Tension In The Korean Peninsula:

Tension in the Korean Peninsula: A Closer Look at the Recent Development of US-DPRK-ROK Relations in the Wake of Nuclear Crisis

Jeff Kim 5041681 B. Lusignan Ethics and Development in a Global Environment 3/10/04

The recent turn of events in North Korea with its alleged admission to possessing nuclear weapon has created nervous tension in the Far East region.

Specifically, North Korea has recently transformed the existing bilateral U.S.-

ROK alliance into an awkward triangular ROK-U.S.-DPRK dynamic, significantly complicating the previous bilateral relationships amongst the three as well as making these relationships more difficult to manage. We will trace the development of these relations, as to gain a better insight into this long standing conflict and to assess better the future implications surrounding these tensions.

Background History of Korea

At the turn of the century, Korea was annexed by the neighboring Japan, ending the rule of Korean dynasty and independence. Korea was under

Japanese control for 35 years from 1910-1945 and the colonial rule was highly repressive and exploitative. Freedom of speech and press was non-existent, human rights were completely disregarded, farm lands were confiscated under various pretexts, economic and educational opportunities were extremely limited, and Korean workers and peasants alike were exploited under the repressive rule of the Japanese.

Japanese surrendered to the Allies on August 15 1945, and the Cairo

Declaration of December 1943 issued by the British and US leaders stated that

"in due course Korea shall become free and independent". The USSR accepted the Cairo agreement, but proposals made by the USA in 1945 led to the division of Korea into two military zones: the area south of the 38th parallel line under US occupation and the northern area under the Soviet control.

In 1948, after some quarrels over the type of state to be established in the

Korean Peninsula, the two regions established two separated autonomous states. The North supported by the USSR established the communist

Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in Pyongyang under Chairman

Kim Il Sung. Meanwhile, the National Assembly in the South drew up a democratic Constitution for the Republic of Korea (ROK) in Seoul. Dr. Syng Man

Rhee was elected the first President of the Republic of Korea, whose legitimacy was immediately recognized by the UN. On August 15, 1948, the Republic of

Korea was inaugurated and the US occupation of the South came to an end.

With tensions simmering from increasing internal Korean political conflicts between the North and the South (largely as the by product of the Cold War), the

North Koreans crossed the 38th parallel line and invaded the South on June 25th

1950, with a force of over 60,000 troops substantially equipped by the Soviet

Union. North Korea rapidly advanced southwards and occupied most of South

Korea within weeks. The UN troops under the lead of US mounted a collective defense to support South Korea, who successfully drove the invaders back and advanced to capture Pyongyang by October. However, the Peoples Republic of

China sent 200,000 Chinese troops across the Yalu River into Korea to assist the

North Koreans, which successfully drove back the UN assisted South Korean force. As each side drove back and forth to a standstill, armistice agreement was signed on July 27th, 1953 to cease-fire. No peace or formal agreement ending the state of war between the two countries was signed, and the 38th parallel remains as boundary between North and South. Armistice established a narrow

Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) at the 38th, resulting in a permanent garrison of US troops stationed along the South Korean side.

US-DPRK Relations

During the Cold War, the US-DPRK relationship was almost non-existent and thus considered a non factor. It was regarded as a constant, rather than a variable, as far as the US-ROK alliance was concerned. The US policy toward

North Korea back then was either containment or even indifference, as it was perceived to be just a part of US policy towards the Soviet Union and China.

In the post-Cold War era, however, when the Soviet Empire and the

Communist bloc were no more, North Korea emerged, as a consequence, into a key element in US security policy. “In regard to the US-DPRK relationship, the

Korean Peninsula remains a last vestige of the Cold War legacy that can be classified as a sort of “Cold War hangover’”1. As a post-Cold War era rogue state, Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea draws interest toward itself to the

United States on a wide spectrum of foreign policy issues ranging from weapons of mass destruction, missile development, international terrorism and drug trafficking to refugee, human rights and international humanitarian aid.

