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대학생기자단/해외상생기자단

Interview with North Korea Expert

※ This article is related with 'GIC, Still the Future of Inter-Korean Relations' 

 

 

 

Interview with North Korea Expert

Nicholas Eberstadt

 

Interviewer: Shinae Hong (Shinae810@yahoo.com) March 27, 2009

 

 

Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt is a highly regarded Korea expert in the United States.  He holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, and is a senior adviser to the National Board of Asian Research.  Eberstadt has published over 200 articles on economic development, demographic foreign aid, and global health in journals including Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.  He is also the author of The End of North Korea (1999); Korea Approaches Re-Unification (1995); and The North Korean Economy: Between Crisis and Catastrophe (2006). Nicholas holds his A.B., M.P.A., and Ph.D. at Harvard University and his M.Sc. from the London School of Economics.

 

Nicholas Eberstadt is interviewed by Shinae Hong, a journalist for the Ministry of Unification, on March 27, 2009.

 

 

SAH:   The tension on the Korean peninsula has ratcheted up over the course of the past few weeks, especially since North Korea declared its intentions to launch a “satellite” into orbit.  Regional actors have tried to urge North Korea to refrain from launching either a satellite or a missile.  So far, North Korea does not seem likely to change its course.  In your opinion, what would North Korea gain from launching an alleged satellite in such a time as this?

 

NE:  Like any “policy” or “strategy,” I think for the North Korean state, the development of long-range missiles is a good strategy, not a bad strategy, from their own evaluation — this strategy brings multiple benefits and simultaneous multiple benefits [to North Korea].  Over the longer term, the most important strategic benefit of ballistic missile development, in conjunction with nuclear development, is to be able to raise the threat to reaching the United States with North Korean nuclear weapons.  The notion of being able to strike the United States, correlatively, stands as an important objective for undermining the ROK-US military alliance to undermine the credibility of the U.S. guarantee of South Korea’s security. 

 

In the short-term, there are many subsidiary benefits that the DPRK can hope to achieve –either financial benefits or diplomatic benefits.  In developing the missile capabilities there is also the possibility of surreptitious proliferation, or sales, of some of these spinoffs from this technology to parties around the world who might be willing to purchase such material.  And all of this activity leaves North Korea setting the diplomatic agenda for the North Korea question.  North Korea is not the object of international diplomacy; it is the subject, calling the terms for interactions with the U.S., with South Korea, with Japan, and even with China and Russia. So from a North Korean government standpoint, the aggressive and provocative approach towards threatened missile launch makes perfect sense.

 

 

SAH:    Do you think a missile test is more likely?

 

NE:      I think a missile test is all but inevitable, sooner or later, so long as the current leadership in North Korea maintains power.  This is because missile tests and continuing nuclear tests are necessary to establish the credibility of their strategic threat.

 

 

SAH:   You have suggested that the Six Party talks to end North Korea’s nuclear program has been a failure.  Share with us your thoughts on what can move forward the Six Party talks in achieving its objective of denuclearization of North Korea?  

 

NE:      Thank you for asking that question.  To begin with, the Six Party talks should be declared an “awful” failure.  We should recognize the terrible record that the Six Party talks have coincided with.  If all five of the other six parties commonly share the objective of North Korean threat-reduction it can be pursued on an individual basis, on a bilateral basis, and on a multi-level basis by the different actors. 

 

On a bilateral basis, the United States and the ROK can take steps to reduce North Korea’s threat to South Korea and to the United States through such means as continuing engagement and pursuit of missile defense; through bolstering the counter-radar battery efforts helping to reduce the threats of assaults on Seoul; and also through all sorts of artillery attack on South Korea from the North Korean side.  Things like that would reduce the credibility of North Korea’s blackmail efforts, its military extortion efforts. Japan could likewise engage with the United States, or individually, in efforts to reduce the credibility of North Korea’s military threats.  The Chinese government and the Russian government can draw their own conclusions about what they might need to do to reduce the credibility of North Korea’s military threats. 

 

North Korea is largely supported by outside resources generated either through bilateral foreign aid channels or through illicit revenues; and pressures could be put on those sorts of means for financial support as well.  The whole question of the legitimacy of the North Korean state’s approach to human rights is one that can be discussed in a much more, I think, productive and effective way than the five parties to date have done.  That could be done on an individual basis; that could be promoted through civil societies, rather than through governments.  

