by
Byung Chul Koh
[Director, Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)]
posted September 16, 2003
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The six-party talks that took place in Beijing from August 27 to 29 were the largest multinational talks devoted to Korean Peninsula issues since 1954, when eighteen nations that had fought in the Korean War and the Soviet Union met in Geneva in a vain attempt to find ways to reunite the divided peninsula. The Beijing talks also marked the first time that the two Korean states and the four great powers surrounding them--China, Japan, Russia, and the United States--sat at the same conference table to discuss Korea-related issues. The so-called “two plus four” formula was finally being put to a test. Finally, the talks may well turn out to be the last chance to hammer out a peaceful solution to the North Korean nuclear problem.
Highlights
Of the many notable features of the four-party talks, three seem to stand out. First, although the United States displayed a subtle but significant change in its policy toward North Korea, the latter either failed to grasp it or chose to ignore it. At first glance, both sides appeared to cling to their mutually irreconcilable positions; the North called on the United States to abandon “hostile” policy and to accept the ideas of “comprehensive settlement” and “simultaneous action.” For its part, the United States reiterated its long-held position that the North must dismantle its nuclear weapons development program in an irreversible, and verifiable manner” before the United States can offer security guarantees and economic benefits.
What was new, however, was Washington’s willingness to “discuss a `sequence’ of unspecified, reciprocal steps.” This is a retreat from the previous policy of not offering the North any reward until after a “complete” dismantling of its nuclear facilities and materials.(1) Inducements, however, “would be phased in slowly only as North Korea starts surrendering its nuclear weapons, dismantling the facilities used to develop them and permitting inspectors free run of the country."(2)
The Bush administration’s willingness to “discuss a sequence of denuclearization measures with corresponding measures on the part of both sides,” dubbed “more for more,” signals that such moderates as Secretary of State Colin Powell and his deputy Richard L. Armitage may have succeeded in temporarily outflanking the hardliners led by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. The approach nonetheless may benefit both camps, for it had dual purpose: it “was partly an effort to show China, Japan, Russia and South Korea that Mr. Bush was serious about coming up with a diplomatic solution, and to gain their support for a more confrontational approach if North Korea should reject the overtures."(3)
Bush’s new message, however, may have eluded the North Koreans. After Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly, the head of the U.S. delegation, “laid out the American proposal, the North Korean delegation said the United States was seeking to strangle North Korea, and was secretly considering a pre-emptive strike.” Either the “North Koreans had not been listening to Mr. Kelly’s presentation,” as “Russian officials who attended the talks suggested,”(4) or the head of the DPRK delegation, Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Yong Il, simply stuck to his script, prepared in Pyongyang before Bush’s new message had been unveiled.(5)
Second, informal contacts between the U.S. and North Korean delegations materialized during a break on the first day of the talks. Lasting for thirty to thirty-five minutes, the contacts, however, did not make any headway in a substantive sense. On the contrary, they may have been counter-productive. Kim Yong Il made three threats to Kelly: “the Bush administration’s hostile policy was compelling North Korea to declare it had nuclear weapons, to show the world that it possessed them by conducting a nuclear test and to show the world that it could deliver those weapons by testing a weapons delivery system such as a missile."(6)
Third, if one of the reasons why the North decided to accept the six-way talks had been its expectation that it would have at least two staunch supporters, its military ally China and its former ally Russia, then the North must have been bitterly disappointed. Although both took pains to stress the need to address the North’s security concerns, neither actually took the North’s side. In short, what the North encountered in Beijing was not a three to three but a five to one configuration.
An Assessment
Let us now turn to an assessment of the results of the six-party talks. The yardstick one may use is the expectations of the participants. Generally speaking, no one expected a breakthrough; all or most anticipated that the first round of the talks would merely provide a forum for an exchange of the basic positions of the participating states. At a minimum, then, the participants probably hoped that the talks would not break down but that they would end the first round with a commitment to meet again. More optimistic participants may have hoped for a joint communique or at least a joint press communique to emerge at the end.
These expectations, however, were only partially fulfilled. For the six countries failed to agree on a joint statement of any kind; nor did they succeed in fixing a firm date and venue for the next round of the talks. What happened instead was that People’s Republic of China (PRC) Deputy Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a press conference in which he summed up the “consensus” of the six parties, which included:
- The nuclear issue should be resolved through peaceful means and dialogue, and stability and peace should be maintained on the Korean Peninsula.
- While a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula should be realized, the security concerns of the DPRK should also be taken into consideration.
- While the process of negotiations is under way, all participants should refrain from taking any action that may aggravate the situation.
- In order to resolve the standoff, the parties should take parallel or simultaneous steps.
