THE KOREAN PENINSULA: A TRANSCEND PERSPECTIVE

By Johan Galtung Reprint | | Print |

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NEW YORK, Jan 16 2003 (IPS) - (By Johan Galtung and Dietrich Fischer) German poet Goethe once said: \’\’People behave the way you treat them.\’\’ To a large extent, this applies also in international relations, write Johan Galtung, Professor of Peace Studies and Director of TRANSCEND, a peace and development network, and Dietrich Fischer, Professor at Pace University and Co-director of TRANSCEND. In this article for IPS, the authors write that Bush\’s inclusion of North Korea with Iraq and Iran in the \’\’axis of evil\’\’ made North Korea more belligerent, as even the US government now seems to recognise. The hawk/dove balance in North Korea can be tilted by the hawk/dove balance exerted by the US, South Korea, Japan and China, and to some extent by Russia. Fischer and Galtung recommend five steps to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula: Continuation of Sunshine Policy; Regime change in North Korea, like in China, heading for more democracy and human rights; a One nation/two states Confederation on the Korean Peninsula; a Conference for Security and Cooperation in Northeast Asia; foreign troop withdrawl from the Korean Peninsula. What helped end the cold war in Europe was a gradual mutual opening to the flow of ideas, goods and people. The same policy can work in Korea.

To a large extent, this applies also in international relations. George W. Bush’s inclusion of North Korea with Iraq and Iran in the ”axis of evil” in his January 2002 State of the Union address made North Korea more belligerent, as even the US government now seems to recognise.

As in South Korea and most other countries, there are hawks and doves at the top in North Korea, sometimes inside the same person. Hawks send submarines and attack; doves apologise.

Hawks abduct Japanese citizens; doves not only tell (part of) the story but send abductees to Japan for a reunion with their families. Hawks carry on with uranium enrichment; doves admit it (or confess, as it is called in the West). Hawks withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty and threaten missile tests; doves say they do not want to develop nuclear weapons and seek talks with the US. No doubt the hawk-dove dialectic is complex–”power struggle” is too simplistic a model. Kim Jong-Il may feel a Confucian obligation to follow his Father, possibly for a decade or more.

The hawk/dove balance in North Korea can be tilted by the hawk/dove balance exerted by the US, South Korea, Japan and China, and to some extent by Russia. Hawks breed hawks, doves breed doves, generally speaking. Rewarding North Korean dovishness will strengthen doves and possibly lead to soft regime change from the inside; punishing North Korean hawkishness will strengthen hawks and possibly lead to violent change or collapse.

Kim Dae-Jung’s ”Sunshine Policy” of engagement with North Korea (like West German Social Democratic Chancellor Willy Brandt’s ”Ostpolitik”) tilted the balance in favor of North Korean doves.

There was equality politically, a major condition for peace. The cooperation was broad. After the June 15, 2000, summit in Pyongyang between Kim Dae-Jung and Kim Jong-Il a spirit of confederation was in the air, for one nation/two states, with North Korea on a reformist path. The narrow victory of President Roh Moo-Hyun over his hard-line rival assures that South Korea will continue with Sunshine Policy.

Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi’s visit to Pyongyang indicated that the sunshine had thawed even Japanese hearts.

But not US hearts. After his (s)election, President Bush Jr. ordered a ”review” of North Korea policy (meaning procrastination). By including North Korea in the ”axis of evil”, he marked it for war/invasion if it refused to collapse.

The US decided to crush the Sunshine Policy by getting North Korea to admit/confess that it had not abandoned the uranium enrichment programme. Yet Washington never admitted/confessed that it had not yet fulfilled its own part of the 1994 agreement (offering North Korea two civilian light-water reactors to replace the reactor Pyongyang agreed to shut down); nor that Japan’s plutonium policy was the same as hawkish North Korea’s.

Recently the US took a very hawkish position, even stopping the flow of oil to North Korea at the beginning of winter. Later, the US reversed itself, saying it is ready to ”talk” but not negotiate with North Korea, hinting at possible food and energy assistance if North Korea first dismantles its nuclear weapons programme in a verifiable way. Interestingly, a majority in South Korea prefers to continue the Sunshine Policy, Japan a little less so, China more, and Russia possibly much more, eyeing Wonsan as oil export port.

The extent to which the US can make others toe their hard line, by stick or carrot policies, depends partly on whether North Korea will reward dovish policies by those four.

The following five steps can help ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula and build a better future for all: -A Continuation of Sunshine Policy; -A Regime change in North Korea, like in China, heading for more democracy and human rights and a mixed Capital-State economy; -A One nation/two states Confederation on the Korean Peninsula, with no collapse, no take-over, but changes on all sides and without an all-out sale of the North Korea economy to world capitalism, leaving a door open for full reunification in the future; -A Conference for Security and Cooperation in Northeast Asia, similar to the 1973-75 Helsinki Conference that prepared the end of the Cold War in Europe, aiming for an organisation to handle security and cooperation problems; -As tensions are reduced, all foreign troops are withdrawn from the Korean Peninsula, as agreed (but not practiced by the US) for Austria in 1955.

What helped end the cold war in Europe was a gradual mutual opening to the flow of ideas, goods and people. The same policy can work in Korea. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)