Furthermore, North Korea, through its numerous misbehaviors, enormously impacts the US-Japan security relationship by providing justification again and again for US forward deployment in East Asia as well as its nuclear missile defense and theater missile defense programs.

On October 21, 1994, after sixteen months of negotiations, the United

States and North Korea signed an Agreed Framework that hoped to achieve a long-standing and vital US objective of bringing an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean Peninsula and providing basis for more normal relations between North Korea and the rest of the world. Under the Agreed

Framework, North Korea agreed to freeze and eventually dismantle its graphite- moderated nuclear reactors and related facilities at Yongbyon and Taechon.

They also “affirmed its Non-Proliferation Treaty member status, committed themselves to come into compliance with its IAEA safeguards agreement at a later date, agreed to implement the North-South Denuclearization Agreement, and agreed to work with the US to store and dispose of the spent fuel from the 5- megawatt reactor in a safe manner”2 In exchange, the United States agreed to lead an international consortium to oversee and finance the construction of two light water reactors (LWRs) to compensate the North Koreans for energy foregone, and to take steps to reduce economic and financial restrictions.

The Clinton administration wanted to move beyond the Agreed Framework to a more stable relationship with North Korea that would resolve all outstanding weapons of mass destruction issues and contribute to the Korean reunification.

Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s highly successful visit to PyongYang led to the climax of US-DPRK relations and paved the way for future negotiations between the two countries on several contentious issues. Furthermore, Albright on her visit was assured by the North Korean leader that a visit from President

Clinton to Pyongyang would clinch a comprehensive agreement between the two countries. However, Clinton’s days in office were coming to a close and the political scene in the US was getting ugly with the close and contented presidential election. It was advised that a presidential visit to Pyongyang would not be appropriate on the grounds that no satisfactory agreement was ready for the president to sign nor was it proper for a president in his very last days of office to adopt a policy that his successor might not find acceptable.

As Bush swore into office, policy on North Korea immediately went under review by the new administration. With the demand for the inclusion of conventional weapons reduction on the agenda for negotiations, along with the call for a pullback of North Korea's conventional weapons, as well as the demand for tough verification of any agreements (just the kind of verification that was set aside in the 1994 Agreed Framework with the Clinton administration), it became clear that Bush’s plan was a considerable departure from its previous policy on

North Korea.

The infamous inclusion of North Korea as part of the “axis of evil” in his

State of the Union Address shattered the already failing US-DPRK relation. It intensified rhetoric against North Korea’s nuclear program being designated as evil, and consequently wounded the pride of the North Koreans and turned them against further serious negotiation with Washington.

North Korea in November 2002, up the ante in the conflict by admitting to possess nuclear weapons and of operating a secret nuclear program. Hoping to gain multilateral support to put more pressure on Pyongyang, nervous global community leaders arranged “six-way-talks” in the following years, with China,

Japan, Russia, South Korea, North Korea and US participating in the meeting.

However, two rounds of long-awaited multilateral discussion in Beijing ended without any substantive agreement, and a real solution to the dispute appeared as distant as ever. Six months since the first round of talks, there has been any meaningful shift in the position of neither US nor North Korea.

US-ROK Relations

During the early years of its inception, Republic of Korea in the South owed much thanks to the US, not only for liberating them from the oppressive

Japanese rule at the close of World War II, but also for the US troops who fought and died along side the South Koreans to protect them from being overtaken during the Korean War. The United States and South Korea were not only close allies, but with the continuing threat of North Korea, US-ROK always existed as more of a patron-client military dependent relationship, inadvertently giving a good justification of political legitimacy for the military authoritarian leaders of

South Korea. More importantly, the South Korean state is essentially a by product of the Cold War, and thus the idea of anti-Americanism was almost as unpatriotic and radical as anything else. It was limited to an extremely small number, who risked both arrest and imprisonment under the National Security

