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The kind of thinking that dominates discussions today in Washington is very much zero-sum. There can be no advantage for North Korea or China without a loss for the U.S. Most inexplicable is the conviction that U.S. pundits know Kim Jong-un's negotiating position and strategic interests. They don't. And now, with Trump, U.S. positions and interests are just as obscure.
Trump can now do what Bush and Obama and Clinton couldn't do. He can win where Bush and Obama failed. In Northeast Asia, Trump can unleash the power of long-term corporate and public investments and reduce the need for endless military expansion. He can save money and increase security. The choice for the U.S. in the region is shaping up to be stark: greater insecurity and possibly war, or ambitious diplomacy and deal-making based on proven interests. Muddling through no longer seems possible.
Regional context
The U.S. relationship with China during the Trump term will be central to policy toward the region. Most suggestions for the next Asia team involve trading something China wants for its agreement to pressure or force North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs. But there's history here.
During the period 1994 to 2001 the Chinese were largely supportive of the U.S. policy that carefully capped nuclear and missile activity, put inspectors on the ground, and began to address North Korea's legitimate security and development needs.That view made sense then because they did not want a nuclear arsenal in North Korea, and China's leaders welcomed expanded economic development in regions along their border with the DPRK. It still makes sense, and for the same reasons.
Chinese support ended, however, when President Bush rejected that strategy from 2001 to 2009. After that, and for the past eight years, President Obama has embraced Bush's fear of diplomacy, strategic incoherence, and refusal to reconstruct a winning deal from the ashes of the Agreed Framework. For any cooperative U.S./PRC approach that unlocks the Korean freeze on regional security and development, the Chinese are still waiting.
Japan, too, appreciated the great economic and strategic advantages of capping the DPRK's nuclear programs and leading it toward development. During 2001 and 2002 Prime Ministers Yoshiro Mori and Junichiro Koizumi made strong efforts to settle differences with North Korea, despite U.S. objections. Today Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is trying hard to come to a breakthrough agreement with Russia over Kuril Islands sovereignty, offering infrastructure investments that depend on political approval.
The misused Six-Party Talks gave Russia a formal seat at the table in a comprehensive approach to the Korea issues. Since their collapse in 2009 Russia has looked for ways to reenter the development game on its Eastern borders. President Vladimir Putin appears to be trying to find a way to make the new deals with Japan succeed.
Denuclearization, development and security
For 16 years Chinese leaders have consistently argued that some return to the previous exchange between the U.S. and DPRK was the only way to achieve real denuclearization and development. The idea that the two Ds (denuclearization and development) went together – that they were inseparable from each other in strategic, political and diplomatic contexts – was a key insight by diplomats working this problem in the 1990s. Add the third element, security, and for this discussion we'll call the approach DDS.
Any contemporary proposals that ignore that essential linkage will get no traction. This is not a matter of left-right politics, or of appeasing North Korea, as many specialists continue to see it. It is more a matter of ruling power group needs, and of overlapping national interests. Importantly, the attention to DDS primary goals is the only way to make current policy initiatives long-term and durable rather than short-term and narrowly political.
This lesson was lost on the Bush and Obama teams, and it may well be lost on the Trump team as well. Still, the unique mix of momentous developments during the past month has produced an environment of potential flexibility in political positions and potential escape from suffocating policy myths that is exhilarating. We can only hope it lasts.
Elements of a deal are already in place
The democracies have reversed their interests and goals dramatically since the early 1990s. The non-democracies have been more consistent. In view of U.S. and ROK flip-flopping on policy, it would make sense for the U.N. to take on the role of institutional convening party, relieving some of the political and ideological baggage the North Korea issue has accumulated in Seoul and Washington.
— With the new U.S. president, policies toward the region could change. Hillary Clinton's Asia team was on track to increase military tensions and further destabilize the region. Trump could do better.
— Pending infrastructure projects that would link the region and generate decades of economic activity have become technologically more feasible during 16 years of policy paralysis. None of the projects is fanciful. Among the most realistic are the Japan-Korea bridge/tunnel and transportation and energy linkages at the Korean DMZ and the North Korean borders with China and Russia.
— New U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres could be far more effective than the pliable and disappointing Ban Ki Moon, particularly on Korea issues.
— Trump's new U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, would need to demonstrate her ability to use the U.N. for multiple U.S. interests, and the Northeast Asia DDS approach would help her.
— Already familiar with Russian interests and the value of infrastructure, designated U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson could play a key role in new U.S. initiatives.
— Continuing chaos and the likelihood of change in South Korean policies would be a game-changer for the region. Along with the U.S., South Korean activism and leadership could accelerate new deals with Japan and North Korea.
Recent developments have opened up possibilities for the creative advancement of the interlocking DDS principles in ways unimaginable just weeks ago. If handled with realism and ambition, they could lead to the kind of stability and prosperity that the region seemed destined for 20 years ago. If handled by fringe Republican appointees and advisors, 2017 could be a very violent year in Northeast Asia.
Stephen Costello is a producer of AsiaEast, a web and broadcast-based policy roundtable focused on security, development and politics in Northeast Asia. He writes from Washington, D.C. He can be reached at scost55@gmail.com.
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