On May 25, 2009 the Central Telegraph Agency of the DPRK issued the following statement: “Another underground nuclear test was carried out successfully… The test was carried out on May 25, 2008 at the request of our scientists and technicians as a measure aimed at strengthening North Korea's nuclear deterrence potential in the interests of its self-defense... The present nuclear test will contribute to the protection of the country's sovereignty, nation, and socialism, as well as to the peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in the adjacent region”.
Definitely, the step taken by North Korea as well as the April 5 launch of a space satellite (or a test-firing of a long-range missile) follows certain logic. It is no coincidence that Russian Foreign Minister S. Lavrov said that “every side in the situation had its own truth and its own claims” during the difficult April 23-24, 2009 talks in Pyongyang, where he had to explain to his North Korean partners why Russia had joined the UN Security Council Chairman's statement condemning the satellite launch.
So, what are the truth and the claims of Pyongyang? What is the explanation behind its political U-turn and reorientation from the political scenario to conflict oriented approach?
Western and even more so Japanese and South Korean watchers tend to overstate the importance of just one factor – the health problems experienced by the DPRK, which became known in the second half of 2008, and the upcoming power transition which they deem imminent. Numerous versions of the situation, in most cases based on hearsay and play of the imagination, are currently circulating. Their essence boils down to the following. The quick and irreversible degradation of the health of the North Korean leader left the country's leadership in panic, facing the need to urgently prepare the successor – Kim Jong Il’s third son Kim Jong Un for taking over the role and to organize the nomination procedure.
As the proponents of this version reason, the positions of hawks in the North Korean leadership grew stronger under the circumstances, and they used the newly opened opportunity to start talking to the world in a harsher tone and to intensify the country's military, especially missile and nuclear, programs. At the same time, the young successor needs a record of accomplishments to legitimize his status. The breakthroughs in the nuclear and missile technologies attributed to him can be regarded as such: North Korea had launched a space satellite and carried out the second successful nuclear test, thus seriously strengthening the country's defense and drawing it closer to the accomplishment of the objective to become “a powerful and prosperous state”. Authors of likewise schemes predict in the light of the upcoming leadership change that North Korea will encounter serious crises, domestic political instability, or even collapse and say the opponents of Pyongyang should be ready to seize the resulting opportunities.
In my opinion, the above factor is real but by no means plays the key role. It is true that the DPRK leader had health problems (nobody outside his inner circle can know which exactly). It was obvious, though, that by the late 2008 – early 2009 he recovered to the extent that he was able to resume acting as the efficient head of the state. Kim Jong-il’s public activity including his traditional numerous tours across the country to give “field guidance” which he was able to withstand in the first half of 2009 showed that he was healthy enough. It appears that the continuity of leadership currently attracts more attention than usually in Pyongyang, but the issue is not as urgent as Western observers claim it to be, and the North Korean leadership can take care of the matter rationally and without much pressure.
The issue of the leader's health condition seriously contributed to the negative developments, but in a completely different way that the West either does not grasp or pretends not to notice. It is no secret that while the North Korean leader was ill many of the media, especially in South Korea and Japan, kept saying that he was about to die and that the sooner he dies the better. The argumentation was that, first, he is a “bad guy” and, secondly, that chaos would ensue in North Korea after his death and make it easier for Seoul and its partners to absorb the country.
Such dubious – plus morally unacceptable - discourse not only prevailed in the media in a number of countries, but also reflected the level of strategic thinking of these countries' leaders. In particular, the reasoning was behind the status upgrading of the military contingency plan in the case of an extraordinary situation on the Korean Peninsula in the fall of 2008, as well as behind the doubling of the scale of March 2009 “Key Resolve” and “Toksuri” military exercises conducted jointly by the US and South Korea.
It is not hard to guess how the whole campaign was perceived in Pyongyang which saw such publications, statements, and activities as an indication of the actual intentions of its six-party talks partners who officially claim to respect North Korea's sovereignty but in reality dream about the regime change. Quite possibly, such “evil dance” around the individual with health problems gave Pyongyang the moral reasons to rethink its obligations in the framework of the Beijing six-party process.