Law of 1948. However, with the democratization movement, South Korean anti-

Americanism emerged from the confines of Marxism-Leninism and radicalism and seeped into the realms of Korean nationalism and legitimate mainstream political discourse. Furthermore, the post-democracy period has allowed a reinterpretation of Korean history and a reevaluation of the Korean national identity. This reinterpretation and reevaluation changed the understanding of anti-Americanism in the minds of both the elder and younger generation and soon anti-Americanism was no longer unpatriotic, seditious, or radical but had become respectable and legitimate. “A new understanding of American involvement in Korea emerged. Whereas America had previously been viewed as a strong supporter of democracy guided by Wilsonian values, it is now popularly considered hypocritical, calculating, and self-driven. This is the same reinterpretation of American values and revelation of their hypocrisy that created greater anti-Americanism throughout the third world.” (Robertson)

The greatest source of tension contributing to anti-Americanism is undoubtedly the American military presence. The US forces Korea (USFK) is the center of countless civilian complaints. These include the involvement in the recent deaths of two teenage girls during the training exercise, where at the core of the issue was the refusal of USFK to release the two soldiers to be tried under

South Korean jurisdiction. Under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) the

USFK was not required to hand over jurisdiction for incidents that occurred during training. The event has sparked what is considered to be the strongest anti-Americanism in South Korea’s history. The extremely emotional nature of the accident stirred growing anti-American sentiment to such an extent that both government expressed fears. The daily protest outside the American embassy in

Seoul and Yongsan military grew to demonstrations by more than 300,000 people in Seoul and Busan, thousands more in rural and provincial cities, as well as demonstrations by South Korean communities in the US, Australia, and

Germany.

Furthermore, the recent divergent views on North Korea policy between the United States and South Korea has been intensified by the fear that the preemptive strike policy may extend to North Korea, particularly in the wake of the nuclear revelation. The State of the Union address by Bush in 2002 lumping the

North Korea with Iraq and Iran as an axis of evil, received about as much support in South Korea as in the North Korea. The speech aroused strong resentful anti-

American sentiments in the public, viewing Washington’s recent hard line approaches with North Korea as divergent from their interests. Polls showed significant difference in popular views about the future of the Korean peninsula existed between the US and South Korea. In South Korea 73% considered the unification of the two Koreas likely in the near future compared to only 28% in the

United States.

Coupled with the growing public anti-Americanism, the victory of the liberal

Roh Moo-Hyun in the 2003 South Korean presidential elections foreboded more future tension in US-ROK relations. Roh, a long-time liberal and human rights advocate, when compared to his more conservative opponent, Lee Hoi-Chang, represented a more challenging partner for the United States. During the campaign, Roh took up the banner of Koreans who want changes in the relationship with the United States, while Lee firmly held to the view that South

Korea and the United States should be closely aligned. Echoing the views of many Bush administration officials and U.S. commentators, Lee called Kim’s

Sunshine Policy a “failed policy of appeasement” and said he would halt economic exchanges until the nuclear issue was resolved. “We should not entrust the nation to unstable, premature, and radical forces,” Lee said, using language that echoed charges leveled by establishment figures against Kim when he ran for president in the 1980s.

Roh, in contrast, said he would continue talking with the North and carry on the economic projects under way. In a comment that was widely publicized in the US press, he declared that “I don’t have any anti-American sentiment, but I won’t kowtow to the Americans, either.” In one debate, Roh noted that the crisis with North Korea in 1993, when the Clinton administration came close to launching a preemptive attack on the North’s nuclear facilities, was almost entirely a US affair. “We almost went to the brink of war in 1993 with North

Korea, and at the time we didn’t even know it,” he said. “We don’t want to become spectators again. In the old days, we were not able to solve our problems ourselves. Now it is different. We should say with confidence what we want and what we demand.” Roh’s stated aims of continuing the “Sunshine

Policy” of engagement with North Korea, renegotiating the Status of Forces

Agreement (SOFA) for the 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea, and maintaining a more independent foreign policy in international and regional affairs. With the current nuclear situation in North Korea and the rising levels of anti-Americanism at home, South Korea is in the difficult situation of choosing between support for Bush’s vision of the world or Roh Moo-Hyun’s vision of a united Korea – especially with Washington’s division of the world into the two camps of good and evil backed by a first strike policy in place. The ROK government is not free to pursue a North Korea policy independent of

Washington's so long as the United States remains the ultimate guarantor of

South Korea's security. Yet at the same time, South Korean government, in both keeping aligned with the public and maintaining aims of achieving Korean unity, must be wary of working too closely with the United States, either in its international war on terrorism or in its policies toward North Korea.

