By Donald Macintyre, TIME ASIA, November 4, 2002/ Vol. 160 No. 17

* With reporting by Kim Yeoshin/Seoul and Kim Yooseung/Yanji

North Korea is a monolithic black box to the rest of the world, but stress cracks can be seen in the aspiring nuclear power The teenager looks at least three years younger than his 17 years. His eyes dart around or lock on his shoe tops when he talks. But when you take him to a neighborhood restaurant and put a steaming plate of dumplings in front of him, he suddenly perks up and starts to look you in the eye. Walking for a day from his village in North Korea, he crossed the Tumen River into China in early October, hoping to earn some money to buy food for his parents. He doesn't want you to use his name or take his picture. If a copy of this magazine were to fall into the hands of North Korean authorities, "they'll really beat me up," he says. Jae Young — a pseudonym he agrees to — has heard about the economic reforms unveiled by his country's leaders in July. But all that's happened in his village, Jae Young says, is that the price of grain has gone up, leaving his family hungrier than before. He falls silent at the mention of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, the man all North Koreans are taught to revere as a demigod. Jae Young has nothing to say on that topic except "There is nothing to eat."

Without knowing it, the stunted, starving young man speaks for a nation that is beginning to show the stress cracks of a bankrupt leadership. On Oct. 4, North Korea acknowledged that it was secretly trying to build nuclear weapons. The shocking admission, to senior U.S. diplomat James Kelly, was not made as a threat or a taunt. It was as much as anything else the distressed cry of a beleaguered nation running out of options. In fact, North Korea's nuclear confessions were among a stream of pronouncements issued from Pyongyang over the past few months, each one more surprising than the last. The country is scrambling to prop up its collapsed command economy with a dose of capitalism. The centerpiece of the reform efforts—a Chinese-style special economic zone in the northwestern town of Sinuiju—will probably never get off the ground, according to businessmen across the river in the Chinese city of Dandong. For one thing, the Chinese entrepreneur appointed to run it has been arrested by the mainland for unspecified wrongdoings. For another, the nuclear disclosure has put North Korea in U.S. President George W. Bush's gunsight. Who would invest there now?...

SEOUL OFFICIAL SAYS NORTH TO CUT ITS FORCES BY 10%

Joongang Ilbo reported that ROK government official said that DPRK is planning to reduce its armed forces by about 10 percent to free up labor needed for its economic reform measures. About 100,000 members of the Second Economic Commission, a part of DPRK' s armed forces assigned to logistics and civil engineering, will soon be discharged, the official said, quoting DPRK intelligence sources in Beijing. The economic commission was established in the early 1970s to manage military logistics. The National Defense Commission, headed by the DPRK leader Kim Jong-il oversees the economic unit, which is responsible for the production and supply of military equipment, weapons and ammunition. It also runs an income-earning agricultural production and export business on the side. The official said that details of the timing and exact scale of the reduction have not been confirmed. (Kim Min-seok, Lee Young-jong, "SEOUL OFFICIAL SAYS NORTH TO CUT ITS FORCES BY 10%," Seoul, 11/06/02)
 

NORTH THREATENS TO RENEGE ON MISSILE TESTING BAN

Joongang Ilbo reported that DPRK's Foreign Ministry spokesman Tuesday blamed Japan for the lack of progress on talks to normalize relations between the two countries, and said DPRK may reconsider its self-imposed moratorium on ballistic missile testing. Speaking through the state-run Korean Central News Agency, the unnamed spokesman said the spirit of trust between the two countries that was established when the leaders of the two countries met in September has suffered, as Japan has insisted, from "twisted logic." The two sides agreed to continue talks this month, but tense words have been exchanged since the Malaysia meeting. The lack of progress has led DPRK to review several security issues, including "the nuclear and ballistic missile" issues, the spokesman told the press agency. The joint declaration released after the North-Japan summit in September referred to the possibility that the moratorium may be extended beyond 2003. (Kim Young-sae, "NORTH THREATENS TO RENEGE ON MISSILE TESTING BAN," Seoul, 11/06/02)
 

OIL SHIPMENT TO NORTH KOREA GOES AHEAD DESPITE NUKE CRISIS

The Agence France-Presse reported that an international consortium is preparing a new shipment of fuel oil to the DPRK under a 1994 deal despite renewed concerns over the DPRK's nuclear weapons program, officials said here. The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) has already begun loading more than 40,000 tons of heavy fuel oil for November's shipment to the DPRK. "The loading of the fuel oil is underway in Singapore," a senior official from the Office of the Lightwater Reactor Project said Wednesday. "We are following the normal procedures as no decisions have yet been made as to whether to continue the energy assistance or to stop it," he said. US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly raised doubts whether the US would countenance any future payments towards fuel oil for the DPRK. "For next year though, I see very little support in the US Congress to continue providing these fuel shipments," Kelly said on Tuesday. ("OIL SHIPMENT TO NORTH KOREA GOES AHEAD DESPITE NUKE CRISIS," 11/06/02)
 

US RAISES DOUBTS OVER NORTH KOREA FUEL SHIPMENT

The Agence France-Press The United States has raised doubts that North Korea would receive its latest oil shipment mandated by a 1994 arms control pact which Pyongyang said was nullified last month when it confessed to developing nuclear weapons. The deal, known as the Agreed Framework, was supposed to freeze Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program in exchange for the provision of two nuclear power reactors and half a million metric tonnes of fuel oil a year until their construction is complete. The State Department said Tuesday it was discussing the fate of a shipment of more than 40,000 metric tonnes, recently loaded onto a tanker in Singapore, with fellow members of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO). Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, who secured the nuclear confession from the DPRK during a visit to the Stalinist state last month, said that a meeting of KEDO next week would take up the issue. "There is a board meeting next Monday that's going to decide whether that goes ahead," said Kelly. ("US RAISES DOUBTS OVER NORTH KOREA FUEL SHIPMENT," 11/06/02)

"No One is Stronger Than a Person Who is Prepared to Die"

Yoichi Funabashi, Asahi Simbun

During the normalization talks, Ambassador Jong Thae Hwa described North Korea's determination for survival with the phrase ``no one is stronger than a person who is prepared to die.'' There is no guarantee that North Korea, which is driving itself to play such a ghastly game for survival, would not explode any time. Ambassador Jong Thae Hwa, who represented the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) at the Japan-North Korea normalization talks in Kuala Lumpur, had firmly maintained in past sessions that the abduction issue was a fabrication. As it turned out, he was telling a big lie. Despite recent developments, however, Jong did not speak any words of ``remorse'' this time. Properly speaking, his failure to express such sentiment made him a poor negotiator. The Japanese side should have clearly pointed it out at the negotiation table.

However, his Japanese counterpart, Ambassador Katsunari Suzuki, appeared nonchalant, perhaps because he stands by the belief that ``if necessary, professional diplomats must not hesitate to join hands with the devil.'' Furthermore, Jong, who has a military background, may be thinking that the job of diplomats is to ``lie for their country.'' Of course, Ambassador Jong is no devil. In past sessions, he was known to hit the table in a fit of fury, but this time, it seems he neither walked out of the room in a rage nor abused the Japanese side. In a press briefing, a Foreign Ministry official spoke about the North Korean attitude concerning the Pyongyang declaration signed at the Japan-North Korean summit and said: ``We felt that they have a strong bearing to sincerely abide by it because it was signed by whom they refer to as `Dear Leader.''' Since when has the Foreign Ministry begun to call General Secretary of the Korean Workers Party Kim Jong Il ``Dear Leader'' (even with the notation ``whom they refer to as'')?..

UN SAYS COULD AGAIN SLASH NORTH KOREA FOOD PROGRAM

By David Ljunggren, November 5, 2002

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) warned on Tuesday that a serious funding shortfall meant it might again be forced to slash food distribution in Stalinist North Korea. The WFP, which has been feeding about a third of North Korea's 23 million people, began halting food aid to millions of hungry children, women and elderly people in September because of a slump in grain donations. By the end of the year, some three million people will be cut off and another 1.5 million may follow early next year. "We've had to cut our work in North Korea in half and I'm concerned we may have to cut it in half again ... I'm very troubled about how we're going to do our humanitarian work in North Korea going forward," said WFP Executive Director James Morris.

"Japan has historically given us $100 million a year to feed the people in North Korea. They've not been able to do that this year and that's a serious resource shortfall," he told Ottawa's National Press Club. Last year Japan topped the list of international donors with a donation of 500,000 tonnes (490,000 tons) of grain. Some analysts say Tokyo turned off the taps this year in frustration at a lack of progress in political talks, which have now resumed. The prospects for the talks are unclear. Pyongyang, increasingly isolated over a secret nuclear arms program, threatened earlier on Tuesday to reconsider a moratorium on test-firing missiles if talks on normalizing ties with Japan failed to make progress. The isolated, heavily armed state -- branded part of an "axis of evil" by U.S. President George W. Bush -- has been hard hit by several years of natural disasters, chronic food and energy shortages, and economic mismanagement.

"We keep our focus on feeding the hungry poor and try to be as narrow in our outlook as we possibly can, not to get hung up on all the other very troublesome political issues," said Morris, expressing optimism that the fall harvest would help alleviate problems in the short term. Washington has said more aid to North Korea would be conditional on Pyongyang giving more freedom to humanitarian organizations such as the WFP. Morris said that although the WFP had made great strides, working conditions inside North Korea were very difficult. "We asked the government of North Korea to give us a list of the institutions that receive the food. We don't get adequate reports. We don't have a good understanding with the government about the evacuation of our personnel if they have a health problem," he said. "It's mind-boggling to me, I must say, when you're trying to do nothing but save lives and feed people and do humanitarian work, why some governments make it so difficult."

"Current Developments on the Korean Peninsula: Are There Grounds for Hope?"

by Han Sung-Joo, November 5, 2002

Despite our tremendous foresight when we were planning for this lecture, we did not quite anticipate that relations between North and South Korea would be at such an interesting juncture. We should have known, however we could even have bet our last dollar that just about any time is an interesting time to talk about this subject. But today, it seems even more so. In fact, I was at this campus to give a talk on a similar topic early this year. That was on February 1st, three days after the famous "axis of evil" speech by President Bush. At the time, by including North Korea as a member of his notorious axis, President Bush squashed any hope of an early U.S.-North Korea rapprochement.

Today, with Pyongyang's admission that they have been engaged in an enriched uranium nuclear weapons development program, the situation on the Korean Peninsula, not to speak of relations between the United States and North Korea, seems to be entering a rather rough period. Perhaps I can address this problem by asking a few key questions and venturing to answer them. First, given North Korea's commitment under the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework to freeze all nuclear activity in return for light water reactors and a supply of heavy oil, why did it decide to restart its nuclear weapons program and thus violate, even flout, the agreement?

CONSTRUCTION TO BEGIN NEXT MONTH'S KAESEONG INDUSTRY PARK

Joognang Ilbo reported that ROK and DPRK have agreed to begin building an industrial zone in Kaeseong, DPRK, next month. The target is to allow South Korean firms to establish plants in the zone beginning in late 2003. The two Koreas are also reportedly near an agreement on tourism programs in the city northwest of Seoul across the Demilitarized Zone that could begin early next year. After three days of talks in Pyongyang, delegates from the ROK and the DPRK announced the agreement Saturday. Two ROK firms, Hyundai Asan Corp. and the state-run Korea Land Corp., will develop 3.3 million square meters of land by the end of next year in the first stage of a project to turn 66 million square meters of land into an industrial zone. DPRK said it will set up a new legal system for the zone, making it a special district with tax benefits and a minimum of interference in the use of the land, the operation of plants located there and funds flows. (Kim Young-hoon, "CONSTRUCTION TO BEGIN NEXT MONTH'S KAESEONG INDUSTRY PARK," Seoul, 11/04/02)

Self-sufficiency in economy

Pyongyang, November 4 (KCNA) -- Self-sufficiency in the economy elucidated by the Juche idea is a guiding principle of the party and state activities for applying an independent stand and creative stand in the revolution and construction. Adhering to the principle of self-sufficiency in the economy means building an economy which is free from dependence on others and which stands on its own feet, an economy which meets the material demand of one's own people and country by itself. The Juche idea clarifies that economic self-sufficiency is essential for definitely guaranteeing the political sovereignty and independence of the country and providing an independent and creative material life to the popular masses. Only on the basis of economic self-sufficiency, can any nation defend the political sovereignty, build a prosperous independent and sovereign state and provide an independent and creative material life to the popular masses.

 
In order to achieve economic self-sufficiency, it is necessary to adhere to the principle of self-reliance and build an independent national economy. One cannot build an independent national economy and solve one's own problems by depending on others. If an independent national economy is to be built, the economy must be developed in a diversified and integral way and establish one's own reliable and independent sources of raw materials and fuel. It makes it possible to fully meet the material requirements of one's own country and people and develop the economy in a safe and forward-looking manner. The Juche idea gives a scientific exposition of the principle of economic self-sufficiency and ways of achieving it, thus providing an ideological and theoretical weapon to build a powerful independent and sovereign state and make an independent development of the nation by strengthening the country's economic independence and consolidating the material and technical foundations of socialism.

OIL FOR NORTH SUSPENDED TEMPORARILY

Chosun Ilbo reported that the plan to send 400,000 tons of oil to DPRK this week has been temporarily halted it was learned Sunday. An ROK government official announced Sunday, that alongside the US and Japan a final decision upon sending the oil will be made around November 15 after the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group, or TCOG meeting scheduled to open in Tokyo and Seoul from November 8. Considering limiting various aid sent to DPRK, the three countries also reached an agreement to make concrete counter plans in case DPRK continues its clandestine nuclear development programs. In accordance with this, the three are considering boycotting a Nuclear Accident Compensation Protocol meeting between KEDO and DPRK originally scheduled for this month. The official said, the US, Japan and ROK will continue its firm principal requesting prior suspension of DPRK's nuclear program and if it fails to comply, phased counter measures will be applied. (Kwon Kyung-bok, "OIL FOR NORTH SUSPENDED TEMPORARILY," Seoul, 11/04/02)

Rodong Sinmun on army-based policy

Pyongyang, November 3 (KCNA) -- The army-based policy of the DPRK is an independent and patriotic policy that protects the dignity, security and interests of the nation from imperialist aggression, says Rodong Sinmun today in a signed article. The army-centered policy is the wisest policy adopted in view of the history of national sufferings in which its sovereignty was wantonly violated by foreign forces, the article says, and goes on:
The policy serves as a treasured sword of justice to bring down a sledge hammer upon the heads of the imperialists who encroach upon the sovereignty and the vital rights of the Korean nation, and a powerful driving force pushing forward the movement for independent national reunification.

The north and the south of Korea are exposed to grave encroachment and threats by the U.S. imperialists. The U.S. is posing a nuclear threat to the Korean Peninsula, while trying to mislead the public opinion with much ado about "nuclear weapons program" of the DPRK. Lurking behind their moves is a sinister intention to disarm the DPRK and deprive it of its vital rights so as to enslave all the Koreans. Once they trigger a war against the DPRK, South Korea will not go safe. If a nuclear war breaks out in the small Korean Peninsula, all the Koreans in the north and south will suffer from it. From a logical viewpoint, the DPRK's army-based policy is the most independent and just patriotic policy to foil the U.S. imperialists' moves for aggression and protect the dignity and interests of the whole nation including South Koreans.

First meeting of panel for construction of Kaesong Industrial Zone held

Pyongyang, November 2 (KCNA) -- The first meeting of the panel for the construction of the Kaesong Industrial Zone took place here from October 30 to November 2 under the agreement reached at the 2nd meeting of the north-south committee for the promotion of economic cooperation. An agreement adopted at the panel meeting said that the north and the south decided to hold a ground breaking ceremony for the construction of the Kaesong Industrial Zone in December and actively cooperate with each other in the efforts to complete the first phase development of one million Phyong of the zone by the year 2003.

