[A Rising South Korea] More on the handling of the Cheonan disaster/fiasco

When thinking of the Cheonan disaster/fiasco, probably a couple things that some people might think include whether the whole thing is a conspiracy -- as in why would North Korea do something so self-destructive and it seems to extremeley convenient for the Japanese  Prime Minister to renege on his campaign promises of moving U.S. bases off Okinawa-- and, also, whether South Korea unlike during previous administration has been doing the right thing by internationalizing the incident. But, of course, there is the evidence conducted by experts from South Korea, the United States, Japan, Australia -- and Sweden. (I wonder if they chose Sweden out of their expertise or because the name is not too different from Switzerland.)

Anyways, consider the recent announcement of combined U.S. - ROK naval exercises.

Peter Grier:

US-South Korean naval exercises tend to be smaller scale. Last week, the US cancelled a previously scheduled annual event called “Courageous Channel,” a naval exercise intended to practice the evacuation of noncombatants from the Korean peninsula. At the time, US military officials said that they did not want North Korea to think that the exercise, set to run from May 20-24, was a response to the Cheonan incident.

Now the US apparently wants to make the opposite impression, by announcing naval exercises billed as a direct response to the Cheonan’s sinking. According to a White House statement, President Obama has ordered his military commanders to coordinate closely with South Korea “to ensure readiness and to deter future aggression” by North Korea.

But, anyways, back to earlier posts, it's interesting to see the stark difference between what the U.S. is saying and what China is not saying.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

I will be discussing these issues with my counterparts in Beijing next week, and then I will travel to Seoul, to consult with our South Korean partners about the way forward. But let me be clear. This will not be and cannot be business as usual. There must be an international -- not just a regional, but an international -- response (US-Japan Joint Press Conference).

This suggests that the U.S. has not and will not simply be able to trade away a new round of UNSC sanctions on North Korea in exchange for China's announced support -- on the same day -- for a new round of sanctions against Iran. So, for a country such as South Korea that seeks so much prestige and respect as an independent and powerful country -- e.g. U.N. Security General, G-20 presidency, and the strange usage of trying to sound out Chinese names rather than use the Korean characters associated with each Chinese character. I simply cannot understand why some would like to go back to the Sunshine Policy.  

On a side note, with respect to Iran what is with upstart Brazil? Out of nowhere Brazil, which sits comfortably in South America, is naively complicating things that's in the best interest for the rest of the world.

Anyways, I believe what the U.S. Secretary of State was referring to when she used the term "not just a regional but an international response" is the trilateral meetings between China-Japan-South Korea in Gyeongju, South Korea (May 15th) -- home to the historical capital of Silla, which has symbolic imporance as Pyongyang was also the historical capital for a rival state on the Korean peninsula, Gogouryeo and those to be held at the end of the month in Jeju Island again at the foreign minister/secretary of state level. By the way, anybody take notice of how strange it is that while they take this to the United Nations, what nationality the U.N. Security Security General holds?

Anyways, consider U.S. remarks next to that of the Chinese...

But while expressing condolences for the South Korean sailors who died aboard the Cheonan, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi merely reaffirmed Beijing's stance that "a scientific and objective investigation is important." Yang did not mention the possibility of a link between North Korea and the shipwreck (Chosun Ilbo).

This was before proof of North Korean involvement was put on display. A very big difference how this incident is being handled and, say, the kidnapping of South Korean fishermen and the shoooting of a civilian in Mount Geumgang.

With respect to arguing directly against the rather ridiculous positions -- blame the South Korean President?! -- taken by the South Korean left recently, I'll defer to the regular Korea bloggers.

[A Rising South Korea] Talk of war is a good thing... Yes, a good thing...

The odds for North Korea to win the 2010 World Cup in South Africa is are set at 1000:1 -- I'm going to have to put down a small wager here. (only New Zealand is being given worse odds at 2000:1.) Though they will have to survive Brazil and Portugal in the first round, they do have two Japanese born, ethnic Korean professional soccer players who have vowed to represent DPRK in the world cup. I hope they can come through. Interestingly enough, I believe the only two Asian "nations" to have gone beyond the first round is, well, made it to the quarterfinals are North Korea (1966) and South Korea (2002). They both made it to the quarterfinals...  

