North Korea as a Nuclear Power and the Prospects of Its Control, by Hans-Joachim Schmidt

[This is a paper for German readers of CanKor. The author, Dr. Hans-Joachim Schmidt, is Senior Research Fellow at the Hessische Stiftung Friedens- und Konfliktforschung (HSFK) – also known in English as Peace Research Institute Frankfurt/M (PRIF) – and an expert on the Six-Party Talks. Dr. Schmidt is a good friend of CanKor and has previously submitted his work for our benefit. We thank the author for making the full German version of this paper available to CanKor. A brief summary of his latest paper follows here in both English and German. For the full version of the German paper, please follow this link: Nordkorea als Nuklearmacht - Chancen der Kontrolle, or by clicking on the image of the title page below. – CanKor]

North Korea as a Nuclear Power and the Prospects of Its Control

In the latest HSFK-Report, Hans-Joachim Schmidt evaluates the prospects of both cooperative and confrontational approaches against the North Korean nuclear weapons program.

Since its first nuclear test in 2006, a nuclear North Korea cannot be prevented anymore. Therefore, one major aim of international politics must be to delay, constrain and control the North Korean nuclear weapons program.

In HSFK-Report 1/2012, Nordkorea als Nuklearmacht – Chancen der Kontrolle (North Korea as a Nuclear Power and the Prospects of Its Control), Hans-Joachim Schmidt presents the multifaceted regional and global threats of both conventional and nuclear armament of North Korea and analyzes how the North Korean leadership can be urged to follow its international commitments.

He examines problems and prospects of cooperative and confrontational approaches by South Korea, the US, Japan, China and Russia who seek a political arrangement with North Korea regarding nuclear technology. Against the background of their different interests, the author develops specific propositions for a relaunch of the six-party talks following the presidential elections in the USA and South Korea.

The Day After, by Bill Keller

[CanKor Brain Trust member Hark Kroll alerted us to this opinion piece published in The New York Times on 29 April 2012. Op-Ed Columnist Bill Keller begins with the now familiar rehearsing of DPRK human rights violations, mentioning several books published recently, including CanKor Brain Trust member David Hawk's updated “The Hidden Gulag”. But the more interesting part of this article is contained at the end, where Keller reviews the questions posed by the "engagement camp" and the "regime-change camp", concluding that both are missing the most pertinent questions about what is to happen after an eventual collapse in North Korea. --CanKor]

Bill Keller (photo by Tony Cenicola, The New York Times)

THE one thing everyone knows about North Korea is that we know very little about North Korea, except that it is miserable, totalitarian, nuclear and erratic. It is the hermit kingdom, the dark side of the moon.

But thanks to many thousands of refugees who have reached freedom by way of a long underground railroad through China, we know a lot more now about the grim reality. We understand better how the government sustains its dreadful power, and where that power could be faltering. Among people who follow the country closely, there is fresh discussion of whether this most durable of monster-states could be nearing its end days, and what we should do about it.

In recent weeks the news spotlight has focused on the 29-year-old novice tyrant Kim Jong-un, performing his family’s time-tested repertoire of bellicose bluster. Like a lunatic waving an assault rifle as he dances on a high window ledge, Kim galvanizes our attention.

But the more interesting story is down below.

North Korea’s Treacherous New Course, by Leon V. Sigal

[The following commentary by Leon Sigal, long-time friend of CanKor, appeared in the American bimonthly foreign-policy journal The National Interest, 19 April 2012. Leon V. Sigal is director of the Northeast Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council in New York and author of Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea. --CanKor]

“There they go again.” That was the Washington’s reaction to North Korea’s recent rocket launch and renunciation of its February 29 commitment not to conduct a nuclear test. Yet this time looks different—and more dangerous. These actions suggest Pyongyang no longer cares about improving relations with the United States, the premise of its willingness to restrain its nuclear and missile efforts.

Unbounded nuclear and missile development by Pyongyang would gradually erode the security of all of its neighbors and the world at large. The only prudent course is a robust strategy of containment: denial of its weapons-related trade by tougher inspections of suspect cargo and tighter overflight restrictions.

A Mixed History

For years, North Korean officials have been saying they want to improve relations with the United States and were prepared to restrain their nuclear and missile programs in return. An end to enmity—what the North called U.S. “hostile policy”—would improve North Korean security and provide a counterweight to China. It would also facilitate aid and investment from South Korea and Japan, thereby reducing its economic dependence on China.

Given the lack of trust between the two countries, however, Pyongyang insisted on reciprocal steps by Washington—action for action—to build confidence. Pyongyang’s decision to conduct last week’s test launch, by contrast, destroyed confidence.

