetrated as part of “a widespread or systematic attack” against the civilian population.[6]

Since 2006, non-governmental organizations have argued that North Korea’s human rights violations constitute crimes against humanity.[7] Now for the first time, senior UN officials and many governments are beginning to view North Korea’s violations as possible international crimes as well.

Testimony of Former Prisoners

One reason for the change in attitude is the testimony of prison camp survivors. Among the 25,000 North Koreans who have made their way to South Korea over the past decade, hundreds have been former prisoners and have come forward to give their accounts. Published and well disseminated in the West, they have created a stir. One of the first was The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Kang Chol Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot which described former prisoner Kang’s 10 year experience in a camp.[8] Published in France in 2000, the account is credited with having influenced the French government to press the UN Commission on Human Rights (predecessor to the Human Rights Council) to adopt its first resolution on human rights in North Korea in 2003.[9] The following year, after President Bush read the book and met with Kang, the US gave its strong support to the establishment of a UN special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea.[10]

Drawing on the testimony of prison camp survivors, David Hawk wrote the first in depth study of the prison labor camp system in 2003, Hidden Gulag, published by the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.[11] The updated version in 2012 contained the accounts of 60 former prisoners and prison guards. Most instructive was that the accumulated accounts began to corroborate one another, giving them a ‘factual’ basis even though there was no direct access to the country or its prisons. And the testimonies were reinforced by satellite imagery from Google Earth and by prisoners’ drawings,[12] making them far more difficult to dismiss. As a result,[13] North Korea’s denial of the camps and dismissal of victims’ accounts as the “unfounded” falsehoods of defectors seeking to betray their country increasingly failed to persuade.

The book, Escape from Camp 14 by Washington Post reporter Blaine Harden attracted extensive publicity in 2012 and is said to have encouraged officials inside the UN to press for the commission of inquiry. Navi Pillay was reportedly moved when she met with Shin Dong Hyuk, the subject of the book, and another survivor.[14] In simple but powerful prose, the book describes the experiences of Shin who was born in the camps and who has been going from country to country with the book, now translated into a number of languages, to tell what was done to him by the prison camp system.[15]

By speaking out, North Korea’s former prisoners regularly put themselves at risk and also may jeopardize their family members, colleagues and friends left behind. (Both Shin and Kang have enlisted the help of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to assist them in finding out information about their father and sister, respectively.) To reduce the number of North Koreans telling their stories, Pyongyang has been intensely cracking down at its border with China to prevent North Koreans’ departure for the South. The total number of North Koreans who have reached South Korea in 2012 was 1,509, about half the number from the year before.[16] But North Koreans continue to come forward, using their only weapon against the regime—information.

Patience Wears Thin

Another reason for the commission of inquiry is that the international community reached a limit in its patience for tolerating North Korea’s failure to cooperate with the UN in the human rights area. For ten years the High Commissioner for Human Rights has tried to establish a dialogue with the North Korean government and develop technical cooperation agreements—an arrangement the Office has with more than 50 governments. But year after year, Pyongyang failed to cooperate. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon even instructed his Special Envoy to Pyongyang in 2010 to urge North Korea to cooperate with the High Commissioner.[17] But by 2013, High Commissioner Pillay announced, “I don’t think the world should stand by and see this kind of situation, which is not improving at all.”[18] “For years now,” she said, “the Government of DPRK has persistently refused to cooperate with successive Special Rapporteurs…or with my Office.”[19] She waited, she said until after Kim Jong Un took over from his father in 2011, but when no reforms were forthcoming, she decided to take a “firmer step.”[20] UN General Assembly resolutions similarly expressed concern with North Korea’s failure to cooperate with the High Commissioner, the Special Rapporteur and the UN’s Universal Periodic Review of North Korea.[21] The UN, it can be said, reached a tipping point, perhaps abetted by North Korea’s rocket and nuclear tests and continued provocative threats.

Although North Korea has claimed that the commission of inquiry is part of a “political plot” of “hostile forces,[22] it is noteworthy that those in the forefront of the UN system in support of the commission are not Westerners. High Commissioner Pillay, the senior most UN official to publicly call for the commission, is a South African of Indian origin. Marzuki Darusman, the Special Rapporteur, who issued the 2012 report which served as the foundation for the call, was the former Attorney General of Indonesia. He built on the work of his predecessor, Thai law Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn, in telling the Human Rights Council that “the violations in the DPRK have reached a critical mass,” and that “many, if not all, of the nine patterns of violation, identified in my present report, may amount to crimes against humanity.”[23] Although North Korea calls the material on which the report is based “faked,” [24] the report issued by Darusman is well documented, lawyerly and based on considerable research, as could be seen from the annexes to the text.

Other parts of the UN human rights system have joined in to express support for the commission of inquiry. Drawn from countries like Argentina, Senegal and South Africa, the UN’s independent experts on torture, arbitrary detention, disappearances and extrajudicial executions issued a joint statement together with Darusman endorsing an international inquiry.[25] This joint action on behalf of the commission occurred after the rapporteurs received no response from North Korea to a query they made about the prison labor system.

Most significantly, governmental support has increased for bringing North Koreato account. When the UN General Assembly first adopted a resolution on North Korea’s human rights situation in 2005, 88 states voted for the resolution. By 2011, the number of states supporting the resolution had gone up to 123. In 2012, the 193-member General Assembly adopted the resolution by consensus, that is, without a vote, with states like China, Cuba and Venezuela comprising a minority who disassociated themselves from the text after its adoption. Last year, the Human Rights Council also adopted its annual human rights resolution onNorth Korea by consensus, suggesting the development of a greater unanimity aboutNorth Korea’s human rights record. At this session, the resolution creating a commission of inquiry was adopted by consensus.