Anyways, talk of war is just people like us realizing that South Korea is definitely taking a leading role in this crisis by internationlizing this incident as it forces China and to an extent the U.S. to address the issue. So here, when we read about 3,000+ articles about the possibility of war, it's actually a good thing. Yes, I'm saying it's a good thing [well, not so much for China] as it puts a giant magnifying glass on both China and obscure, little North Korea. This makes the political and diplomatic price of China supporting North Korea very expensive and, of course, further marginalizes North Korea. But here, just in case this is left to misinterpretation, studies have suggested, such as those by Stephen Haggard and Marcus Noland most recently, that North Korea is losing control over the country on her own and combining their study with their earlier studies, it appears NGOs seem to have almost a neglible role on the flow of refugees. So, I'm not advocating that we should (or there is even a need) to directly try to cause regime change. This was before the currency crisis showed the world how far North Korea had fallen. We should on the other hand be properly prepared to move in soldiers in the event of Kim Jong Il dying before Communist China does...

It's best for the U.S. to show unequivocal public support and sympathy for South Korea, while China stumbles through this mess. I don't think there will be six party talks nor would North Korea be willing to go back to China for a round of six-party talks after a new round of UNSC Sanctions (again, it'll be more of a 5 on 1 forum then). And, just to recall, it cost China at least $2.1 billion for those sanctions and climbing last time around.

Interestingly, if South Korea had not internationalized the incident, I believe as in previous South Korean administrations -- nothing would've happened and Communist China would be able to play a two-Korea policy, while both Koreas adhere to a one-China policy.

But, especially those on the left in South Korea should realize that talk of potential war is really a good thing especially if South Korea continues to experience economic growth rates of 5% or so as it forces the two continental country's to address the issue. It definitely is a good demonstration of how far South Korea has come.

But, of course, if Japan starts to feel capital flight, then it's time to of course get out of Northeast Asia.

But, seriously, with all the rage over North Korea and so much information out there (Google News has 3,433 4,666 similar articles on the Cheonan incident, which is about the same level seen when the health care reform package in the U.S. was passed) that it's hard to know what to believe. But, after reading quite a few editorials, I think South Korea is definitely coming of age. While I continue to believe absolutely nothing beyond the symbolic will be necessary on the part of the U.S. (perhaps a new UNSC resolution if South Korea plays her cards right) and a trip by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should suffice -- and maybe even putting North Korea back on the list of states sponsoring terrorism. But, if South Korea continues to internationalize the issue, the U.S. won't be able to simply just trade away North Korea for Iran to China.

And, on a side note here, China should realize the difference between delivering [the U.S. delivering Taiwan to China] and the image of trying to pretend that they can deliver [six party talks]. They should note that the U.S. looks at Taiwanese independence rather dismally -- of course, the U.S. does placate Taiwanese interests by selling them high end U.S. weaponry.

I wrote earlier about what we should be looking for before Kim Jong Il's visit and again during his visit. This was before any real attention was paid to news of the Cheonan sinking. The two things were:

1) Will there be a new UNSC resolution against North Korea ? [It's looking more and more likely]

2) Will North Korea receive additional aid? [Joongang Ilbo reported no, which news organizations and bloggers around the world picked up on]

The answers appear to be looking as if China is hedging very much against a North Korean collapse after the death of Kim Jong Il and China is looking rather feeble.

South Korea -- Lee Myung Bak's Presidency Until Today...

I'm thoroughly impressed by the job South Korean President Lee Myung Bak has done. While he got off to a rocky start and began with a couple rather ridiculous campaign promises (e.g. 747 plan or 7% growth rate, improving the canal system in South Korea in the 21st century), he has guided the highly export dependent country through the "Great Recession" and the country after having chalked up positive economic growth last year is set to witness another 5% in real growth this year and slightly less next year.