North Korea in April: Defining the Future Under Kim Jong Un by Ruediger Frank

[From time to time CanKor alerts readers to papers published by our partner-site 38North. The following article is authored by CanKor Brain Trust member Ruediger Frank. Find more articles by Ruediger Frank here. Please follow our link to the current article on the 38North site. --CanKor]

April 2012 promises to be an interesting month for North Korea and its observers, with at least four mega-events. The long announced celebrations to mark the 100th birthday of the country’s late founder Kim Il Sung will be held on the April 15. Two days before, the annual session of the Supreme People’s Assembly (the North Korean parliament) will convene. The fourth Conference of the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) will take place on the 11th. Last, but not least, around the same time a rocket launch that has been criticized by the West as a missile test is set to take place.

April 15, 1912 was not only the day the Titanic sank. In a small village near Pyongyang, a boy with the name Kim Song Ju was born. Later, much like Lenin (Uljanow) and Stalin (Tschugaschwili), he adapted an alias. In October 1945, by then called Kim Il Sung, the 33 year old youngster was presented to the wondering population by the Soviets as the liberator of the country from the Japanese. Hardly anybody took the young man seriously back then, neither his Soviet protectors nor his much more numerous, senior, powerful and experienced domestic political competitors. They were wrong, as they later learned the hard way. By building and breaking alliances, first the Christians and then rival factions within the Korean Communist camp were eliminated or assimilated, until Kim Il Sung and his Kapsan guerilla faction had acquired a monopoly of power within the KWP.

Kim Il Sung smartly used the badly failed Korean War (1950-53) not only as a welcome occasion to eliminate some of his influential political foes. He also converted Korea into one of the hot spots of the Cold War and was thus able to force the Soviet Union and China to provide much more economic, military and political aid than either of them had originally intended. The costs for Mao Zedong included his eldest son Anying, still buried in North Korea. Even my home country East Germany, laying in ruins after World War II and the post-1945 demounting policy of the Soviets, and facing fierce competition from West Germany which prospered under the Marshall Plan, felt compelled to rebuild North Korea’s second largest city, Hamhung, at an enormous cost.

Dutch Seminar on Outsourcing Garment and Textile Production in North Korea

[The Dutch company MODINT Buying and Production and MODINT Logistics are holding a sourcing and production seminar on 19 April 2012 in Zeist, Netherlands. The following information reached CanKor through Paul Tjia, Director of GPI Consultancy. --CanKor]

The production costs in China, where wages are rising fast, are increasing and companies are searching for cheaper locations. This is already visible in the field of garments and textiles. For this reason, MODINT, the Dutch trade association for fashion, interior design, carpets and textiles, will organize again a seminar on sourcing and production countries (19 April, from 13.00-17.00 hours). In this edition, MODINT will focus on alternative production countries, including North-Korea, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Several speakers will share their thoughts on how realistic these countries are as alternatives to China.

For the production of garments, North-Korea is one of these upcoming destinations. Although the Cold War has not ended, and political tensions remain high, more than 70 South-Korean garment companies are already producing clothing in own factories in the Kaeasong Economic Zone, employing tens of thousands of North-Korean workers.

An Insider’s Account of Obama’s North Korea Strategy, by Jeffrey A. Bader

[On 8 March 2012 the Brookings Institution held a launch for Jeffrey Bader's latest book, “Obama and China's Rise: an Insider's Account of America's Asia Strategy”. Bader is currently John C. Whitehead Senior Fellow in International Diplomacy, Foreign Policy at the John L. Thornton China Center in Washington DC. Previously, he was President Obama's Senior Director for Asia on the National Security Council for the first 3 years. The following is a selection of what the author had to say about US North Korea policy, which figures prominently in the book. This selection is taken from the 9 Mach 2012 edition of The Nelson Report. To hear the entire speech, please click March 8, 2012 book launch at Brookings. --CanKor]

Jeffrey A. Bader

(…) Instead of describing how seamlessly we executed plans drawn up in the first days, let me lay out what we did in reaction to events. As one of my colleagues said to me after a frustrating day dealing with demands for elaboration of a strategy, “there’s no such thing as strategy; there’s only tactics.” An exaggeration, to be sure, sort of like the observation that history is just one damned thing after another. But it frequently feels like the complete truth when you’re in the middle of the fray.

First, North Korea, since that was the issue that posed the most immediate dangers and consumed so much time, effort, and energy.

We came into office on something like automatic pilot, prepared to pick up implementation of Assistant Secretary Chris Hill’s plan for dismantling the Yongbyon plutonium reactor. But North Korea quickly eliminated that option. Intelligence in February 2009 showed North Korean plans to launch an ICBM, later announced to be a satellite launch. We could not proceed with implementation of dismantlement, and further international shipments of heavy fuel oil, under the shadow of an ICBM launch. So it’s fair to say that North Korea’s plan produced a very significant hardening of attitudes in the Obama national security team.