 

 

SAH:   The Obama Administration indicated it is willing to engage North Korea in bilateral talks.  Soon after, Secretary of the State Hillary Clinton mentioned that the U.S. would continue to demand that North Korea dismantle its nuclear program verifiably. Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn called North Korea a continuing threat.  How do you assess Obama’s North Korea policy? Is it consistent?

 

NE:     I think that the Obama administration’s North Korea policy is its initial phases, which is not surprising, since the new administration is only in its initial months.  But the administration has laid down some clear ideas and guidelines for approaching the DPRK, and the overarching theme in the guidelines or approach, as indicated, is reciprocity.  That is, the United States is willing to offer some benefits to the DPRK if the DPRK proceeds by performing on some of its promises or obligations.  Unfortunately, the North Korean government isn’t terribly used to such reciprocal dealings with overseas powers, with foreign countries.  They are used to a unilateral approach.  The United State is being tested already on this approach by the DPRK government.  The important and interesting aspect will be to see how the Obama administration will respond to these attempts to test or provoke.  I should say the Obama himself is a relative newcomer to national politics, but his administration has quite a seasoned team of diplomatic and security hands coming into office. 

 

 

SAH:   What do you think the U.S. should do to get nuclear negotiation right?

 

NE:     I don’t see any indication at the moment that the North Korean government has any serious interest in permanently relinquishing nuclear weapons.  We have had over 15 years of international negotiations to denuclearize the DPRK.  The DPRK is far more nuclearized today than at the beginning of this probing and testing.  I think that a reasonable person might conclude that the reason for this paradox is that North Korean leadership intends to become a nuclear power and intends to continue to possess nuclear weaponry at all costs.  If that surmise is correct, the question for Washington and Seoul, and for our other Western democratic allies, will be how to minimize the threat from the North Korean state as long as that state is configured under its present organizational and leadership form.  It may be that the only really safe prospect for denuclearization of the DPRK is a post-Kim Jung-il regime or a post DPRK North Korea.  That sounds like a big order, but that may be the unpleasant truth we face. 

 

 

SAH:   The interKorea relationship has been deeply troubled since the Lee Myoung Bak administration took over the office.  North Korea cut off the border phone line, refused the aid from South Korea, and blocked access to Kaesong industrial park which caused huge economic loss to South Korean companies; and finally, last January, North Korea abrogated all interKorean agreements, including the 1992 Agreement on Reconciliation.  It seems to me that it is clear North Korea does not appreciate Lee Myoung-bak team’s new northern policy which is more consistent with the objective of Six Party Talks. First, what would North Korean leadership hope to gain from current drama? Do you think North Korea will eventually accept Seoul’s position and return to normal diplomacy?

 

NE:      We have to consider the possibility that leadership in North Korea has thought about what it wishes to gain from inter–Korean relationships, at least as much as South Korean leaders have thought about this. Some of its objectives of North Korea extend rather far beyond the Korean peninsula. Depending upon on what North Korea is hoping to gain from the United States, from China, or from other nations not on the Korean peninsula, tactical decisions are made with respect to “turning on” or “turning off” the tension in inter–Korean relations.  At the moment, this is very difficult I think for people who live in South Korea to recognize, but the calibration of tension in the inter–Korean relationship is a tactic used to try to reach Washington, or to try to reach China for objectives that Pyongyang has beyond the Korean peninsula itself.  

 

That being said, it is certainly true that the North Korean government seems to have been disappointed, angered, and perhaps even surprised by the end of Sunshine Policy from Seoul.  The Sunshine Policy from Seoul was not just a means of gaining financial support for the North Korean state to help it survive; rather, the Policy from Pyongyang’s standpoint seemed to offer the promise of eventually creating such big problems in the South Korean-U.S. relationship that, from Pyongyang’s standpoint, one might have eventually have hoped for an ultimate end to the alliance and withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean peninsula, which has been a long-term goal for the North Korean regime, of course. The current drama in the interKorean relationship has to be understood in that longer-term context.

 

 

SAH:   what is your take on the current economic cooperation between two Koreas?

