Opinion - The Korea Times

Cycle of North Korean Crisis

By Tong Kim In this column, I have been writing for three and a half years mostly about the security issues involving North Korea's nuclear weapons programs ― with disappointment at times and optimism at others. Before I started writing here, I had eyewitnessed what was transpiring at almost all bilateral and multilateral meetings to which the United States and North Korea were parties. In the past 15 years since 1994, there has been a vicious cycle of confrontation and negotiation between the two protagonists of the nuclear game. Inasmuch as the fundamental nature of the game remains unchanged with no fixed rules in place, it is hard to avoid repeating myself when writing about the subject. I always wanted to make sure where we were at the time of writing, struggling to suggest some positive way forward. I will do it again this week ― in view of the strongest condemnation and the toughest sanctions the U.N. Security Council has just imposed on the North and the hardened stance the United States, South Korea and Japan have forged against the defiant leadership of North Kor

Jun 14, 2009By Tong Kim

Tong Kim

Chance for New Leadership

By Tong Kim The Lee Myung-bak government is facing daunting challenges from left and right at home and from the North all at the same time. At home the government is worried about an uneasy aftermath of the emotional funeral of the late former President Roh Moo-hyun. From the North, it has been pushed into the worst security crisis in recent memory. The outpouring of sympathy from millions of mourners across the country for the tragic death of Roh, who was rejected by conservatives from the beginning and abandoned by progressives toward his final presidential months, has two significant meanings: political and moral reinstatement for the deceased and an expression of discontent with the living president in office. Posthumously, Roh was hailed as a president who was devoted to democracy, fighting authoritarianism and struggling to end regionalism. He cared about the less privileged. His supporters believe that he was pressured by prosecutors and the press to the point of taking his own life. The opposition Democratic Party has vowed to seek accountability for his death.

May 31, 2009By Tong Kim

Tong Kim

Waiting for North Korea

By Tong Kim With the advent of the conservative Lee Myung-bak government ― which stopped its two predecessors' practice of providing strings-free economic aid to the impoverished North ― the North Koreans seem to have concluded that the South was seeking a regime change and subsequent absorption of the North to achieve unification under South Korea's terms. The South Korean president and his senior officials made a number of conflicting policy statements and sometimes gratuitous comments that helped the North fall back on a familiar pattern of provocative behavior that had led to the latest crisis for the Gaeseong Industrial Complex last week: It would be wrong to think that the North would not close the complex because of revenue. When President Lee said that ``waiting was also a strategy," the North Koreans took it to mean that the South was waiting for a collapse of the North Korean system instead of ``waiting for the North to return to dialogue." When President Lee said his goal was ``to achieve a democratic unification," the North Koreans took it to mean that the

May 17, 2009By Tong Kim

Tong Kim

Domestic Politics Toward 2012

By Tong Kim The outcome of South Korea's by-elections (called special elections in the United States), held to fill five vacant seats of the National Assembly last week, forecasts political trouble and maneuvering lying ahead for the two major parties ― the governing Grand National Party (GNP) and the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) ― as they move toward next year's nationwide local elections, mindful of the presidential election of 2012. A poll conducted by Real Meter the day after the GNP's total defeat with losses in all five districts, including two that were considered its home turf in Gyeongju and Ulsan, showed a sharp plunge in President Lee Myung-bak's approval rating to 25 percent with an increased disapproval rating of 71 percent. The GNP still has 170 seats in the 299-seat national legislature but it is divided internally by two competing groups ― the pro-Lee faction and the pro-Park Geun-hye faction. In their two home districts, one GNP candidate, who had strong backing from President Lee's brother and an influential senior GNP member, was defeated by an in

May 3, 2009By Tong Kim

Tong Kim

Taking Exception on N. Korea

By Tong Kim North Korea is often blamed for bluffing, blackmailing, or brinkmanship. But last week the DPRK followed through with the earlier warning of a foreign ministry spokesman (March 24) that it would boycott the six-party talks. Will the North also follow through on its threats of restarting nuclear weapons production? The U.N. Security Council adopted a statement on April 13 condemning North Korea's April 5 rocket launch and urging it to return to the six-party talks. In an angry reaction, the DPRK declared, ``The need for the six- party talks has come to an end," and ``we will never again attend the talks that have turned into a platform for infringing upon our sovereignty and aiming at our disarmament and the subversion of our system. Nor will we be bound by any agreement of the six-party talks." This new threat was made in the DPRK's foreign ministry statement (April 14) ― which is a higher level of official statement than a ministry spokesman's and therefore carries more weight. The statement also said it will restore the disabled nuclear facilities for normal

