"It was the US position that had moved 180 degrees. Not only
did it abandon its hard line early stance of refusal to meet
or talk to the North Koreans, but it seems to have dropped,
at least temporarily, three major matters that had been the
subject of bitter contention:
...How is such an apparent Washington change of heart to be
understood?"
Perhaps a deal was struck with China, giving the US something somewhere else in
the world.
rkm
--------------------------------------------------------
Original source URL:
http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2354
Email print
A Denuclearization Deal in Beijing:
The Prospect of Ending the 20th Century in East Asia
Gavan McCormack
On 13 February 2007, a historic deal was struck in Beijing commencing the
process of the denuclearization of Korea, comprehensive regional reconciliation,
ending the Korean War, and normalizing relations between North Korea and its two
historic enemies, Japan and the United States. The agreement is complex, and its
implications are enormous, not just for the peninsula. The following paper
offers a preliminary analysis.
The ³North Korea Problem²
The tectonic plates under East Asia have begun to shift. In a world where gloom
predominates and resort to force to settle disputes is common, and more often
than not indiscriminate, the prospect of war recedes, and a new order of peace
and cooperation begins to seem possible, radiating out from the very peninsula
that was throughout the 20th century one of the most violently contested and
militarized spots on earth. Japanese colonialism, the division of Korea and its
consequent civil and international war, the long isolation and rejection of
North Korea and its confrontation with the United States and with South Korea,
and the bitter hostility between it and Japan: all these things suddenly seem to
be negotiable.
With the end of the Cold War, in Europe accommodation replaced confrontation and
the iron curtain was raised, but in Asia, especially on the Korean peninsula,
things were more difficult. A US-North Korea accommodation was negotiated under
Clinton in 1994, which successfully froze North Korea¹s plutonium projects in
exchange for US economic aid and brought bilateral relations to the brink of
normalization in 2000, only to be returned to square one with the advent of
George W. Bush. His administration¹s hostility, near to absolute, precipitated
the collapse of the Geneva Agreed Framework, North Korea¹s withdrawal from the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and led, in October 2006, to its nuclear
test.
From August 2003, the United States and North Korea, flanked by the regional
countries Japan, China, Russia and South Korea have been sitting around a
table in Beijing from time to time to try to solve what is commonly called the
³North Korea problem.² There was, however, a fundamental difference of opinion
over the nature of that problem: for the US, it was a matter of curbing North
Korean nuclear weapons and ambitions. Pyongyang had to be brought to heel
because, as Dick Cheney once famously said, ³you do not negotiate with evil, you
defeat it.² For regional countries (North Korea included) however, the nuclear
issue was itself primarily symptomatic: it could not be addressed independently
of the matrix of unresolved historical contradictions in which it was set.
De-nuclearization and regional security were only likely to be accomplished as
part of diplomatic, political and economic normalization designed to address the
tragic legacies of the 20th century.
During those Beijing negotiations, the US long refused to talk to North Korea at
all, or consider any form of security guarantee, or any form of phased,
step-by-step, reciprocal mode of settlement. Any reference to the principles of
the Clinton government¹s ³Agreed framework² of 1994, in particular any
revisiting the question of the provision of light-water reactors to North Korea,
was anathema. All it was prepared to discuss was North Korea¹s unilateral
submission, or CVID (complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantling of its
nuclear weapons and materials). Eventually, however, after prolonged and intense
pressure from the majority (China, Russia, and South Korea), the US slowly
yielded, retreating from position after position as it found itself unable to
impose its will and unable to rely on the support of any of its partner
countries save Japan.
September 2005 The Agreement that Failed
In Beijing on 19 September 2005 at last an agreement was reached. The US
accepted the principle of a graduated, step-by-step approach to achieve full
nuclear disarmament and political, diplomatic and economic normalization, and it
agreed that North Korea¹s entitlement to light water reactors would be
considered once it rejoined the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In other words, the US
abandoned all of its previous positions and came to accept the position of the
Beijing majority, which in turn was actually very close to the North Korean
position.