It was decided that the north side would recommend that a law on the zone would be promulgated in November to rapidly push forward the construction and provide labour force necessary for the construction and the south side render the biggest possible cooperation so that the construction of external infrastructure including electricity, telecommunications and water service may be sped up in a commercial manner.

The north and the south agreed to discuss and solve the issues of passage, customs, quarantine and telecommunications related to the construction through the committee and working-level contacts between those concerned of both sides when railway and road links are reconnected. They also agreed to set up an office concerned of the south side in the zone when it is built and hold the 2nd meeting of the panel for the construction in Seoul in December 2002. The authorities of the two sides decided to actively cooperate with each other for the implementation of the agreement.

NORTH KOREA REMAINS DEFIANT ON NUCLEAR OPTION

Reuters reported that the DPRK defended what it said was a right to have nuclear weapons -- without saying if it actually had them -- and renewed calls on Friday for the US to sign a non-aggression pact. At a rare news conference in the DPRK's embassy in Beijing, Ambassador Choe Jin Su repeated an October 25 Foreign Ministry statement that blamed the administration of President Bush for the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula and said the US had violated a key 1994 agreement. "Reckless political, economic and military pressure from the Bush administration is seriously threatening our right to subsistence, creating a grave situation on the Korean peninsula," he said though a translator. "We told the special envoy of the US president that we were entitled to possess not only nuclear weapons but any type of weapon more powerful than that in order to protect our sovereignty and right to subsistence from an ever growing U.S. nuclear threat," he said. (John Ruwitch, "NORTH KOREA REMAINS DEFIANT ON NUCLEAR OPTION," Beijing, 11/01/02)

"Responding to North Korea's Surprises"

by John Feffer, November 1, 2002

For a supposedly changeless, monolithic state, North Korea shakes up the staid world of diplomacy with surprising frequency. In the past four months, Pyongyang has initiated dramatic economic changes, stunned Japan with its confession of abductions, appointed a Chinese-born tycoon to oversee its newest free-trade zone, and sent its first-ever boatload of athletes, musicians, and cheerleaders to South Korea to participate in the 2002 Asian games. In the latest stunner, North Korea revealed in early October to a visiting U.S. delegation that it has violated international agreements with a secret uranium enrichment program.

So often on the receiving end of carrot-and-stick policies, North Korea has been trying its own alternation of sweet and sour. The summer began on a sour note. At the end of June, in what has become a semi-annual clash during the lucrative crab harvesting season, North and South Korean boats exchanged fire in a disputed area of the West Sea, leaving four ROK sailors and an estimated thirty DPRK sailors dead. Planned negotiations with the United States immediately evaporated. With North Korea refusing to acknowledge dispatching a spy boat sunk by Self Defense Forces in December 2001, relations with Japan were also at an impasse...

U.S. espionage flights in October

Pyongyang, November 1 (KCNA) -- The U.S. imperialist warhawks made over 200 espionage flights against the DPRK in October, according to military sources. Mobilized for the espionage were strategic and tactical reconnaissance planes of different missions including U-2, RC-135, E-3 and RC-12. These planes took off U.S. air force bases in South Korea, Japan and other areas overseas and made shuttle flights in the sky over the area along the military demarcation line to spy on the forefrontal areas of the DPRK and its depth. The cases of espionage by U-2 high-altitude strategic reconnaissance plane, RC-135 strategic reconnaissance plane and E-3 commanding plane numbered over 30. 20 more U.S. espionage flights were committed in October than September. They were timed to coincide with the military moves escalated by the U.S. administration to stifle the DPRK by force of arms under the pretext of a "nuclear issue".

Public Executions All But Gone

By Kang Chol-hwan ([email protected]), Chosun Ilbo, October 30, 2002

It has recently been learned that the notorious public executions carried out across North Korea in the latter half of the 1990's are all but gone since 2000, and that the family life of political prisoners has eased significantly. "Under Kim Jong Il's order issued to the State Security Agency and border guards early in 2000: 'Don't fire shots in the Republic,' no public executions have been carried out in the North, particularly in the border area," said a North Korean who has fled to China and who had served with the border guard.

Recalling the gruesome 1998 executions in public in Musan County, North Hamgyong Province of organized gangs, convicted of plundering electricity and communication wires, contraband trade and human trafficking with China, another North Korean who is connected with the State Security Agency, and who is engaged in smuggling with China, said that not a single public execution has taken place in the North since 2000.

Murderers, state property destroyers and public fund embezzlers, who would have been executed in public in the past, are now given prison terms of up to 20 years, said still another North Korean who used to be a ranking bureaucrat in the Hyeryong city administration, North Hamgyong Province. Most felons who would have been sentenced to death in the past are now given life terms, he added. The purported suspension of open executions is reportedly ascribed to censure by the world community.

Pyongyang is also said to have suspended punishing the families of political criminals, unless involved in grave offenses. "Incidents still occur in the border area such as Musan and Chongjin in which alleged smugglers with China and the South are taken by the State Security Agency, only to be seen no more," claimed a North Korean who has connections with the state security outfit. "But their families are no longer affected." Such families are still placed under surveillance, though, and the incidents have increased in number in which alleged political offenders are detained by the authorities and go missing without trace being given, according to the source.

Though public executions have drastically declined in number in the face of the strong disapproval and criticism in the international community, claimed a North Korean defector in the South, executions still take place within State Security Agency facilities and prisons as frequently as before. "Unless Pyongyang undergoes a fundamental changes with respect to human rights, political offenders would continuously be confined in concentration camps without undergoing formal trials; and some would be executed in secret," opined the defector.
 

OPEC WILL LEND NORTH $10 MILLION FOR A DAM

Joongang Ilbo reported that DPRK will receive a US$10 million agricultural development loan from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the organization said Tuesday. The money will be used for construction of an irrigation system in North Pyongyang province, the fund said. The loan is repayable over 20 years with a five-year grace period. It is the second time that DPRK has benefited from an OPEC Fund agricultural development loan. A US$5 million loan was given in 1999. DPRK's Agricultural Ministry plans to build a 660-meter-long dam and a 64-kilometer irrigation canal to supply waters to 100 cooperative farms. ("OPEC WILL LEND NORTH $10 MILLION FOR A DAM," Seoul, 10/31/02)

TAIWAN CAUTIOUS ABOUT NORTH

Joongang Ilbo reported that Taiwanese companies are interested in investing in DPRK, but reluctant to press ahead due to a lack of trust in its government, according to the chairman of the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce. Jeffrey L. S. Koo, who is also chairman of China Trust Financial Holding Co. and an economic adviser to Taiwanese President Chen Shuibian, was speaking at the Confederation of Asia-Pacific Chambers of Commerce and Industry's 19th conference in Seogwipo, Jeju island, Wednesday.

Koo said many Taiwanese firms were afraid to invest in DPRK after it recently acknowledged abducting Japanese civilians. Koo said he was optimistic about continued economic cooperation between Taiwan and PRC. He said PRC had become the biggest importer of Taiwanese goods, recently surpassing US, and that over 50,000 Taiwanese firms had invested in the mainland. More than 100 businessmen from 22 Asia-Pacific nations attended the meeting. The confederation, founded in 1966, is based in Taipei and the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry is a regular member. (Choi Hyung-kyu, "TAIWAN CAUTIOUS ABOUT NORTH," Seoul, 10/31/02)

JAPANESE PRESS LAMBASTS NORTH KOREAN STANCE DURING TALKS

Agence France-Presse reported that the DPRK's stance during recent normalisation talks with Japan raised doubts about the sincerity it showed at a landmark summit just a month ago, Japanese media said. "This marks the first real negotiations since Prime Minister (Junichiro) Koizumi visited North Korea, and there was plenty to indicate that choppy waters lie ahead," the Asahi Shimbun said in an editorial. "North Korea's response raises doubts about how serious it is about carrying out the content of the Pyongyang Declaration," it said, referring to a joint statement signed by Koizumi and DPRK leader Kim Jong-Il in Pyongyang last month. Two days of bureaucrat-level talks between the sides ended in discord in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday as Pyongyang rebuffed Tokyo's requests about its nuclear weapons program and the families of Japanese citizens kidnapped to the DPRK. DPRK officials said a solution to the nuclear issue lies only in talks with the US and dismissed the kidnapping matter as "almost settled".

The country meanwhile pressed for talks for reparations for Japan's wartime colonial rule of the Korean peninsula. But papers said the DPRK should realize its nuclear threat is of paramount importance to Japan and that economic aid would only come later. "With the combination of its nuclear development and its missile program, there is no greater menace to Japan," the Yomiuri Shimbun printed. "Saying it will only negotiate with the United States on this issue, North Korea will only cause the failure of talks with Japan," it said. "The Bush administration has no intention of negotiating with Pyongyang over nuclear weapons," the Asahi said. "North Korea should realise that without Japan's involvement, there will be no movement on this issue." ("JAPANESE PRESS LAMBASTS NORTH KOREAN STANCE DURING TALKS," 10/31/01)

N. KOREA BACKS AWAY FROM DIPLOMACY

The Washington Post, reported that the DPRK halted its recent moves toward conciliatory diplomacy at talks this week with Japan and set the stage for confrontation with the outside world over its program to develop a nuclear bomb. In two days of talks, the DPRK refused to dismantle its nuclear program without direct negotiations with the US and balked at reuniting with their parents the children of five released kidnap victims who are in Japan on a "visit." By refusing to negotiate with Japan over its nuclear program, the DPRK shunned a diplomatic route that could have defused a potential showdown with the US. The DPRK has instead demanded talks on the nuclear issue solely with the US. The Bush administration has said it will not negotiate with the DPRK. Japanese negotiators acknowledged disappointment in the deadlock at the end of the talks tonight. "Although we made utmost efforts, to our regret, we failed to secure a change in their position," Japan's chief negotiator, Katsunari Suzuki, told reporters. [This Washington Post article originally appeared in the US Defense Department's Early Bird News Summary.] (Doug Struck, "N. KOREA BACKS AWAY FROM DIPLOMACY," Tokyo, 10/31/02)
 

KCNA REFUTES US CLAIM FOR SCRAPPING DPRK'S 'NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM

The Korean Central News Agency carried a story that said, US high-ranking authorities reportedly called on the DPRK to scrap its nuclear weapons program, asserting that the US would not resume talks with the DPRK and calling for putting international pressure upon it under the pretext of its nuclear issue. The DPRK can not but clarify its resolute and principled stand on the issue as the US is disclosing its bellicose attempt to drive the military situation on the Korean Peninsula to a nuclear showdown, far from opting to improve the DPRK-US relations. The US is misrepresenting the situation as if the DPRK had breached the DPRK-US agreed framework. But the stark reality proves that the assertion is nothing but sheer sophism.

The Bush administration has pursued a hostile policy to stifle the DPRK by force. The US is chiefly to blame for reducing to dead documents all international agreements and conventions, including the DPRK-US Agreed Framework (AF), the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and the north-south joint declaration on denuclearization. It is foolhardy of the US to calculate that it can destroy the DPRK's powerful armed forces whose offensive and defensive means are more powerful than when the AF was released in 1994. If the US continues turning down our proposal and posing nuclear threats to the DPRK, the latter will be left with no option but to take a corresponding measure. The US assertion will only spark a new clash. ("KCNA REFUTES US CLAIM FOR SCRAPPING DPRK'S 'NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM,'" Pyongyang, 10/31/02)
 

"North Korea Back to the Future"

by Glyn Ford, October 30, 2002

Next year's crisis on the Korean Peninsula has come early. 2003 was to see a change of regime in South Korea, markedly less sympathetic to engagement with the North than current President Kim Dae Jung, the final failure of the US to deliver the North two promised nuclear power stations, and the expiry of North Korea's self-imposed moratorium on missile testing; an explosive conjuncture of events. All were pre-empted by North Korea admitting that - aided and abetted by Pakistan - they have been engaged in a clandestine programme to produce enriched uranium since the end of the 1990s, breaching Agreements made with the US in 1994.

The question is why has North Korea's leader triggered such a crisis now? The answer is two-fold. First, they see the US as comprehensively failing to deliver technically, politically and militarily on the promises of 1994, and with Iraq in US sights, an opportunity to negotiate a new comprehensive solution rather than precipitate US military adventurism by breaking US hawks attempts to neatly sequence action against the three 'Axis of Evil' regimes. Secondly, they need international aid. North Korea has taken a series of, almost certainly irreversible, steps transforming their command economy into one where the market plays a central role. The old system of guaranteed food delivered through the People's Distribution Centres has, since the 1st of July, been superseded by an emphasis on producers and production, where massive increases in wages are available as an incentive. The old emphasis on equality that allowed free riding has been swept away. Now agriculture and industry have to be competitive. Yet these very changes pose a threat. Over the past five years, one in eight of the population has died of starvation. Food production still fails to match demand, many factories lack fuel and raw materials but not workers. With no work possible, millions now face an even bleaker future. The consequences can only be eliminated by greater, rather than less, aid and assistance.

"North Korea's Nuclear Program: An Assessment Of U.S. Options"

by Steve LaMontagne, October 30, 2002

North Korea's recent admission that it has continued to pursue a nuclear weapons program in violation of the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, the 1992 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and the 1994 Agreed Framework caught the United States off guard and startled the world. As the Bush administration endeavors to mount a coordinated international response, it is important to consider the status of North Korea's nuclear program, possible reasons for its disclosure, and the implications of various response options.

When Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly visited North Korea in early October, he presented his counterparts in Pyongyang with U.S. intelligence suggesting that North Korea had sought and acquired materials necessary to build gas centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Pakistan may have provided key assistance to North Korea, possibly as a quid pro quo for ballistic missile technology allegedly received from Pyongyang in the late 1990s. Russia and China may also have provided assistance to North Korea, although both countries deny it...

THE GREATEST THREAT

Nicholas D. Kristof

New York Times, October 29, 2002. The scariest place in the world right now is not Iraq, but rather the Korean peninsula. We're being blackmailed by a nuclear power, and so President Bush is in an exceptionally difficult situation - one that he has handled very ably so far. But the administration's game plan to isolate North Korea is, as our allies are desperately trying to tell us, potentially catastrophic. President Bush wants to squeeze North Korea into abandoning the uranium enrichment program to which it recently confessed. North Korea has enough plutonium in Yongbyon to rapidly make at least five nuclear weapons, possibly more. That's its leverage: threatening to turn Yongbyon into a nuclear assembly line, which in turn might ultimately lead Japan and South Korea to go nuclear as well. So play the scenario out. We cut off fuel oil and introduce sanctions. Then North Korea revives Yongbyon and threatens to uncan the plutonium.

From there, it's easy to imagine the U.S. bombing Yongbyon (both the first Bush and the Clinton administrations had contingency plans to do just that), after which North Korea lashes out with artillery at Seoul. In fact, North Korea's ballistic missiles probably can't reach the continental U.S. Still, North Korea's artillery can destroy Seoul. Don Oberdorfer, in his book "The Two Koreas," cites an estimate from a former American commander in South Korea that a war could kill one million people, including 100,000 Americans. In the coming months, the most delicate problem in international relations will be how to negotiate an end to this crisis. If all sides play their cards wisely, we could not only defuse the confrontation, but also launch North Korea on a path like the one China pursued away from Stalinism. North Korea is the most totalitarian country in the world, and possibly the most dangerous adversary we face. But that's precisely the reason we need to engage it.

North Korea Insists Only Natural Disasters Prevented It from Protecting Its Citizens

By Naomi Koppel, The Associated Press

October 29, 2002. GENEVA - North Korea said it has zero unemployment, free education and free health care but admitted it has not provided adequate food and housing for its citizens in recent years because of a series of natural disasters, the government said in a report to the United Nations. In a long-overdue report to the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the reclusive communist nation said it had been steadily improving its citizens' standard of living until floods and other disasters struck. "A number of industrial facilities and equipment were submerged and destroyed by pouring rain, drought, tidal waves, typhoons and other natural disasters," the report said. "The shortage of power, fuel, facilities and materials affected the overall national economy and people's lives."