ROK-DPRK Relations

Ever since the invasion that led to the Korea War in 1950, South has taken a similar attitude as the US towards North Korea, demonizing their leader

Kim Il Sung and viewing the state as “evil” communist regime jeopardizing the security of its people in the South.

However, in the 1990’s, President Kim Dae-Jung of ROK pushed for a big change in the South Korea’s North Korean policy, taking a more benevolent, idealistic stance in hopes of reunification. The previous governments sought mainly to contain North Korea, but Kim’s "Sunshine Policy" emphasized the peaceful management of the Korean divide through engagement. The Sunshine

Policy envisioned greater interaction and the funneling of economic assistance and diplomatic favors from the South to the North, hoping to eventually soften

North Korea's stances in the course of promoting peace and cooperation on the

Korean peninsula.

In June 2000, Kim’s optimism paid off, leading to the Leaders Summit where a half-century of zero-sum confrontation between South and North Korea came to a symbolical end when the two leaders of divided Korea finally met. The

74-year-old Kim Dae-Jung, President of South Korea, flew to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, to meet his counterpart, 58-year-old Kim Jong-Il,

Chairman of the National Defense Committee. At Sunan Airport, the two leaders embraced while thousands of mobilized North Koreans sent up rousing cheers.

Tens of thousands more lined the motorcade route into the city, and millions around the world watched the television coverage, fighting to keep back tears of joy.

The Summit proved to be the pinnacle of North-South relations when the ultimate goal of all Koreans, a peaceful reunification, actually seemed possible.

An evolutionary change of thinking occurred with the success and crowning achievement of Kim Dae-Jung’s Sunshin Policy: the idea that North Korea was the “enemy” dissipated and was replaced by steps toward “friendship and brotherhood.” The new way of thinking spread widely, despite failures in the policy as early as three months later. In November 2000, national poll showed that 59% believed “the possibility of war had almost disappeared following the

North-South Summit”. At the conclusion of the summit the two leaders signed a five-point Joint

Declaration in which they pledged to achieve reunification "independently," to

"promptly resolve humanitarian issues," and to promote "balanced development of the national economy through economic cooperation and exchange." To date none of these items has been implemented in more than cursory fashion. A final item came back to haunt President Kim: Chairman Kim promised to visit Seoul

"at an appropriate time." Upon his return to Seoul, President Kim boasted of the significance of his meeting with Chairman Kim and expressed his high anticipation of Chairman Kim's visit, which would provide momentum for reconciliation and cooperation.

By historical standards, the follow-up contacts between South and North

Koreans were impressive: meetings between ROK and DPRK officials at the cabinet level; a meeting of the two defense ministers; three family reunions that each time included 100 (mainly elderly and ailing) family members from each side; and a host of working-level meetings on a variety of issues. However, no visit from Kim Jong-Il.

To promote exchange between the Koreas, South Korea continued to send aid to the North: 100,000 tons of fertilizer offered in July 2000, 600,000 tons of food offered in October 2000, and another 100,000 tons of food offered in

January 2001. But Pyongyang's interest in inter-Korean cooperation quickly cooled; meetings were postponed or canceled. The North Koreans repeatedly demanded that the Joint Declaration be upheld "to the letter," by which they meant that the first point of the declaration, calling for "independent" reunification, required that South Korea stop coordinating its North Korea policy with the

United States and Japan and expel American troops from its territory.