Probably, in the late 2008 – early 2009 the North Korean leadrship reassed the situation on the Korean Peninsula and around it. Pyongyang must have concluded that the major tendencies changed in a way unfavorable to North Korea.
First, the Inter-Korean relations soured in 2008. Pyongyang became irreversibly convinced that the ROK's new president Lee Myung-bak had rejected the legacy of his two predecessors - Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun whose politics with respect to North Korea was sun-shine and reconciliatory and focused on the theme of the regime change instead.
Secondly, complications arose in the six-party talks. The program of the second phase of denuclearization adopted in October, 2007 never materialized. While the West laid many blames on Pyongyang, the latter had a no less impressive list of grievances to show to its six-party process partners. North Korea stated a number of times starting in the early 2008 that it was ahead of its partners in fulfilling its obligations and that the delay on their side – if it persists – would entail a slowdown of North Korea's rendering its nuclear installations disable. North Korea never got the 1,000,000 tons of fuel oil promised as the compensation. Only Russia, China, and the US met their obligations fully, supplying 200,000 tons each. Japan refused to join the program altogether under the pretext that the problem of its kidnapped citizens remained unresolved. South Korea set additional conditions for the supplying finishing the pledged amount.
It transpired in 2008 that the US, Japan, and the ROK were implementing a common policy aimed at imposing on Pyongyang new requirements which spanned far beyond the limits of the previously reached agreements. For example, starting in the summer of 2008 Washington attempted to make its compliance with its own obligations in the framework of the second phase of denuclearization (such as dropping North Korea from the list of countries supporting international terrorism) contingent on Pyongyang's accommodating new demands. Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul pushed for immediate inspections and verification at North Korea's nuclear installations, though the verification issues were not included in the program of the second phase of denuclearization and were supposed to belong to the third phase.
All of the above created serious problems. As a protest against Washington's refusal to drop North Kure from the “terrorist list”, Pyongyang froze its own denuclearization program in last August-September. The last round of the six-party talks in Beijing produced practically no results.
Thirdly, hopes that Obama's Administration would adopt a more constructive approach did not come true. According to North Korea's Foreign Ministry, the analysis of the first 100 days of the new US President in office left them convinced that the positive signals were mere rhetoric and were not going to translate into practice. The doubling of the scale of the military exercises at the border of North Korea, the offensive statements made by US Secretary of State H. Clinton in Tokyo and Seoul during her March, 2009 tour across East Asia, the politics of strengthening the trilateral Washington-Tokyo-Seoul partnership traditionally directed against North Korea were just some of the examples of the “invariably hostile politics” invoked by North Korea. The new US Administration's declared intentions to raise the bilateral relations with North Korea to a new level practically ended with the involvement of the US Democrats in a severe crisis on the Korean Peninsula at the very start of Obama's presidential term.
On many occasions Pyongyang sent signals to Seoul, Washington, and Tokyo attempting to express its concern over the state of the bilateral relations and the six-party process. There were direct warnings that a resolute response would follow in case the concerns of North Korea would continue to be ignored. However, the recipients of the messages preferred to stick to the “benign neglect” policy. Seoul, for example, developed the habit to call any warnings from Pyongyang “empty threats” and “bluff”.
As a result, the North Korean leadership gained additional evidence reinforcing the notion that the only argument its main opponents reckon with is force.
Altogether, the above – and possibly some other – reasons made Pyongyang take resolute steps to strengthen its national security.
The April 4 attempt to launch what North Korea officially described as a space satellite was the first of such steps. The results of the discussion in the UN during which the opposition of China and Russia to the hard line of the US, Japan, and South Korea appeared insufficiently firm to North Korea made the latter conclude that Washington finally managed at least to some extent to entrain Moscow and Beijing. In this light, the six-party talks had to be seen by North Korea as “the place where the DPRK national sovereignty is humbled” and as an instrument of the notorious regime change. The notions eventually motivated Pyongyang's withdrawal from the six-party talks.