Six-party representatives, September 14, 2005
It was the United States that then had to be dragged, protesting, to the signing
ceremony, only after it had exhausted all possibilities of delay and was fearful
of becoming what Jack Pritchard, formerly the State Department¹s top North Korea
expert, described as ³a minority of one Š isolated from the mainstream of its
four other allies and friends,² [1] and when it faced an ultimatum from the
Chinese chair of the conference to sign or bear responsibility for their
breakdown.[2]
Immediately after pledging ³respect,² however, at the closing ceremony in
Beijing the US representative, Christopher Hill, made a statement denouncing
North Korean illegal activities, declaring the intention to pursue it over human
rights, chemical and biological weapons and missiles, and insisting that nothing
in the Agreement should be considered as an endorsement of North Korea¹s
³system.²[3] It was as clear a statement as one could ask for of continuing
American hostility and refusal of respect. The following day, the US launched
financial sanctions designed to bring the Pyongyang regime down.
In other words, at the very moment when agreement was being painfully reached in
Beijing, American policy on North Korea came under the sway of those whose
loathing for the regime led them to be more concerned with achieving regime
change than with solving the nuclear question. Walking away from the Beijing
process, the US refused all North Korean overtures for discussion, and launched
a series of steps designed to ³strangle North Korea financially.² [4] They were
intent on literally closing it down, by delivery of a ³catastrophic blow² to the
very fundaments of the North Korean system.[5] Banks around the world were
pressured to refuse any dealings with North Korea because of allegations that
one small Macao bank, Banco Delta Asia (BDA), had been dealing in counterfeit,
North Korean-made, hundred dollar notes. At issue were deposits amounting to
twenty-odd million dollars, roughly the amount of money that the CEO of a US
multinational would earn in a year. No evidence whatever was offered to support
the US claims. South Korea¹s ambassador to the Six Party Talks, Chun Youngwoo,
referred to North Korea being ³besieged, squeezed, strangled and cornered by
hostile powers,² and noted that the talks had suffered from the ³visceral
aversion² and ³condescension, self-righteousness or a vindictive approach² on
the part of parties unnamed (by which he plainly meant the United States).[6]
US actions during this period from late 2005 would seem to have been based on a
combination of something called the ³Illicit Activities Initiative,² the
brainchild of Vice-President Cheney (recently detailed by Japanese journalist
Funabashi Yoichi),[7] and a design from Donald Rumsfeld¹s Pentagon under what
was known as ³Operation Plan 5030² to subvert North Korea by means short of
actual war, including ³disrupting financial networks and sowing
disinformation.²[8]
The basic details of the negotiation of the Beijing September 2005 agreement as
outlined here are well known: the ³North Korea problem,² differently stated, was
the ³US problem.² Yet so generally isolated and reviled is North Korea that one
could get little sense of this from the global media. Instead, Pyongyang was
almost universally blamed, both for its initial reluctance about the deal and
then for refusing to honor it (when Pyongyang, facing clear US plans for its
subversion, decided to demand that the light water reactors be provided as a
pre-condition before it would fulfill its obligations). The International Crisis
Group described the Bush administration as ³[a]ttempting to squeeze North Korea
into capitulation or collapse by wielding economic sanctions at the moment when
negotiations were beginning to bear fruit, refusing to meet with the North
outside the multilateral talks and pressing human rights concerns.²[9]
C. Kenneth Quinones, a former State Department official with considerable
experience in negotiation with North Korea, said that he had been able on no
less than three occasions in 2005 to find a basis for agreement between the
North Korean and US governments only to have his efforts sabotaged by the
Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld leadership. He referred to North Korea as being ³very
precise and consistent in their positions² while by contrast the track record of
the Bush administration was ³not one of diplomacy but rather one of vacillation,
inconsistency and, ultimately, undercutting the position and the efforts of its
own diplomats.²[10] Tom Lantos, from January 2007 Chair of the House
International Relations Committee, called on the administration to ³resolve the
feuds within its own ranks which have hobbled North Korean policy.²[11] In
short, the Bush administration was torn between the advocates of regime change
and of negotiated settlement, leaving its diplomacy ³dysfunctional.²[12]
After its pleas for direct talks on the US allegations, and its offer to open an
alternative account in a designated US bank, under appropriate surveillance,[13]
were rejected, and after due warning, North Korea then carried out missile and
nuclear tests in June and October 2006. Those tests are not to be defended, but
their context should be understood.