But, what I find to be the most amazing is how effective he seems to be when steering South Korea through this Cheonan tragedy/fiasco (on the part of North Korea). I mean, just a couple years ago, it seemed to be the case that South Korea under the now defunct Sunshine Policy looked rather impotent. Not too long ago the country continued to give money to North Korea even as it became increasingly clear that North Korea really had no intent to reform the country. North Korea last year formally went from being a revolutionary communist kingdom to a military-first (probably fascist) revolutionary kingdom. Of course, at the same time the income gap between the South and North continued to and continues to widen.

Nonetheless, when the U.S. raised the ante by pretty much bending over backwards to see if North Korea would actually give up its nuclear weapons program, it was far from clear if the South Korean government had the courage, the political fortitude to withstand a very loud opposition those that had previously supported the Sunshine Policy as well as from within the party (Park Chung Hee's daughter) and the foresightedness to do more than just give into short-term North Korean demands for aid.  I mean the U.S. at that point gave North Korea money back it made from counterfeiting U.S. dollars among other ridiculous activities that "state" would actually engage in and even irked Japan to the point of notifying the country a good thirty minutes before taking North Korea off the list of states sponsoring terrorism... Japan, of course, was at that point being held hostage by its domestic outrage over having its citizens kidnapped.

But, it seems clear today that Lee Myung Bak is indeed coming through for his country. He flew into China mere days before Kim Jong Il's train arrived. There are reports (all seemingly quoting Joongang Ilbo) that China refused to give further aid or food to Kim Jong Il's kingdom, a visit from the Chinese foreign minister to Gyeongju of all places (the historical capital of Silla and where I believe the city is now currently so devoid of economic or actually any activity outside of its tourists that it lost its baseball team a few years back), and appears to be building an international consensus where it actually looks as if another round United Nations Security Council (UNSC) of sanctions might go through.

I'm impressed.

So, what should be done about North Korea?

Among other things that are going on, there seems to be a lot of speculation in major U.S. publications, among the South Korean Press, and, well, pretty much all over the place about what to do about North Korea. Though domestic U.S. media is currently preoccupied with the BP spill ($30+ billion dollar loss in market cap), there seem to be almost a daily number of articles & incredible number of editorials on the topic in the past couple weeks... Well, here's my position South Korea should do nothing in full FDR fashion by switching from blaming U.S. and Japan for hampering Korean reunification to Chinese selfishness ("stability" so it can get "rich") and support for North Korea (the hapless North Koreans, who are being taken advantage of by the Chinese). I meant in full FDR fashion as a way of slowly building or manufacturing consent (whichever term you prefer) for possible unification. In material terms, South Korea should do nothing as NGOs don't seem to be particularly effective and, just let North Korea be -- without subsidies. Nothing else though.  

Similarly, I believe North Korea's opportunity to receive U.S. aid (or the U.S. just buying out North Korea's WMD program) has come and gone. So, I'd suggest that it is high time to prepare the South Korean public for unification -- FDR style. I mean there is the planning over the what ifs -- I spoke earlier about OPLAN-5029, which details U.S. and South Korean (ROK) armed forces crossing over into North Korea primarily to secure North Korea's weapons of mass destruction (they have stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons that get less media attention, though I'm not as sure of the latter). But, this is just one small aspect.  On a side note, unlike Iraq or Afghanistan there is also a rich country with the right people to occupy the country, if necessary. Though, of course, unlike invading Iraq or Afghanistan, the war might turn out to be much more like World War I, but against a much more suicidal enemy (kind of like Imperial Japan).

With the current Cheonan sinking incident it's time for the South Korean government to slowly manufacture consent not unlike the Sunshine Policy, which did the same against unification for the past deacde. For example, anti-North Korean sentiment should naturally be diverted to anti-Chinese sentiment since South Korea really can't (and shouldn't) do anything (For example, long term DPRK concessions to the Chinese, such as, the port of Rajin -- which looks like a reality, should be as well known as Dokdo). 

The U.S. should continue to give symbolic assurances (aside from ratifying KORUS, which goes beyond the symbolic and which should have been ratified much, much earlier) of U.S. support for South Korea and. For starters, avoid (skip) the six-party talks until the Cheonan incident get's resolved and Kim Jong Il dies. This should serve to build pro-U.S. support for any unified Korea or for whichever type of regime comes next. Given South Korea's national psyche and inclination to blame outside forces, this shouldn't take too long. If this is indeed what happens, we'll be less likely to hear from Korean press about Dokdo (Liancourt Rocks) and more about Goguryeo (Goguryeo) for a long while.  