By year's end hope and enthusiasm for reconciliation were fading in South

Korea, and domestic politics was taking center stage as President Kim took on the appearance of a lame duck president who had been fooled by the North

Koreans. Moreover, the more recent events of September 2001 terrorist attacks on US, along with the recent admission to possessing nuclear weapons by the

North Korean, renewed fears of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of rogue regimes, putting much pressure on South Korea’s policy towards its northern neighbor and adversely affecting the recently obtained dim ray of hope in North-South relations.

Closer look at the source of the problem

With all that said and done, the underlying problem lies in that if North

Korea possesses nuclear weapons – which it is believed already to have from two to five – then the United States' ultimate fears come closer to reality; if North

Korea abandons its nukes, its own ultimate fears of US hostile intentions come closer to reality. The truth of the matter is that neither side trusts the other, making it virtually impossible to conduct sincere and productive negotiations.

And right in the middle of it lies South Korea, perceived ambiguously neither as mediator or catalyst, but clearly the big loser in any situation.

North Korea's ultimate fear is a US invasion or aerial attack designed to overthrow the regime of Kim Jong-Il and the ruling Korean Workers Party (KWP). This fear is fueled by US attacks on countries without nuclear weapons: Iraq,

Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. Thus, in its view, possessing nuclear weapons is the ultimate guarantee that the US will not entertain any ideas about invading and bringing about regime change in Pyongyang itself. North Korea’s nuke can serve as warning to Washington that there will be a very high price to pay if the

United States were ever to attack. That price could well be the destruction of US bases in South Korea and Japan, or attacks on Seoul and Tokyo, or even Los

Angeles and San Francisco - if Pyongyang succeeds in developing a fully intercontinental ballistic missile.

The US fears and has never accepted the idea of allowing North Korea to possess nuclear weapons, for the reason that this would encourage it to invade

South Korea, playing the nuclear card to deter any US intervention. More recently, though, Washington's concerns have stemmed from North Korea's close ties with "rogue states" such as Iran, Libya and Syria. In addition, in light of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US, Washington's ultimate fear is that Pyongyang could even sell nukes to al-Qaeda, thereby posing "an imminent danger of nuclear weapons being detonated in US cities", in the words of former

US defense secretary William Perry. As it can be clearly seen, America's fears and North Korea's fears collide; if either side makes concessions, it believes its worst nightmares would be realized and the other side would launch aggression.

Total lack of trust on both parts only worsens the chances of resolution.

During the multilateral talks, US stands firm demanding a complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantling (CVID) of North Korea's nuclear programs. In return for CVID, North Korea wants the United States to sign a formal non- aggression treaty, establish full bilateral diplomatic relations, and provide

Pyongyang with billions of dollars' worth of economic and energy assistance. But

Washington is unwilling to reward North Korea for halting a nuclear program that it believes should never have been started in the first place. Even if the United

States were to offer North Korea a comprehensive security guarantee and full diplomatic relations, it is not clear that this would be enough for Pyongyang to give up its nukes.

North Korea openly stated after the talks: "There is a fundamental difference in the attitude between the US delegation and the DPRK [Democratic

People's Republic of Korea] delegation." Although all parties agreed to more six- way talks in June, the glacial pace of progress and the fact that months separate these rounds suggest that it could still be years, if ever, before a solution satisfactory to all is reached. And this prolong standoff could mean an end to talks, as the United States and North Korea may conclude that neither side is serious about negotiations and abandon them altogether.

North Korea’s unwillingness to give up its nuclear program can be attributed to three main reasons it has embarked on a nuclear-weapons program in the first place. The first, though least important, is prestige. For any country, possession of nuclear weapons confers a degree of status, showing that it has the scientific, technological and military know-how required to put together the ultimate weapon. This is especially true in North Korea's case, since the country can boast precious few achievements of any kind in recent years, or even decades. Without nukes, or even suspected nukes, North Korea would probably be another third world country, condemned for its atrocious human-rights record, but generally isolated and ignored in the region and by the wider world.