Another strong player which North Korea must reckon with is an NGO coalition of more than 40 organizations. In 2011, the International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity (ICNK) in North Korea was formed.[26] ICNK has lobbied governments, published opeds, and worked the corridors at the UN to press for the creation of a commission of inquiry. Although NGOs can be competitive and even undercut each other’s work, the more than 40 groups that have banded together have shown remarkable unity and effectiveness. The coalition includes the major international human rights NGOs as well as groups from a variety of Asian and other countries. It is now heavily invested in the success of the commission’s work.

Indeed, a worldwide effort will be needed to help bring forward information to the commission so that it can produce the best and most well documented report. The Council’s resolution calls upon UN specialized agencies, regional bodies, UN rapporteurs, experts and NGOs to cooperate with the commission. But governments should be expected to cooperate as well, in particular to provide relevant information, sometimes on a confidential basis, including satellite information that might be more precise than what is currently available to NGOs.

An Overall Strategy

The commission of inquiry should not be seen as an end in itself but rather as part of a larger strategy to promote human rights inNorth Korea. A strategic plan should be developed and led by the Secretary-General together with the High Commissioner for Human Rights. It should have definite goals like achieving a dialogue with North Korea; disseminating to its schools, government offices and institutions Korean translations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; gaining international access to the penal labor camps; bringing an end to the prison system and forced labor; and allowing freedom of movement for North Koreans across borders. A strategic plan would bring together the myriad UN offices and agencies involved with North Korea, including the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Development Program, the International Labor Organization, the UN Department of Public Information, UNESCO, the World Food Program and other humanitarian organizations so that the entire system can be tapped and work together. Humanitarian groups in particular should be consulted about causes of starvation in the country and access to those in need. They should be reminded that “the most vulnerable” in the population include the 100,000 to 200,000 political prisoners held in camps on starvation rations. In sum, a comprehensive strategy needs to be developed.

The New Human Rights Landscape

Admittedly, heightened international scrutiny of North Korea’s human rights record may have little impact on the ground in the short term. It is likely North Korea will continue to defy efforts by the UN to establish dialogue and technical assistance programs. It may even crack down harder against its population and those seeking to flee across the border. But over the longer term, the growing number of states, including those from developing countries, as well as UN officials, experts and NGOs arrayed against North Koreabecause of its human rights record may give some North Koreans pause, especially since efforts will be made by UN officials to identify individuals and institutions to hold accountable in future. Moreover, the states which North Korea might turn to for talks and aid will be influenced as well. The United States, for example, long has separated its human rights concerns from its political and nuclear relationships with North Korea, but it also has felt pressured by the strong publicity coming out about the human rights situation. Glyn Davies, the Special Representative for North Korea Policy told the Senate on March 7, 2013, that “U.S.-DPRK relations cannot fundamentally improve without sustained improvement in inter-Korean relations and human rights” [emphasis added].[27] This perhaps suggests the beginnings of a more integrated policy on the part of theUS for dealing with North Korea. It is to be hoped that the idea will spread to other countries as well.

Even North Korea’s principal ally China is reported to be growing uncomfortable with the regime’s provocations and excesses. Although China has remained for the most part steadfast in its support of North Korea, North Korean officials can themselves read in the press that questions are arising in China about its policies in support of North Korea.[28] One article even pointed to public concerns in China about its own labor camps and whether they should be closed.[29]

It is not easy to predict when change will come. It was not foreseen that the Berlin Wall would fall when it did, that the Soviet Union would collapse, and that reforms would take place in Arab countries. But bringing down the information wall around North Korea and exposing its crimes against humanity may in time lead to change.

[1] UN Human Rights Council, Resolution on the situation of human rights in the DPRK (draft on file with author), adopted March 21, 2013.

[2] See Roberta Cohen, “The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and North Korea,” prepared for The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights’ book, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: Conscience for the World (University of Nottingham, 2013) (forthcoming).

[3] US Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: DPRK, “ENDNOTE: NOTE ON SOURCING,” at http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2011/eap/186279.htm.

[4] “Pillay urges more attention to human rights abuses in North Korea, calls for international inquiry,” News Release, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, January 14, 2013 [henceforth Pillay Statement 2013], at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/Media.aspx?IsMediaPage=true&LangID=E.

[5] UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK, Marzuki Darusman, A/HRC/22/57, February 1, 2013, paras. 6, 25, 31.

[6] Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_against_humanity#International_Criminal_Court. For discussion of crimes against humanity, see David Hawk, Hidden Gulag, second edition, Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, 2012, pp. 154-167.

[7] See Vaclav Havel, Kjell Magne Bondevik, Elie Wiesel, Failure to Protect: A Call for the UN Security Council to Act in North Korea,” U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and DLA PIPER, October 30, 2006, pp. ii, 11; see also Hawk, Hidden Gulag, 2012, pp. vii,173-174.

[8] Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot, The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag (The Perseus Press, 2000) (French) later translated into English (Basic Books).

[9] See Cohen, “The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and North Korea.”

[10] Ibid.

[11] See David Hawk, Hidden Gulag, Committee for Human Rights inNorth Korea, 2003.

[12] See Hawk, Hidden Gulag, Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, 2012.

[13] See for example the annual White Paper on North Korean Human Rights, Database Center for North Korean Human Rights; and the Reports on political prisoners’ camps of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea. See also Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports.

[14] See Cohen, “The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and North Korea.”

[15] See Blaine Harden, Escape from Camp 14 (Viking, 2012); and CNN at http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/30/living/escape-camp-14-book-story.

[16] See Choe Sang-Hun, “Fleeing North Korea Is Becoming Harder,” New York Times, January 5, 2013.