The government said grain production fell from 9.1 million tons in 1990 to 2.5 million in 1995, rising only slightly in the following years. Ten percent of children under seven were malnourished in 2000, it said. The government added that many people lost their homes in flooding. "The state stresses the construction of houses to stabilize people's lives as soon as possible even if they lack many things and the situation is still hard," it said. The economy also was affected by "the collapse of the socialist market," the report said ? a reference to the dismantling of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. However, the North Korean government said everybody was committed to working to put the country back on track. "The different sectors of the national economy gradually recovered their production ability, readjusted the basis of the independent national economy and laid the firm foundation for a new leap forward."

 
Tens of thousands of impoverished North Koreans have tried to flee repression and hunger in their country, but many have been returned by neighboring China, which considers them to be illegal migrants. The report said every person had the right to join a labor union, but added, "the forming of a trade union that endangers the state security and harms the healthy state and social order is forbidden." Similarly, it said, people have the right to hold demonstrations as long as they do not harm state security. The report will be considered by the U.N. committee, which oversees an international convention on economic, social and cultural rights, at a future meeting, probably next year. Countries are supposed to produce a report within a year of ratifying the convention, and then every five years after that.

North Korea ratified the accord in 1981 but only produced its first report in 1989. This is the second report.
The convention is one of a series of treaties that cover basic human rights. It does not deal with issues such as prevention of torture, political rights and racial discrimination. Cash-strapped North Korea has recently shown signs of opening to the outside world in an attempt to win economic aid. It is currently holding talks with Japan to discuss establishing diplomatic ties. In 2000 it produced its first report to a U.N. human rights body in more than a decade when it set out its compliance with the Convention on Civil and Political Rights. In response, the panel that monitors the treaty issued an extensive range of recommendations covering the country's use of the death penalty, torture, trafficking, lack of freedom of movement, unfair trials and political prisoners. "The observance of human rights is obligatory for all nations whether they are capitalists or socialists," it said.

NORTH KOREA BELIEVED TO POSSESS UP TO 4,000 TONNES OF BIOCHEMICAL WEAPONS

Agence France-Presse reported that the ROK believes the DPRK possesses some 4,000 ton of biochemical weapons and has built as many as three crude nuclear weapons, the ROK's intelligence agency chief told lawmakers. In testimony to the parliament's Intelligence Committee Monday, Shin Kun, director of the National Intelligence Service, said the DPRK was capable of producing some 4,500 tons of weapons annually. Pyongyang began its biochemical weapons program about four decades ago. "The North is believed to have a stockpile of between 2,500-4,000 ton of biochemical weapons," an opposition Grand National Party (GNP) lawmaker, Lee Yoon-Sung, quoted Shin as saying. "We are unable to judge how powerful those biochemical weapons are as we have yet to confirm the accuracy of their delivery systems and whether the North has made those weapons compact enough to deliver."  The weapons would have been built using some seven to 22 kilograms (15 to 49 pounds) of plutonium the DPRK is believed to have extracted before it opened nuclear facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections in 1992. ("NORTH KOREA BELIEVED TO POSSESS UP TO 4,000 TONNES OF BIOCHEMICAL WEAPONS," 10/29/02)
 

N. KOREA REJECTS CALL TO GIVE UP NUCLEAR WEAPONS

The Associated Press reported that the DPRK has rejected demands that it give up its nuclear weapons program, a Japanese official indicated as Japan and the DPRK were engaged in talks aimed at normalizing diplomatic relations. "Japan expressed grave concern on nuclear issues and we also referred to the statement issued last week by Japan, the United States and South Korea. To put it in one sentence North Korea's response was they do not accept it at all," said the official. The statement by the three countries, issued on Saturday, demanded the DPRK immediately give up its quest for nuclear weapons. The Japanese official said the response came from the head of DPRK's delegation to the talks in the Malaysian capital, DPRK's roving ambassador Jong Thae-Hwa, who "went on to say America's hostile stance toward North Korea is to blame. ("N. KOREA REJECTS CALL TO GIVE UP NUCLEAR WEAPONS," 10/29/02)

"Deja Vu All Over Again?"

by Ralph A. Cossa, October 29, 2002 Pacific Forum CSIS
 

Seoul: Is it deja vu all over again on the Korean Peninsula? The short answer is "yes!" . . . and "no!" North Korea seems to be following its time-honored pattern, witnessed most prominently during the 1993-94 nuclear crisis that lead to the now "nullified" Agreed Framework. Like today, the North was then suspected of cheating on nuclear-related international agreements: the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its associated International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safeguards Agreement. Its response was to announce a planned withdrawal from the NPT, thus creating a diplomatic crisis that came uncomfortably close to resulting in a military confrontation. (Then-U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry has acknowledged that the U.S. was very close to resorting to military force - a surgical strike against the Yongbyon nuclear facility - before former U.S. President Jimmy Carter inserted himself into the process and led the two sides away from a confrontation and toward a negotiated settlement under the Agreed Framework.)

Having been once again caught cheating, Pyongyang has resorted to form, this time surprisingly admitting its sins before seemingly walking away from the Agreed Framework and once again creating a diplomatic challenge that could lead to hostilities if mismanaged. For Pyongyang it seems to be business as usual. North Korea's second in command, Kim Yong-nam, has reportedly said that Pyongyang is now ready to engage in dialogue to "resolve security concerns" with Washington if the U.S. is "willing to withdraw its hostile policy" toward the North Meanwhile, Radio Pyongyang continues to claim that the North has been fulfilling its Agreed Framework commitments "more than 100 percent," calling U.S. allegations "ridiculous," even as Kim Yong-nam was assuring his ROK interlocutors that "we are taking the recent situation seriously"...

NORTH KOREAN FOOD OUTPUT RISES BUT SITUATION STILL DIRE

Reuters reported that the DPRK raised its cereal production this year but is still desperate for food aid, the United Nations said on Monday. "In spite of an increased harvest, a significant number of families in North Korea are still unable to meet their food needs," two U.N. food agencies said in a special report. "The country will again have to depend on substantial external food assistance," the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Food Programme said. Separately on Monday, the WFP -- the world's largest food aid agency -- said it was struggling to feed 6.5 million people in the DPRK as funding shortages had forced it to suspend some emergency relief operations there. A joint FAO-WFP mission, which visited North Korea from September 24 to October 5, forecast 2002/03 cereal production at 3.84 million ton, the best harvest since 1995/96 and up 4.9 percent from last year. Favourable rains during July and August benefited the main crops in 2002, and international aid agencies provided farmers with fertilizers and pesticides, FAO and WFP said. The mission estimated the cereal deficit in 2002/03 (November/October) at 1.084 million tons and said the DPRK could only fill a fraction of the gap with commercial imports. ("NORTH KOREAN FOOD OUTPUT RISES BUT SITUATION STILL DIRE," Rome, 10/29/02)

NORTH STORE PUT AT 3-5 BOMBS

Joongang Ilbo reported that RPC has warned US that DPRK may possess between three and five working nuclear weapons, twice the estimate of the US intelligence community, a British newspaper reported Sunday. Quoting unnamed diplomatic sources, the Sunday Times reported that the figure was based on Chinese intelligence reports. The information was passed to US officials last week with a warning that "a confrontation with DPRK's erratic dictator, Kim Jong-il, would spell disaster," the newspaper said. The Central Intelligence Agency of US has long suggested that DPRK had obtained enough plutonium to build one or two weapons before the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework froze DPRK's program. According to the daily, PRC appeared to have concluded that DPRK acquired enough uranium from a new program to make several more devices. (Ser Myo-ja, "NORTH STORE PUT AT 3-5 BOMBS," Seoul, 10/28/02)

WFP Calls for Emergency Food Supply

JoongAng Ilbo. October 27, 2002. The World Food Program has made an urgent request for 220,000 metric tons of cereal to the international community last Friday. In the Emergency Report No. 43, the organization stated it requires 72,000 tons of cereal to cover the needs of vulnerable people on North Korea's west coast for next two months and another 130,000 metric tons of cereals for the first quarters of the year 2003. The report has it 18 factories in the North that produce flour and powdered milk for pregnant woman, nursing mothers and children are in danger of closing down by January next year without immediate help. By next month another three million babies, students and pregnant women will suspended of their food ration nearby Yellow Sea region and some 1.5 million population in East Sea region by early next year. The report especially expressed concern toward the growing children likely to be affected by the malnutrition of their early days for rest of their lives.

N. KOREANS MAY HAVE FIVE NUCLEAR MISSILES

The London Sunday Times reported that the US has been warned by the PRC that the DPRK may have between three and five working nuclear weapons, twice the CIA's estimate.  Diplomatic sources say the PRC based their figure on intelligence reports and told US officials last week that a confrontation with the DPRK would spell disaster. The PRC appear to have concluded that the DPRK obtained enough uranium from a second clandestine program to make several more devices. Evidence has emerged to suggest the CIA is coming round to this theory.  Experts believe the DPRK has succeeded in miniaturizing their weapons to make warheads for their ballistic missiles. The latest generation of DPRK missiles is capable of hitting anywhere in Japan. Although the missiles could also reach Alaska, the chief worry for US planners is that 37,000 troops in the ROK and bases in Japan could be prime targets. [This London Sunday Times Article appeared in in today's edition of the US Department of the Defense's Early Bird news summary.] (Michael Sheridan, "KOREANS MAY HAVE FIVE NUCLEAR MISSILES," Seoul, 10/27/02)

Rodong Sinmun on predatory nature of imperialists' "aid"

Pyongyang, October 26 (KCNA) -- Under the cloak of "aid" and "cooperation" the imperialists claim that those countries which undergo economic woes cannot stand to their feet without their capital and technology. They seek an ulterior aim through this. Rodong Sinmun today says this in a signed article. Being aggressive and predatory, the imperialists do not do others favour. Obvious is the aim they seek through "aid." Through the "aid" they seek to openly interfere in the internal affairs of the underdeveloped countries and those countries that incur their displeasure in a bid to force their view on value and social structure upon those nations, westernize all fabrics of the social life of their peoples and thus establish an imperialist order based on subjugation and domination.

The United States is keen to force other countries to accept the American way of life under various pretexts of "aid," "loan," "joint development," etc. with a view to Americanizing them and establishing a monopolistic high-handed order. No country has achieved economic progress or prosperity because of the imperialists' "aid."
As their financial crisis is getting serious and their "aid" policy does not work on others, the imperialists are now resorting to crafty tricks to economically subjugate the underdeveloped countries through the multi-national companies' export of capital. The foreign capital which the imperialists advertise as if it were a big help is nothing but capital to rake up maximum profits. Not a few countries are in the grip of social and economic chaos and ethnic dispute because they were not aware that the imperialists' "aid" and foreign capital are a noose of subjugation and looting but harbored illusions and depended on them. An illusion about imperialism leads to death. This is a historical lesson.
 

"Can North Korea's Perestroika Succeed?"

by Wada Haruki, October 25, 2002
 

1. It was indeed a shocking confession and apology. Admitting that North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s had abducted 13 Japanese, of whom eight had died and five survived, Chairman of the DPRK National Defense Commission, Kim Jong Il, apologized for it. It was admitted that 10 of the 11 on the list of suspected abductions published by the Japanese government had indeed been abducted. Yokota Megumi had been abducted, and so had three dating couples. Worst of all, the fact that 8 had died showed how savage state crime can be. It was astonishing to learn that Arimoto Keiko, together with Ishioka Toru, who is said to have been living with her, died in 1988.

Ever since the US declared North Korea part of the axis of evil at the beginning of the year, North Korea has been facing a deep crisis. There have been repeated cases of staged escapes of people fleeing the North by dashing into foreign consulates and the like, mostly in China. Among civic organizations receiving funds and aid from the US there has been open talk of an effort to drive the North Korean state to collapse by the stratagem of creating a large-scale flow of refugees, as occurred in Eastern Europe. At a time when resentment of North Korea in Japan was rising because of the spy ship intrusions, the suspected abductions blew up into a huge affair in March when the former wife of a person connected with the Yodo hijacking incident [March 1970, in which Japanese Red Army members hijacked a Japan Air Lines flight and went to Pyongyang, where the survivors still live] admitted in court that Arimoto Keiko had indeed been abducted...

"Get the Message Right at APEC - North Korea's Last Gambit"

by Victor D. Cha, October 25, 2002

President Bush's meetings with Asian leaders at the APEC summit in Mexico this weekend provide the opportune moment to get the message right with regard to North Korea's surprise admission of a secret nuclear weapons program. Over the past week, a debate has raged inside the US government and among outside experts about how to respond. Many moderates have argued that this new nuclear revelation is North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il's perverse but typical way of creating crisis to pull a reluctant Bush administration into serious dialogue.

Before the world accepts the North's confession as a cry for help, Bush must convince his counterparts at APEC to see Pyongyang's actions for what they are -- a serious violation of a standing agreement that will in effect be North Korea's last gambit at peaceful engagement with the United States and its allies. North Korea's actions constitute a blatant breakout from the 1994 US-DPRK Agreed Framework designed to ensure denuclearization of the North. Those who try to make a technical, legalistic argument to the contrary are patently wrong. Though the Agreed Framework dealt specifically with the plutonium reprocessing facilities at Yongbyon, this document was cross-referenced with the 1991-1992 North-South denuclearization declaration, which banned either Korea from the uranium-enrichment facilities now found to be covertly held in the North...

"Agreed Framework Is Brain Dead Shotgun Wedding Is the Only Option to Defuse Crisis"

by Kim Myong Chol, October 24, 2002

All indications are that the Geneva Agreed Framework is brain dead or by Western standards "virtually dead." I have no objection. However, alternative Korean medicine may suggest a different prescription for bringing it back to life, despite Western medicines general skepticism of alternative medicine.

The present furor over the reported North Korean centrifuge for uranium enrichment may be likened to the scene being made by a jealous possessive wealthy American Uncle Sam, who has gone out of his way to tell his friends and acquaintances about the alleged illicit affair of his poor but strongly assertive North Korean fiancee in a bid to whitewash his acts of sowing his wild oats. While unwearily running after other women, he has resisted not only taking any steps to make an honest woman of her by the promised wedding date of 2003, but also fails to pay proper attention to her for the past two years, say, by sending fancy gifts to her or taking her out for a date.

Nor is this all. The American gentleman has repeatedly insulted his fiancee in public by calling her all names. The North Korean woman, faithful to her Confucian tradition, has continued to grin and bear it al the time, until the American fiance made a sudden visit and insisted on her remaining his second-class mistress, submitting the evidence of her alleged infidelity...
 

"Pyongyang's new strategy of 'Frank Admission'"

by Jekuk Chang, October 24, 2002

North Korea has once again stunned the world, this time by suddenly admitting that it has been conducting a secret nuclear weapons program, despite having signed the 1994 Geneva Framework Agreement with the United States. Pyongyang's new strategy of 'frank admission' and Pyongyang's confession of its wrongdoings to visiting US Assistant Secretary, James Kelly, should be viewed as part of a newly adopted strategy of "frank admission" of past wrongs. North Korea surprised the world when it took the opportunity during Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Pyongyang in September, not only to candidly acknowledge that it had abducted Japanese nationals, but also to inform the world that eight of them had already died. "The Dear Leader," Kim Jong Il, even apologized to Prime Minister Koizumi for what had happened, and promised that it would never happen again. He went on to blame his subordinates, saying that they had committed the crimes without his knowledge...
 

"North Korea as the Ninth Nuclear Power?"

by Victor Gilinsky, October 24, 2002

It would help if we knew a bit more. As Congressman Markey observed, we are entitled to know at least what our government told the North Koreans. What does our government think the DPRK has, or will have, in the way of enrichment capacity? What exactly did the North say in response? In the absence of more information the following is a kind of horseback reaction to the sketchy and sometimes inconsistent newspaper accounts.