- The six-party talks should continue, and the specific date and venue should be decided through diplomatic channels as soon as possible.(7)
Since Wang was presenting his own sense of what the participants had generally agreed, either explicitly or implicitly, however, his summary was subject to varying interpretations. He had, in effect, given to the press what in his view were the lowest common denominators, with the understanding that the absence of any objections from the participating states would constitute a tacit endorsement. Wang’s oral summary, in fact, was greeted with loud applause from delegates from all the participating states.
Notwithstanding all this, there was room for skepticism with respect to the extent to which the participants embraced some of the key points in Wang’s statement. For example, is it realistic to expect that the two pivotal players in the process--North Korea and the United States--would adhere to the putatively shared commitment not to take any action that might aggravate the situation? Since the word “action” encompasses both words and deeds, can the North be counted on to moderate its harsh rhetoric? As will be noted below, this proved not to be the case. Should the North carry out the “threats” it had made in Beijing--notably, declaring officially that it is a nuclear-weapons state, conducting a test to prove its claim, and testing a delivery system--the current standoff would escalate to an exceedingly dangerous altitude.
It is not simply the North but the United States as well that can breach the no-escalation pledge. Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), led by the United States, held its third meeting in Paris from September 3 to 4, and began conducting an interdiction training exercise on September 13 in the Coral Sea, northeast of Australia. Part of the Bush administration’s counter-proliferation strategy, PSI aims “to work with other concerned states to develop new means to disrupt the proliferation trade at sea, in the air, and on land; eleven countries are participating in the program: Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.(8) Although the exercise, the first of its kind, does not have a specific target country, U.S. officials acknowledged that, “North Korea is a top concern.” Pyongyang lost no time in labeling the exercise a “military provocation."(9)
Another question one may raise pertains to the principle of simultaneous or parallel action. While both the United States and North Korea may have endorsed the principle in the abstract, it is plain that what the North means by simultaneous action is totally unacceptable to the United States. Reiterating the proposal first unveiled during the three-party talks held in Beijing in April, the North’s chief delegate explained the meaning or contents of simultaneous action in his keynote speech on the first day of the six-party talks:
First, the United States must resume delivery of heavy fuel oil to the North and expand its “humanitarian aid” of food; in return for this, the North will declare its intention to jettison its nuclear weapons development program.
Second, the United States must conclude a nonaggression treaty with the North and provide compensation to the North for the latter’s loss of electricity due to the freeze on or suspension of construction of graphite-moderated nuclear reactors; in return for this, the North will permit the resumption of freeze on its nuclear facilities and material as well as their inspection and monitoring.
Third, diplomatic relations must be established between the United States and the DPRK and between Japan and the DPRK; in return for this, the North will resolve the missile issue.
Fourth, the United States must help complete the light-water reactor (LWR) project; when the project is completed, the North will dismantle its nuclear facilities.(10)
According to White House spokesman Scott McClellan, however, “nothing can happen until North Korea changes its behavior and begins to take concrete steps to dismantle its nuclear weapons program…We are always willing to talk about what is possible if North Korea changes its behavior. We are ready."(11)
Winners and Losers
Another way to assess the outcome of the six-party talks is to ponder the question of who gained the most and who gained the least. The biggest winner, without question, was China. More than anything else, it was China’s active intervention and mediation that had helped to bring about the unprecedented six-nation conference. China, by all accounts, did an outstanding job as the host of the talks, taking pains to facilitate unofficial bilateral contacts between North Korea and the United States and trying very hard to forge a consensus among the participants. The talks, in short, showcased the “emergence of China as a more assertive diplomatic power."(12)
Next on the list of “winners” may well be the United States. A key objective of the Bush administration for the Beijing talks was “to demonstrate to North Korea that the five countries most closely linked to its fate…were united in a determination to bring an end to North Korea’s nuclear threat.” Several “senior administration officials” reportedly “expressed satisfaction that China, Russia, South Korea and Japan had joined the United States in telling North Korea that it had no rational choice but to drop its confrontational attitude and abandon its nuclear program.” They expressed the hope that “the unified message would register clearly with Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader."(13)
For South Korea, Japan, and Russia, the opportunity to participate in the multilateral negotiations on the North Korean nuclear issue was most welcome, and could be counted as an accomplishment in its own right. Japan had also hoped to make some headway on the thorny abduction issue, and during three short bilateral contacts on the sidelines of the talks, succeeded in obtaining the North’s commitment to hold further talks on the issue.
It was most probably North Korea that gained the least from the Beijing talks. If it had counted on its only military ally China and its former ally Russia to bolster its position at the talks, as already noted, it must have been bitterly disappointed. For, apart from underscoring the importance of addressing the North’s security concerns, neither China nor Russia expressed firm support for the North. It is not surprising, therefore, that the North expressed discontent with the results of the talks, calling the latter “useless.” Accusing the United States of clinging to the formula, “dismantle the nuclear program first, talk later,” which was tantamount to the scheme to “disarm and then invade us,” the North called the U.S. position a “brigandish-like demand that exceeds the limits of our tolerance.” The United States, the North added, even refused to heed Pyongyang’s proposal to exchange an expression of the DPRK’s will to scrap its nuclear program for “the U.S. manifestation of its will to make a policy switchover at least.” Such U.S. behavior, the North said, “leaves us no choice but to strengthen our nuclear deterrent."(14) The North later indicated, however, that it was still committed to a peaceful solution of the nuclear issue, thereby hinting that it would not oppose another round.