UN Human Rights Council discusses DPRK

Special Rapporteur Marzuki Darusman. (UN Photo by Jean-Marc Ferré)

Chronic food shortages have become the most pressing human rights issue in the DPRK, according to an independent United Nations human rights expert. ”I would underscore the importance of meeting the food shortfall by ensuring that an adequate quantity of food of good quality is available through additional imports by the Government, supported by international agencies and bilateral donors,” said Marzuki Darusman, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK.

On Monday, 12 March 2012, the United Nations Human Rights Council held an “interactive dialogue” with Darusman, whose new report covers the period from September 2011 to January 2012. In that time, according to the report, the situation “continued to deteriorate”. More than six million people urgently required international food assistance.

38 North: North Korea after Kim Jong Il: The Risks of Improvisation by Rudiger Frank

[From time to time CanKor alerts readers to papers published by our partner-site 38North. The following article is authored by CanKor Brain Trust member Rudiger Frank, Professor of East Asian Economy and Society at the University of Vienna. Please follow our link to this article on the 38North site. --CanKor]

Kim Jong Il’s death was announced less than three weeks ago. But the world is surprisingly quickly getting used to the new leadership in North Korea, as if there were no concerns left at all. To provide a counterweight to this amazingly complacent mood, and the many speculations about a stable North Korean future (including my own), I’d like to play devil’s advocate and ponder a relatively pessimistic scenario based on my reading of some developments that should be watched carefully.

We do have reason to believe that the current course of events related to succession in North Korea is more of the improvisation type than the outcome of a long-term strategy. In the end, it might indeed work and Kim Jong Un and the system will survive, but this is by no means to be taken for granted.

Political Tours: Visit North Korea with Professor Rudiger Frank

[How will North Korea change after Kim Jong Il's death and the rise of his son Kim Jong Un? Will changes become visible to the casual observer traveling to Pyongyang during celebration of the 100th anniversary of DPRK founder Kim Il Sung this coming April? The British organizers of  Political Tours will take a group of not-so-casual tourists to see for themselves. They will be accompanied by CanKor Brain Trust member and economist Rudiger Frank in what is sure to be a fascinating educational experience. Although exact details are still being worked out, CanKor encourages its readers to consider joining this unique opportunity at an especially critical period of North Korean history. To do so, please get in touch with us, or register through the Political Tours website. Make sure you let them know you heard about it from us. --CanKor]

Political Tours – North Korea Tour – April 2012

In the wake of Kim Jung Il’s death, and questions hanging over the country’s future direction, Political Tours is organizing a tour to North Korea this April. The visit is being led Professor Rudiger Frank, head of Korean studies at the University of Vienna, and one of the world’s leading experts on North Korea.

It also coincides with the 100th anniversary celebrations of the birth of the country’s founder Kim Il Sung, an event that will have added importance following the death of his son at the end of December.

North Korea could have used a Havel by Charles Burton

[This op-ed piece was written by CanKor Brain Trust member Charles Burton, and published in the Ottawa Citizen on 22 December 2011. Charles Burton is associate professor of political science at Brock University and a former counsellor at the Canadian embassy in Beijing. --Cankor]

Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong-il, both of whom died this week, personified an extreme contrast in leadership styles. Each man oversaw a nation’s response to the dashing of the hope for human dignity and justice that the Marxist-Leninist paradigm once offered. But the ways each went about it could not have been more different.

Vaclav Havel

Both Czechoslovakia and North Korea were deeply affected by the decline of the Soviet Union that began in the mid-1980s and culminated with its collapse in 1991. But North Korea turned inward, replacing Marxist ideology with the even more stifling and arcane Juche doctrine, and intensifying its repressive politics of charismatic personality cult to new extremes. From the late 1980s on, North Korea became even more closed to the outside world, leading to a rapid deterioration of the national economy to the point that more than a million of its people died of starvation in the famine of 1995-’97.

Today North Korea is dependent on food and energy inputs from China, South Korea and the UN, which delivers food aid originating in the United States and other western nations, including Canada. Even so, about half the children in North Korea still suffer from stunted growth and disabilities due to prolonged malnutrition. Meanwhile, the North Korean politicaland military elite lives in high luxury with their Mercedes Benzes, munificent walled housing compounds, flownin supplies of lobster and cognac, jewelry and expensive perfume imported through China; all gifts of the Dear Leader to maintain their support for his domination of a miserably failed state.