[17] UN General Assembly, Report of the Secretary-General: Situation of human rights in the DPRK, A/65/391, September 24, 2010, paras. 2, 46, 86.

[18] Tom Miles, “North Korea slams U.N. ‘plot’ to investigate the human rights record,” Reuters, March 11, 2013.

[19] Pillay Statement 2013.

[20] Pillay Statement 2013.

[21] See UN General Assembly Resolution A/C.3/67/L.50, 9 November 2012. At the Universal Periodic Review of North Korea in 2009-10, governments made 167 recommendations to improve human rights conditions but the North Korean authorities failed to identify one recommendation it would carry out. See “Human Rights Council adopts outcomes of Universal Periodic Review on Bhutan, Dominica and DPRK,” March 18, 2010.

[22] Miles, “North Korea slams U.N. ‘plot’”; and Jennifer M. Freedman, “North Korean Rights Abuses May Be Crimes Against Humanity,” Bloomberg News, March 12, 2013.

[23] “U.N. monitor accuses N.K of crimes against humanity,” The Korea Herald, March 12, 2013.

[24] See Miles, “North Korea slams U.N. ‘plot’”; and Freedman, “North Korean Rights Abuses May Be Crimes Against Humanity.”

[25] UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “UN experts call for an international inquiry into North Korea human rights abuses,” News Release, February 27, 2013.

[26] See http://www.stopnkcrimes.org/about_01.php.

[27] Testimony of Glyn Davies, Special Representative forNorth Korea Policy, before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,Washington, DC, March 7, 2013.

[28] See, for example, Deng Yuwen, “China Should abandon North Korea,” Financial Times, February 27, 2013; “‘Give up on Pyongyang,’ says China insider,” JoongAng Ilbo, March 2, 1013; Jane Perlez, “Some Chinese Are Souring on Being North Korea’s Best Friend,” New York Times, February 17, 2013; Fareed Zakaria, “A high-stakes game,” Washington Post, March 14, 2013; and Bonnie S. Glaser, “Re-think Chinese Policy Toward North Korea,” cited in The Nelson Report, February 13, 2013.

[29] William Wax, “In China, labor camps face an uncertain future,” Washington Post, March 4, 2013.

Authors

Roberta Cohen

Publication: 38 North

UN Sanctions, North Korean Threats

Richard C. Bush III — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:28:00 -0500

The UN Security Council has unanimously condemned “in the strongest possible terms” North Korea’s February nuclear test (its third). It expanded financial sanctions, mandated close checks of cargo entering and exiting North Korea, and warned of future measure if Pyongyang persists in its provocative behavior.

Are these new sanctions likely to bring about an immediate and positive change in North Korean policy?

Probably not. Economic sanctions usually require a long period of time to “bite,” and they must be fully multilateral in scope. These new sanctions can further constrain the resources available to the resource-poor North Korean regime and thereby its broader policy choices. To have that effect, however, sound implementation is critical. This is particularly true of China, through which much of North Korea’s trade and financial transactions flow.

What is the underlying objective of the sanctions regime?

The goal of this and previous actions is to sharpen the choices of North Korea, to disabuse it of the idea that the international community will both accept it as a state with nuclear weapons and permit international economic activity on a normal basis. Only when it understands that it can only have one or the other will it even consider making a fundamental choice between the two. The transition to a new regime creates, in the medium term, the possibility of such a policy shift. If that does not happen, the international community will have to contain the consequences.

What should we make of North Korea’s threat to attack the United States?

Certainly, those threats cannot be dismissed out of hand. But Pyongyang has issued similar warnings before and not acted upon them. The regime has domestic reasons to make create a crisis atmosphere, and while it glories in shows of bravado and brinksmanship, it is not suicidal. Actually, the greatest danger in the near term is a conventional but limited military action against South Korea. Look for Seoul and Washington to strengthen deterrence against such attack and prepare a proportionate response should deterrence fail.

What is North Korea’s strategy that is driving these actions?

Just as the United States, South Korea and others have sought to sharpen Pyongyang’s choices, so too is North Korea trying to sharpen ours. There is a test of wills at play here. The salutary consequence of the current struggle is that it has led China to seriously question its past “even-handed” policy, which had the effect of indulging North Korea in its provocations.

Authors

Richard C. Bush III

Image Source: © Bobby Yip / Reuters

U.S.-South Korea Relations in Obama's Second Term: Managing Challenge and Change

Evans J.R. Revere — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:46:00 -0500

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Only weeks into his second term, President Obama is facing the looming prospect of a nuclear-armed North Korea with a long-range ballistic missile capability. Pyongyang’s successful nuclear and missile tests serve as stark reminders that North Korea is making progress in its goal to develop a nuclear strike capability. Now, as President Obama begins to work with his newly inaugurated South Korean counterpart, the North Korean regime is making highly bellicose threats against both the United States and its South Korean ally.

North Korea tops the list of challenges facing the U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance, and it will require priority attention by Obama and Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s first female president and a strong supporter of the alliance. Before assuming office, Park had hoped to engage Pyongyang in “trust-building” diplomacy. North Korea’s latest actions have given her pause, but domestic political needs may require her to test Pyongyang’s willingness to engage. U.S. patience will be needed as President Park forms her government and develops her North Korea policy.

Washington and Seoul have coordinated very well together on North Korea, and the United States would be wise to keep ROK concerns firmly in mind as it mulls how to respond to the latest North Korean threats. An early, well-prepared U.S.-ROK summit, together with a “2+2” defense and foreign ministers’ meeting, will help ensure that the two presidents are on the same page, that the alliance is ready for any contingency, and that Pyongyang does not misinterpret planned changes to our military command structure as a lack of readiness. A U.S.-ROK summit should also issue a strong restatement of our commitment to defend the ROK, including by the provision of extended nuclear deterrence, which commits the United States’ nuclear arsenal to the defense of our ally.