Taepodong-2 missile
North Korea¹s Test and the US Elections
Some time later, and after United Nations Security Council resolutions
condemning North Korea and imposing limited sanctions, the US position changed
and the Bush administration agreed, for the first time, to direct talks with
North Korea. These talks were held over three days in Berlin in January 2007,
and a Memorandum of Agreement was signed under which North Korea would freeze
its nuclear programs, stop its reactor, re-affiliate with the Nuclear
Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and open its plants to IAEA inspectors, as the first
step towards full nuclear disarmament. In return the US would, as a first step
in reconciliation, provide energy and humanitarian aid and pledge to unfreeze
the North Korean accounts in Macao. The US is also said to have ³responded
positively² to North Korea¹s request for the conversion of the 1953 armistice
into a peace treaty. Shortly afterwards, US Treasury officials met with
officials from Pyongyang to discuss the Macao bank matter, after which it was
widely reported that some proportion at least (most likely around 11 million
dollars) of the frozen North Korean funds would soon be unfrozen.[14]
The Berlin agreement was then confirmed and fleshed out at a 6-Party meeting in
Beijing on 8 to 13 February 2007. North Korea would within sixty days shut down
and seal its Yongbyon reactor as a first step towards its permanent
³disablement,² and bring back the IAEA inspectors. The other parties would grant
it an immediate aid shipment of 50,000 tons of heavy oil and an additional
950,000 tons of oil (or cash equivalent) when at the end of the sixty days the
North Koreans presented their detailed inventory of nuclear weapons and
facilities to be dismantled. Talks would begin with the US and Japan aimed at
normalizing their relations. The US would ³begin the process² of removing the
designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism and ³advance the
process² of terminating the application to it of the Trading with the Enemy Act.
Five working groups were to be set up to address the questions of peninsula
denuclearization, normalization of DPRK-US relations, normalization of
DPRK-Japan relations, economy and energy cooperation, and Northeast Asian peace
and security.[15] The parties pledged to ³take positive steps to increase mutual
trust² and the directly related parties to ³negotiate a permanent peace regime
on the Korean peninsula.²
The process of steering the Beijing agreement towards full nuclear disarmament
and diplomatic, political, and economic normalization on the Korean peninsula
will at best be prolonged and fraught with difficulty, but Washington¹s
readiness to start normalizing relations with North Korea, removing the
terrorist label from it and easing economic and financial restrictions on doing
business with it, even before completion of nuclear disarmament, were major and
unexpected concessions.[16] An end to that half-century long embargo, and
diplomatic and economic normalization, would certainly meet North Korea¹s
³precise and consistent² aims and render nuclear defenses unnecessary. However,
while the general principles are clear, much remains vague about how to achieve
the wider goals.
Some accounts suggest that North Korea suddenly became amenable to reason
because of Security Council Resolution No 1718 and its accompanying sanctions
(following North Korea¹s nuclear test), or because of Chinese pressure, or
severe economic conditions. But that argument seems disingenuous. North Korea
had scarcely changed its position since the Beijing talks began - or indeed
since it entered the Geneva Agreements with Clinton. It had always been ready
for a freeze, leading to step-by-step de-nuclearization, but only as part of a
process leading to security and normalization.