 

NE:       I would think the more immediate “take home” for the architects of interKorean policy in Seoul should have to do with the lessons of Kaesong.  We were all told that the Kaesong Project was going to transform North Korea; that it would bring the two Koreas closer together ultimately to bring an eventual unification closer to possibility. Kaesong was going to provide leverage for Seoul.  We’ve seen that exactly the opposite is true.  Pyongyang is closing Kaesong and is using it as leverage on Seoul. This should tell us that we need to reexamine very seriously and fundamentally the basic premises of our approach toward the DPRK, to see whether they are realistic.

 

Also, there seems to me to be a fundamental error in South Korea’s economic approach to the North, a very simple error, but a very important one nonetheless.  This is the notion that trade with North Korea can be encouraged through subsidy and external support.  What it is called is economic cooperation; but what it really is hidden aid and subsidy. 

Take a look at what has happened in Taiwan and China with their cross-straits economic relationship.  It is fantastically dynamic today. There are now maybe one million Taiwanese business and commercial people living in China, not to mention the many different businesses that are flourishing there.  That relationship developed without a penny of Taiwanese government. It went forward because both sides saw a mutual benefit in economic relationship where profit was being developed. 

 

For all the changes that people describe in the Kaesong Industrial Complex over the past few years, it is not really clear that the North Korean side accepts the proposition that foreigners should be able to make profits in their country and take the money back.  As long as the North Korean side doesn’t agree to the fundamental premise that outsiders should make money in their interactions with North Korea, there is really very little basis for being able to cultivate a flourishing economic relationship.  And offering support for economic interactions from hidden subsidies, or state subsidies, or taxpayer subventions, only disguises this.  In fact, to some degree, it actually misleads the North Korean side.

Kaesong Zone should be one of the laboratories where North Koreans can learn about the market economy, learn about the international economy.  If engagement is distorted by subsidies in that zone, North Koreans are mislearning lessons about capitalism and the world economy.    

 

 

SAH:   North Korea does not seem afraid of being isolated from international community. Surprisingly, North Korea has been able to survive for this long and withstand grave external pressures.  Is North Korea really capable?  How long do you think North Korea will be able to hold out against sanctions from the U.N., U.S., Japan, and China?  Or, will it eventually collapse?

 

NE:      Well, I wrote a book called The End of North Korea [published in 2000].

 I never would have imagined back in the early 1990’s that the South Korean government and other governments would come to North Korea’s financial rescue and provide the funds for the state to survive. The North Korean state’s objective is, of course, survival. But the terms of North Korea’s survival are quite different from the terms of other governments’ survival.  Isolation is integral to the survival of the DPRK state; creating military tension is integral to the survival of the DPRK state; and a more or less permanent enmity with the South seems to be integral to the survival of the DPRK state. I hope I am wrong, but I believe that the development and accumulation of a nuclear arsenal is also seen as integral to the survival to the DPRK state.  We have a situation here where those things that make the North Korean state secure, are precisely those things that make the neighborhood insecure.  And North Korea’s neighbors and South Korea’s allies have to bear this very much in mind as they think about how to maintain peace and security in the region, and as they try to comptemplate the longer range possibilities for peace, democracy and prosperity for all Koreans. 

 

 

SAH:   In your wildest dream, if North Korea abandons its nuclear weapons, how do you think the regime would be integrated internally to maintain itself?  The regime does not have external enemies, but it still needs methods to keep up with social controls.  Do you think North Korea will adopt more effective ruling ideology than its military first policy?

 

NE:      That’s a very good question with a big speculation.  The North Korean government works with a grand, historical claim that they are “the group” that will bring about the unification of the entire Korean people under independent socialist rule.  It is a vision and a claim which has been powerful enough to preside over the deaths of hundreds of thousands of North Koreans under famine, while people were not eating, while money was being diverted to nuclear programs and to missiles. 

The nuclear and WMD capabilities of the DPRK state are the one area of great power that the state possesses in its quest for unifying the Korean peninsula on its own terms.  If the North Korean state were to relinquish this option, this power, voluntarily,  I think we’d have to recognize the possibility that this could be extraordinary destabilizing, delegitimizing [to North Korea], and something that the North Korean leadership itself might very much fear the consequences.  That’s one of the reasons that I see denuclearization as being so very remote under the Kim Jung-il regime.

 

 

SAH:   Dr. Eberstadt, thank you for sharing your views with the Ministry of Unification.