The U.S.-ROK alliance is stronger than ever and well placed to deal with other challenges, as well, including a rising China, a changing regional power environment, historical and territorial legacy issues, deterioration in ROK-Japan relations, and the need to modernize the alliance. U.S.-ROK strategic dialogue should explore in depth the implications of China’s rise and discuss how to increase support in Beijing for a reunified Korean Peninsula. The United States should encourage new leaders in Seoul and Tokyo to put pragmatism and common interest ahead of other concerns and rebuild bilateral cooperation.

As for North Korea, Pyongyang claims denuclearization is off the table and is seeking international acceptance of its status as a nuclear weapons state, something we must not do. Past attempts to end the North’s nuclear program have failed and there may now be no prospect for putting the nuclear genie back in bottle. A new approach is needed to deal with the current impasse, particularly in light of the credible nuclear threat that the DPRK will pose in the near future.

A new situation requires a new negotiating paradigm: We need to talk with those who actually make the decisions in Pyongyang. Only if we engage the North Korean leadership can we lay out a stark choice for them and determine whether denuclearization is dead. This new approach might not succeed, but the current approach will fail.

A prominent U.S. presidential envoy should meet with the North Korean leadership’s inner circle. On behalf of the U.S. President, the envoy should deliver a message that conveys U.S. determination to defend itself and its allies and warns we will act if the North uses or proliferates nuclear weapons or materials. The envoy should also say we are prepared to resolve the nuclear and missile issues in the framework of a comprehensive package that would fundamentally change the nature of U.S.-North Korea ties. We should sharpen both incentives and disincentives for Pyongyang and make its choices as clear as possible. The wrong choice by the DPRK will strengthen support for stronger action by the United States, particularly with China and Russia, which place some of the blame for the current impasse on Washington.

Simultaneously, the United States and its ROK and other allies should actively prepare for the time when we will face a nuclear-armed North Korea with an ICBM capability. We should greatly raise the cost to North Korea of its pursuit of nuclear weapons and missiles. The North’s banking system, including its links to the international financial system, offers a target of opportunity that could begin to undermine the regime’s confidence in its ability to survive.

A more vigorous approach should include much stricter sanctions implementation, including the possibility of stopping suspect DPRK vessels on the high seas; additional steps to isolate the North politically; enhanced deployment of missile defense systems around the Korean Peninsula, including in Japan and at sea; the introduction of more advanced air and naval assets into the Northeast Asia region; more frequent military exercises; and covert measures to affect the North’s WMD programs.

The above approach carries risks, including for our ROK ally, making the closest possible coordination and transparency with Seoul more important than ever. The U.S.-ROK alliance today rests on a solid foundation of trust, cooperation, and shared principles. That foundation will serve the two countries well as they deal with the new challenges that lie before them.

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Authors

Evans J.R. Revere

Try Temporary North Korea Sanctions

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

What to do about North Korea after its third nuclear test on Monday - this one possibly involving a device employing highly enriched uranium rather than plutonium, and perhaps small enough to fit on a missile?

Unfortunately, the international community is at a loss. North Korea is already sanctioned extensively and without China, we cannot tighten the noose a great deal more. China for its part does not wish to increase the economic pressure on Pyongyang much further, fearing that North Korean instability could result. Moreover, North Korea has already shown that when it is sanctioned, it often ups the ante rather than back down.

There is another dilemma: North Korea may be producing highly enriched uranium at a secret site. This could give it the capacity to produce up to several bombs’ worth of U-235 per year, in theory. As Graham Allison of Harvard and others have warned, this could lead to North Korea selling nuclear materials to the highest bidder — something the United States should, as Allison advises, warn North Korea not to do in the strongest possible terms.

And there is one more complication, although this one is of a different sort. It has to do with the longer-term prospects for encouraging North Korean reform. While hope is clearly evaporating that North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong-Un, might be more inclined to consider changes at home, and detente with the outside world, than did his father or grandfather, we should want to keep that option alive. After all, Vietnam and China ultimately reformed even while keeping their communist systems. There is a chance that North Korea will too — less out of any softening of the regime’s attitudes than out of economic necessity.

Clearly the new, 30-year old Kim is not showing any reformist inclinations right now. But it is possible that he feels political pressure internally to establish himself with hardliners before he can pivot to a more reasonable line. This may not be the likely future trajectory, yet it cannot be ruled out.

So here’s an idea: any additional U.N. sanctions, above and beyond the base that now exists, could be temporary. They could be constructed in such a way as to sunset automatically in say two years if there is no further nuclear testing in the interim. But they would automatically return if North Korea were to conduct another test, again for two years’ duration—or perhaps for three or four years in that event, to avoid any suggestion that this approach is somehow soft or lenient.

Such an approach might prove more negotiable with Beijing. It could also give Kim Jong Un, the new and young leader, a chance to reassess his belligerent ways — rather than lock ourselves into a permanently hostile dynamic with him.

Any lifting of other, preexisting sanctions, including trade sanctions, would require resolution of the broader nuclear problem. North Korea would have to stop enriching uranium and agree to a long-term plan for gradual de-nuclearization. Indeed, if it did these things while also gradually making other reforms, outside powers could also offer it the prospect of substantial development assistance in the future as well.

We are not at a point where that kind of road map to a grand bargain and fundamentally improved relationship can be realistically pursued. For now, therefore, the goal should be more modest: to provide a firm response to North Korea’s unacceptable behavior, but do it in a way that can engender Chinese participation while not closing off the door to a calmer relationship down the road. Making any additional sanctions temporary could achieve this balance and should be considered.