It was the US position that had moved 180 degrees. Not only did it abandon its
hard line early stance of refusal to meet or talk to the North Koreans, but it
seems to have dropped, at least temporarily, three major matters that had been
the subject of bitter contention:
(1) HEU: the supposed secret North Korean highly enriched uranium-based weapons
program - so important in 2002 as to have led to the collapse of the Clinton
Agreed Framework and the present phase of crisis;
(2) BDA: the Macao bank counterfeit charges - so important in 2005-6 as to have
been the principal cause of a twelve month-long crisis. Christopher Hill, the
chief US delegate in Beijing, announced as the delegates were about to disperse
that this dispute would be settled ³within 30 days,² which could only mean that
it had already been settled.[17]
Banco Delta Asia
(3) LWR: North Korea¹s demand for light water reactors, a key component of the
1994 Clinton agreement always fiercely opposed by the Bush administration but of
the utmost importance for North Korea, canceled by Washington at the end of
2002, when works were about 40 per cent complete, and bitterly disputed in
2005.[18].
Whether these matters had all, like the Macao Bank matter, been amicably
resolved behind the scenes remained to be seen.
Christopher Hill announcing tentative agreement, Feb. 12
Bush Shocks?
How is such an apparent Washington change of heart to be understood? The
fundamental factors would seem to have been the US Republican debacle in the
Congressional elections of November 2006 and the continuing catastrophe of Iraq,
together with the increasingly sharp focus of the Bush administration¹s
attention on Iran, and the likelihood that the Middle East war would be greatly
expanded. It was the more important for the administration to have something to
show for the long Beijing process at a time when US diplomacy elsewhere was in
tatters and the Middle East erupting. It may be that the degeneration of the
Middle East might also be inclining the US towards an accommodation with China
over boundaries of influence in East Asia. North Korea¹s October 2006 nuclear
test also undoubtedly caught Washington¹s attention in a way nothing else could.
One Japanese commentator offered the following perspective: Bush was returning,
essentially, to the Clinton formula of 1994, with the great change that
Pyongyang had become nuclear on his watch - although the word ³freeze² was an
anathema, and instead ³dismantling² was used at every opportunity. The Bush CVID
formula had morphed into something like its opposite: partial, prolonged,
unverifiable (any agreement would have to rely, fundamentally, on trust, since
North Korea plainly possessed substantial stocks of plutonium and might be
expected to try to ³salt² some away hidden from inspections against the
possibility of negotiations over normalization stalling), and reversible (since
the experience of producing and testing nuclear weapons could not be expunged),
and the Bush solution for Northeast Asia involved greater reliance on China
(restoring a kind of ³tribute system²). For the first time, there was a real
prospect of peace treaties (US-North Korea, Japan-North Korea) and normalization
on all sides. US Forces would serve no further function in South Korea and Japan
under such an order and might in due course be withdrawn (or sent to the Middle
East). Parliamentarians in Seoul were said to be talking of a South-North Korea
summit in August 2006, possibly to be followed by a grand 4-sided (Two Koreas,
China and the US) conference to establish a new peninsula order.[19]
The Nixon Shocks of 1970 would pale by comparison with such ³Bush Shocks.² South
Korea and Japan face especially large consequences. For Japan, dependence on the
US has been the almost unquestioned foundation of national policy for over half
a century. A new level of subjection to US regional and global purpose,
presupposing an ongoing North Korean threat, has just been negotiated.[20] The
prospect of anything like the above shift in US Asian policy would be
