Hearts are fluttering once again among the disarmament folks over renewed hopes that North Korea will finally take the first step toward giving up the nuclear ambitions of its leader, Kim Jong-il.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have visited Yongbyon, site of North Korea's primary nuclear facility. The US negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, has been received in Pyongyang. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (
Skeptics, however, have cautioned that not everything will go well. The Pyongyang regime has a long history of reneging on promises to other nations while keeping promises to the North Korean people, foremost of which is Kim's pledge to retain nuclear arms to deter what he sees as a US threat.
Graham Allison, who specialized in arms control as an assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton Administration and is now at Harvard, wrote recently that even if the Yongbyon plant is disabled, much remains to execute an accord reached in February by the Six Parties -- North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan, Russia, and the US. It calls for Pyongyang to shut down all of its nuclear sites.
Allison warned: "Expect lengthy slogging through incomplete records, all in Korean script, missed deadlines, disputes about who can visit where, and all the other antics" that have frustrated those who have dealt with North Korea.
Confronted with this likelihood, the US appears to have evolved a new strategy, which is to play for time by adopting the North Korean tactic of talk, talk and more talk until Kim either gives up his nuclear weapons or his regime collapses. Whiffs of dissent have recently been wafting from Pyongyang, making regime change a possibility.
Said a US insider privy to this scenario: "The US will take note of North Korea's nuclear weapons but we will never accept North Korea as a nuclear nation. We will never tolerate a North Korea armed with nuclear weapons."
The game afoot has ruled out military action to destroy Pyongyang's nuclear sites. Bombs and cruise missiles could do enormous damage but would most likely trigger a North Korean attack on South Korea. Tens of thousands of South Koreans would die in artillery barrages before South Korean and US forces could overrun North Korean positions.
Instead, in this developing strategy, US negotiators will continue talking while implementing what might be called the five "Nots." The US will not:
■ extend diplomatic recognition to North Korea, thus depriving it of a status that Kim is said to be eager to attain;
■ sign a treaty replacing the truce that ended the Korean War of 1950 to 1953 because North Korea will not give assurances it will reduce its forces along the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas;
■ remove the threat of US nuclear weapons that could strike North Korea from submarines in the Pacific or with ballistic missiles or bombers based in the US;
■ offer substantial economic aid to a North Korea that has been stricken with famine, limping industrial output and financial disruption for a decade;
■ open trade and investment relations with a nation that, like China, could benefit from access to US markets, technology and capital.
The Bush Administration has already drawn fire over this strategy and can expect more, especially from China.
John Bolton, US President George W. Bush's former ambassador to the UN, echoed the so-called neo-cons in an article last week, asserting: "The Bush administration has effectively ended where North Korea policy is concerned, replaced for the next 18 months by a caretaker government of bureaucrats, technocrats and academics."
Chinese leaders have long said they will keep North Korea afloat. David Frum, of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, wrote that Beijing dreads a North Korean breakup.
"Chinese leaders know that such a collapse would unify the peninsula under a democratic government based in Seoul and aligned with the US and Japan -- for them, a terrifying outcome," he wrote.
Nor will North Korea roll over easily. Rodong Shinmun, a government mouthpiece in Pyongyang, said last week that North Korea's "mighty war deterrent for self-defense has become an invincible shield for curbing reckless war provocations of the bellicose forces at home and abroad."
Doesn't sound much like a nation ready for nuclear disarmament.
Richard Halloran is a writer based in Hawaii.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US