I don't put much weight on the thought of the Chinese ever deciding to actually add North Korea to China proper (I mean North Korea is not a Xinjiang or Tibet. And, I think there's probably a reason why nobody aside from the Tang Dynasty in the 7th century and Japan in modern times really tried to annex Korea (though I believe it was discussed in China during the latter days of the 19th century to ward off Japanese influence and it's not just because of the historical, tributary system in Asia).  Imagine trying to govern the most xenophobic, nationalistic, and ethnocentric (perhaps, racist) people in the world.  

Moreover, I'm not fully convinced that China is fully backing the North Korea regime. If anything, China would love to be in the position of the United States -- hence, the reason why the South Korean President was met days before Kim Jong Il. Moreover, these concessions in the form of long term leases of ports (Rajin) or mines, etc, seem more like short term hedges against a North Korean collapse and just create North Korean resentment toward China. And, if anything, while we always consider how South Koreans might lean in the event of unification, I'd bet that current Chinese policies in North Korea would cement Anti-Chinese sentiment among North Koreans in a future, unified Korean peninsula for generations.

After a couple of decades as being the lone ranger in Northeast Asia (Japan and Australia really don't count here), it seems the U.S. is finally in a rather nice position.

China? Decidedly, less so.

So, what's going on in North Korea these days?

Although North Korea's recent currency reform debacle is showing the world how far the DPRK government has fallen, it also seems that at the same time the Do Not Let North Korea Fail at all costs idea I have been writing about up until now may no longer be applicable. Especially as media coverage on the DPRK's food situation seems to be rather sparse -- or at the very least given little attention, my guess is that the United States and South Korea have all, but given up on negotiating with North Korea and are waiting to see what happens when Kim Jong Il dies. And, while China seems to have come through on aid after the implementation of the most recent round of sanctions, these sanctions do seem to be working and I believe the U.S. estimates that arm sales by North Korea have dropped in half. Plus, as there is no longer a lifeline from South Korea as under the previous two South Korean administrations (consider the threat by North Korea to seize South Korean assets in the DPRK), it finally seems the powers that be have all agreed to finally strangle stop subsidizing Kim Jong Il's regime. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but we can get a rough glimpse at how North Koreans may perceive their government by looking at studies that have been coming out ever since the end of the famine and how much control the DPRK government retains over its people.

In particular, consider the study, "Political Attitudes under Repression: Evidence from North Korean Refugees" by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland (The pdf file is free). This was published just this month and is at the cutting edge of what is known about how North Koreans may feel about their government. I would at the very least read through the introduction and look at the nice graphs.  Even though the study is at the cutting edge of what is currently known, consider that one of the aspects of the study was to see if North Koreans make jokes about the government or Kim Jong Il -- I believe in order to see how much control the government still has over its people. These views had to be extrapolated out of representative samples of North Koreans living outside of the country. This goes to show how little information on North Korea has been available in the past and even with large numbers of North Koreans leaving their country recently, how little is still actually known about North Korea.

Unlike their earlier studies, such as, "Exit Polls: Refugee Assessments of North Korea's transition," this study focused more on changing views of North Koreans' government in the past decade or so (again, it highlights how much more information on North Korea has become available in the aftermath of the famine).

The study tries to address what North Koreans thought were the best paths at social mobility in terms of "getting ahead" or "making money." The study suggests a picture of a government that is widely thought to be corrupt  -- the study shows becoming a government official or a party member as the best way to get ahead and engaging in market, corrupt, or criminal activity as the best way to make money (working hard at assigned task looks to be at zero percent). Also, of note is that the study suggests the vast majority of North Koreans blame failed DPRK policies for their economic plight and, unsurprisingly, zero percent to global economic factors.

However, while the study again showed economic reasons as the primary reason for leaving North Korea, also of note is that in the study's samples 1% cited religious freedom to be their primary motive for leaving. Combining this with their earilier work that show a similarly low figure leaving North Korea primarily due to the assistance of NGOs, I wonder how effective NGOs truly are -- as most are led by religious movements.