devastating to Tokyo. It can hardly have been coincidental that previously
unimaginable rumbles of criticism of the Bush administration began to be heard
from Tokyo, from the Minister of Defense and Minister of Foreign Affairs no
less, over Iraq, a ³mistaken² war whose justification had not existed and which
had been pursued in ³childish² manner, and over Okinawa, where the US was too
³high-handed². Neither earned more than the mildest of rebukes from the Prime
Minister.[21] When the Beijing deal was struck, Japan was notably the odd-man
out. Both Abe and his chief negotiator in Beijing, Sasae Kenichiro, protested
that Japan could not be party to any aid to North Korea until the abduction
issue was settled, so the financial tabs would be picked up by the US, China,
and South Korea (Russia was assisting North Korea independently by agreeing to
cancel 90 per cent of its debt, estimated to be in the range of 8 billion
dollars).[22]
Prime Minister Abe Shinzo owed his rise to political power in Japan in large
part to his ability to concentrate national anti-North Korea sentiment over the
issue of abductions of Japanese citizens in the late 1970s and early 1980s. If
the North Korean nuclear issue is now to be resolved, Japan faces the
possibility of a reversal in US policy as relations are normalized with North
Korea and China assumes significantly greater weight in American thinking. Japan
found itself isolated at Beijing precisely because it had allowed domestic
political considerations to prevail over international ones in framing the North
Korean abductions of 1977 to 1982 as a unique North Korean crime against Japan
rather than as a universal one of human rights (since in such a frame Japan
itself would become the greatest 20th century perpetrator, and Koreans, north
and south, among the greatest victims).[23]
In Seoul too, specialists on South-North relations and major think tanks
expressed alarm that, after so long determinedly standing in the way of any
solution to the underlying peninsula problems, the US now might be moving too
fast. In the longer term, a united, de-nuclearized and substantially
demilitarized Korea, rich in resources and high levels of education, at the
center of the world¹s most dynamic economic region, could be expected to play an
ever more prominent role, perhaps the core role in the construction of the
Northeast Asian Community that might, in due course, grow out of the Beijing-Six
grouping, but in the short term the risk of suddenly destabilizing the historic
logjam of North Korea could be considerable, especially if, for example, the UN
command were to be dissolved and US forces drastically or totally withdrawn in
the process of normalizing relations with North Korea before the process of
de-nuclearization was complete.[24]
As for North Korea, having stood firm in the face of denunciation, abuse and
threat, having pressed ahead with missile and nuclear tests and ignored the UN
Security Council¹s two unanimous resolutions of condemnation and its ensuing
sanctions, in other words having stuck to its guns, both metaphorically and
literally, it seemed to be on the brink of accomplishing its long term ³precise
and consistent² objectives -- security, an end to sanctions, and normalization
of relations with both the US and Japan. It was something for its leader, Kim
Jong Il, to relish on the eve of his 66th birthday (16 February). It would
certainly not be easy for North Korea to give up the nuclear card, which it had
already celebrated publicly as a historic event and guarantee of security, but
the point of the Berlin and Beijing agreements was to construct a framework of
trust and cooperation in which other ³assurances² of security would became
unnecessary. That would be a long-term process, but it was beginning.
Kim Jong Il and his generals
Repercussions
American neo-conservatives were furious at their government¹s apparent reversal.
Dan Blumenthal and Aaron Friedberg wrote that the talks were ³a step in the
wrong direction,² rewarding ³the world¹s worst regime² for its bad behavior.