The second reason is to use it as a bargaining chip in relations with the

United States, South Korea, or Japan - North Korea's principal enemies and adversaries. Those nations' policymakers who favor a negotiated solution to the nuclear issue suggest that Pyongyang will build up a nuclear arsenal, and then trade it away for diplomatic and economic concessions. The trouble is, once these concessions have been won, there is no way to guarantee that North

Korea has given up its nuclear-weapons program without verification. And even if

"verification" takes place, Pyongyang can pursue - indeed, has been pursuing - a covert nuclear program, to which it allegedly admitted in October 2002 this despite having pledged to suspend nuclear activities eight years earlier.

The third and real reason for North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons is the security of the country, more specifically, the regime of Kim Jong-Il. Looking at the new global environment and the international climate in the 1990s, it became clear to North Korean leaders that the only real defense of the regime lay in possession of nuclear weapons. The US almost went to war with North

Korea over the nuclear issue in the summer of 1994. In addition, in December

1998 the United States and the United Kingdom launched Operation Desert Fox, in which four nights of air strikes targeted Iraq's suspected WMD sites, apparently aimed at triggering a coup to unseat president Saddam Hussein.

Four months later, in March 1999, the US and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies launched Operation Allied Force against the Federal

Republic of Yugoslavia, in support of the country's ethnic-Albanian population in the province of Kosovo. Seventy-eight days of air strikes followed, resulting in billions of dollars of economic and industrial damage to Yugoslavia, with very little loss to NATO forces. This was followed by the occupation of Kosovo by tens of thousands of NATO troops. From October to December 2001, the US and its allies went into action, this time against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime, resulting in its overthrow, and replacement by a pro-Western government. While this was retaliation for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the apparent ease with which US forces prevailed must have alarmed North Korea's leaders.

Less than two years after that, in March 2003, the US invaded Iraq, and deposed

Saddam within three weeks, with far fewer losses than predicted by critics.

The lesson learned by Pyongyang from all this is that, all the nations the

US attacked lacked nuclear weapons. And judging by the United States' kid- glove treatment of North Korea in comparison to the out right overthrowing of Iraq in early 2003, both Washington and Pyongyang understand this situation clearly.

So giving up nuclear weapons appears out of the questions for North Korea, regardless of negotiations.

End Remarks

As for now, it is worth considering the serious possibility that North Korea has decided once and for all that possession of nuclear weapons is the country's surest form of defense - namely against Washington. Although DPRK’s Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su-Hon told reporters in October that Pyongyang would only ever use the bomb as deterrence, and that it would not pass nuclear weapons on to third parties, none of this sits well in Washington. But at the same time the US may have no choice but to tolerate a nuclear North Korea if it is to avoid a devastating war on the Korean Peninsula.

The United States has a strong stake in improving relations with North

Korea for stability and leverage reasons in Northeast Asia. However, such an outcome would require creative and non-conventional thought on part of the

U.S., which in turn, will provide great momentum toward the goal of peace and stability without damaging its leadership status in the pursuit of the security of the

Korean Peninsula.

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The Europa world year book. London, England: Europa Publications Limited,

1989. 30th ed. If Washington wants to make any kind of real negotiation in the future, it must first try to rebuild the shattered relations with North Korea in recent years. Compare to the countless number of formal and informal meetings all over the globe with North Korea in 1994-1997, there has not been a single substantive meeting with them in the past three years. As a result, there is no diplomatic structure whatsoever at this point to move from, and neither side has any chance of reading other’s real intentions. In order to reopen up the channel of negotiation, Washington must tone down the rhetoric, learn more about the other side by doing some homework and reestablish a level of understanding and hopefully trust as well. Out of that will come a more reasonable, negotiable talks and stances that both side can better identify and adhere to. Furthermore, Washington also must recognize the difficulty of the position in which South Korea now finds itself. With that instead of the more activist US stance, Then patiently support the recently developed confidence of the two Koreas in their ability to manage their own affairs without foreign intervention.

by improving relations with North Korea, we improve relations with South Korea as well as south korea-north korea relations

We must also recognize the difficulty of the position in which South Korea now finds itself,. With that instead of the more activist US stance, Then patiently support the recently developed confidence of the two Koreas in their ability to manage their own affairs without foreign intervention.