Assembly elections and Clinton
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By Stephen Costello
What do U.S. officials really believe about how their policies will impact North Korea? How do they really think the North Korean leaders see the U.S.? As an adversary, potential partner, or enemy? These questions have come up in recent weeks as various officials, semi-officials and analysts debate options in the remaining months of the Obama administration. It is coincidental but important that the North Koreans are now holding a rare party convention for the first time in 36 years.
The best and wonderfully concise review of U.S. and North Korean views of each other was recently published by Keith Luce, executive director of the National Committee for North Korea.
Luce notes that now is a dangerous time, because following recent DPRK nuclear tests and rocket launches the U.S. and South Korea are pushing unprecedentedly severe sanctions while North Korea is continuing to demonstrate its intention to persevere and continue its weapons development.
The crucial sentences in the Luce article note that the North Koreans believe they have good reasons to doubt the sincerity and reliability of the U.S. administration, and he gives several examples. Luce doesn’t say so, but the most obvious reason for the North Korean’s distrust is probably the unilateral reversal of U.S. policy in 2001, mainly for ideological reasons. U.S. officials regularly say they can’t trust the North Koreans, but they never acknowledge what their government’s previous actions have taught the DPRK.
This has led to recent official and semi-official statements that project disingenuousness or selective history. In one case, it is claimed that North Korea fears any interaction with the outside more than it wants security or economic development. Another official claimed that U.S. policy was consistent from Presidents Clinton to Bush. And the old refrain was advanced that if only China would talk about post-collapse scenarios in the North we would be able to draw up a plan. It is difficult to believe these statements at face value.
In this environment, some commentators are worried that someone in the White House would respond to new North Korean peace initiatives, following its Workers’ Party Congress last week. Perhaps they are dreaming of adding North Korea to the U.S. agreements reached with Iran and Cuba. Such concerns seem farfetched. Who in this tightly-controlled U.S. administration could raise such an idea, and why would they provoke the ugly internal battle that would result from such a suggestion? Luce correctly cautions that if such a battle were to break out, strong opinions would divide policy people, and no one would be satisfied.
His larger point is more important, however. It is that there is no way for the U.S. to respond to any North Korean offers, no matter how sincere they may be, in the last months of the Obama presidency. This is because the built-up mistrust and long trail of statements and red lines prevents the kind of policy structure, and public rationale, that could support a sincere American response to a DPRK offer. They couldn’t respond if they wanted to.
If nothing can happen for now, what about next year, when there may be a Hillary Clinton administration? Of course anything can happen, and the papers are full of warnings that Donald Trump could surprise everyone and win the presidency. Still, that’s unlikely. If Ms. Clinton is the next US.. president, what can we expect from her approaches to the Korean Peninsula?
So far there is no indication that she would re-think the consistent policy line from George W. Bush through Barak Obama; or alternatively that she would remember the logic and advantages of her husband’s engagement before that. It is more likely she will continue recent policies in some form and extend a 16-year streak of failure. If there is a silver lining here, it may be that the results of this period are so dismal, and U.S. policy inputs have been so counterproductive, that a real policy review might be required, allowing in some fresh ideas.
Nevertheless, whatever new posture the next administration adopts, it is likely to fall far short of what is required to return to long-term deal making over the larger Korean Peninsula issues. And that is why the recent Assembly elections in Korea, and the prospect of a more powerful voice for North-South cooperation and interaction in Seoul, are so important. It may be that real movement cannot begin unless a more flexible and capable Korean president is elected at the end of 2017, but the planning for that movement has now begun.
Unlike the last time, the U.S. would not be a central actor providing the North Koreans with security and economic incentives to begin opening and disarmament. This time, it will be South Korea leading the way, and pulling the U.S. reluctantly along. The interconnection of the North Korea initiatives with other big efforts will be the same, however. South Korean businesses of all sizes would benefit. ROK relationships with China, Russia, Japan and the U.S. will have renewed purpose and require extensive management. Defense and security planning will need to be reviewed. Korean leaders could talk frankly about the nation’s interests.
There is no certainty that these diplomatic advances will happen. Many powerful forces are opposed to it, just as they have always been. But with the changing political power arrangements in Seoul, the U.S. election seven months away, and a newly interesting Korean presidential election 13 months after that, the door has opened for the first time in 16 years. It may not stay open for long.
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.