They argued that the pressure should be stepped up, North Korean ships and
aircraft subject to ³aggressive interdiction,² and pressure applied to China to
compel its cooperation.[25] For Nicholas Eberstadt, ³the Bush Administration¹s
North Korean climb-down has been almost dizzying to watch Š [it] was proffering
a zero-penalty return to the previous nuclear deals Pyongyang had flagrantly
broken but with additional new goodies, and a provisional free pass for any
nukes produced since 2002, as sweeteners.²[26] When the deal was done, former UN
ambassador, John Bolton, denounced it as ³a very bad deal,² making the Bush
administration ³look very weak.²[27]
It is true that in the short-term Kim Jong Il stood to be ³rewarded² by the kind
of settlement underway, but the fact is that the greatest beneficiaries are
likely to be the long-suffering people of North Korea. War, periodically
considered by the US, would have brought unimaginable disaster, not only to the
people of North Korea but to the entire region. ³Pressure and sanctions,² as
South Korea¹s former Unification Minister recently commented, ³tend to reinforce
the regime rather than weaken it.²[28] Normalization, on the other hand, will
require the leaders of North Korea¹s ³guerrilla state,²[29] whose legitimacy has
long been rooted in their ability to hold powerful and threatening enemies at
bay, to respond to the demands of their people for improved living conditions
and greater freedoms. Songun (primacy to the military) policies have thrived on
confrontation and tension. As the diplomatic and security environment is
normalized they will have to give way to sonmin (primacy to the civilian)
policies. A completely different kind of legitimation will be necessary.
If there is a North Korean ³lesson² in this, however, it might be the somewhat
paradoxical one that it pays to have nuclear weapons and negotiate from a
position of strength (unlike Saddam Hussein, or the present leadership of Iran),
and that it helps to have no oil (at least no significant and verified
deposits), no quarrel with Israel, few Arabs or Muslims, and no involvement
(despite the rhetorical excesses of the Bush administration) in any ³axis of
evil.² Undoubtedly it pays too to have neighbors like North Korea¹s, who have
recognized the regional costs of war and ruled out any resort to force against
it.
The test for both North Korea and the US comes in the months ahead: can they
begin quickly enough to build trust in sufficient measure to outweigh the
accumulated half-century of hostility? Pyongyang¹s next step has to be to
prepare and submit the inventory of its nuclear weapons, materials, and
facilities. Kim Jong Il will have to deploy all his power and prestige to
enforce such a commitment if that is indeed his intention. Conservatives will
undoubtedly resist and seek to avoid meeting such obligation. For the US, the
test will be no less: the neoconservative base of the Bush regime will resist
meeting US obligations, lifting the terrorist label, ending sanctions, winding
up the Macao bank inquiries, ³trusting² and relating normally to a regime it has
hated passionately.
The Beijing parties have opened the way towards a new, multi-polar and post-US
hegemonic order in Northeast Asia. The 6-Party conference format might in due
course become institutionalized as a body for addressing common problems of
security, environment, food and energy, etc, the precursor of a future regional
community. It is hard to imagine any event with greater capacity to transform
the regional and global system than the peaceful settlement of the many problems
rooted in and around North Korea. The Beijing February 2007 agreement may only
be a first step, but its implications are huge.
[1] Charles L. (Jack) Pritchard, ³Six Party Talks Update: False Start or a Case
for Optimism,² Conference on ³The Changing Korean Peninsula and the Future of
East Asia,² sponsored by the Brookings Institution and Joongang Ilbo, 1 December
2005.
[2] Funabashi Yoichi, Za peninshura kueschon, Asahi shimbunsha, 2006, pp. 610.
See also Joseph Kahn and David E. Sanger, ³U.S.-Korean deal on arms leaves key
points open,² New York Times, 20 September 2005.
[3] Funabashi, p. 616.
[4] Philippe Pons, ³Les Etats-Unis tentent d¹asphyxier financierement le regime
de Pyongyang,² Le Monde, 26 April 2006.
[5] David Asher, senior adviser on North Korea matters to the Bush
administration, interviewed in Takase Hitoshi, ³Kin Shojitsu o furueagareseta
otoko,² Bungei shunju, October 2006, pp. 214-221, at p. 216.
[6] ³The North Korean nuclear issue,² Speech delivered to Hankyoreh Foundation
conference, Pusan, 25 November 2006.
[7] Funabashi Yoichi, ³Chosen hanto dai niji kiki no butaiura,² Asahi shimbun,
21 October 2006; Za peninshura kueschon, pp. 545, 648.
[8] Bruce B. Auster and Kevin Whitelaw, ³Upping the Ante for Kim Jong Il:
Pentagon Plan 5030, a New Blueprint for Facing Down North Korea,² U.S. News and
World Report, 21 July 2003.
www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/030721/21korea.htm.
