North-east Asian crisis

Columnist M B NAQVI analyses the growing crisis in the Korean Peninsula.

The crisis in the north-east of Asia centring on the nuclear programme of North Korea has certainly intensified again. It is a serious threat to regional peace. Vitally interested parties are Japan, China and Russia. The US is of course everybody’s neighbour and is very very concerned. It keeps troops and a lot of air power in South Korea since 1953 and earlier. Indeed it is the crisis re-emergence as a result of the American drive to ensure the safety and security of South Korea to start with and to ensure that North Korea does not acquire nuclear capability of a military nature. That would upset the whole balance of power in the region. Which is what the Americans want to prevent. Everybody knows that the North Koreans under their leader Kim Jong Il, son of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung, runs a state that is a formidable military power insofar as its land forces are concerned. Its economy is said to be in tatters, though western media never tires of reminding the facts of North Korea being an overpowering threat to the security of South Korea. While North Korea is isolated, South Korea in strategic terms remains a protectorate of the US. Several aspects need to be kept in view.
To begin with, South Korea hosts military bases of the US. The US has been insistent that South Korea should not be wiped out. But the Koreans are extremely nationalistic. They want nothing more than a union between North and South Koreas. The idea of a united Korean state is extremely popular among the students and the intelligentsia of South Korea. People have been captivated by this idea and North Koreans are not regarded as a serious threat that the Americans would like the world to believe. To them North Korea’s political system may be good or bad; they appear to be indifferent. They are certainly prepared to risk living under it if that is the price of national unity. This part of the popular feelings is never emphasised by the western media. Doubtless there would be many in South Korea who do not want a similar communist system for themselves. They are content to live in an incrementally growing democracy. A lot of people have made good in it. But even more may not be as attached to capitalist democracy that does not deliver as good social services as in the North. The fact of the matter is that today the Americans and the causes they champion are not popular in South Korea while the idea of uniting with North Korea, despite its social regimentation is popular. This contradiction needs to be remembered.
The fact is that the system in the North Korea, despite its rigidity and the tyranny of the state, does not scare away the South Koreans. The reason is that there is something valuable that the state of North Korea delivers. It is social services like education, health and jobs. Unemployment is not a problem. Despite all inefficiencies, the state continues to provide employment and housing for all. This is something that the otherwise progressive economy of South Korea is unable to do. Insofar as political tyranny is concerned, the South Korea is not immune from it. The democracy has been, until recently, quite flawed. The point about North Koreans being an evil force does not seem obvious to South Korean people as such. The daily demonstrations —- either against the Americans or for uniting with the North —- are usually against their own government.
Nevertheless North Korea’s nuclear programme is not easily digestible to many powers. Japan is the first power that shivers at the idea of an unkind attention from Korean nationalists. They believe that whatever capability North Korea acquires is likely to be used on its people and territory. The Chinese are worried that the North Koreans might get involved in a long war with the US again. The Chinese have been North Korea’s traditional friends, and, up to a point, protectors of the Northern regime. They had protected North Korea way back soon after the initiation of the cold war in the beginning of 1950s. It is a settled Chinese policy to work against the growth of American influence and its role in Asia. China’s own equation with the US is not too settled. In a manner of speaking, the American policy toward China hovers between containment and engagement; the Chinese are never certain that they are not the real or ultimate enemy for the American war machine. There is a large enough school of thought among the American hawks that lays down China to be the real adversary of the US military power. The US is, in strategic terms, extremely suspicious of the growing Chinese influence as a result of its economic successes. The Chinese growth of course is dramatic. It has grown by phenomenal rates for decades. In 2002 the quantum of direct foreign investment was a whopping $ 52 billion. China is a force that is sure to cast its shadow over many an east Asian state as well as north-east Asian countries. The Americans are understandably worried and wary. The Chinese cannot want Americans to help South Korea conquer the North. North Korea is one of the friends that the Chinese would feel compelled to save.
Russia has traditionally been a friend of North Korea insofar as it carries the legacies of the Soviet policies. The Russians have certainly adopted many of the old Soviet policies and attitudes. They, therefore, tend to treat North Korea in much the same way as the Soviets did. At any rate, they have no great love for American power and its inherent drive for expansion. If the Russians, insofar as they are moved by Russian nationalism, would be no less expansionist if they had a vibrant and productive economy which is not the case. The net result is that the Russians will stand in the corner of North Korea when the chips are down, though not to the extent of war fighting on Pyongyang’s side. They would tend to oppose the American wishes politically rather than side with them. In accordance with the tradition of Russia regarding itself as a friend of North Korea, it would in all likelihood continue supporting North Korea diplomatically and politically.