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: Politico

The Implications of North Korea's Third Nuclear Test

Richard C. Bush III and Jonathan D. Pollack — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 09:37:00 -0500

We do not yet know how much North Korea has advanced its nuclear weapons program as a result of today’s test. Specialists are intensely curious about the fissile material used (plutonium or enriched uranium) and the design of device. Pyongyang claims that the latest test was of a smaller, lighter weapon, and the available seismic data indicates an appreciably greater explosive yield than either of the prior tests. The North is undoubtedly making progress, and it is not too early to assess the implications of this test – and the successful ballistic missile launch in December – for the interests of all countries immediately affected by the detonation.

Kim Jong Un very likely sees himself as the big winner from today’s test. Kim became North Korea’s top leader following the death of his father Kim Jong Il fourteen months ago. His principal goal since then has been to establish his own personal legitimacy and preserve that of the Kim Royal Family. In that regard, securing progress on the missile and nuclear programs is the coin of the realm.

For the United States and Japan, the two tests confirm past judgments about Pyongyang’s long-term intentions. That is, the DPRK is intent on acquiring the ability to strike the continental United States as well as Japan with nuclear weapons, an objective that no package of outside incentives is likely to prevent. The stakes are high. Should North Korea succeed in its quest, it will significantly destabilize the security of Northeast Asia and increase the dangers of proliferation to other regions.

Some will fault Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul for not having engaged Pyongyang to head off the tests of recent months, but there is little or no evidence that Kim Jong Un would have been any more responsive to engagement than his father. Instead, the U.S., Japan, and South Korea have sought in recent years to “sharpen North Korea’s choices,” between sustaining its nuclear and missile programs, in contrast to heightened economic and political benefits with the international community. All three states will likely respond to today’s test by seeking to tighten sanctions. There is ample room to improve the implementation of existing measures, and new financial sanctions are available (see the current Iran menu). But a question lingers, are we indeed shaping North Korea’s choices or is it shaping ours?

The third nuclear test puts China’s new leadership on the hot seat. Under its previous leader Hu Jintao Beijing had multiple objectives in its North Korea strategy: restrain DPRK provocations; limit the impact of multilateral sanctions so that they do not stabilize the North Korean regime; provide economic support to Pyongyang to enhance stability and encourage better behavior; and facilitate a diplomatic approach for managing the problem, if not solving it. By testing in defiance of China’s wishes, Pyongyang has once again demonstrated that it has a very different agenda. It is betting that Beijing’s threats of punishment (as under Hu Jintao) are all bark and no bite. In effect, it is testing China’s new paramount leader, Xi Jinping. Will he cooperate with Washington in tightening sanctions and withdraw material and political benefits to Kim Jong Un? Or will Xi accommodate to a new status quo? Those questions will occupy the Beijing leadership during the Chinese New Year holiday.

The DPRK’s action probably has the greatest impact on South Korea’s president-elect, Park Geun-hye, who will be inaugurated on February 25^th. Madame Park had campaigned on the premise that the North Korea policies of the current president, Lee Myung Bak, had been too tough and one-sided. She had proposed the creation of a “trust-building” process with Pyongyang and a focus on areas of potential mutual benefit. Much of the South Korean public supported that stance when they cast their votes. With today’s nuclear test, Kim Jong Un has signaled that any acts of accommodation must come solely from the South Korean side, thus putting Madame Park on the defensive. Her initiative is now very unlikely to get off the ground. Any claims that the test was directed against outgoing President Lee will ring hollow to the new president, compelling her to rethink her approach to future dealings with the North.

Authors

Will North Korea Test Again?

Richard C. Bush III and Jonathan D. Pollack — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 09:00:00 -0500

The script of North Korea's latest threat to conduct another nuclear test is depressingly familiar. Pyongyang first tests a long-range ballistic missile, usually justified as a satellite launch. An international debate then ensues over the reasons for the test. Was it conducted for purely domestic considerations? Is it a way to secure food or economic assistance? Is it an attempt to convince the United States to enter into bilateral negotiations or is it yet another step in building a nuclear deterrent despite intense international opposition? The UN Security Council then responds with varying degrees of condemnation and punitive actions. North Korea takes umbrage, first threatening and then carrying out a nuclear test. The international community responds with even more severe warnings not to do it again. North Korea hunkers down, and finds ways to circumvent sanctions imposed by the Security Council. Whether China has done enough to restrain North Korea is then hotly discussed in the United States, South Korea, Japan, and even in China.

But the script doesn’t always work out this way. Last April there was a missile test and then no nuclear test, even though there were apparent preparations at the test site. Whether Pyongyang acts on its threat to test may be a function of how much China is willing to pay to break the cycle, or possibly Beijing's warnings of severe negative consequences in its relations with Pyongyang. Our best educated guess is that there will be another nuclear test this time, but it is impossible to be precise about when. The warnings this time suggest it will not be a plutonium device, as in 2006 and 2009, but one that utilizes highly enriched uranium as the fissile material. Moreover, North Korea intimates that the explosive yield of this test could be much greater than that of either of Pyongyang's previous tests.

The reasons for Pyongyang's renewed brinksmanship are probably "all of the above." Kim Jong Un, who brought the military down several pegs after succeeding his father, may need to provide some compensation in the form of additonal missile and nuclear testing. Pyongyang certainly would like to secure more aid from China in order to mitigate its dire economic circumstances. But Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo are wholly unwilling to negotiate on North Korean terms. North Korea, therefore, seeks security by ultimately acquiring the ability to strike the continental United States with nuclear weapons. It seems almost inconceivable that North Korea would undertake such an attack, which would be an act of national suicide. But Pyongyang believes that the United States would be less likely to ever contemplate an attack on the North once it possesses credible nuclear capabilities.