Why did the North admit having a secret enrichment program? I think there is a clue in our confused and weak reaction. Our national security establishment is occupied with a possible war against Iraq and has shown a marked inability to multitask. This was a good time to slip us the news softly, to let us know that we are dealing with a nuclear weapons country, and to do so without risking a violent US reaction. It served the North's
security interests, provided opportunities for further blackmail (for slowing down or freezing some part of the program). And it must have appeared not to risk too much. The DPRK must have given up expecting to get the LWRs that KEDO is building. The Bush administration's seriousness about inspection made it difficult any longer to expect that the inspection provision of the Agreed Framework would be finessed. Or to expect that the United States would export the necessary US-manufactured reactor parts to the DPRK....

NORTH KOREA AGREES TO DIALOGUE TO RESOLVE NUCLEAR FURORE

The Associated Press reported that the DPRK agreed Wednesday to resolve international concerns over its nuclear weapons program through dialogue but gave no indication that it would accept a US demand to scrap it immediately. After marathon talks which ended early Wednesday in Pyongyang, delegates from the two Koreas adopted an eight-point statement in which the DPRK said it will use dialogue to resolve its nuclear issue. "In order to guarantee peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, the South and North will actively cooperate in resolving all the issues, including the nuclear issue, through dialogue," said the joint statement.

ROK President Kim Dae-jung stressed the importance of dialogue in dealing with the DPRK's nuclear weapons program, saying that military action or economic sanctions could backfire. "All know how horrible war is, and no one wants it," Kim said in a meeting with political leaders. "Economic sanctions would free North Korea from international obligations and help it make nuclear weapons." But the agreement contained no clear-cut DPRK promise to give up its nuclear weapons program and honor its agreements with the US, the ROK, and the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, which bar it from developing or possessing nuclear bombs. (Lee Soo-jeong, "NORTH KOREA AGREES TO DIALOGUE TO RESOLVE NUCLEAR FURORE," Seoul, 10/23/02)
 

U.S. ALLOWS DELIVERY OF OIL TO NORTH KOREA

The Washington Post reported that the Bush administration allowed a previously scheduled delivery of heavy fuel oil to the DPRK last week after the DPRK admitted it was violating an arms control agreement by trying to build a nuclear bomb, administration officials said yesterday. The decision not to abort the delivery reflected US restrained reaction to the DPRK confession, a stance that will continue over the next week as President Bush meets with leaders of the PRC, Japan, Russia and the ROK to work out an acceptable way to increase pressure on DPRK leader Kim Jong Il. The White House had vowed to go after Iraq alone if necessary. But a
senior administration official told reporters that the US will enlist the cooperation of other powers in the region to try to force the DPRK to destroy its nuclear weapons program. The official said Washington will not
formally renounce its 1994 arms agreement with the US, nor cut off oil shipments, without making an effort to "ensure that we are in lockstep with our northeast Asian allies." [This article of the Washington Post appeared in today's edition of the US Department of the Defense's Early Bird news summary.] (Mike Allen and Glenn Kessler, "U.S. ALLOWS DELIVERY OF OIL TO NORTH KOREA," 10/23/02)

Pyongyang's Dangerous Game

by Timothy Savage October 23, 2002

With the revelations about its nuclear program, North Korea has once again demonstrated its capacity to force the United States to pay attention, thwarting any attempts to make "benign neglect" the preferred policy prescription for dealing with Pyongyang. While U.S. intelligence discoveries may have sparked the current standoff, it is unlikely that that was the Bush administration's intentions when Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly presented his evidence to DPRK officials in Pyongyang. According to some newspaper reports, some members of the Bush administration wanted to avoid going public with the revelations, and were forced to do so only after threats of press leakage. North Korea has in the past shown a capacity to deny even the most incontrovertible evidence, consequently, North Korea's decision to own up to its clandestine activities has the markings of a strategic calculation. Whether it was a major miscalculation remains to be seen.

A few months ago, the Nautilus institute gathered together a diverse group of experts to examine the future of US-DPRK relations. Over the course of three days in two separate sessions, the participants developed four distinct scenarios for how events might play out over the next ten years. Interestingly, all four of these scenarios posited some sort of crisis in the Agreed Framework. How all the major players responded was largely determined by the way each scenario then developed. These scenarios were not meant to be predictive, so the degree to which the details of the stories we developed match the current situation is unimportant. Nonetheless, these scenarios can help illustrate how this issue may unfold, depending on the actions taken by the countries involved.

In the first scenario, GRIDLOCK, the Agreed Framework collapses and North Korea pursues its nuclear program undeterred. Japan then follows suit, as does eventually South Korea. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty collapses as the United States decides it is in its interest to have nuclear-armed allies. The result is a new Cold War in a Northeast Asia awash in nuclear weapons.

The danger of this scenario developing cannot be easily dismissed. If either the United States or North Korea proves unwilling to negotiate to end the latter's nuclear weapons program, the Agreed Framework will collapse. Without it, North Korea can quickly un-can the stored fuel rods to begin extracting plutonium, allowing it to build up a nuclear force far more quickly than would be possible through uranium enrichment. North Korea claiming status as an acknowledged nuclear weapons state could easily sound the death knell for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which has already been greatly weakened by the South Asian nuclear tests and Washington's retreat from disarmament.

The Japanese public, already reeling from the abduction revelations, might find a nuclear-armed Pyongyang to be the perfect cure for their own "nuclear allergy." South Korea would not want to remain as the sole non-nuclear state in Northeast Asia, and thus would be under enormous pressure to mount its own nuclear development. While China, Russia, and the European Union would resist these developments, there would be little they could do to prevent it.

In the second scenario, which we named, "GREAT LEADER III," the United States wants to end the Agreed Framework while the ROK wants to continue it. This eventually leads to a break in the alliance as Washington pursues a belligerent policy toward Pyongyang while Seoul continues down the engagement path. The end result of this scenario is a growing US disengagement from Northeast Asia while South Korea moves closer to China
and North Korea.

It is possible to see the beginnings of this scenario unfolding. South Korea has already begun to shift in a more continental direction in its economic planning, seeking to become an Asian "hub" while rebuilding its links with the Eurasian mainland by reconnecting its railroad with that of North Korea. The ROK's popular disaffection with the U.S. hardline stance on North Korea was evidenced by the protests that sprang up in response to US President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" speech and has not yet entirely abated. The revelations of North Korean cheating will certainly help the case of the critics of engagement, but a lot will depend on the outcome of the South Korean election, which is far from certain at this point. Opposition leader Lee Hoi-Chang is currently running ahead in the polls, but he has been unable to push his support above the 35 percent mark, leaving him vulnerable, especially should the other two candidates, ruling party nominee Roh Moo-hyun and Hyundai scion Chung Mong-joon, somehow agree on a merger.

In the third scenario, PHOENIX, the Agreed Framework collapses, but China prevails upon the United States not to respond militarily. Instead, the two countries cooperate to isolate North Korea economically and politically. Eventually, this forces an implosion of North Korea, leading to a German-style reunification with South Korea.

This scenario could come about if North Korea continues to prove intransigent in alleviating concerns about its nuclear weapons program. While China would certainly prefer to avoid isolating North Korea, it is also not going to be pleased with Pyongyang continuing attempts to destabilize the region with its nuclear shenanigans. If North Korea cannot be prevailed upon to straighten up and fly right, Beijing's fourth generation leadership, too young to have fought in the Korean War, may decide to cast its lot with Washington rather than continue to support such an irksome ally. Should the United States wish to pursue a policy of containment and isolation, it will need the help of both China and Russia, as it cannot close down North Korea's borders otherwise.

In the final scenario, named RAINBOW, the crisis is averted through new negotiations, resulting in US normalization of relations with North Korea, in exchange for a verifiable end to North Korea's nuclear program. The result is an overall reduction of tensions in the region and an inflow of development aid from a variety of quarters.

If the statements coming out of Pyongyang are to be believed, this scenario may be what North Korea was hoping for when it revealed the uranium enrichment program. Indeed, offers to negotiate away the weapons program in exchange for U.S. abandonment of its "hostile policy" toward Pyongyang would seem to fit in perfectly with this scenario. Such a solution will be a difficult sell in Washington, however, where any new concessions to North Korea will be seen as rewarding bad behavior. It will be up to North Korea, if it really wants to bring this scenario about, to make major progress in demonstrating its sincerity regarding its willingness to verifiably dismantle its weapons program. Should North Korea even permit the International Atomic Energy Agency to begin inspections tomorrow, it will take some time for verification to reach the point where engagement once again becomes a viable political alternative in the United States. In the meantime, North Korea will have to hope that South Korea, China, Japan, and others remain willing and able to continue with enough support to keep North Korea afloat until Washington is ready to move forward on normalization.

As I stated at the beginning of this discussion, these scenarios are not meant to be predictive, and it is entirely likely that the future will actually follow some combination of the above paths. It is clear, however, that we have reached a critical juncture for the future of the Korean Peninsula. The decisions that are made now will determine the chances for building a true and lasting peace in Northeast Asia.

"Scenarios for the Future of US-North Korean Relations Engagement, Containment, or Rollback?"

This report is based on two workshops held at the Nautilus Institute over three days in May and June, 2002. These workshops brought together a group of experts to explore the uncertainties that North Korea faces and to begin a dialogue about effective strategies for United States engagement with North Korea... 

"The Kelly Process, Kim Jong Il's Grand Strategy, and the Dawn of a Post-Agreed Framework Era on the Korean Peninsula!"

 
by Alexandre Y. Mansourov October 22, 2002

In May 2000, the first U.S. presidential envoy brought an olive branch of détente to North Korea, whereas, in October 2002, the second U.S. special envoy delivered Washington's ultimatum to Pyongyang. US Special Envoy William Perry legitimized the North Korean regime and his mission was designed to promote peaceful change in the DPRK's internal policies and external behavior through comprehensive engagement. In contrast, US Special Envoy James Kelly seems bent on delegitimizing the North Korean leaders and aimed at compelling the disarmament and elimination of the "evil" DPRK through the threat or use of force.

Despite the ominous signs emanating from Washington since the DPRK was branded as part of the "axis of evil," last May, Pyongyang looked forward to Kelly's visit as an opportunity for a new beginning in its long- trained relationship with the United States. On the eve of the visit, the North Korean press noted "the DPRK leader Kim Jong Il asked Prime Minister Koizumi to convey his message to President George W. Bush that Pyongyang wanted to resume dialogue with Washington to improve chilly bilateral ties." During his general policy speech before the Diet on October 18, 2002, Koizumi confirmed that during his summit with Kim Jong Il he perceived the latter as being "eager to seek a comprehensive advancement in resolving security and other issues, including missiles and the problem of nuclear development"...

"North Korea - Carrots or Sticks?"

by C. Kenneth Quinones October 22, 2002
 

No one should be surprised that North Korea's words and deeds again threaten peace and stability in Northeast Asia. This has been going on for fifty years. Equally predictable is Washington's reaction. The usual factions inside and out of the Bush Administration are quarreling over whether to punish Pyongyang with "sticks" for its misdeeds or to offer "carrots" to induce it back into compliance with its previous promises. Instead of rushing to address Pyongyang's agenda with either "sticks or carrots," we would do well to calm our rhetoric and meaningfully consider what is in the US' best interest. After all, the greater the concern we demonstrate over North Korea's apparent "secret uranium enrichment program," the greater the price to dismantle it, either peacefully or militarily.

Let's begin by concentrating on the future, not the past. Do we have a crisis? No, not yet. There is no fire, yet, but a lot of metaphorical dry wood is piled up in Pyongyang and Washington. Obviously, now is not the time to begin lighting matches. Fortunately, both sides do not appear intent on doing so. In Washington, the Bush Administration appears to be moving adroitly to head off a crisis. President Bush has had little to say about the situation. That is a definite plus. His tendency to "shoot from the hip" could quickly play into the hands of Pyongyang's hardliners who probably anticipate he will replay his "axis of evil" theme. Kim Jong Il's continued quiet likewise helps to stabilize the situation. Neither side has pulled the plug on their long term joint projects...

U.S. URGED TO DROP STRONG-ARM POLICY PYONGYANG," KCNA

Korean Central News Agence carried a short article buried beneath several news items that finally commented for the first time on recent DPRK-US developments. It read: the US ruling quarters are now resorting to highhanded practices and war to retrieve their foreign and domestic policy setbacks. They should stop such criminal attempts and behave themselves, lending an ear to the demand of the world people for peace. Rodong Sinmun today says this in a signed article as regards the strong-arm policy still pursued by the US in the international arena in a bid to dominate the world. Proceeding from the hegemonistic way of thinking based on upperhand in strength, the US arrogantly insists that all other countries should accept its demand and unconditionally carry out what it dictates, whether they like or not. The US strong-arm policy was manifested in what Kelly did while visiting Pyongyang some time ago in the capacity of the US President's special envoy. Kelly made an ultimatum-style notice that the DPRK-US dialogue cannot be expected and the favorably developing inter-Korean relations and DPRK-Japan relations might collapse unless the DPRK clears the US of its "security concerns". Such threatening and highhanded practice of the envoy was a vivid expression of the US imperialists' brigandish and arrogant nature. The full report can be found here. ("U.S. URGED TO DROP STRONG-ARM POLICY PYONGYANG," KCNA, 10/22/02)
 

ISRAEL DAILY SAYS NK EXPERIMENTING IN IRAN

Chosun Ilbo reported that the Israeli Ha'aretz Daily reported Monday that DPRK has been experimenting with enriched uranium production and long-range missile engines in Iran. Ha'aretz said this was part of a deal in which DPRK constructed a centrifugal separator for enriched uranium production and provided long-range missile engine technology to Iran. The daily quoted US experts as saying DPRK supplied missile construction technology to Pakistan in 1990 in return for receiving help in developing the centrifugal machine for the enriched uranium production, and DPRK is currently working with Iran. It said DPRK's deal with Iran was to hide its activities from intelligence agents of the US and DPRK's neighboring countries. Foreign sources said the North Korean separator in Iran has reached the production stage, but they do not know of any progress or how much uranium Iran has handled from the separator. According to them, DPRK tested a 3,500-5,000km-range missile (Daepodong) engine in Iran and Iran began to develop the "Sihap-5" missile based on this. (Kim Yeon-kuk, "ISRAEL DAILY SAYS NK EXPERIMENTING IN IRAN," Seoul, 10/22/02)

NORTH SAYS IT IS TAKING RECENT ISSUE SERIOUSLY

Joongang Ilbo reported that in the first public acknowledgment of the new situation created by the disclosure of its secret nuclear weapons project, DPRK's No. 2 leader and head of state Kim Yong-nam said Monday that DPRK is "taking the recent issue seriously." US Secretary of State Colin Powell, meanwhile, took pains in a US television appearance over the weekend to avoid pronouncing the 1994 US-DPRK nuclear agreement dead. Both ROK and US repeated statements that nothing had been decided on the next step. During meetings with ROK's unification minister, Jeong Se-hyun, in Pyongyang, Kim said, "We are prepared to resolve the security issues through dialogue if the United States is willing to withdraw its policy of hostility toward the North." An ROK Unification Ministry official, Rhee Bong-jo, acting as spokesman for ROK, said Kim did not use the word "nuclear." "We focused on the nuclear issue," Rhee said, "and DPRK indicated that it was preparing to state a position on this issue." Kim's acknowledgment was followed by a Radio Pyongyang broadcast that said the 1994 agreement stands at "a grave crossroads" of possible nullification because of the delay in the delivery of non-military nuclear reactors, which had been "the key point in the agreement" between DPRK and US. (Kim Jin, Lee Young-jong, "NORTH SAYS IT IS TAKING RECENT ISSUE SERIOUSLY," Seoul, 10/22/02)

US PINPOINT 3 SUSPECTED SITES IN NORTH KOREAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM

The Korea Herald reported that US has indicated the Academy of Sciences near Pyongyang as being one of three sites where it suspects DPRK carried out uranium-enrichment tests in connection with its admitted secret nuclear program, a diplomatic source said Monday. The other two sites US mentioned are the Hagap region located in Hwicheon, Jagang Province, and Yeongjeo-dong in Yanggang Province, about 20km from the PRC border, according to the source. US informed ROK of the three testing-grounds several days after a US high-level delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly entered DPRK earlier this month, the source said. Analysts suggested the DPRK chose to enrich uranium, rather than DPRK's initial choice, plutonium, to facilitate a nuclear weapons technology that is easier to hide and more reliable, although harder to assemble. ROK officials refused to comment on the allegation that the US delivered intelligence regarding the suspected nuclear sites to ROK government, citing issues of confidentiality. (Shin Yong-bae, "US PINPOINT 3 SUSPECTED SITES IN NORTH KOREAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM," Seoul, 10/22/02)

NORTH KOREA'S A-ARMS PROJECT JEOPARDIZES AID, JAPAN SAYS

The New York Times reported that Japan will stop financing two nuclear reactors in the DPRK and suspend talks on normalizing relations if there is no progress on ending the DPRK's clandestine nuclear weapons program, Japan's lead negotiator said today. "Of course the negotiations would halt," the official, Katsunari Suzuki, told Japanese reporters. If Japan determined that the DPRK "is carrying out nuclear development, then we must suspend at a minimum, and in certain cases, must think about terminating it," he added. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, however, issued a caution about the normalization talks, which are to start October 29 in Malaysia, saying, "One must not assume they are doomed from the start."