Apr 19, 2009By Tong Kim

Tong Kim

N. Korea’s Puzzling Intent

By Tong Kim There seemed to be a consensus among North Korea watchers here in the United States that the Obama administration offers the best chance in a long time for the North to strike a deal with the United States. It is puzzling that the North, instead of grabbing the opportunity up front, has continued raising tensions, ultimately with its rocket launch. Beginning January, several groups of private Americans with a varying degree of expertise on North Korea ― including Stephen Bosworth prior to his appointment as the top North Korea policy coordinator ― visited Pyongyang and told the North Koreans about their views of what's coming from the new administration vis-a-vis North Korea. Their message was the new administration would be serious to resolve the issues of mutual concern bilaterally with Pyongyang and multilaterally through the existing six-party talks. The North Koreans turned down Ambassador Bosworth's plan to visit Pyongyang, which was part of his initial consultations with the participants in the multilateral talks for denuclearization. Bosworth's Asia

Apr 5, 2009By Tong Kim

Tong Kim

Irony of Inter-Korean Relations

By Tong Kim With a publicly scheduled satellite launch and erratic, unilateral control of access to the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, in addition to intensifying vilification of the South Korea government, North Korea is upping the ante for the South. Yet no breakthrough is in sight to the deadlock of the inter-Korean relations that have reached a dangerous point. Neither side can afford to further aggravate the situation, as it would be detrimental to its interest. It would not be good for the North if its economically superior southern neighbor turns its back in all-out military confrontation against the North, as it did during the Cold War era. The cost of the North's survival would be higher and its security would be at a higher risk. It would not be good for the South if its nuclear armed northern neighbor keeps threatening its security and economic activities through provocative statements and intimidating acts of threat. Emotional and physical confrontation, if unbridled, could trigger a calculated or an accidental clash of military forces between the two sides.

Mar 22, 2009By Tong Kim

Tong Kim

N. Korea’s Missile Launch

By Tong Kim As North Korea is accelerating the preparation for another missile or satellite test-launch, there seems to be little the United States can do to stop it. However, Pyongyang's final decision to conduct such a launch will depend on a number of unknown variables, including its confidence in the rocket's successful performance ― given the failure of a similar launch in 2006 ― and how it would play out for its strategy in dealing with the Obama administration. Once North Korea completes the preparation, including the fueling of a multistage rocket, there will be only a narrow window of time in which to decide whether or when to fire it. Even if the object for the planned launch turns out to be a genuine satellite, as claimed by the North (KCNA Feb 24) and suggested by a Yonhap report (Feb. 28), the controversy over a rocket lunch would not subside soon, given rockets' nature of duel use for peaceful and military purposes and given the prevailing suspicion of North Korea's intentions for developing missiles and nuclear weapons. The State Department declared any

Mar 8, 2009By Tong Kim

Tong Kim

History Repeats on N. Korea

By Tong Kim The state of North Korean affairs today is amazingly as it was during the Kim Young-sam presidency more than a decade ago. In March 1993, North Korea announced its intent to leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), triggering the first nuclear crisis. It was taking exactly the same approach of ``shunning the South, seeking dialogue with the United States" that it is today. Sixteen years ago, North Korea was rejecting IAEA inspections under its safeguard requirements to prove discrepancies regarding the amount of plutonium it had reported to the IAEA, which wanted to look into the entire history of reprocessing activities at Yongbyon by taking rigorous sampling tests. Today, the North is refusing to agree on a verification protocol, which would include an IAEA role in taking sampling tests and verifying the accuracy of plutonium levels that the North reported at the six-party talks. A decade and a half ago, North Korea was attacking the then-president of South Korea with a harsh, insulting diatribe, while appearing conciliatory to the United States. Today

Feb 22, 2009By Tong Kim

Tong Kim

Sudden Change in North Korea

By Tong Kim Since the middle of last January North Korea has intensified tensions on the Korean Peninsula and toughened its stance on denuclearization by delineating new, separate, offensive postures on South Korea and the United States. Pyongyang's latest defiance reflects a joint strategic calculation among the military, the party and the cabinet administration of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) ― as they were represented by the General Staff of the Korean People's Army, the Committee for the Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs backed by party and cabinet organs Rodong and Minju Chosun. By Pyongyang's new tactic on the South, the North would disregard any of its ``political or military agreements with the South that intended to end inter-Korean confrontation." Further it has ``nullified" the 1992 Basic Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-aggression, Cooperation and Exchange between the North and the South: it would not observe the NLL (Northern Limit Line). The KPA's General Staff berated the Lee Myung-bak government as

Feb 8, 2009By Tong Kim

Tong Kim

Read more

Cycle of North Korean Crisis

Chance for New Leadership

Waiting for North Korea

Domestic Politics Toward 2012

Taking Exception on N. Korea

N. Korea’s Puzzling Intent

Irony of Inter-Korean Relations

N. Korea’s Missile Launch

History Repeats on N. Korea

Sudden Change in North Korea

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