Japan, being itself still dependent on American foreign policies for its protection, cannot but side with America as such. In the flurry of diplomatic moves now being made, the Japanese have surprisingly more or less distanced themselves from their matrix and they want a peaceful resolution of the crisis. The Japanese would like to resolve the issue as peacefully as possible. They are recommending negotiations on the American-North Korean crisis as are China and Russia. On what basis can the negotiations begin or conclude remains to be seen.
The Americans have accused North Korea of blackmailing the international community. If so, this the North Koreans have been doing for quite some time. This particular crisis on the nuclear subject is not new, either. It was quite intense during Clinton Administration which regarded the prevention of proliferation of nuclear weapons as one of its aims. Eventually the crisis was resolved through negotiations and the Secretary of State Madeline Albright had visited Pyongyang for a lengthy discussion with its leader Kim Il Sung. Many Americans disliked the Great Leader’s gambit in which he clearly was trying to bargain that the Americans should help North Korea’s economy by ensuring the fuel supplies and other goods against his promise not to pursue acquiring nuclear capability. The Americans eventually agreed and North Korea signed the NPT and invited IAEA inspectors to their nuclear reactor. Following the American President’s ‘Axis of Evil’ speech early in 2002, the Americans increased their pressure on North Korea and discontinued the fuel supplies. That angered the North Koreans no end. They, therefore, decided to reactivate their long dormant reactor. They expelled the IAEA inspectors and for good measure declared to be free of obligations imposed by the NPT. This of course equals an obvious casus belli in terms of the American policy.
Would the Americans force the North Koreans and take out the Great Leader, the way Saddam Hussain is being targeted. In the case of Saddam Hussain he is only suspected of possessing weapons of mass destruction whether chemical, biological or nuclear. Here, in North Korea’s case, the intent to make nuclear weapons is being proclaimed, complete with formal disassociation from NPT and was preceded by expelling all the IAEA inspectors from the country. In terms of the American policy of taking out weapons of mass destruction (MDW), would the Americans physically threaten North Korea? The Americans have stridently proclaimed that they would treat the matter diplomatically and politically. There appears to be no intent to engage in any physical manoeuvres. There is no massing of troops in that area with the intent to intervene. Why this difference between the two cases which a lot of people say is a case of double standards.
The fact of the matter is that the North Koreans cannot be treated like other weak states or as Iraq can be. No American General can forget the lesson that the North Koreans, assisted by the Chinese soldiery and Soviet aid, had taught to the great American General Mac Arthur. It was with great difficulty that the Americans could extricate themselves from the Korean peninsula. If the Americans had not agreed to peace quickly enough, they would have been driven into the sea. They had retreated in disorder from northern areas toward the south. It was with difficulty that an armistice could be signed on 38th parallel. That armistice on the 38th parallel border has continued to be respected since 1953. And the Americans were not dominant side at the time when the armistice was signed. They were in retreat amidst some confusion. It was not a masterly retreat manoeuvre for strategic or tactical purposes. It was just retreat forced by the enemy. The result was a lesson learnt and the American forces would not again engage North Korea that might call on their Chinese friends to assist them. That would be an unwinnable war on land for Americans and would cause absolutely unacceptable losses to the Americans. The Americans engage in physical combat only when they are sure that the other side is quite defenceless and their own heaps of hardware are overwhelming. In all the cases where this was not so the US would prefer negotiated settlement and will be ready for diplomatic intervention from its many willing or unwilling friends who want to preserve peace.
The big issue of Korean unity remains to be resolved. Let it be said with some certainty that the issue will be finally decided mainly by the people of the two Koreas themselves. Other powers, including China and Japan, have no locus standi. The fact that the South Koreans are a proxy for the Americans and have given bases to the American forces which are there since 1950s complicates the matter. It annoys the South Koreans who do not want to be too gracious hosts to the Americans. This is insofar as the common people are concerned the Americans are not welcome. The South Korean ruling groups have certainly their sympathies with the Americans and share their causes. But the ordinary people of South Korea do not. Nor Koreans make much of this distinction. The North Koreans are now aware that their system is not progressing despite its many social services; it is not really working or at least not in the way that they would like to. This is largely because they have to sustain a large army and keep it supplied. Actually the same trouble afflicts North Korea that ultimately got the Soviet Union down. What happens eventually is a matter for history. It is something that does not concern day-to-day politics. Perhaps the way the Chinese have opened up, the North Koreans too might sooner or later. The politics of the unification of the two Koreas can be the starting point for unified Korea to unleash its energies and start becoming a smaller China.