Sun, Oct 22, 2006 page9

• North Korea: The problem and a solution

  If the UN Security Council's sanctions don't work, the only option left would be to support South Korea's engagement in serious negotiations with the North

  • By Bruce Jacobs
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  In seeking a solution to North Korea as a nuclear power, one must ask the question, "Is Kim Jong-il crazy?"

  The answer is both "yes" and "no."

  Kim clearly has performed many "crazy" acts. In 1983, he blew up a large part of the South Korean Cabinet in Rangoon, Burma.

  He has kidnapped ordinary Japanese people off the streets in order to train his spies.

  He has kidnapped South Korean movie stars in order to enhance his efforts at directing films.

  He has diplomats run drugs and counterfeit foreign currency in order to earn foreign exchange for his regime.

  He has gourmet meals while his people are starving. Two to three million North Koreans starved to death during the 1990s.

  He broke agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency. After signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, he unilaterally withdrew. He broke his 1992 agreement with the South Koreans to keep the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons.

  Yet, there is also a logic to Kim Jong-il's actions. Historically, Korea was an isolated hermit kingdom. The most important policy of Kim Il-sung, his father and the founder of the North Korean regime, is Juche or "self-reliance." From a North Korean perspective, foreign countries want to control Korea and the North Koreans need to defend themselves. Nuclear weapons, at least in Kim Jong-il's mind, clearly give his regime some security.

  Ironically, the greatest strength of the North Korean regime is everyone's fear that it will collapse. For China, such a collapse would mean huge numbers of refugees as well as "chaos" just across the border.

  For South Korea, a North Korean collapse would mean huge expenses. The costs of unifying the two Germanys have been astronomical for West Germany even though East Germany was the wealthiest of the Communist countries. Payments for a collapsed North Korean regime would be many times greater.

  North Korean's nuclear test has horrified all concerned nations, but clearly none of their policies -- both benign and hard-line -- have deterred North Korea's determination to have nuclear weapons.

  Many reporters say China is North Korea's closest ally, but, despite China's provision of oil and food to North Korea, the two nations are not close and China's experts on North Korea have no greater understanding of North Korea than do experts in other countries.

  In addition, North Koreans are deeply suspicious of Chinese motives. North Koreans, as well as South Koreans, get angry at official Chinese Web sites that declare as Chinese such ancient Korean kingdoms as Korguyo and Palhae, which existed on what is now the border between China and North Korean more than 1,000 years ago.

  Many South Koreans believe that they can best understand the North Koreans, because, after all, they are all Koreans. In the past decade, South Koreans have implemented a "sunshine" policy to deal with the North and have made investments in North Korea, sent tourist groups and delivered aid.

  But these policies have also failed. The number of family visits between North and South has remained very limited, both in total numbers and in time. No real trade has taken place. No trains run on the railway across the de-militarized zone (DMZ).

  The hard-line policies of the US and Japan have also failed. In some ways, it appears that the North Koreans actually enjoy being challenged by great powers.

  The North Koreans have been determined to get nuclear weapons for some time. They have lied, cheated and committed crimes in order to achieve this goal. Their response to the UN's Security Council was to call its members "gangster-like."

  While united in their support of UN Resolution 1718, the members of the Security Council already seem divided in how they will implement the sanctions against North Korea.

  What are the solutions? Assuming the sanctions do not work, we need to consider moving beyond the current status quo. Clearly, asking China to run North Korea would fail, as the very nationalist Koreans would strongly resist Chinese control.

  Rather, the nations of the world should support South Korea to engage in negotiations with the North. The options for negotiations between the South and the North are many and include a variety of "confederations."

  The role of the rest of the world should be to support the South Koreans financially and morally. We should be prepared for South Korea to become more independent in international politics. If necessary, the various nations of the world could guarantee military support.

  Such a policy might not work, but it has a better chance for success than all of the current policies. Nothing unites Koreans as much as Korean nationalism. It this policy does work, it would help Koreans attain their century-old goal of being both unified and independent. It would improve the standard of living of ordinary North Koreans while keeping the democracy of South Korea. And it would solve the problem of a rogue regime controlling nuclear weapons.

  Bruce Jacobs is a professor of Asian Languages and Studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
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