So, perhaps, it's a good bet to see if the DPRK will manage to survive another -- revolutionary -- hereditary succession.

What to expect from Clinton's "Summit"

And, Kim Jong Il Gets What He Wants... (Which is ? Scroll to the way bottom)

While former President Clinton goes to North Korea (as an unoffical guest, which is quite convenient for the U.S.), Kim Jong Il finally gets his one-on-one encounter with a (former, Democratic) U.S. president -- before he dies. It made all the headlines here in the U.K. as well, however I couldn't find an equivalent of the one they had at over at the Economist. I nabbed the picture below from "North Korea: Pictures from an exhibition" : The Economist.

At any rate, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il finally got the attention he so craved. While reading one of the U.K. dailies today, I came across this one part, which I thought was quite funny. These are insults that have been traded between the U.S. and the North Korean regime at one point or another:

Kim Jong-il may have been all smiles and handshakes with Bill, but just a few days ago his regime was in something of a slanging match with the other Clinton.

On a recent visit to New Delhi, Hillary, the Secretary of State, bemoaned the North Korean leadership's "constant demand for attention," before adding: "Maybe it's the mother in me or the experience that I've had with small children and unruly teenagers."

The North Koreans' response was firm. "We cannot but regard Mrs Clinton as a funny lady as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community," a spokesperson said. "Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes like a pensioner going shopping."

The name-calling between Washington and Pyongyang is not new. George W Bush branded Kim Jong-il "a spoiled child at a dinner table". The North Koreans called Bush a "tyrannical imbecile" lacking "even an iota of elementary reason". And in 1968, North Korea's Major-General Pak Chung Kuk called Lyndon Johnson a "living corpse" ("Two U.S. journalists freed from Korean gulag" : The Independent).

At any rate, there was a lot of press coverage, but with expectations suddenly raised between North Korea and the U.S., although I feel I am a quite an optimist by nature, I cannot be more than a tad pessimistic about what may lay ahead. This "summit" has all the elements that the Koizumi-Kim summit had in 2002 when Koizumi suddenly and unexpectedly arrived in North Korea for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il for the release of Japanese abductees. Of course, none at the time and nobody more so than former Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi could have anticipated how adversely the Japanese public would consume the news that their citizens had indeed been abducted.

Personally, I believe what will drive North Korea-U.S. relations as well as with the other four parties from the six party framework, is how each party comes to accept the fact that North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons. This stands in stark and direct conflict with the fact that the United States will never accept North Korea as a legitimate nuclear power along the lines that the U.S. has with India -- and rightly so.

But, I do believe the U.S. would be content to see a steady-state where North Korea has nuclear weapons, but doesn't share/sell nuclear weapons or technology to other countries or non-state actors. Of course, this would hinge on North Korea not testing nuclear weapons (you can see this as the U.S. -- I'm thinking Department of Defense here, which has a different definition as to what constitutes a nuclear test than the U.S. State Department). And, of course, this action by the U.S. would in and of itself be a security guarantee for North Korea -- while not directly in the form of an alliance, the U.S. will do everything in its power to make sure a state with nuclear weapons does not collapse (think Pakistan).

But, pessimissm aside, I have a feeling that come one year -- and provided Kim Jong Il doesn't die, not much will have changed from how things were perhaps a couple years ago. If North Korea returns to a posture where it looks like it is going to negotiate, then South Korea can again start trading with North Korea and, well, unfortunately Japan looks like the odd man out (I'm quite concerned about what would happen if Japan's interests were not considered by the U.S., leading to Japan re-arming. Japan has quite a few greivances with all her neighbors: Kuril Islands/lack of peace treaty (Russia), Liancourt Rocks (Korea), No Peace Treaty (North Korea), and the Senkaku Islands (China/Republic of China(Taiwan)). I'm probably missing some others as well.

Anyways, I'm thinking that at best we can expect a return to the status quo and see what type of vocabulary each country uses to come up with a tacit acceptance of North Korea's nuclear weapons program as no country will go to war with North Korea to get rid of it.

(So, Kim Jong Il gets a de-facto security guarantee from the United States with the potential for much more).