Problems With Current U.S. Policy.

There are at least two U.S. government policies toward North Korea. Elements within the Clinton administration support limited engagement and steps toward normalization of relations. In the CIA and the Pentagon, however, many are deeply skeptical of engagement and would prefer to see the imminent collapse of the regime, regardless of the consequences.

This tension at the policymaking center has rendered U.S. foreign policy toward North Korea inconsistent and, in some cases, deeply flawed. Instead of addressing the full range of bilateral disagreements, Washington has taken a piecemeal approach that has not meshed with the new policies of South Korea's Kim Dae Jung. Moreover, the Clinton administration has hardened its containment posture in the Northeast Asia region, strengthening North Korea's siege mentality.

The problems begin with Washington's half-hearted commitment to the 1994 Agreed Framework. When the U.S. signed the Agreed Framework, many in the administration expected the North Korean government to collapse before the promised light-water nuclear reactors would be operational in 2003. Rather than a step toward normalization, the agreement functioned as a stopgap measure. The North Korean government, however, has not collapsed. The power plant construction, whether by design or by accident, has encountered delays. More critically, the Clinton administration gave in to congressional opposition and lifted only the least important of the economic sanctions that Pyongyang desperately wants removed. Although Washington rhetorically supports a more open and internationally integrated North Korea, the economic embargo further severs Pyongyang from the capitalist world and reinforces the isolationist faction within the North Korean political elite.

A second problem concerns interpretation. North Korea, in the grip of a food crisis and a general economic collapse, is desperate to earn hard currency. This desperation is one of the reasons for its provocative acts. North Korea, negotiating from a weak position, is accumulating bargaining chips to get the best deal from the U.S. and Japan. Washington, however, has treated the missile launch and the missile sales as military gestures designed to threaten the national security of the United States and its Asian allies. In other words, the U.S. has developed military responses to a crisis that requires primarily economic solutions.

The South Korean government has understood North Korea's predicament as economically based and has shaped its policy toward its northern neighbor (Nordpolitik) accordingly. The "sunshine policy" has led to unprecedented economic cooperation between North and South. The South Korean government has given the go-ahead to several private ventures, including the Hyundai project that has brought tens of thousands of tourists by boat to Mt. Kumgang in the North. Dozens of South Korean businesses are poised to go north to negotiate joint ventures and to supply surplus industrial equipment. Meanwhile, the construction of the light-water reactors has focused North and South Korean workers on a common goal--a prefiguring of the kind of projects that will eventually knit together the broken halves of the Korean peninsula.

Yet the "sunshine policy" has its critics within South Korea, and economic investments in the North are still mostly on paper. Without a similar push for engagement from the Clinton administration, Kim Dae Jung's attempts to reach out to North Korea may fall victim to conservative opposition.

Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry, designated by the Clinton administration to make policy recommendations on North Korea, will issue a report of his findings in May or June. It is generally expected that he will favor upholding the Agreed Framework, especially in light of the March 1999 agreement, under which North Korea has permitted U.S. access to the suspected underground nuclear facility. Still, there are many voices within Congress, such as Benjamin Gilman and Henry Hyde, who have opposed both this deal and other moves toward engagement. A recent report produced for the National Defense University by former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage has argued that if North Korea doesn't satisfy all U.S. demands, then the U.S. must take sterner measures.

In Northeast Asia more generally, the U.S. has already taken sterner measures. It continues to conduct war games in the vicinity of North Korea, and in 1998 changed its battlefield simulation to include invasion and defeat of the North. The administration plans to build a theater missile defense system that will theoretically protect allies in the region from perceived missile threats from North Korea and China. Despite billions of dollars of research, missile defense has yet to be proven technically feasible, and the proposed system has unnecessarily antagonized Russia and China.

Moreover, in cooperation with conservative Japanese policymakers, the U.S. has redefined its alliance with Japan so that the latter will provide more support, for U.S. operations in the region, shoulder more of the financial burdern, and expand the military role of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. For the first time in fifty years, Japan is considering the development of first-strike capabilities. These moves challenge Japan's pacifist constitution, raise fears among the victims of Japan's colonial past (chiefly China and the two Koreas),

[No Continuation in Original Text]

Key Problems

* U.S. support of the 1994 Agreed Framework has been inconsistent. Washington has delayed shipments of heavy oil and made only token moves toward normalizing relations with North Korea.

* The Clinton administration has not thrown sufficient support behind South Korean President Kim Dae Jung's "sunshine policy" of engaging North Korea.

* The U.S. has contributed to North Korea's siege mentality by pursuing a theater missile defense system and by encouraging Japan to expand its military role in the region.

John Feffer ([e-mail]) of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is the East Asia Quaker International Affairs Representative. Based in Tokyo, Fear travels regularly to North and South Korea and China to encourage dialogue on peace and justice issues.