Today James A. Kelly, an assistant secretary of state, met with Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and Shigeru Ishiba, Japan's senior military official. "We are now in sync with the Japanese," a US diplomat said after Kelly left for Washington at the end of his five-day trip to Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo. "They have said they are not going to give any money without resolution of the nuclear issues." He noted that the agreement signed last month by Prime Minister Koizumi and DPRK leader, Kim Jong Il, went into great detail about the kind of loans to be extended to the DPRK Deferring to sensitivities in Japan, which ruled Korea during the first half of the 20th century, the DPRK dropped the historically loaded word "compensation," using the more neutral phrase "economic cooperation." [The New York Times article originally appeared in today's edition of the US Department of Defense's Early Bird news summary.] (James Brooke, "NORTH KOREA'S A-ARMS PROJECT JEOPARDIZES AID, JAPAN SAYS," Tokyo, 10/22/02)

Kim Jong Il: Unfit Even For Dictatorship

By Chuck Downs, a former Pentagon official, author of "Over the Line: North Korea's Negotiating Strategy" (AEI Press, 1999).

Wall Street Journal. October 21, 2002. North Korea calls itself "the Kim Il Sung nation" in honor of the dictator who, if you believe North Korean propaganda, ruled flawlessly for almost 50 years. When it appeared Kim Jong Il would take over that role from his aging father, intelligence analysts around the world questioned his mental stability, political support, and basic intelligence. Some predicted that the regime's collapse might occur within days of Kim Il Sung's death in July 1994. Such predictions proved false as Kim Jong Il ruthlessly consolidated power in the years following his father's death, but his recent mistakes at home and abroad again call into question his abilities.

In July, Kim decided to stage a shake-up in North Korean economic policy. He ordered prices and wages raised in what appeared to be an attempt to bring some realism to state-run stores, where goods are in short supply. The result has been massive inflation: Rice costs 30 times more than it did before the price hikes; electricity is 60 times more expensive. These changes were clearly undertaken in the name of Kim Jong Il himself and based on orders he is known to have signed.

It was also Kim Jong Il who, on Sept. 17, speaking directly with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, admitted that his government had kidnapped and abducted Japanese citizens, including a teenage girl on her way to school. The 13 were abducted to serve as translators, spy trainers, and spouses for terrorists in Pyongyang. Kim Jong Il apparently expected this admission to be welcomed in Japan as a positive indication of new openness. It seems not to have occurred to him that the government of Japan actually cares about so small a number of abducted citizens, and would demand a full accounting on the issue.

On the heels of the Koizumi summit, Kim Jong Il suffered another terrible embarrassment, this time at the hands of his ally, China. He put his imprimatur on a grand scheme to develop a North Korean province on China's border. With a stroke of his pen, he granted autonomy to Sinuiju province where he proposed to remove the 500,000 current inhabitants and replace them with "young, technically qualified" workers. The beneficiary of Kim's largesse was a family friend, Chinese businessman Yang Bin, who was to be named governor of the tax haven and given substantial profits from its enterprises.

North Korea's neighbors tend to encourage any economic measure that might provide livelihoods to keep North Korea's starving population in place, but in order to attract investment to Sinuiju, the province had to offer benefits more attractive than neighboring Chinese provinces. For a Chinese citizen to engage in such a scheme was problematic for Beijing, and Yang Bin was arrested on charges of tax delinquency. Members of the Pyongyang elite have close ties to Beijing and could not help but notice how China embarrassed Kim Jong Il and destroyed his pet project.

Most important, however, is the recent failure Kim Jong Il suffered at the negotiating table with the U.S., the consequences of which have yet to be seen. Faced with American intelligence that proved North Korea had violated its most significant bilateral pact with Washington, Kim's hand-picked adviser for American matters, Kang Sok Ju, was instructed to admit the regime had engaged in an illicit nuclear weapons program.

This defiant assertion of noncompliance marks a change in North Korean negotiating tactics that is likely attributable to Kim Jong Il himself. Under Kim Il Sung, negotiations on military matters were guided by deception and delaying tactics. The elder Kim cleverly managed negotiations over a suspected nuclear program until he was actually paid to halt what he claimed did not exist.

This may show that the younger Kim is less artful than his father, but it also shows something more elementary: The second-generation dictator is a thug who relies on cold, hard threats. His objective was to intimidate the U.S. He may be doing so in an effort to extort financial advantages for his failing regime, or he may be doing it because he believes that the U.S. will become embroiled in a distracting war with Iraq that will give him opportunities for military adventures of his own, perhaps to fulfill his wish of bringing all of Korea under his command.

Analysts of North Korea are generally disposed to perceiving an extortionist motive. But if his objective is to extort additional financial tribute in exchange for appearing to give up military capabilities, Kim's plan was poorly thought-out. First, Americans are not resigned to "living in fear," as President Bush put it, and extortionist tactics are unlikely to succeed. Second, the U.S.'s major aid contribution to North Korea has been in support of the agreement North Korea just claimed it nullified.

Could Kim Jong Il and his advisers not have noticed that the violations they admit to are also, even more clearly, violations of North Korea's 1992 agreement with South Korea on the de-nuclearization of the peninsula? The vast majority of North Korea's financial assistance -- in excess of half a billion dollars annually -- comes from South Korean trade and the current South Korean government's conciliatory "sunshine policy."

Kim Jong Il's power in North Korea is absolute, but with absolute power come certain responsibilities. Will the elite begin to doubt Kim Jong Il's ability to handle the complex set of issues his actions have generated? We cannot peer into the halls of government in Pyongyang to see what the elite are thinking, but we have some information from people who have escaped. The most valuable, high-level defectors to come to South Korea have paved their way with contacts in the People's Republic of China. They have gained diplomatic passage through China because they have friends in the Chinese Communist party who helped them escape.

If members of the ruling elite build foreign contacts in hopes of fleeing North Korea, how hard can it be for them to imagine a North Korea without Kim Jong Il? When the actions Kim Jong Il takes so clearly embarrass the regime and threaten the elite's continued livelihood, how long can it be before those who are most imperiled by his errors decide they need new leadership?

N.KOREA REACTOR WORK, OIL SUPPLY UNCHANGED

Reuters reported that the DPRK's admission that it had a secret nuclear arms program in violation of a 1994 agreement has not halted work on building a nuclear reactor under that pact, a senior ROK official said on Monday. The ROK official in charge of planning for two light water reactors being built in the DPRK said fuel oil shipments to the DPRK and a meeting on Tuesday in Pyongyang to discuss telecommunications links to the project were going ahead. "We will continue to be committed to the project unless reverse decisions are made, but so far we were not notified of any modifications to the ongoing projects," Chang Sun-sup, a Unification Ministry official, stated. "So far we had no disruptions in fuel oil supply to North Korea, and have completed October delivery, and we expect the remaining shipments this year to be made as planned," Chang said. Other scheduled events -- including a meeting on nuclear liability between the two Koreas in late October and on-the-job training in Seoul for about 40 to 50 North Korean engineers in mid-November -- were unaffected so far, Chang said. (Park Sung-woo, "N.KOREA REACTOR WORK, OIL SUPPLY UNCHANGED - OFFICIAL," Seoul, 10/21/02)

"North Korea's Latest Nuclear Gambit"

By Andrew Mack, Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia

With last week's surprise admission that it is pursuing a new clandestine nuclear weapons program, North Korea has once again leveraged itself into the world's headlines and created a huge diplomatic headache for the United States. Pyongyang's revelation places Washington in a very awkward position. Its fiery rhetoric about the need to use force against 'rogue' states that have nuclear ambitions is now coming back to haunt it. North Korea has a far worse record as a perpetrator of international terrorism than Iraq, its political system is just as repressive, it has chemical and biological weapons, and its nuclear weapons program is far more advanced.

Yet Washington says that it wants a peaceful resolution to the challenge posed by North Korea's nuclear program, while arguing that only war and regime change can resolve the Iraqi nuclear threat. Critics from both left and right are unimpressed, but for quite different reasons. Conservatives are asking why the Bush Administration isn't taking just as tough a line against Pyongyang as it is against Baghdad. Opponents of war with Saddam ask why military action should be necessary against Iraq, while diplomacy is all that is needed to deal with a North Korea that is much further down the nuclear track.

The answer is simple. For the US, war with Iraq is possible; war with North Korea is not. The last major nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula erupted in 1994 after the North had been caught extracting bomb-making plutonium from spent reactor fuel from its 5 megawatt research reactor at Yongbyon. At the time there was much talk in the US and Seoul of 'surgical strikes' against these nuclear facilities. Cooler heads prevailed - and for good reason. 'Surgical strikes' would almost certainly have unleashed very unsurgical war. Seoul lies within artillery range of the North/South border and the death toll could have run into hundreds of thousands. With 37,000 US armed service personnel in South Korea the specter of massive US casualties loomed large.

Fortunately, the 1994 crisis was defused by a peace-making mission to Pyongyang led by Jimmy Carter. The North subsequently agreed to freeze its nuclear operations in exchange for the provision of two proliferation-resistant light water reactors from a consortium of countries led by South Korea and a supply of heavy fuel oil from the US which would be provided until the reactors came on line. Conservative critics were outraged. Pyongyang was being rewarded rather than punished for breaching its obligations under the NPT not to make nuclear weapons. The critics were right. It was an unfortunate agreement and it created a worrying precedent. But it was also the least-worst option. It avoided war and it stopped a nuclear weapons program that, within a very few years, would have produced enough surplus fissile material for the cash-strapped North Koreans to export to other pariah states - like Iraq.

Optimists believed that with the nuclear threat removed, the international community could afford to sit and wait for the North, whose economy was in free fall, to either reform or collapse. We now know that while the US and its allies were breathing a collective sigh of relief, Pyongyang was busy planning to acquire fissile material for nuclear weapons via a very different route, one that required neither a reactor, nor a reprocessing plant. This time, the bomb-making material was highly-enriched uranium which the US suspects is being produced with gas centrifuge technology provided by Pakistan in exchange for North Korean ballistic missiles. Pakistan, a US ally in the war against terrorism, has denied the charge.

It is not really surprising that the North should have embarked on a new quest to produce fissile material using a less detectable technology than its original plutonium program. Indeed rumors about clandestine uranium enrichment facilities have been circulating for years. Nuclear weapons provide a deterrent against what Pyongyang sees as the threat from the US and South Korea. They also provide a lot of political leverage. The real surprise is that the regime has admitted what it was doing. North Korea could have simply refused to fess up - and issued its usual shrill denials.

So why the new openness? No one knows for sure. Much of the impact of the new revelation has been highly negative. China, South Korea and Japan have all expressed outrage and economic and political ties will be severely strained. But in admitting that it has a nuclear program the North has also gained considerable potential political leverage in its dealing with the US. If not stopped, the uranium enrichment program will provide more fissile material than the North needs for its own weapons program, raising the deeply worrying prospect that surplus fissile material could be exported to countries like Iraq, or even terrorist organizations.

Confronting this nightmare prospect the US has few palatable choices. Military action is no longer a serious option, not least because Washington believes that the North may already have one or two nuclear weapons
produced from plutonium from its first nuclear weapons program. Pyongyang may not yet have been able to build small enough warheads to fit on its SCUD missiles, but it could easily enough build a fixed nuclear device and emplace it in a tunnel underneath the De-Militarised Zone that divides North from South. Conventional war on the Korean peninsula would be disastrous; war with nuclear weapons is simply unthinkable.

For the US this only leaves diplomacy. But here the North can once again 'play the nuclear card' - offering to scrap its new nuclear program and with it the risks of fissile material exports, in exchange for political and economic concessions from the US and South Korea. Will playing the nuclear card again work for the North as it did in 1994? Probably not. But either way it creates an unpleasant dilemma for Washington. If the Americans play the North's game and buy off the new nuclear program, they will be accused of hypocrisy and appeasement. If they don't there is little else they can do to stop Pyongyang from acquiring a major nuclear
arsenal. A North Korea awash with surplus fissile material and a desperate need for foreign currency, in a world of would-be proliferator states that have

North Korea: Admission Aimed at Drawing U.S. Into Talks

North Korean officials reportedly admitted to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly during his Oct. 3-5 visit to Pyongyang that Pyongyang has an active nuclear program. According to a U.S. State Department report, North Korea blamed the United States and said U.S. actions had nullified the 1994 Agreed Framework that promised internationally financed light water reactors in exchange for Pyongyang's pledge to end its nuclear program. STRATFOR's Russian diplomatic sources added more detail to the recent exchange, claiming Pyongyang said it was natural for North Korea to have a nuclear program since Washington had labeled the country part of the axis of evil.

North Korea's confession has sent shockwaves throughout Northeast Asia and beyond. Japan and South Korea have called on Pyongyang to adhere to previous nuclear accords, and both countries now face a serious domestic dilemma in their ongoing negotiations with North Korea. The European Union is questioning its commitment to fund the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), the consortium overseeing the construction of light water reactors. And the United States is pointing to North Korea's ongoing nuclear program to bolster its case for an attack on Iraq.

For North Korea, however, the admission of having an active nuclear program was not an isolated event but part of a carefully orchestrated strategy to push Washington into talks. Pyongyang has successfully exploited security crises in the past to extract international benefits: The initial 1994 Agreed Framework followed a standoff that nearly led to another war on the peninsula. By raising the specter of a nuclear-armed North Korea, one with an active and developed weapons program, Pyongyang intends to leave Washington little choice but to come to the negotiating table.

North Korea's leaders have been building up to a confrontation in 2003, a symbolically important year which marks the 50th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War. Pyongyang already has claimed that, because 2003 was the original date set for the completion of the light water reactors, the United States is in default on the deal because little progress has been made in the construction of the reactors and the project already is running years behind.

Pyongyang has implied that the collapse of the reactor deal would leave North Korea a de facto nuclear state, something the latest revelation about its weapons program seems to verify. And with its self-imposed moratorium on long-range missile tests ending in 2003, Pyongyang, by extension, also would have an available delivery system for its nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang has carefully monitored the actions of the current U.S. government and feels that the Bush administration's "hard-line" stance may in fact make it an easier negotiating partner since it is more predictable than previous administrations. And, as the United States has tacitly revealed that it does not consider a pre-emptive military strike an option for dealing with a state already in possession of nuclear weapons -- as opposed to one still developing them like Iraq -- Pyongyang is fairly confident that Washington will engage in negotiations
rather than military brinksmanship.