[9] International Crisis Group, Policy Briefing, Asia Briefing No. 52, 9 August
2006.
[10] C. Kenneth Quinones, ³The United States and North Korea: Observations of an
Intermediary,² lecture to US-Korea Institute at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University,
2 November 2006, audio link at:
http://www.uskoreainstitute.org/events/index.htm.
[11] Quoted in Selig Harrison, ³A humbled administration rethinks North Korea
and Iraq,² The Hankyoreh, 28 November 2006.
[12] Selig Harrison¹s word: ³Pyongyang¹s nuclear future and the choice of
Washington and Seoul,² The Hankyoreh, 5 February 2007.
[13] ³Yukizumaru 6-sha kyogi,² Sekai, May 2006, pp. 258-265, at p. 259.
[14] ³Kita Chosen koza Œsen hyaku man en toketsu kaijo mo,¹ Bei ga Nikkan ni,²
Asahi shimbun, 12 February 2007.
[15] ³Initial Actions for the Implementation of the Joint Statement,² Joint
Statement from the Third Session of the Fifth Round of the Six-Party Talks, 13
February 2007. Nautilus Institute, Special Report, 13 February 2007.
[16] Demetri Sevastopulo, ³US signals flexibility on N. Korea,² Financial Times,
6 February 2007.
[17] Edward Cody, ³N. Korea agrees to nuclear disarmament,² The Washington Post,
13 February 2007.
[18] Nobuyoshi Sakajiri, ³N. Korea seeks massive aid for nuclear deal,² Asahi
shimbun, 5 February 2007.
[19] Tanaka Sakai, ³Chosen hanto o hi-Beika suru Amerika,² Tanakanews, 6
February 2007. http://tanakanews.com/070206korea.htm
[20] This matter is addressed in detail in my forthcoming Client State: Japan in
the American Embrace, London, Verso, 2007.
[21] For a brief account, ³Criticism of Iraq war,² editorial, Asahi shimbun, 8
February 2007.
[22] ³Rokkakoku kyogi: Kankoku no futan wa saidai de 935 oku en,² Chosun ilbo,
13 February 2007.
[23] For detailed analysis: Gavan McCormack and Wada Haruki, "Forever stepping
back: the strange record of 15 years of negotiation between Japan and North
Korea," in John Feffer, ed, The Future of US-Korean Relations: The imbalance of
power, London and New York, Routledge, 2006, pp. 81-100.
[24] Tanaka Sakai, cit.
[25] Dan Blumenthal and Aaron Friedberg, ³Not too Late to Curb Dear Leader - The
road to Pyongyang runs through Beijing,² The Weekly Standard, 12 February 2007,
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/246vdcgk.asp
[26] Nicholas Eberstadt, ³Kim Jong Il¹s nuclear ambitions,² Nautilus Institute,
Policy Forum Online 07-010A, 7 February 2007,
http://nautilus.org/fora/security/07010Eberstadt.html.
[27] Jim Yardley and David E. Sanger, ³In shift, accord on North Korea seems to
be set,² New York Times, 13 February 2007.
[28] Kim Jong Il and the prospects for Korean unification,² US-Korea Institute,
School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 28 November
2006. http://www.uskoreainstitute.org/events/index.htm
[29] Japanese historian Wada Haruki¹s term, in his various writings on the
modern history of North Korea.
Gavan McCormack is a coordinator at Japan Focus and author of various articles
there, as well as a text - Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the Brink
of Nuclear Catastrophe, (New York, 2004, translated into Japanese in 2004 and
Korean in 2006). His new book, Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, will
be published shortly from Verso Books. He is an emeritus professor at Australian
National University.
Find other recent McCormack assessments of Korea-related issues here, here.
--
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