An additional factor concerns the inauguration of South Korea’s new president, Madame Park Geun-hye. Madame Park will be sworn into office on February 25. She has proposed a North Korea policy that maintains deterrence, but seeks to probe North Korean intentions in a "trust-building" process. If North Korea tests a nuclear device either before Park’s inauguration or in the months that follow, it seems highly unlikely that she would be able to proceed with the engagement part of her strategy. Madame Park has already made clear that she regards nuclear weaapons in the North as wholly unacceptable. Pyongyang may nonetheless see value in testing South Korea's new president at the ouset of her tenure in office. By all accounts, Mme. Park means what she says, thus ensuring that the grim North Korean nuclear saga will persist, leaving security on the peninsula and the region even more endangered.

Authors

Confrontation Over Korea

Jonathan D. Pollack — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

North Korea’s severe internal crisis has impelled the United States and China to prepare to intervene in the North, even though neither Washington nor Beijing wants to re-ignite that conflict. Jonathan Pollack wrote this memorandum to President Obama as part of Big Bets and Black Swans: A Presidential Briefing Book.

What are the ways Washington should engage with China to avoid conflict over North Korea and ensure the security of South Korea?
How can China and the United States promote stability in the Korean peninsula?

Download Memorandum (pdf) | Download the Presidential Briefing Book (pdf)

TO: President Obama

FROM: Jonathan D. Pollack

There is a serious risk of an acute U.S.-China confrontation or even a direct military conflict over Korea. Neither Washington nor Beijing seek this kind of conflict, but North Korea’s severe internal crisis has impelled the United States and China to prepare to intervene in the North, both to protect their respective vital interests and to forestall larger risks to the peace. Pyongyang has a long record of lashing out at neighboring states (especially our South Korean ally) to warn outside powers against any possible intervention in its internal affairs. But this threat now encompasses the potential use of nuclear weapons. Any possible nuclear use by North Korea, even if undertaken within its own borders, represents an acute danger to the region as a whole. If Washington and Beijing fail to coordinate and communicate, we could face the possibility of a U.S.-China confrontation almost unimaginable in its consequences.

Recommendation:

To reduce the risks of a confrontation with China over North Korea, you should instruct your administration to pursue four objectives with Beijing:

1. For both sides to disclose information on the location, operation and capabilities of each other’s military forces that could rapidly intervene in North Korea;
2. To share intelligence on the known or suspected locations of North Korea’s WMD assets, especially its nuclear weapons and fissile material holdings;
3. To initiate planning for the evacuation of foreign citizens in South Korea; and
4. To discuss possible measures to avoid an acute humanitarian disaster among North Korean citizens seeking to flee their country.

Background:

The immediate need for the United States and China is to discuss North Korea and control the risks of conflict well beyond what the U.S. has attempted with Beijing in the past. In addition, we need to cooperate to mitigate the potential dangers to American and Chinese citizens living or working in the Republic of Korea (ROK) and to reduce the risks of a direct clash between U.S. and Chinese forces to as close to zero as possible. This will require discussions on military deployments and operations unprecedented in their scope and candor. South Korea must also be part of this conversation.

Despite repeated incidents and potential crises over the decades, the U.S. has been able to maintain an uneasy, heavily-armed peace on the peninsula. In 1972, President Nixon reminded Premier Zhou Enlai that the United States and China fought once in Korea, and that both countries must ensure that this never happens again.

However, deterrence no longer suffices to constrain Pyongyang. North Korea’s citizens are now fleeing in large numbers across the 38th Parallel and into China, and the regime’s very survival is at stake. The internal crisis means that the North Korean leadership is prepared to do whatever it deems necessary to prevent a final meltdown of the regime. Since the 1990s, the U.S. has sought to open a serious conversation with Beijing about the possibility of a major crisis on the peninsula, but China’s leaders (perhaps to avoid offending leaders in Pyongyang or perhaps out of deep suspicions of American intentions) have repeatedly refused to enter into such discussions. But the long-feared crisis is at hand. Unless Washington and Beijing are prepared to discuss these issues directly, the prospect of a second Sino-American confrontation on the peninsula becomes a distinct possibility.

The United States presently has 28,500 active duty personnel deployed in South Korea, and can surge another several hundred thousand personnel onto the peninsula in the event of a major military contingency. Beginning in the late 1990s, the United States and the ROK began to augment longstanding war plans embodied in variants of OPPLAN 5027 with additional planning for abrupt internal change in the North, now addressed under OPPLAN 5029. Until now, Washington and Seoul have tried to secure the borders of the North in an effort to stem any massive flows of North Korean citizens across the demilitarized zone (DMZ). China has undertaken comparable steps to seal its much more porous border with the North. But the current crisis threatens to overwhelm both sides, and Beijing appears alarmed by evidence of the northward redeployment of U.S. and ROK forces. The risks of misperception and miscalculation have increased greatly. American moves are not intended to pose threats to China, but to address the mounting risks of instability in North Korea spilling outward. The U.S. should communicate this fully and openly with China, simultaneously seeking clarification of Chinese plans and intentions.

The safety and security of North Korea’s WMD assets are the uppermost concern of the United States. The command and control arrangements in North Korea are under increasing stress, and it is no longer clear that the central authorities retain full control over the operation of all military units. Any loss of control could create incalculable risks to both the United States and China. It is imperative that you undertake urgent consultations with Beijing to ensure that neither the U.S. nor China misconstrues the other’s actions and plans. Equally important, the United States, China, and Russia have shared interests as nuclear weapon states to prevent any leakage of nuclear materials, technology or completed weapons beyond North Korea’s borders. At the same time, you should convey to Beijing that it must unambiguously warn Pyongyang of the potential consequences of any nuclear use or threatened nuclear use. North Korea’s testing of nuclear weapons is a major worry under all circumstances, but to undertake a test under crisis conditions represents an intolerable risk.