"A Bombshell That's Actually an Olive Branch"

by Leon V. Sigal  October 18, 2002

What is going on in North Korea? First, the regime admitted in September that it had abducted Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s. Then, in talks with Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly two weeks ago, it acknowledged what U.S. intelligence had long suspected, that it has a covert program to enrich uranium, the explosive ingredient in nuclear arms. In the first case, its admission opened the way to normalization talks with Japan. With this new disclosure, Pyongyang wants to cut a deal with Washington. Hard-liners in the Bush administration may want to use that "confession" to punish the regime in North Korea, but more sober-minded officials know that the crime-and-punishment approach will not work.

North Korea is no Iraq. It wants to end its lifelong enmity with the United States and has demonstrated its readiness to give up its nuclear, missile and other arms programs in return. By acknowledging its covert nuclear program -- after being confronted with U.S. evidence -- Pyongyang is putting it on the negotiating table. Washington should take up Pyongyang's invitation to diplomatic give-and-take. In the late 1980s, North Korea's longtime ruler, Kim Il Sung, decided he had no better way to provide for its security than to improve relations with the U.S., South Korea and Japan. When Washington, determined to put a stop to Pyongyang's nuclear arming before easing its isolation, impeded closer ties to South Korea and Japan, Pyongyang decided to barter its nuclear arms program for better relations. However, it kept its nuclear option open as leverage on Washington to live up to its end of the bargain. It is still doing so...

North Korea's Nuclear Admission: U.S. Times Announcement To Pressure China

The U.S. State Department released a statement late Oct. 16 claiming North Korean officials had admitted to having a program to enrich uranium, a step in the production of nuclear weapons. According to the statement, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly -- visiting Pyongyang in early October -- confronted North Korean officials with recent U.S. intelligence that Pyongyang had such a program. The statement said the North Korean officials admitted it, blamed Washington and said U.S. actions had nullified the 1994 Agreed Framework, which had ended North Korea's nuclear program in return for foreign-sponsored light-water nuclear reactors.

That North Korea has a nuclear program is not all that surprising. U.S. intelligence officials have suspected that for some time, and Washington has hinted as much before. Recently, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told the media that North Korea has nuclear weapons in its arsenal and continues to develop nuclear weapons. The interesting element here is the timing of this release. The State Department chose to wait two weeks after Pyongyang's admission to reveal it, issuing its report on the eve of Kelly's Oct. 17 visit to Beijing. In China, Kelly is making final preparations before Chinese President Jiang Zemin's visit to U.S. President George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, later this month. Beijing has placed great importance on Jiang's trip, since it will be his last major overseas visit before a series of leadership changes in China, in which Jiang is expected to step down from most of his official posts.

Through the timing of the statement, Washington has made the status of North Korea and its weapons programs a key element for the Jiang-Bush talks. This renewed U.S. focus on North Korea is in part a tactic toward getting China's cooperation on, or at least acquiescence to, a United Nations resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. In essence, Washington is telling Beijing that if the United States doesn't get to deal with Iraq, a key member of the so-called axis of evil, then it will turn its sights on North Korea, another "evil axis" charter member. Washington also is sending a message to China that if Beijing expects to be treated like a big power -- part of what Jiang's Texas trip is intended to establish -- then Washington will give China something to take care of: North Korea. The Bush administration is telling China's leadership that it must rein in the North Korean regime as proof of its commitment to global order.

Getting a handle on North Korea may not be all that easy for China. Its relationship with North Korea already is strained, due to Pyongyang's recent moves to establish a special economic zone on China's border and to appoint a Chinese businessman its governor -- all without consulting Beijing. And Pyongyang's revelation about its nuclear program is part of a broader diplomatic strategy with regard to Washington. According to STRATFOR sources, North Korean officials told Russian diplomats that, in talks with Kelly, Pyongyang admitted to having a nuclear program but added that since Bush already had labeled North Korea a part of the axis of evil, it was natural for it to develop nuclear weapons. These comments indicate that Pyongyang is trying to force Washington into negotiations in order to redefine their relationship nearly 50 years after an armistice ended the Korean War.

According to South Korean reports, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will visit China later this year, at Beijing's request -- an event reminiscent of the days when the Chinese emperor could summon the lesser kings in its sphere of influence. At this meeting, Beijing and Pyongyang will work to redefine their own relationship, with China trying to gain the upper hand. But Beijing must be cautious not to overplay its hand, as Washington now is placing responsibility for North Korea's behavior squarely on China's shoulders.

In the three-way game between the United States, China and North Korea, South Korea and Japan are being left on the sidelines, despite both nations' recent renewal of political contact with North Korea. During the two weeks after Kelly's North Korea visit, Washington apparently kept Pyongyang's nuclear admission close to its heart, not sharing the information with either of its key Northeast Asian allies. This may further strain the three-way alliance by spreading mistrust in Tokyo and Seoul about Washington's motives and actions.

But for the United States, the key issue now is setting a new agenda with China; allies will always be around, even if they are brushed aside once in a while. With North Korea a key axis on which U.S.-Chinese relations now pivot, however, North Korea may have gained even more leverage than it had before.

DPRK ENERGY SECTOR: ESTIMATED YEAR 2000 ENERGY BALANCE AND SUGGESTED APPROACHES TO SECTORAL REDEVELOPMENT

by Dr. David Von Hippel, Dr. Peter Hayes, and Timothy Savage

NORTHEAST ASIA PEACE AND SECURITY NETWORK
***** SPECIAL REPORT *****
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

During the decade of the 1990s, and continuing through these early years of the 21st century, a number of issues have focused international attention on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the DPRK). Despite signs of economic improvement, the energy situation in the DPRK remains difficult.

The purpose of this report is to provide policy-makers and other interested parties with an overview of the demand for and supply of electricity in the DPRK in three key years:

* 1990, the year before much of the DPRK's economic and technical support from the Soviet Union was withdrawn;
* 1996, thought by some to be one of the most meager years of the difficult economic 1990s in the DPRK; and
* 2000, a recent year and also a year that has been perceived by some observers as a period of modest economic "recovery" in the DPRK.

Building on previous energy balance prepared for 1990 and 1996, the authors assembled information from as many data sources as possible to try and update their earlier work to an estimate of year 2000 energy supply and demand in the DPRK. Revised results of the 1990 and 1996 energy balances, and a detailed description of input parameters and assumptions used in the analytical process, are presented in the report that follows.

The estimates of year 2000 energy demand and supply presented here are generally lower than those assembled by others, including international statistical resources and ROK estimates. The estimates described in Chapter 3 of this report include overall year 2000 gross electricity generation of about 14 terawatt-hours (TWh, or 14 billion kilowatt-hours), coal production of 286 million gigajoules (GJ), or about 13 million tones of coal equivalent), crude oil imports of about 600,000 tonnes (or less), and net refined products imports, including oil provided by the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) of 40 million GJ, or about 950,000 tonnes. The electricity, coal, and oil imports estimates for 2000 are on the order of one quarter to one third of the levels of output and import estimates of these fuels as of 1990. The use of wood and biomass has to some extent, particularly in households in rural areas, made up for the lack of commercial fuels.

One major refiner continues to run in the DPRK, but at a much lower level even than in 1996. A minor refinery also apparently operated periodically in 2000. Much of the electricity generation infrastructure in the DPRK is in advanced states of decay, with perhaps 800 MW of actually operable thermal capacity as of 2000. Hydroelectric plants are apparently in somewhat better condition, but are at the mercy of water availability, and
thus operate with relatively low capacity factors. Coal mines are plagued with equipment and transport problems and, most importantly, by lack of electricity to operate mining machinery and lights.

Industrial output is estimated to have declined, by 2000 to 11 to 30 percent of 1990 levels, varying by subsector. As a consequence, the share of overall energy demand contributed by the industrial sector is now second to the residential sector, as shown in figure ES-1, though residential demand includes a substantial amount of wood and other biomass estimated to be used as "substitute" fuels in the absence of coal and electricity.

In Chapter 4 of his report, the authors provide a brief sketch of a "Rebuilding" pathway, for the DPRK economy and energy sector, and describe some of the preconditions and impacts on the energy sector of such a path. Also described in Chapter 4 are a list of institutional changes-- ranging from training to establishment of energy pricing practices to strengthening of regulatory agencies to setting out clear and consistent rules for commerce with foreign companies-- that the DPRK should adopt and be assisted with in order to work toward rebuilding. Also suggested are a number of areas for international cooperation, including providing technical and institutional assistance in implementing energy efficiency measures, promoting better understanding of the North Korean situation in the ROK, working to open opportunities for independent power companies to work in the DPRK, and cooperation on technology transfer for energy efficiency and renewable energy. Key and attractive energy sector technologies and processes for energy sector redevelopment in the DPRK are identified, including rebuilding of the electricity transmission and distribution system, rehabilitation of power plants and other coal-using infrastructure, rehabilitation of coal supply and coal transport systems, development of alternative sources of small-scale energy and implementation of energy-efficiency measures, rehabilitation of rural infrastructure, advanced investigation of regional electricity grid interconnections, and gas supply and demand infrastructure development.

This document is intended to provide a best estimate, given available data, of an internally consistent year 2000 energy supply/demand balance for the DPRK. It is intended to be revised as more and better data are available, and the authors welcome reader comments and input on the material presented here.

ENRICHING URANIUM COULD MAKE NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM EASIER TO HIDE

The Associated Press carried an analytical article that reported that the DPRK's decision to enrich uranium rather than plutonium, means it is pursuing a nuclear weapons technology that is easier to hide and more reliable, but harder to mount on a missile. Still, the DPRK can put a nuclear warhead on any of its missiles, including those under development that may be able to reach US territory. "They've clearly demonstrated a missile technology far beyond the range of Japan," said Charles Curtis, president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a private group dedicated to stemming the spread of nuclear weapons. "Putting a warhead on a missile isn't a problem for them." Before agreeing to halt its nuclear weapons program in 1994, the DPRK had produced enough plutonium to make at least one bomb, CIA assessments say.

US intelligence agencies and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld assume the DPRK made a plutonium weapon or two. Still more plutonium could be obtained by processing 8,000 spent fuel rods from a nuclear reactor the DPRK agreed to shut down as part of the 1994 agreement. Those rods have enough plutonium to make about five nuclear weapons, the US government says. In the mid-1990s, the US sealed the rods in canisters meant to keep the DPRK from extracting the plutonium for weapons. But now that the White House says the DPRK has declared the 1994 agreement void, experts worry there's nothing to stop the DPRK from opening the canisters, processing the rods and making more weapons. "You have this bomb material sitting there right now that they could reprocess," said Daniel Pinkston, a Korea specialist at the Monterey Institute for International Studies.

Why, then, would North Korea switch to a drive to enrich uranium? "Enriched uranium is easier to hide," said Gary Milhollin of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. "Nuclear reactors are fairly difficult to hide, and you need a reactor to make plutonium." North Korea's apparent plan is to build a series of centrifuges to separate weapons-grade uranium from lower-grade uranium, experts on North Korea's nuclear program and U.S. officials say. Those centrifuges are relatively small, and even with a series of 1,000 or more, enriching enough uranium for a weapon would be a very slow process. The system the DPRK plans would make enough for one or two bombs a year, said former UN nuclear inspector David Albright. Uranium bomb designs are simpler and more reliable than those using plutonium. Plutonium weapons are less reliable because they require very precise measurements, assembly and ignition to work as designed.

"Plutonium weapons are smaller and therefore more suitable for missile warheads, but they're harder to make," said Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Uranium weapons are easier to make, but much larger and more suited for air-dropped bombs or shipping containers." The DPRK has the technology to make smaller, more advanced weapons using much less of either uranium or plutonium, however, said Curtis of the Nuclear Threat Institute, who as a top Energy Department official had been involved in the effort to isolate the 8,000 North Korean fuel rods. That means the DPRK could make weapons small enough to fit atop any of its arsenal of missiles. "You can say, 'Well, North Korea's missiles aren't that accurate, their guidance systems are not very sophisticated.' But all you need is one," Pinkston said. (Matt Kelley, "ENRICHING URANIUM COULD MAKE NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM EASIER TO HIDE," Washington, 10/18/02)

HEAD OF UN NUCLEAR AGENCY SAYS NORTH KOREA PRODUCED MORE PLUTONIUM THAT IT HAS DECLARED

The Associated Press reported that pushing to establish the extent of the DPRK's illegal nuclear weapons program, the head of the UN atomic agency on Friday said it could take three years for his inspectors to "see everything" - provided the DPRK lets them in. Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said information on how far along the DPRK is remained "murky." The DPRK probably has produced more plutonium - which can be used in nuclear warheads - over the past decade than it has declared, he told reporters. It could be grams or kilograms," ElBaradei said, refusing to speculate on whether the DPRK was near the eight-kilogram (17.6-pound) threshold needed for a nuclear weapon. "We need to go out and do a proper inspection to be able to estimate the amount."

ElBaradei said since 1993, outside inspectors have been only been given access to a scattering of facilities to verify that they are not producing weapons-grade material. At Nyongbyon and Taechon, the IAEA team monitors activities at two nuclear power plants, a fuel rod manufacturing facility, a radiochemical laboratory, and a reactor. Only full and free inspections that go substantially beyond such limited access could establish the full scope of any DPRK nuclear weapons program, ElBaradei said. The Vienna-based agency on Friday urged the DPRK to send a negotiating team to the Austrian capital or allow an IAEA mission to visit to discuss "full compliance with its nuclear non-proliferation obligations." (George Jahn, "HEAD OF UN NUCLEAR AGENCY SAYS NORTH KOREA PRODUCED MORE PLUTONIUM THAT IT HAS DECLARED," Vienna, 10/18/02)

NORTH KOREA: US rules out more talks after nuclear admission

ABC Radio, Australia 17/10/2002

North Korea's startling confession that it's been secretly operating a nuclear weapons program, despite years of denials, has driven something of a diplomatic wedge between Washington and its north Asian allies about what to do next. With its long-held suspicions confirmed, the White House has now ruled out further dialogue with Pyongyang. Both Tokyo and Seoul say their respective reconciliation efforts will go on. Presenter/Interviewer: Tom Fayle. Speakers: Euy-Taek Kim, a spokesman with the foreign ministry in Seoul; Professor Jung Hoon Lee, from Yonsei University in Seoul; Professor Akio Watanabe, president of the Research Institute for Peace and Security in Tokyo

FAYLE: While expressing shock at the North Korea's latest frank admission, coming as it does only a month after Pyongyang revealed it had abducted more than a dozen Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s, both Japan and South Korea have said the process of normalising relations will go on. South Korea is even putting something of a positive spin on the development.

Euy-Taek Kim is a spokesman with the Foreign Ministry in Seoul.

KIM: "The dimension of the problem is serious and there is no question about it, but on the other hand as North Korea acknowledges its secret nuclear development program, perhaps they are prepared to negotiate this and to resolve this issue by dialogue, and if you think, if you approach the problem from that angle maybe it is a little bit positive aspect of it, but again it is a serious problem and we will see."

FAYLE: American officials say the North Korean confession came during a recent groundbreaking trip to Pyongyang by senior US State Department official James Kelly. It appears the American envoy confronted the North Koreans with fresh evidence of the their undercover nuclear activities and, much to the Americans' surprise, they eventually admitted they had been involved in a secret program to enrich uranium in violation of a 1994 accord.

Under that accord and related agreements, the North Koreans effectively promised the international community not to develop nuclear weapons in return for two western-designed light water reactors and half a million tons of oil a year until the nuclear power plants came on stream. According to the Americans, both Washington and Pyongyang now view the 1994 accord as effectively dead, while blaming each other for its demise. At this stage, the future of the energy-related component of the deal, known as Kedo, is unclear. The European Union has already said it may review its contribution to the project. So why did the North Koreans decide to come clean after so many years of denial?

