Stopping North Korea could complicate U.S. policies elsewhere
by Louise Lief, Steven Butler, Susan V. Lawrence, Matthew Cooper
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Asia was supposed to be the "good news" part of Bill Clinton's foreign policy. With Haiti and Somalia in chaos and Europe struggling with recession, a festering conflict in Bosnia and wobbling reform in Russia, Asia was going to be a sea of prosperity with endless opportunities for U.S. business.
So far, it hasn't turned out that way. As the United States battles to corral North Korea's nuclear program, it also finds itself embroiled in bitter disputes with two key Asian countries, China and Japan, just when it urgently needs their cooperation to persuade the North Koreans to permit United Nations inspections of their nuclear facilities.
Meanwhile, the confrontation with Pyongyang continues to escalate, raising fears that both sides could stumble into a conflict that neither wants. Last week, after the Pentagon arranged to send Patriot missile defense systems to South Korea and revived plans for joint war games with Seoul this fall, North Korea put its own armed forces on full emergency alert. Then Defense Secretary William Perry said the United States is making plans to strengthen its tactical air forces in South Korea, which would be critical to halting any North Korean armored attack (story, Page 38).
Stopping North Korea's nuclear weapons program without provoking the paranoid regime in Pyongyang into starting a war will require deft diplomacy -- and international cooperation. Washington needs Beijing to acquiesce to any U.N. sanctions against North Korea, but the administration is smarting from Secretary of State Warren Christopher's attempt to prod Chinese leaders to improve their human-rights record. Another key to pressuring Pyongyang is halting remittances of cash from Koreans in Japan; but even though the Japanese promise to cooperate, getting them to deliver will be complicated by the administration's threats of trade sanctions if Tokyo does not open its markets to more American exports.
The deadlines in North Korea and China are converging. U.S. officials back a U.N. Security Council threat of sanctions; if North Korea does not relent, the U.N. could begin imposing sanctions, which North Korea considers an "act of war," in several months. At the same time, President Clinton must decide by June 3 whether to renew China's most-favored-nation trade status, a decision he has tied to a "significant, overall improvement" in Beijing's human-rights performance.
Both China and Japan have powerful reasons of their own to stop North Korea from amassing a nuclear arsenal, and neither the Chinese nor the Japanese have yet linked the North Korean crisis to their disputes with Washington. But as China and Japan both feel America's ire, they are drawing closer. When Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa visited Beijing this month with a package of soft loans worth almost $20 billion, he commiserated with Chinese Premier Li Peng, who complained about Christopher's visit. "I told him it is not proper to force a Western or European- type democracy onto others," Hosokawa said.
So far, however, the stakes in North Korea are so high and the consequences of another war so awful that China, Japan, and South Korea have been willing to follow America's lead. The U.N. is moving gradually toward sanctions. Japan has vowed that it will cut off the hard-currency flow that permits Korean workers to send home anywhere from $500 million to $1.9 billion each year, if that becomes necessary. Skeptics, however, question whether the Japanese have the means or the willpower to act.
U.S. officials are more confident that a reluctant China would not use its Security Council veto to block U.N. sanctions against North Korea, but they are unsure whether Beijing would take the actions needed to make sanctions effective. China could cut off its oil shipments, along with deliveries of grain and tungsten, which is used in steelmaking.
Border trade will be harder to control. Chinese visiting relatives in North Korea carry in grain and carry out fish. Smaller, state- owned Chinese trading firms contract out to even smaller and less easily controlled companies. And while Russia is expected to go along with the sanctions, a consortium of Siberian mineral companies is developing the North Korean port of Rajin, and Moscow appears to have little control over their activities.
South Korea, China and Japan, however, are showing an unprecedented degree of cooperation. This week South Korean President Kim Young Sam visited Beijing, and relations between Seoul and Tokyo have never been better. These growing ties imply a strategic realignment that North Korea cannot evade -- and one that eventually may reduce America's influence in Northeast Asia.
China has the greatest influence over North Korea. Premier Li noted enigmatically last week that China's ties to North Korea "have grown" recently; a leading North Korean economic official, Kim Jong Yu, reputed to be a relative of Great Leader Kim Il Sung, arrived in China March 19, and many believe he is preparing for a visit by the 81-year-old Kim Il Sung to Beijing in May. U.S. intelligence officials say they do not believe China has contributed to North Korea's efforts to develop new ballistic missiles; in fact, when North Korean Defense Minister Oh Jin U visited China, rather than discuss military cooperation, the Chinese took him to the booming Shenzhen special economic zone opposite Hong Kong to show him the wonders of economic reform.
Diplomats in Beijing expect the North to announce a dramatic package of Chinese-style economic reforms on April 15, Kim Il Sung's birthday. And Western analysts in Beijing believe that a reform faction within the North Korean leadership is gaining steam. "If the Americans can wait, by the end of this year there will be change," says one.
Some diplomats also believe that Beijing was instrumental in persuading North Korean officials to talk to their counterparts from the South last week. But the meeting turned sour when the chief North Korean envoy threatened South Korean diplomats and journalists, prompting Seoul to begin taking a harder line toward its neighbor.
A common interest in containing North Korea, however, will go only so far toward mending the fraying relationship between the United States and China. The administration's policy of linking Beijing's trading status to its human rights record, hailed as a triumph only a year ago, is now in disarray. Secretary of State Christopher's aides are bewildered by the storm of criticism that greeted his return from China several weeks ago. "He produced some progress in spite of Chinese provocations and everyone beats up on him instead of China," says Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Winston Lord. "I just don't understand it."
Mixed messages. Some of Christopher's own colleagues share responsibility for the problem. While the secretary of state was telling China it risked losing its MFN status, officials from the Treasury and Commerce departments and the National Economic Council made clear their opposition to linking trade and human rights. And as Christopher came under fire, Clinton issued only a tepid endorsement of his own policy.
On Capitol Hill, too, the link between trade and human rights is growing more controversial. "If China meets the conditions," says Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, one of the most ardent backers of linkage, "the whole issue of using MFN will be greatly lessened. We won't get rid of the tool, but we'll put it on the back burner."
North Korea, however, remains squarely on the front burner. And asking China to help sanction Pyongyang while threatening Beijing with its own sanctions may cause China's leaders to think twice about where their interests really lie.
