By Tong Kim
As we all know now, U.S. special envoy Stephen Bosworth delivered President Barack Obama's letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il through the first vice minister of foreign affairs Kang Suk-ju, with whom Bosworth had ``exploratory discussions" in Pyongyang in early December. Bosworth would not acknowledge the delivery of the letter during the two press conferences that he has given since his return from the North ― Dec. 10 in Seoul and Dec. 16 in Washington. Bosworth said, ``I was the message."
Less than a few hours after Ambassador Bosworth's press conference at the State Department, the White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs acknowledged the President's letter was delivered by Bosworth. On Dec. 18, Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency reported that the letter to Kim was conveyed to Kang on Dec. 9.
Gibbs said the letter was sent to ``convince the North Koreans to do what is in their interest" and to have them ``come back to the six-party talks." Bosworth explained what he meant by ``I was the message." ``I was conveying very directly to the North Korean leadership a vision for the future, which would be a lot different than the one that we (have) ― than the present or the past and ways in which we could improve both our bilateral relationship and improve North Korea's relationships in Northeast Asia, always provided that they are prepared to move toward the goal of denuclearization."
Bosworth's evasive response may be understood in terms of his probable discretion that it was up to the White House to decide whether to talk about the presidential letter. At the same time, no acknowledgement by Bosworth also seemed to reflect his failure to get Pyongyang's firm recommitment to the six-party process, which had not been expected anyway. Whereas Obama's letter was a positive gesture in formality, the letter hardly would have contained anything enthralling to Kim. The letter did not produce what Bosworth could not produce. Hence, there was no reason to publicize it.
However, as the consequence of the first senior-level U.S.-North Korea talks, we now have a better understanding of where the things are regarding the intractable issue of denuclearization. There are no basic changes detectable in the perspectives of Washington or Pyongyang. Neither side seems to be in a hurry to undertake negotiations. It would be inevitable to see a continuation of the North Korean nuclear game, not knowing how it will be played out in the New Year.
From Bosworth's statements, it is clear the United States would not accept North Korea as a nuclear power. Bosworth said that ``we are not prepared to negotiate now with North Korea as a nuclear weapons state." Hopefully, the North Koreans do not interpret the sentence to mean that the United States might be ready sometime in the future. The United States would not negotiate with North Korea bilaterally outside the framework of the six- party talks. Washington will continue to work with other participants in the Beijing talks to bring Pyongyang back to the table and ``change its view of its own interest."
Yet the Obama administration does not know when or whether North Korea will make a strategic decision that is required for denuclearization. Whether the denuclearization of North Korea will happen should ``depend on the content and the results of the (six-party) talks," as Bosworth said. But there is nothing new in the ``content" other than to agree on a sequencing of commitments of the 2005 joint statement ― namely denuclearization, a peace regime, energy and economic assistance, normalization of relations and a Northeast Asia security structure. As for the results, we have seen some good ones and some bad ones, which all ended in the current situation.
From Pyongyang's perspective, denuclearization is not a priority. Pyongyang regards its nuclear weapons as essential to the survival of its system. As the North says, it has never said it opposes denuclearization. It keeps the door open to talks for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula ― both the North and the South, insisting upon bilateral negotiations with the United States.
Pyongyang is said to have agreed on the importance of the six-party talks and its 2005 joint statement. Pyongyang also had pronounced the six-party process was dead before. Although Ambassador Bosworth said the North Koreans did not challenge his assertion that the talks in Pyongyang took place within the framework of the six-party talks, they did not exactly accept the bilateral contact was part of the six-party process either.
Recent visitors to Pyongyang, including Charles Pritchard, former NSC Asia director and President of the Korea Economic Institute, and Charles Boyd, a retired Air Force general and CEO of the Business Executives for National Security, report that the North Koreans appear to be more interested in promoting trade and investment than in moving for denuclearization or the process of normalization.
According to Pritchard, Director-General Lee Geun of the DPRK's foreign ministry told him that North Korea has become a militarily and politically strong nation, and their next task is to build the basis for a strong economy to celebrate the 100th birthday in 2010 of the late Kim Il-sung, the founder of the DPRK. Pyongyang will waive taxes for foreign investors, and it will offer a minimum wage, lower than $57.50 a month that is paid to workers at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex. The North Koreans boasted of political stability and the absence of labor disputes in their country.
Boyd reported North Korean trade officials did not seem to understand that American companies are prohibited from doing business with them under the U.N. sanction resolution 1874. Despite the latest result of U.N. sanctions as seen in the seizure of an air shipment of North Korea-made weapons in Thailand, the ordinary people of the North don't directly feel the pinch from the sanctions. The North believes it will survive the sanctions, as it has in the past. This year's food crop is reportedly better than other years, and the North might be less dependent on food aid from the outside.
A recent currency reform, which many analysts doubt will succeed in the long term, was an apparent manifestation of the leadership's focus on political-economic programs. This week Kim Jong-il visited the Raseon Export Zone to encourage the export workers. Unless Pyongyang is convinced of an absolute lack of its independent capability to develop the economy, especially under the U.N. sanctions, it will find few incentives to return to the six-party talks.
It seems like at least one more round of direct talks or bilateral contact with the North will be needed before the country decides whether to return to the multilateral process. The ball is now in Pyongyang's court. Perhaps, a Chinese delegation will visit Pyongyang next month prior to Kim Jong-il making his next move, since in January of this year, China's Communist Party Director of the International Department Wang Jiarui met with the leader. What's your take?
Tong Kim is a research professor with the Ilmin Institute of International Relations at Korea University and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He can be reached at tong.kim8@yahoo.com.