Professor Jung Hoon Lee from Yonsei University in Seoul, says it is possible to draw parallels with North Korea's recent openness over the Japanese abductee issue.

LEE: "The interpretation of that act was that North Korea by being upfront and honest about what it's done hopes to come up with some sort of a political resolution on a broader scale. Their thinking is that maybe North Korea is trying to do the same with the United States by being upfront and honest about the problem at hand. North Korea is trying to really put the issue forward and come up with some sort of a major political deal with the United States."

FAYLE: In Japan, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi also says key talks on normalising relations, will go ahead as scheduled later this month. But he's made it clear progress is dependent on North Korea abandoning its nuclear weapons program once and for all.

Leading Japanese security analyst Professor Akio Watanabe says while there has been genuine surprise at the revelations by Pyongyang, he says both had already agreed to talk on security related issues and he sees no reason why the latest nuclear question won't be discussed. Professor Watanabe also says Washington is likely to be quite happy for Tokyo to continue its dialogue with Pyongyang.

WATANABE: "I'm not surprised by the very strong position expressed by Washington on this issue and I think the underlying assumption is that I mean kind of division of labour between Tokyo and Washington and Japan was not softline, but softer."

FAYLE: So you're actually saying that there's a soft cop, hard cop negotiation going on here?

WATANABE: "Exactly, exactly, and as I said before if Japan has to obtain any substantial gain from coming out on this security issue, then Washington would be angry."

TRUE CONFESSIONS?

Ralph A, Cossa, President, Pacific Forum, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

They say that a little bit of confession is good for the soul, but North Korea's sudden burst of religion is creating a moral dilemma for Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul. First, Pyongyang decides to come clean on the kidnapping of Japanese citizens, admitting to Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro that its agents did, as suspected, kidnap a number of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s and that most are now deceased. Then it confirms Washington's worst suspicions about its secret nuclear weapons program by confessing that it indeed has one, in direct violation to the 1994 U.S.-DPRK Agreed Framework, not to mention the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safeguards Agreement, and the 1992 Joint North-South Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. What's going on here?

The reasons for playing true confessions with Japan are pretty obvious: Tokyo made it very clear that there would be no progress toward normalization (and the billions of dollars of colonial era compensation that this is expected to bring in) unless Pyongyang came clean on the abductions issue.

But coming out of the nuclear closet does not promise the same awards, while putting the Japanese rewards even further at risk. The Japanese public has been so outraged by revelations of the poorly explained deaths and the controlled circumstances under which the five surviving abductees were allowed to visit Japan (with their children held hostage in North Korea to ensure their return) that the first confession may actually set back progress in Japan-DPRK relations.

Understanding the North's motivations for coming clean on their nuclear program at this point in time is more difficult. Clearly the North got caught with its hand in the cookie jar. When presented with the evidence of prohibited nuclear weapons activity by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly during his visit to Pyongyang on Oct. 3-5 - the first high-level visit by a Bush administration official - the North reportedly vigorously denied the allegations at first and then, after an all-night meeting, was quoted as saying "of course we have a nuclear program," blaming President Bush's "axis of evil" speech and the presence of U.S. forces in the South for its deliberate violation of the above-referenced agreements.

Some see the North's actions as deja vu all over again. Recall the 1993/94 crisis prompted by the North's sudden withdrawal from the NPT, which led to the 1994 Agreed Framework (under which the North receives 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil annually and two light-water reactors (LWR) eventually in return for a verified freeze in its nuclear weapons program). Assuming that Kelly's proof would, at a minimum, end the fuel oil deliveries and halt the LWR construction anyway, the North may have decided to create a new crisis in hopes of reaching a new agreement, under which they would again be compensated for not doing what they were not supposed to be doing in the first place.

Officials in Seoul have another (more polite) way of saying this, speculating that the North's confession "may be a sign that it wants to resolve the problem through negotiations rather than confrontation." To this end, local press reports also cite unidentified ROK officials as saying that the North offered Washington a deal to barter U.S. guarantees for its survival in return for resolving U.S. concerns regarding the North's weapons of mass destruction. Given the ROK media's tendency to report rumor as fact, however, this should be taken with a large grain of salt.

ROK officials are understandably concerned - what's good for the soul has not been good for Seoul. President Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy of engagement with the North had already been under attack for being too trusting (and generous) toward the North..//..

Many have also tied the North Korean action, in one way or another, to Iraq. Perhaps the North decided to come out of the closet now because it believed the Bush administration was so preoccupied with Iraq that it would have to accept Pyongyang's actions. Or, more credibly, perhaps Washington's presumed determination to strike Iraq before it develops nuclear weapons caused Pyongyang to claim that it has them in order to deter Washington for picking on North Korea next. On this point it is worth noting that it is still unclear exactly what the North acknowledged having - a secret program for developing nuclear weapons or the actual weapons themselves. One report also claims that North Korean officials said they "have more powerful things as
well," causing speculation about possible biological weapons, while the North's possession of chemical weapons
has been an open secret for years.

One person I talked to even speculated that there was some conspiracy between Pyongyang and Washington behind the announcement. South Koreans are world-class conspiracy theorists, although this one stretched the limits. And, of course, there are those who wonder if the North really did confess or if there wasn't a "secret offer" that Washington is still withholding, such as the grand bargain described above.

Its reputation as a trigger-happy unilateral cowboy notwithstanding, the Bush administration's response to the crisis has been measured, non-threatening (to date), and taken in full consultation with Tokyo and Seoul. President Bush has called the North's confession "troubling, sobering news" but has expressed his determination to address the issue through diplomatic channels. "We seek a peaceful solution," he said. One would have thought that this would have gained Washington a few rounds of applause. Instead, it raised questions as to why the administration was revealing all this now rather than the more logical question of why the North seemed to be precipitating another crisis.

All eyes will now be on the planned Oct. 26 Bush-Kim-Koizumi summit meeting along the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Mexico, to see if the three leaders will be able to speak with one voice in charting a clear path toward bringing North Korea back into full compliance with its own earlier agreements, hopefully without resorting to forceful measures..//..

N Korea Admits Nuclear Plans

By Roy Eccleston, The Australian's Washington correspondent

October 18, 2002. NORTH Korea has shocked the world with an admission it has been secretly producing material for nuclear weapons over several years, setting the stage for a potential confrontation with the US and its regional allies. As the US prepares for possible war with Iraq over its alleged search for a nuclear bomb and other weapons, it is now preparing to consult Japan and South Korea on how to resolve the crisis with another member of its "axis of evil". "We seek a peaceful resolution of this situation," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said last night. "Everyone in the region has a stake in this issue and no peaceful nation wants to see a nuclear-armed North Korea."

The North Korean admission, kept under wraps by Washington, came 14 days ago in Pyongyang when US officials confronted members of the Kim Jong-il regime with "recently acquired" evidence it was producing enriched uranium. The North Koreans admitted the charges to Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly. According to The New York Times yesterday, a North Korean official said "they have more powerful things as well". Mr Boucher said North Korea announced it considered void the 1994 agreement with the US not to seek such material in exchange for US-provided nuclear power plants that could not be used for bomb-making, and blamed the US for the breakdown of the agreement.

The admission puts Washington in a quandary. North Korea is arguably a greater threat – at least on paper – than Iraq. It is a repressive regime developing ballistic missile technology it has exported to countries such as Syria, it has nuclear material and supports terrorism. But the US would be reluctant to move militarily, given the devastation that would be caused to South Korea.

Pyongyang admits secret nuclear program

By Hamish McDonald, Sydney Morning Herald Correspondent in Beijing

October 18 2002. A nuclear chill descended over East Asia yesterday after Washington announced that North Korea had confessed to a covert nuclear weapons program in violation of international undertakings over the past eight years. The admission presents a new challenge to President George Bush in the heart of a region with immense United States trade and strategic interests, where at least three important American allies are within striking distance of North Korean ballistic missiles. Even as it moves towards an invasion of Iraq and tries to deal with an amorphous threat of international terrorism, the US Administration can hardly ignore this challenge.

The US has listed North Korea's isolated and cash-short regime as part of an "axis of evil" through its export of ballistic missiles, and Washington will now worry that it has nuclear know-how and materials for sale as well as for its own use in threats to Japan and South Korea. During the visit to Pyongyang from October 3-5 by a US assistant secretary of state, James Kelly, the North Korean Government was shown US documentary evidence about the secret nuclear weapons program, US officials told Washington journalists.

The North Koreans at first called the material "fabrications", but a day later the Deputy Foreign Minister, Kang Sok-joo, confirmed what Mr Kelly was saying. Mr Kang said the North Koreans had met through the night before deciding to reveal that the project had been under way for several years, and also said the Government had developed unspecified other "more powerful" weapons. Mr Kang had not been apologetic but "assertive, aggressive about it", sources quoted by The Washington Post said.

A US presidential spokesman, Sean McCormack, said separately that North Korea was guilty of a serious infringement of the 1994 agreement with the US under which Pyongyang had promised to freeze its nuclear arms development in return for two civilian nuclear power plants under international controls. There was no immediate response from Pyongyang, and Washington has not revealed what plans it has beyond consulting its regional allies. It had already suspended work on the civilian nuclear plants because of obstacles raised by North Korea to independent inspections.

Washington had been tight-lipped about Mr Kelly's North Korean meetings, the first high-level contact since Mr Bush took office in January 2001. Mr Kelly had termed the talks "frank and useful", but Pyongyang said the US official had been "high-handed and arrogant" with a message like "a war proclamation". The revelation will sharply undercut the conciliatory "Sunshine" policy towards the North of South Korea's President, Kim Dae-jung, and raise more doubts about the recent visit by the Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, to Pyongyang, where he obtained promises that North Korea would continue a freeze on missile development. Such pledges now look worthless.

Pressure could grow from a small right-wing lobby that wants Japan to protect itself against nuclear blackmail by developing its own deterrent. Expert assessments say Japan has all the building blocks of nuclear weapons and could fabricate them in weeks. Mr Koizumi said yesterday Japan would still go ahead with talks in Kuala Lumpur on October 29 on opening diplomatic ties with Pyongyang but no progress could be expected unless North Korea kept its word to drop nuclear weapons development. Mr Kelly arrived yesterday in China, which is thought to be acutely embarrassed by the North Korean issue.

Who Failed in the Korean Nuclear Issue?

by Alejandro Cao de Benos de Les y Perez

Special Delegate of the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries

–DPRK Government -

President of the Korean Friendship Association (KFA)

E-mail: [email protected]

17^th August 2002. The DPRK-US Geneva Agreed Framework has been broken by the USA long time ago. This isn’t a time of crying to the world’s media that the DPRK may have a nuclear program, but a time to recognize that the Bush administration only tries to isolate and destroy North Korea by all sorts of means.

The construction of two light water nuclear reactors finally started in earnest as a concrete pouring work started at the planned construction site at Kumho, South Hamgyong Province, on August 7 2002, in accordance with the DPRK-U.S. Geneva Agreed Framework signed in October 1994. Kim Hui Mun, the DPRK’s general director for the project, was quoted as saying: “I am glad to see the ceremony, but it should have been done earlier,” “We ought to be compensated for the delay. We are firm on that with no doubt,” he added. 

Meanwhile, the DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman, in a statement issued on August 13, said that before talks on inspections can begin, the US must pay for electric power lost by delays in building the reactor. He also said: "By delaying the construction of the LWR (Light Water Reactors) the U.S. has caused a huge loss of electricity to the DPRK and created grave difficulties in its economy as a whole,” the statement said. “This has seriously threatened its right to existence,” it added. “The reality is pushing us to a situation where we should make a final decision to go our own way”

The statement urged the U.S. to compensate for the loss of electricity caused by the delayed provision of the light water reactors, saying that this is the issue the U.S. should discuss with the DPRK before anything else. The people of the DPR of Korea suffered many winters without heaters, light or hot water because the government compromised to freeze the construction of nuclear reactors made with the own acquired technology.

In my frequent trips to the DPRK, I personally experienced the patience and suffering of the people to build the peace and demonstrate that the building of the reactor was of peaceful nature, and not to produce weapons of mass destruction. If the power supply stopped from 15:00 to 20:00, everywhere was the same, from the house of the neighbor to the monuments, the pumps stopped to function and I remember that I had to use a bucket as an improvised washbasin in the Ministry. While washing my hands, I wondered that if the USA will have this power cut… the high politicians will also follow the fate of the regular citizens.

The factories are not producing

Some ‘intelligent’ tourists wrote that many factories in the DPRK aren’t producing, later the media said that the industry stopped because the crisis of the political system and inefficient economy. When the real reason was that the country didn’t have electricity! Because they cancelled the construction of the graphite nuclear reactor in order to demonstrate the willingness to fulfill the compromise in Geneva in 1994.

So again is the American Empire the one that provoked so many difficulties and deteriorated the production. If the original DPRK nuclear reactor was constructed, all the factories will be working 100% since many years ago.

The Special Envoy

After many clear declarations of the DPRK, the USA is still obsessed in imposing their own rules in Korea and colonize politically and economically a sovereign socialist nation, so Mr. Kelly was designed as an ‘special envoy’ to Pyongyang. Instead of talking about the pending issues, about compensations for the delay of the LWR (Light Water Reactors) and reasons about why the USA didn’t fulfill the Geneva treaty, the Assistant Secretary tried to push the DPRK with an arrogant attitude forcing to disarm the Korean People’s Army and asking for inspections in zones that aren’t related at all to the accorded papers.

If the USA wants that the DPRK will reduce its military conventional forces, they must first sign a definitive peace treaty that will substitute the Armistice of 1953, and later take out their troops and nuclear missiles they’ve stationed in their colonies of South Korea. If they don’t want to sign the peace in front of the world, means that they want an excuse to strike again, and the DPRK won’t tolerate any intrusion.

It’s nonsense to talk if the DPRK has nuclear capabilities or not and be surprised by the new. It’s more than clear that the country can produce its own graphite nuclear reactors; otherwise the USA will never offer to sponsor a more advanced nuclear plant. Why don’t the USA start to reduce its nuclear weapons instead of increasing them? The NMD (National Missile Defense) is a probe of the hypocrisy from the White House. So much talking about a suspicious DPRK nuclear program, while they stockpile more and more nuclear warheads (around 9600 according to their own scientists).

If the USA continues with this attitude, the DPRK doesn’t need to continue inside the agreement alone. And as already stated, if further delays and tricks are on the way, North Korea will fully complete the construction of the indigenous graphite reactors and ignore the crying of the imperialists. Because the electricity for the hospitals, or the bulb for the Korean houses are a million times more important than a wet paper signed with Swiss ink.

The DPRK is a peaceful and friendly country, but at the same time the fiercest and most powerful enemy to the one that may try to conquer it (politically, economically or by the force). And if the American evil dares to touch the Korean land with their arrogance, Washington will disappear from the world’s map.

U.S. Not Certain if North Korea Has the Bomb

By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 — Confronted by new American intelligence, North Korea has admitted that it has been conducting a major clandestine nuclear-weapons development program for the past several years, the Bush administration said tonight. Officials added that North Korea had also informed them that it has now "nullified" its 1994 agreement with the United States to freeze all nuclear weapons development activity.

North Korea's surprise revelation, which confronts the Bush administration with a nuclear crisis in Asia even as it threatens war with Iraq, came 12 days ago in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. A senior American diplomat, James A. Kelley, confronted his North Korean counterparts with American intelligence data suggesting a secret project was under way. At first, the North Korean officials angrily denied the allegation, according to an American official who was present. The next day the North Koreans acknowledged the nuclear program and according to one American official said they, "have more powerful things as well." American officials have interpreted that comment as an acknowledgment that North Korea possesses other weapons of mass destruction.