Threats to the lives and well-being of foreign citizens in the ROK also warrants urgent consultation and expanded cooperation between the United States and China. According to South Korean government data, there are 1.4 million foreigners in the country at present. These include 130,000 American citizens as well as nearly 30,000 in-country military personnel. Nearly half of the foreigners residing in South Korea (670,000) are from China. The upheavals since the Arab spring have sobered leaders in Beijing to unanticipated risks to Chinese citizens living abroad. The scale of the crisis unfolding in China’s backyard is altering the calculus of Chinese officials. Equally important, China has major capabilities for evacuating foreign nationals. There are now 200 flights a day between cities in South Korea and cities in China, as well as ferries that regularly traverse the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Gulf. These create possibilities to mitigate the potential risks to foreign nationals – Chinese, American, and others - that will be incalculably less effective in the absence of active cooperation with China.

Finally, the humanitarian needs cannot be ignored. China has long conveyed strong opposition to the responsibility to protect (R2P), but R2P in the context of acute instability in North Korea should concentrate the minds of leaders in Beijing. This will be as much China’s problem as it will be for any other state. Though the U.S. should not hesitate to bring this issue to the United Nations, there is every reason for private consultations with Beijing, ideally led by the ROK. Seoul will bear a disproportionate burden for dealing with the aftermath of the crisis. But Chinese interests are also deeply engaged. It cannot stand in the way of managing the consequences.

Conclusion:

For more than two decades, the United States and South Korea have tried to address the implications of instability in North Korea, all the while as China has sought to maintain an arm’s length posture and preserve North Korea’s existence as a separate state. But the unraveling of the North is no longer a hypothetical possibility. The United States and China have a compelling shared interest that the immediate crisis not morph into something far worse, and this must be your bottom-line message to leaders in Beijing.

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Authors

Jonathan D. Pollack

South Korea’s New President Prepares to Meet a Turbulent Northeast Asia

Hyeong Jung Park — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 12:07:00 -0500

Madame Park Geun-hye was elected president of the Republic of Korea on December 19, 2012, and was greeted on December 27 by a grim report on international relations in Northeast Asia for the next five years. In its 2013-2017 Mid-term Foreign Relations Analysis, prepared before the election, the Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS), affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, diagnosed that “the next administration would encounter the most tortuous external environments in the 21st century,” full of challenges and uncertainties. Foremost among these are potential instability due to multiple power transitions in Northeast Asia, the increasing divergence among concerned countries on how to deal with North Korea, North Korea’s increased capacity in the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and increased nationalistic tendencies in neighboring countries.

This sense of pessimism and alertness reflects the general tone of discussion in Seoul on Korea’s external environment and influences on its foreign and North Korea policies during Madame Park’s presidency in 2013-2017.

This essay will talk about three subjects: Madame Park’s blueprint for dealing with intransigent North Korea; North Korea’s intentions and strategies for the next five years; and the opportunities and challenges for Seoul and what it can achieve.

Madame Park’s Campaign Promises

As explained in her commentary “A New Kind of Korea” for Foreign Affairs magazine in September/October 2011, Madame Park’s campaign promises on North Korea policy can be summarized in two principles: “trustpolitik” and “alignment.”

Trustpolitik is composed of two points: first, North Korea must keep agreements it has made with South Korea and the international community, and, second, there must be assured consequences for actions that breach the peace. The alignment policy refers to bringing South Korea’s security into line with its cooperation with the North, and complementing inter-Korean dialogue with parallel international efforts. The alignment policy is said to entail assuming a tough line against North Korea at some times, and a flexible policy open to negotiations at other times. While Seoul and its allies should strengthen their posture against North Korea’s militarism and nuclear brinkmanship, they must also be prepared to offer Pyongyang a new beginning for prosperity through economic cooperation with the South.

It should be remembered that the central tenet of Madame Park’s alignment policy draws on lessons learned from the failures of both the Roh Moo-hyun and Lee Myung-bak administrations. In her Foreign Affairs essay, Madame Park implicitly criticizes the Roh administration’s sustained assistance to the North that did not induce it to abandon its bellicose strategy toward the South on the one hand, and distances herself implicitly from the Lee administration’s North Korea policy on the other hand, saying that more pressure on North Korea has not been able to influence its behavior in a meaningful way.

This line of learning from failures also includes a determination not to repeat the failures of the previous administrations in relations with the United States and China. The Roh administration gave the impression of anti-Americanism and of strengthening cooperation with North Korea and China at the cost of the ROK-U.S. alliance. This attitude provoked a defensive and distancing approach from both the United States and Japan. In contrast, the Lee administration has been regarded as endeavoring too much to strengthen the alliance between ROK and the United States, at the cost of South Korea’s relations with China. While anchoring confidently in its alliance with the United States, Park’s administration would strive for a more balanced approach to China.

It remains to be seen how good or bad these principles will be when applied in the real world of “the most tortuous external environments in the 21st century.” In any case, they will be well in tune with the United States and will be more in harmony with China’s North Korea policy than those of the Lee administration. Yet the gap with North Korea remains wide, as Pyongyang continues to hope for an enhanced version of “sustained assistance” with no strings attached.

North Korea’s intentions and strategies

Over the past five years, North Korea’s internal and foreign policies were focused on the year 2012, as the year for “opening the gate toward a strong and prosperous country.” Policies have been implemented through a synchronized “great surge” in internal mobilization and outward aggressiveness, especially since 2009. With the successful inauguration of the Kim Jong Un regime and increased capacities for WMD shown at the end of 2012, the North Korean leadership may feel somewhat comfortable that it has successfully rebalanced power relations in its favor―both between regime and society and between North Korea and the international community. In the beginning of 2013, North Korea might think the time has arrived to test neighboring countries and the United States, and to try to establish a new atmosphere for relations with them.

