US needs to talk with N. Korea

By Tong Kim

WASHINGTON ― The United States should enter into direct talks with North Korea to negotiate a freeze of its nuclear and missile tests and a return of IAEA inspectors to achieve the eventual goal of denuclearization, according to experts.

In an op-ed in The Washington, Sept. 30, Jane Harman, president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center of Scholars, and James Person, the center’s coordinator for Korean history and public policy, made these remarks.

The authors believe such a nuclear freeze can only be achieved through direct U.S. talks with the North, not a return to the six-party process. The United States should show some flexibility and utilize “an underappreciated ace in its deck,” which is North Korea’s cognizance that “Only the United States ― the supposed existential threat that justifies its nuclear and ballistic missile programs ― can fully address Pyongyang’s security concerns.”

Harmon and Person suggest that the U.S. acknowledge the North’s security concerns, even if it considers those concerns are unfounded, in order to make progress in negotiations.

They added, “If there are prospects for significant progress,” following a nuclear freeze, the next president “should consider suspension of joint military exercise with South Korea and offer North Korea a non-aggression pact it has long sought.”

The article also points to the lesson that North Korea learned from the Iraq War and Libya: “no outlier state without a nuclear deterrent is safe. Displays of military might ― sending B-1 bombers along the demilitarized zone or ships and submarines off the North Korean coast ― only make an insecure Pyongyang more recalcitrant.”

The article begins with a premise that a double-edged U.S. strategy of applying multilateral sanctions and urging “China to use its unique leverage to halt Kim Jong-un’s provocations” are not working, even after six months of enforcing the toughest UN resolution 2270.

“Sanctions are ineffective against North Korea,” the authors say. The impoverished North, since the Korean War, has been adept at living under “sanction-like conditions restricting its access to the markets, international financial institutions, advanced goods and technologies.”

The efficacy of sanctions is also limited because of China’s protection of North Korea: China does not want Pyongyang’s collapse for fear of a flood of refugees into its northeast region and a unified Korea allied to the U.S. with American troops on the Chinese border. China may think it is better to live with a nuclear North Korea, although it may also pose a threat to Beijing.

In the context of China’s role, a former special envoy for North Korean human rights under the George W. Bush administration, Jay Lefkowitz, suggested that the next U.S. president should send a signal to China that Washington “no longer aims to reunite the Korean Peninsula under South Korea’s terms.”

Lefkowitz’s view was published in The Wall Street Journal on Sept. 29.

“U.S. leaders should be satisfied with a Beijing style Communist regime in Pyongyang ― as long as it replaces the Kim family regime and it is non-nuclear and frees political prisoners,” according to the writer’s suggestion.

He also offered a stick: “The U.S. should make clear to China, if it does not move to replace the North Korean leadership; the U.S. will consider placing intermediate missiles in Japan and South Korea, while developing a permanent, comprehensive missile system.

This recommendation seems to be an unrealistic proposition coming out of frustration and fatigue with the prolonged diplomatic stalemate on the North Korean issues of nuclear weapons and human rights.

It would be practically impossible for China to attempt replacing the North Korean regime without risking unpredictable consequences, which could include a violent military clash with a nuclear-armed Pyongyang Korea.

Such a scenario of regime change would be another form of pressure on North Korea. Any sign of Chinese movement in that direction will certainly antagonize Pyongyang, which has defied Beijing’s pressure against its continuation of nuclear and missile tests.