The emotional character of Pyongyang’s reaction should, among other things, be attributed to the obvious politics of double standards. Pyongyang's representatives used to argue that there are quite a few countries in the world which freely launch satellites and that most of the several thousand of them currently on orbit belong to the countries condemning North Korea. Indeed, never before did the UN Security Council discuss a satellite launch. The DPRK Foreign Minister Pak Ui-Chun said at the May, 2009 meeting of the Nonalignment Movement's coordinating committee in Havana that the UN's condemning the civilian satellite launch by North Korea was a severe violation of the Outer Space Treaty and that the arbitrary statement passed by a handful of Security Council permanent members set a dangerous precedent showing that the UN Security Council has turned into an instrument of violence and arbitrariness standing above the international law.
Since many of the commentators regard the satellite launch (or the test-firing of a long-range missile) and the nuclear test as moves addressed to North Korea’s domestic audience, it makes sense to take a look at the events from inside North Korea. The reports in the country's media emphasized not only their importance to defense but also their scientific and technological significance. Official gatherings were held across North Korea. Kim Jong Il personally watched the launch of the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 satellite from the Space Flight Control Center on April 5, and on April 24 he met with the scientists, engineers, and workers who took part in creating the satellite. Mass rallies took place in the Pyongyang Sports Palace and in all provincial centers on May 26, the day after the nuclear test. A speech on the occasion was delivered in Pyongyang by the Political Bureau Candidate Member, Secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee Choie Tae Bok.
At the same time, the events were presented without much pompousness, as important but ongoing achievements of the Korean people. The paper author was in Pyongyang at the time of the nuclear test and was surprised to find out that the test was neither presented as top news by the North Korean media (in contrast to the global ones) nor stirred much debate among the population. The residents of Pyongyang received the news absolutely quietly and nothing in the daily order of life seemed to have changed. At some moment the paper author even wondered whether the citizens knew about the event but it transpired that they did. They said: “Yes, we know about it and are proud of the country's accomplishments in the scientific and industrial development”. There was nothing else. What really made the headlines at that time and was widely discussed was the rice-planting campaign and the organization of the involvement of urban residents in it. He also heard constantly about the “150 Days of Battle” movement for building a powerful and prosperous country. In other words, the country continued to live and work as usual.
Obviously, the North Korean leadership's tendency not to escalate the theme of the missile and nuclear tests and to avoid generating military-political hype around it deserves a separate analysis. It is possible that Pyongyang's statements that the tests are meant to nothing more than strengthen the country's nuclear deterrence forces in order to ensure independently and responsibly the security of the Korean Peninsula – and by no means to threaten any other country or to attract the international aid – are not groundless.
Certainly the tests were supposed to reaffirm North Korea's nuclear status and to prove to skeptics (including the US military analysts who said that the first nuclear test was not powerful and hardly successful) that the country' nuclear potential is not a bluff but reality.
Unfortunately, so far the situation is evolving in accord with the logic of confrontation. The DPRK Foreign Ministry issued another harsh statement in response to the punitive UN Security Council Resolution 1874 condemning the nuclear test. It rejected the Resolution and announced response measures such as the complete processing of all spent nuclear rods extracted from the nuclear power plant to produce plutonium, the opening of the uranium enrichment program aimed at producing fuel for the planned national light-water reactor, and the readiness to response military to attempts to institute the country's marine blockade and to inspect its ships. The Foreign Ministry's statement also contained a pledge to resolutely respond to sanctions with retribution and to confrontation – with comprehensive confrontation in line with the Songun ideas.
Still, we should hope that the current complications which make the way to a solution of the Korean problem on the basis of negotiations more difficult do not make it altogether impossible and only created new settings in which the solution has to be found. It will take all the parties involved some time to assess the faults inherent in the previous schemes and to realize that greater respect for the interests of partners is a prerequisite for success.
Search in articles:
