Divided We Stand
Far East Economic Review
March 18, 1999By Shawn W. Crispin in Washington, with Shim Jae Hoon in Seoul, Susan V. Lawrence in Beijing and Andrew Sherry in Hong Kong
The biggest threat to Asia-Pacific security isn't the latest spat between China and the U.S. It's North Korea--and there's no agreement on how to handle it.
A
s economic collapse recedes as the gravest threat to Asia, a new danger of regional instability is looming larger than it has for several years. At its core is North Korea, whose ballistic-missile test last year triggered a chain of events--including renewed enthusiasm for U.S. missile defences in Asia--that are now straining relations between China, Japan, South Korea and the United States.Another North Korean missile test would probably cause the collapse of the 1994 accord that truncated North Korea's nuclear-weapons programme, and would destabilize an already tense region. Yet despite the implications, the U.S. and its allies can't seem to agree on how to get Pyongyang to cooperate.
Instead, the gap seems to be widening between South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, who is determined to stick to his "sunshine policy" of engagement with the North, and the U.S. administration, which is being pushed by an increasingly impatient Congress to harden its line toward Pyongyang. Beijing effectively sides with Seoul: Chinese officials warn that pressing North Korea could backfire dangerously.
In the middle of this whirligig is former U.S. Defence Secretary William Perry, whom President Bill Clinton has charged with reviewing U.S. policy on North Korea. Perry is to report his findings to Congress on March 17-18. Meanwhile, he was visiting China, South Korea and Japan--with a stop in Taiwan--to build consensus on how to deal with Pyongyang.
In Seoul on March 8-9, Perry played down talk of differences with Kim, saying his engagement policy was "a very important factor on which to build." However, a source close to the Seoul talks says Perry clearly believes it's time for the U.S. to toughen its stand toward the North. "Perry has made up his mind," says the source. "The trip is to give the impression that they have all been consulted."
Indeed, it appears that the only thing that can prevent a divergence of the U.S. and South Korean positions is progress at the slow-moving U.S.-North Korean talks in New York. At the talks, the Americans are pushing for access to an underground site at Kumchangri, northeast of Pyongyang, where they suspect North Korea is building a nuclear reactor to produce fissile material. Without inspection of the suspect site, Congress may refuse funds for the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which Pyongyang shut down a nuclear plant capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium in exchange for aid to build and fuel alternative power plants.
North Korea's unexpected test of a Taepo Dong 1 missile over neighbouring Japan last August dramatically upset the regional security balance. The missile appeared to have a third stage, suggesting that North Korea has intercontinental-ballistic-missile capability. If Pyongyang is able to marry nuclear warheads, which some suspect it has developed, with long-range rockets, Japan won't be the only country that has to worry.
Profoundly shaken by the test, Japan was ready to abandon the Agreed Framework along with its financial support for the Korea Energy Development Organization, or Kedo, which oversees the construction of the power plants. The U.S. insisted on staying the course, and mollified Japan with promises of a new hi-tech initiative to shield the region from incoming missiles, known as theatre missile defence, or TMD. Washington's enthusiasm for TMD has been renewed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles in both North Korea and China, which has raised concern about the security of American bases in Japan, South Korea and the Pacific.
A TMD programme aimed at China is precisely what worries Beijing. It's even more worried that the U.S. would extend such a shield to cover Taiwan. In the most explicit warning to date, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxun told a March 8 press conference that TMD will "prejudice the peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region." Including Taiwan in TMD "would amount to an encroachment on China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and will be an obstruction to the great cause of peaceful reunification of the motherland." He promised that it would meet China's "strong opposition."
Sino-U.S. relations are already strained by differences over human rights, trade and allegations that China pilfered American technology, including nuclear secrets. The TMD dispute adds to the pressure.
The launch of another Taepo Dong 1 missile could put the whole, destabilizing process on fast-forward. "Japan would cut off all support for Kedo and the region would spiral into another nuclear confrontation," says Michael Green, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think-tank. Japan would snuggle under America's TMD umbrella, causing real alarm in Beijing. Unmoored from the Agreed Framework, North Korea would likely reopen its nuclear facility. Such a concatenation of events could lead to sabre-rattling by the U.S., pushing it towards confrontation with China.
At present such a doomsday scenario looks distant, but it will take progress in stabilizing relations with North Korea to keep it that way. However, Washington, Tokyo and Seoul appear to differ on the best way to achieve that progress. "The three countries' short-term priorities are different," says Green. "Washington is concerned with issues of proliferation of missiles; Japan is concerned about Pyongyang's domestic production of missiles and issues of terrorism; and South Korea is primarily concerned with stability on the peninsula, fearing instability would undermine its economic recovery."
Richard Armitage, a former U.S. assistant secretary of defence, says Washington "has not fully recognized that with the Taepo Dong 1 launch, Japan is no longer an interested bystander. Japan is central to the problem and the solution because it has a valid national-security concern at stake. To Tokyo, it's not just an issue of proliferation."
The Clinton administration contends all is well with the trilateral relationship between the U.S., China and Japan. "We spend an awful lot of time coordinating policy both bilaterally with each of these countries at the highest levels, and trilaterally--the three of us together--to deal with these issues and coordinate policy," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Stanley Roth said at a recent press conference.
However, Roth's outlook may represent only half of the administration's view. Washington insiders say the State Department is increasingly at odds with the Defence Department on how to approach North Korea. The Pentagon favours a change toward a more deterrent posture. The State Department says progress is being made with its present course and it doesn't want to diminish the efforts of Roth and Charles Kartman, the U.S. envoy at the peace talks in New York.
A group of former national-security aides to the Reagan and Bush administrations are lobbying for a harder line toward North Korea. "The objective of negotiations should be to offer Pyongyang clear choices," says Armitage, who leads the group. "On the one hand, economic benefits, security assurances, political legitimization; on the other, the certainty of enhanced military deterrence."
Many in the Republican-controlled Congress agree. In a letter to Perry on March 5, a group led by Rep. Benjamin Gilman, chairman of the House of Representatives international-relations committee, outlined tougher measures they expect Perry to recommend. These include:
-- A plan for the U.S. develop "a regular, short-notice, on-demand inspection regime" to look for secret North Korean nuclear sites.
-- An "end to the development, testing, deployment and proliferation of the No Dong and Taepo Dong type missiles."
-- The creation of a Northeast Asia Defence Organization permitting the U.S. to combine its financial and technical strengths with allies including Japan and South Korea in the development of a regional TMD system.
The Agreed Framework has failed to open up North Korea to the outside world, allowing suspicion to flourish. "There is the possibility that North Korea is playing a dual game where it is negotiating in good faith in public while developing a weapon of mass destruction in private," says Patrick Cronin, director of research at the U.S. Institute of International Peace, a Washington-based think-tank. Analysts warn that an unwillingness to challenge Pyongyang now runs the risk of a more serious military threat later.
Congressional patience with the Agreed Framework, already thin, would likely break if Clinton yields to Pyongyang's demand for 1 million tons of food in exchange for access to the suspected nuclear site.
Perry, an architect of the Agreed Framework, is caught between these realities and his loyalty to the Clinton administration. A source familiar with his Asian mission believes he will respond by recommending a tougher line, while portraying it as a continuation of the administration's engagement approach. Any stiffening will probably entail more clearly stated responses to perceived provocative actions by Pyongyang.
A harder line would not play well in either Seoul or Beijing. Although the Chinese assisted in negotiations leading to the Agreed Framework, Chinese cooperation with the U.S. in Kedo lately has been limited. The U.S. wants China to use its influence with North Korea more actively, particularly in restraining North Korean missile proliferation. But Beijing is reluctant to push Pyongyang into granting the U.S. access to the suspect nuclear site.
With Sino-American relations deteriorating, enhanced cooperation seems unlikely. Many Chinese officials are convinced that Tokyo and Washington are using the North Korean missile test as a pretext for pushing forward with TMD. Chinese officials believe that TMD is really aimed primarily at containing not North Korea, but China.
China has long warned against putting too much pressure on North Korea, for fear that Pyongyang will respond unpredictably. Besides, China's influence over its neighbour is not as strong as it once was. At a press conference in Beijing, a senior administration official said that in Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's recent meetings with Chinese officials, "a lot of the discussion" about North Korea "was on the fact that they haven't had many high-level contacts, particularly since Kim Il Sung died."
Also constraining Beijing is the expectation that Kim Jong Il may finally visit China in September. Since the death of his father in 1994, the Chinese have repeatedly invited Kim Jong Il to visit in hopes of making closer contact with the leader of their volatile neighbour. Chinese officials want to avoid antagonizing the mercurial Kim and risking cancellation of the visit.
All of which makes concerted action on North Korea unlikely. And that may be the biggest risk of all.
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