Administration officials refused to say tonight whether the North Koreans had acknowledged successfully producing a nuclear weapon from the project, which uses highly enriched uranium. Nor would administration officials who briefed reporters say whether they think North Korea has produced such a weapon. "We're not certain that it's been weaponized yet," said another official, noting that North Korea has conducted no nuclear testing, which the United States could easily detect. The idea of a North Korean nuclear arsenal immediately alters the delicate nuclear balance in Asia and confronts the Bush administration with two simultaneous crises involving nations developing weapons of mass destruction: one in Iraq, the other on the Korean Peninsula.

"We seek a peaceful resolution to this situation," a senior administration official said tonight, briefing reporters as news of the North Korean program began to leak. "No peaceful nation wants to see a nuclear-armed North Korea." Yet the administration's demands on North Korea tonight were muted. "The United States is calling on North Korea to comply with all of its commitments under the Nonproliferation Treaty and to eliminate its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable manner," an American official said. There was no discussion of the consequences if that appeal was ignored, even though the announcement came only hours after President Bush issued some of his toughest and most ominous-sounding warnings yet to Iraq.

Mr. Bush said nothing about North Korea today. Instead, the State Department dealt with the issue tonight through a statement issued by Richard A. Boucher, the state department spokesman, and through briefings by midlevel officials. Mr. Boucher said Mr. Kelly and Under Secretary of State John R. Bolton had been dispatched "to confer with friends and allies about this important issue." He also said, "This is an opportunity for peace-loving nations in the region to deal, effectively, with this challenge." At a meeting on Tuesday of the National Security Council, Mr. Bush and his aides decided to handle the North Korean declarations through diplomatic channels, a senior official said.

Japan and South Korea, which is now in the midst of a presidential election campaign, both wanted to avoid confrontation, according to several officials. But American officials said that there was no early indication that North Korea would admit inspectors or give up its program. One senior official characterized the North Korean attitude at the Pyongyang meeting as belligerent, rather than apologetic, even while it admitted violating the 1994 accord to freeze its nuclear weapons development. The strongest action the administration announced tonight was the cessation of talks that could lead to economic cooperation. "The United States was prepared to offer economic and political steps to improve the lives of the North Korean people," Mr. Boucher's statement said, "provided the North were dramatically to alter its behavior across a range of issues," including its weapons programs, its past support for terrorism, and "the deplorable treatment of the North Korean people."

But in deciding on a very measured response, the White House was also implicitly recognizing the reality of how North Korea differs from Iraq. It may already have nuclear weapons, and it has a huge army and conventional weapons capable of wreaking havoc on South Korea. Moreover, even the prospect of military action against North Korea, conducted at the same time the administration is considering an attack on Iraq, would mean that the Pentagon would be confronted by the prospect of fighting a two-front war.

Deeply impoverished, with its military might waning, North Korea has long sought nuclear capability. It pursued an aggressive nuclear weapons program in the 1980's and 1990's that resulted in a major confrontation with the Clinton administration in 1994. Officials who served at the time said they believed that the dispute nearly veered into war. At one point in 1994, President Bill Clinton ordered Stealth bombers and other forces into South Korea to deter a pre-emptive North Korean strike. But a deal was struck, partly with the intervention of former President Jimmy Carter. The result was a 1994 agreement under which North Korea committed to halting its nuclear work, and the United States, Japan and South Korea, among others, agreed to provide the country with fuel oil and proliferation-resistant nuclear reactors to produce electric power.

While ground has been broken on the project, the reactors have yet to be delivered, and now that agreement appears dead, officials said tonight. Around the time that the Clinton administration negotiated the 1994 accord, the Central Intelligence Agency estimated that North Korea's nuclear weapons facilities at Yongbyon, a program that was based on reprocessing nuclear waste into plutonium, had already produced enough material to manufacture one or two weapons. If the North Korean assertions are true — and administration officials assume they are — the government of Kim Jong Il began in the mid- or late-1990's a secret, parallel program to produce weapons-grade material from highly enriched uranium. That does not require nuclear reactors, but it is a slow process that the United States may have discovered through Korean efforts to acquire centrifuges. That is also the process that the administration believes the Iraqis are undertaking.

"We have to assume that they now have the capacity to build many more weapons, and they may have already," said a senior official who has seen the intelligence. It was unclear today why North Korea admitted to the weapons program. Only last month, Kim Jong Il admitted that North Korean agents had kidnapped Japanese decades earlier, and he apologized. Five of those kidnapped people returned to Japan for visits this week. But one official who was in the room on Oct. 4 when the North Korean deputy foreign minister, Kang Sok Joo, described the existence of the nuclear program, said, "I would not describe them as apologetic."

The administration's decision to keep news of the North Korean admission secret for the past 12 days while it fashioned a response appears significant for several reasons. Mr. Bush and his aides have clearly decided to avoid describing the situation as a crisis that requires a military response at a time when dealing with Iraq is the No. 1 priority. "Imagine if Saddam had done this, that he had admitted — or bluffed — that he has the bomb or is about to have one," one senior official said. "But there's been a decision made that the system can take only so much at one time." The response also has much to do with the vulnerability of America's allies. Every American administration that has considered military action against North Korea has come to the same conclusion: it is virtually impossible without risking a second Korean war and the destruction of Seoul in South Korea. North Korea maintains a vast arsenal of conventional weapons and hundreds of thousands of troops.

But dealing with the problem diplomatically will be a tremendous challenge, at a time when the administration is already at odds with many of its closest allies over how to deal with Saddam Hussein. American officials used the past dozen days to formulate a common response. At a news conference in South Korea on Thursday morning, local time, Lee Tae Sik, deputy minister for foreign affairs, urged North Korea to abide by a series of agreements it now clearly violates: the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the 1994 agreement, and a "joint declaration" signed with South Korea to keep the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free. "All the issues including the North's nuclear program should be resolved through peaceful methods and by dialogue," Mr. Lee said.

Tonight, senior administration officials said that inside the White House, theories have sprouted about what North Korea hoped to gain from its declaration. According to one theory, discussed widely in the Pentagon and the State Department, North Korea's leaders want to demonstrate that they cannot be bullied by the United States. "Here they are declaring they have the stuff to make a nuke," one official said. "Whether they have one, or they are bluffing, we don't know for sure. But the message is, `Don't mess with us.' " Another theory holds that North Korea is seeking attention, as it has done many times before, hoping to trade its nuclear capability for economic aid. That worked in 1994, according to this theory. But it could backfire now, in a post-Sept. 11 environment.

North Korea Told to Renounce Nukes

By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer

Thu Oct 17, 8:33 AM ET. WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States and South Korea stung by North Korea's admission that it has a secret nuclear weapons program, are calling on Pyongyang to reverse course and abide by promises to renounce development of these armaments. The startling disclosure, announced Wednesday night by the White House, changed the political landscape in East Asia, setting back hopes that North Korea was on the road to becoming a more benign presence in the region. Japan expressed "grave concern" about the North Korea's nuclear revelation.

The disclosure adds to the administration's list of foreign policy headaches, coming on top of a possible U.S. attack on Iraq and the overall U.S. war on terrorism. A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said North Korea acknowledged having "more powerful" weapons. U.S. officials have interpreted that statement as an acknowledgment that North Korea has other weapons of mass destruction. However, the same officials say they are unsure whether North Korea actually does possess biological or chemical weapons... 

The Agreed Framework is Dead: Long Live the Agreed Framework

By Dr. Peter Hayes

The announcement on October 16, 2002 by White House spokesman Sean McCormack that North Korea is in "material breach" of the agreement under which it promised not to develop nuclear weapons" bears careful examination. It is not yet clear exactly what the North Koreans have done. The initial leak, via the Reuters news service, stated that the violation concerns DPRK activities related to secret enrichment of uranium. Enriched uranium at high levels can be used for making nuclear weapons. Enriched uranium at low levels can be used in reactors, although it is not needed for the kind of natural uranium-fuelled and graphite-moderated reactors that the DPRK was building in the early nineties when the nuclear crisis erupted in the Peninsula.

It is worth noting that the Agreed Framework itself does not cover enrichment. Under the related Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) agreement, the DPRK did agree to not attempt to enrich fuel for the reactors. But all the Agreed Framework covers explicitly are a freeze on the Dark's graphite-moderated reactors and "related faculties." Enrichment is not a related facility for graphite-moderated nuclear fuel cycles. What is unknown is what exactly and for how long this activity has been underway. If the DPRK were already active in enrichment at the time it made its declaration of nuclear facilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, then it would have violated its safeguards obligations with the Agency and as a party to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty...

Arrest Exposes Troubled China-North Korea Ties

China's Oct. 4 arrest of Yang Bin, the Chinese-Dutch businessman North Korea appointed as governor of the new Sinuiju special economic zone, made public a steadily widening rift between Beijing and Pyongyang. For more than a year, Pyongyang has been drifting away from Beijing as China's international position has waned in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States. Instead, North Korea turned back toward Russia, while at the same time laying the groundwork for greater political dialogue with South Korea, Japan, Europe and
the United States.

North Korea's late-September appointment of Yang as governor of the Sinuiju Special Administrative Region, despite his well-known legal trouble in China, proved the breaking point for China's leaders, particularly since Pyongyang failed to consult with Beijing before announcing Yang's new position. China was left outside the loop for much of the planning of the SAR, and Beijing views the project with suspicion. By arresting and detaining Yang, Beijing is reminding Pyongyang that its economic policies and international relations should be developed along a Chinese model, under Chinese guidance and at a Chinese-dictated pace.

Despite North Korea's moves to diversify its political and economic ties -- and thus to reduce its dependence on any single nation -- China continues to wield significant influence over North Korea due to its size and proximity. In this battle, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il likely will back down in the hopes that this incident will pass as a temporary -- albeit deeply embarrassing -- hitch. The Sinuiju SAR is too vital an experiment for developing North Korea's economic future to risk losing the uniquely qualified Yang as its governor. But Kim's
acquiescence will be temporary while he looks for new opportunities to slide away from China again and strike back at Beijing for the political affront caused by Yang's arrest.

Over the past year, while North Korea was pulling away from China, its importance to Beijing was growing nevertheless. The nations along China's periphery create a vital buffer zone in Beijing's strategic calculations, and therefore China wants them under its influence. Yet one outcome of the U.S. war against terrorism has been the unexpected U.S. military presence in Central Asia, on China's western flank. With the U.S. move into Central Asia, expanding U.S. relations in Southeast Asia and Moscow's decision to sidle up to Washington, North Korea's importance to China grew significantly.

For China, then, North Korea's sudden burst of independence, its increased ties to Russia and its moves to reopen dialogue with South Korea, Japan and the United States presented a very real strategic threat -- that of encirclement. China's relations with North Korea provided convenient leverage in Beijing's relations with Seoul, Tokyo and Washington, but events like Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Pyongyang exposed China's weakening control. Particularly troubling about that visit was that Koizumi has no similar plans to visit China, despite this year marking the 30th anniversary of relations between the wary neighbors.

But beyond the strategic fear of losing an important lever in regional relations, China has tactical concerns with the Sinuiju SAR and North Korea's apparent lack of concern for Beijing. Beijing backs the concept of North Korean economic reforms, as these can lead to a more stable Northeast Asia, something important for China's own economic well being and national security. But China wants those reforms to proceed in a style more conducive to its interests, under its guidance and at a pace it sets.

When Pyongyang opened a special economic zone on the border with China and handed it over to foreign administrators, it presented a serious challenge to China's own economic plans. Sinuiju sits opposite China's northeast rustbelt, where heavy industry was once king and unemployment now reigns. Yang's business empire is centered in Shenyang, the heart of the Northeast, and his shift across the border to North Korea will do little to revitalize the decaying region. Beijing is particularly upset that Yang is using his business and assets in China to promote the new North Korean trade zone, in effect using Chinese resources to divert potential investment to a neighboring country.

But setting aside Yang, Sinuiju threatens to suck up anyone who may have been eyeing China's Northeast for investment or trade. Beijing is increasingly concerned with the issue of rising unemployment and the socially destabilizing effect it may have, and rebuilding the Northeast is vital to addressing the problem. But with Sinuiju being a port city itself, and at the end of the inter-Korean railway, any trade China expected to get from the re-linked rail lines may never even make it to the mainland. And worse, investors looking to come into China instead may move to the freewheeling SAR, where Chinese bureaucracy and economic laws will not apply.

With Yang in custody, China will use the opportunity to get its message across to both Yang and Pyongyang. Beijing will remind Yang that he is still a Chinese citizen and that his actions should not interfere with the economic progress of his homeland. At the same time, Beijing will hold intense backroom negotiations with Pyongyang, laying out its own interests and recommendations for the future of the Sinuiju SAR and North Korea's economic policy as a whole. In Beijing's view, North Korean intransigence required such a drastic and public act as arresting the SAR governor -- something that undoubtedly has humiliated the Pyongyang regime.

Given the importance of the SAR, North Korea is likely to back down, assuring Beijing of its compliance for the future. But this submission will be only temporary while North Korea looks for new avenues of support and leverage. China has the upper hand right now, but Kim knows Beijing's concerns about its periphery, and the United States is not leaving Central Asia any time soon -- leaving Kim still holding some leverage.

Beyond North Korea, China's very public action sends an equally clear signal to South Korea, Japan, the United States and others who are engaging North Korea: China remains the gateway to Pyongyang, and any dealings someone wants to have with North Korea must take Beijing's concerns and interests into consideration. The tremors in Chinese-North Korean relations will delay Pyongyang's other developing relations -- allowing
Beijing to try to retake control over the future of the Korean peninsula.

NORTH KOREA AGREES TO SACK GOVERNOR OF CAPITALIST ENCLAVE

Agence France-Presse reported that the DPRK has worked out a compromise with the PRC to sack Chinese-born Dutch businessman Yang Bin from his post of governor of the DPRK's fledgling capitalist enclave. The deal was aimed at defusing a diplomatic row as DPRK leader Kim Jong-Il plans to visit Beijing this year for a summit with PRC President Jiang Zemin, newspapers in Seoul said Wednesday. Yonhap news agency quoted PRC sources as saying that the DPRK may have to select a new governor for its Sinuiju free-trade zone on the border with the PRC. The PRC confirmed Tuesday that Yang, appointed to head the zone, had been placed under house arrest but denied this indicated a rift with the DPRK. "We have been told by relevant departments that Yang Bin and his enterprises in China are suspected of involvement in various illegal activities," PRC foreign ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said. The two allies are currently discussing the next step but Yang could be expelled from the PRC, it said. "The Chinese government considered indicting him for trial, but is now thinking of deporting him in consideration of Sino-North Korea relations and the possible political ramifications indicting him would bring about," an unidentified source was quoted as saying. ("NORTH KOREA AGREES TO SACK GOVERNOR OF CAPITALIST ENCLAVE," 10/09/02)

YANG'S ARREST CALLED BEGINNING OF CHINA MOVE ON CORRUPTION

Joongang Ilbo reported that the PRC has decided to handle the allegations involving Yang Bin in accordance with PRC domestic laws, despite Yang's Dutch citizenship and DPRK diplomatic status. PRC has communicated its decision to DPRK, reports said. Quoting sources in Beijing, Ming Pao, a Hong Kong-based newspaper, reported that the PRC government had sent a senior foreign ministry official to Pyongyang on Saturday to describe alleged illegal business activities involving Yang's company, Euro-Asia Agriculture. PRC reportedly expressed its willingness to support DPRK's Sinuiju project, and DPRK understood the message. DPRK announced its new capitalist experiment last month by designating its northwestern city of Sinuiju as a special administrative zone; Yang was appointed to govern the city with an independent legal, political and economic system. But PRC's move against Yang, who remains under house arrest, clouds the project's future. The South China Morning Post reported that Yang will be detained for months and forecasts that DPRK will have to find a new candidate for the Sinuiju governor. (Lee Yang-soo, "YANG'S ARREST CALLED BEGINNING OF CHINA MOVE ON CORRUPTION," Hong Kong, 10/08/02)