In the past five years, North Korea strove to acquire abilities and to establish the perception that it might seek to dictate terms of any new negotiation with South Korea and the United States. It strengthened its capacities for nuclear weapons and missile capabilities, and showed off its potential for aggressive behavior toward South Korea. Tactically, North Korea alternated between phases of aggressiveness and accommodation. While adapting policies to changing circumstances, North Korea has never lost its five strategic objectives for regime survival. It is important to keep in mind these five strategic objectives when we interpret North Korea’s tactical moves, especially its apparently accommodating ones:

North Korea aspires to expand its nuclear as well as missile capabilities and to be recognized by the international community as a nuclear power, especially by South Korea and the United States.
It aims to establish a peace regime on the Korean peninsula and normalize relations with the United States as a recognized nuclear power.
It seeks to establish vertical relations with South Korea in which the South will provide political and economic support for the North Korean regime.
It aspires to secure the necessary funds to maintain its regime by actively developing diverse foreign-currency earning projects (mineral exports, influx of foreign aid, etc.), while striving to contain any reform measures that could increase productivity of the domestic economy.
It strives to maintain internal political stability through preferential treatment of groups loyal to the regime and by strengthening public security organizations.

Through his 2013 New Year’s Address, Kim Jong Un may have wanted to signal North Korea’s return to tactics of accommodation with South Korea and the United States. After the successful missile launch on December 12, 2012 and while showing off its capacities for detonating a third nuclear device, North Korea may have felt confident and decided to test the intentions of the incoming administrations in Seoul and Washington. Although he showed great pride in the successful launch of the Unha 3 rocket, in his speech Kim Jong Un avoided language which might irritate the new Park and Obama administrations. North Korea executed the same sort of about-face from aggressiveness to accommodation in July 2009, after its missile launch in April and second nuclear experiment in May.

There are some structural and circumstantial reasons for North Korea to introduce moderation into its domestic and foreign policies and to try to reset relations with neighboring countries in 2013. The heightened tension of the past five years was exhausting not only for neighboring countries, but also for North Korea. Even under this unfavorable external environment of high tension and reduced assistance, North Korea sustained the three year (2009-11/12) “great surge” of mass mobilization that featured a drastic increase in investments, though for political consolidation rather than economic rehabilitation: massive construction of monumental buildings and show-case facilities in Pyongyang; a “high technology breakthrough” for advancing capacities for WMD; an infusion of capital to resuscitate huge state firms in the heavy and chemical sectors, though without reform; and, last but not least, the enthronement of Kim Jong Un. To fund these projects, North Korean authorities not only amplified mineral exports, but also significantly increased internal exploitation through measures such as revaluing the North Korean won in November 2009 and stepping up the confiscation of food from farmers to feed Pyongyang and the military.

In the past, North Korea has introduced a phase of policy moderation, the so-called “buffer period,” after such a “great surge.” Whether the leadership subjectively liked it or not, the buffer period was required to overcome systemic exhaustion from the mobilization and confrontation that characterize such surges, and to prepare for another big push in the future. Under such a structural necessity, North Korea may have decided to try to work out a new kind of modus vivendi with the South and the United States beginning in 2013. If so, North Korea might be prepared to show some readiness for concessions, while testing the intentions of the South and the United States with regard to some level of reopening of tension reduction and economic cooperation. As in the previous cases, however, the tendencies of policy moderation do not represent a new strategy, but are meant to buy time to prepare for a new surge of aggressiveness and mobilization, sometime in the future.

Opportunities and challenges

All in all, South Korea and the United States, and North Korea, seek to test the other’s intentions and, if possible, to change the current circumstances in their mutual relations to a better footing in the beginning of 2013. South Korea and the United States want to constrain North Korea’s development of WMD and to persuade North Korea to reform and open, for its own benefit. On North Korea’s part, it may be interested in tactical accommodation, while maintaining options for confrontation. This is the best case scenario for a new modus vivendi; North Korea will reject a more binding and fundamental resolution.

Though there exists a certain, limited, possibility for mutual accommodation, it remains questionable whether the three parties could restart and maintain a tough process of dialogue and mutual pressure in “the most tortuous external environments in the 21st century” without jeopardizing the possibilities for forward progress. The challenges for the South and the United States―which include increased skepticism about Pyongyang’s trustworthiness, the reality of North Korea’s increased WMD capacities, and continued divergence between China and other parties on how to deal with North Korea―will prove to be most daunting in comparison to previous years. Considering North Korea’s unwillingness to make―and to keep―real and sincere concessions regarding its development of WMD, the room for improvement in inter-Korean relations is also limited, even though the Park Geun-hye administration will try sincerely to improve them. Without a new and internationally binding scheme for dealing with North Korea’s WMD development, progress above a certain level in inter-Korean relations would remain illusory and would most likely provoke a feeling of betrayal, in the end.

Nevertheless, president-elect Madame Park’s principles of trust and alignment will be a good starting point for a North Korea policy discussion and coordination between the South and the United States. Unfortunately, the task will be easier in the negative sense, if North Korea undertakes provocative actions even before the start of the mutual test of intentions. If North Korea’s turn to tactical moderation in domestic and foreign policy becomes more pronounced during 2013, it will provide the South and the United States with both opportunities and challenges. If North Korea continues to behave prudently even after the renewed sanctions by the UNSC for its December 12 missile launch, abstains from a third nuclear device test, and shows some signs of good will and accommodation, then the South and the United States should go willingly into dialogue with the North and try to test its intentions.

Authors

Hyeong Jung Park