Prospects
Given all this, one may hazard a cautiously optimistic prognosis. There is a better than even chance that the second round of the six-party talks will be held in Beijing in the coming few months. If there is to be any progress toward the resolution of the standoff over the nuclear issue, however, both of the principal adversaries, North Korea and the United States, will need to show a little more flexibility than they have done thus far. Agreeing to exchange verbal commitments first--to dismantle its nuclear weapons program on the part of the North and to provide a credible security guarantee on the part of the United States--can serve as a promising stepping stone to an eventual agreement on substantive, reciprocal measures that will satisfy the minimum needs of both sides--namely, a complete, irreversible, and verifiable dismantling of the North’s nuclear weapons program for the United States and a trustworthy, perhaps legally binding, security guarantee, coupled with energy and food assistance, for the North. In short, the Beijing talks may well prove to be a turning point in the evolution of the nuclear standoff between the North and the United States regardless of whether or not they should bear fruit. One can only hope that the last chance for the peaceful resolution of the crisis will not be squandered.
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(1) Glenn Kessler, “U.S. Moderates Position on Incentives for North Korea,” Washington Post, September 5,2003; Arshad Mohammed, “US: N.Korea Must Show Readiness to End Nuclear Plans,” ibid., September 5, 2003.
(2) David E. Sanger, “U.S. Said to Shift Approach in Talks With North Korea,” New York Times, September 5, 2003. Emphasis added.
(3) Ibid.; Arshad Mohammed, “State Dept. Outflanks Pentagon on Iraq, North Korea,” Washington Post, September 5, 2003.
(4) Sanger, “U.S. Said to Shift Approach in Talks With North Korea.”
(5) The spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry, however, disputed the veracity of the U.S. press account that Kelly had unveiled either a new proposal or a new approach, calling such account a lie. “Choson oemusong taebyonin, <6-ja hoedam eso Migugi p’yonghwa choyak ch’egyol yongui p’yomyong> un kojinmal,” [DPRK Foreign Ministry Spokesman: Report That `At the Six-Party Talks the U.S. Expressed a Willingness to Conclude a Peace Treaty” Is a Lie], Choson chungang t’ongsin [Korean Central News Agency], Pyongyang, September 8, 2003, http://www.kcna.co.jp/calendar/2003/09/09-10/2003-09-10-021.html
(6) John Pomfret, “North Korea Talks on Nuclear Program Close in Beijing,” Washington Post, August 29, 2003.
(7) “DPRK Willing to Give Up Nuclear Plans,” People’s Daily (Beijing), August 29, 2003, http://eglish.peopledaily.com.cn/200308/29/print20030829_123380.
(8) U.S. Department of State, Proliferation Security Initiative – Paris Meeting of Core Participants, September 3-4, 2003 (Washington: Office of the Spokesman, USDS, September 2, 2003), http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/23673pf.htm.
(9) “Exercise Aims to Stem Atom Proliferation,” Washington Post, September 13, 2003.
(10) “Chomi sai ui haengmunje e kwanhan 6-ja hoedam kaech’oe—Choson ch’uk ilgwal t’agyol tosik kwa tongsi haengdong sunso chesi” [Six-Party Talks on the Nuclear Problem between the DPRK and the U.S. Convene—DPRK Set Forth a Comprehensive Approach and the Order of Simultaneous Action], Choson chungang t’ongsin , Pyongyang, August 29, 2003, http://www.kcna.co.jp/calendar/2003/08/08-30/2003-08-30-001.html.
(11) Kessler, “U.S. Moderates Position on Incentives for North Korea.” Emphasis added.
(12) Joseph Kahn, “China at Korea Talks: Taking Diplomacy Upstage,” New York Times, August 30, 2003.
(13) Peter Slevin and John Pomfret, “N.Korea Threatens Nuclear Arms Test,” Washington Post, August 29, 2003; Joseph Kahn, “Korea Negotiations End With Agreement to Keep Talking,” New York Times, August 29, 2003.
(14) “Choson oemusong taebyonin…”; “<6-ja hoedam jindan> Choson ui kyonggaksong pullo irukin Miguk ui <mujang haeje-ron>” [An Assessment of Six-party Talks: America’s “Disarmament Scheme” Triggers the DPRK’s Alarm], Choson sinbo (Tokyo), September 3, 2003, http://korea-np.co.jp/korea/sinbok/k-2003/k01/0301k0902-000.
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