Edited version first appeared in Asia Times.
As if to set the table for
the forthcoming summit in Florida with China’s President Xi Jinping, President
Donald Trump declared that if China won’t help resolve the North Korea crisis,
the U.S. can and will take direct and unilateral action, implying the military route.
In a sense, Trump is correct.
North Korea has always been an American problem not a Chinese one. Pyongyang
regime from Kim I, II and III has always worried about what action Uncle Sam
might take against them, never about China or even Japan and South Korea.
While direct military strike
against targets inside North Korea might be one option, there is a much easier
and non-violent approach available to Trump. All he has to do is to bend a
little from the customary posture of a hegemon and offer to meet and talk.
The emissary Trump can send
to Pyongyang could begin the process by delivering a message along the
following lines: We are willing to meet with you to discuss and negotiate
mutually acceptable terms and conditions that would lead to a nuclear free
Korea Peninsula.
During this period of
exchange of visits and meetings, the U.S. would make no further aggressive
actions against North Korea and you would agree to do the same and take no
action that would intimidate your neighboring countries.
This would not be the first
time for the two protagonists to follow this path. In 1994, the Clinton
Administration launched a bilateral negotiation that led to an “Agreed
Framework.”
How the framework came about
was discussed in William Perry’s memoir, “My Journey at the Nuclear Brink.” He
led the negotiations with Pyongyang while he was Clinton’s Secretary of Defense
and continued after he stepped down.
The basic elements of the
framework included: (1) North Korea would stop construction of larger reactors
and suspend producing plutonium from a smaller already operating reactor. (2)
South Korea and Japan would build two light water reactors for generating
electricity (so that North Korea would not need the reactors.) (3) The U.S.
would supply fuel oil until the light water reactors become operational.
“I considered this a good
deal for the US: war was averted, plutonium production suspended, and North
Korea gave up their program for building larger reactors that were under
construction,” said Dr. Perry.
As he related in his book,
after a long tortuous series of talks and meetings, his team was on the verge
of reaching a deal with North Korea that would convert the cease-fire agreement
in place since 1953 into a permanent peace treaty and normal relations with the
US.
From the North Korean’s point
of view, getting a binding commitment from America eased their sense of
insecurity and the need for blackmail in the form of nuclear weapons to counter
threats from the US.
By then George W. Bush
entered the White House. He decided not to continue the dialogue with North
Korea for next two years (probably because he did not want anything to do with
a member of axis of evil.)
When Bush resumed contact
with Pyongyang in year three of his administration, he in effect moved the goal
post by adding more conditions and demands on North Korea.
By then Pyongyang was well on
its way to developing the atomic bomb and was in the position to reply with the
middle finger salute.
I asked Dr. Perry if having
the bomb changed the dynamics of the bilateral negotiations. He said of course
the restarted negotiations were made more complicated and difficult.
Trying to be helpful, Beijing
organized the six party talks that added Japan, South Korea and Russia as well
as China to the mix. Nothing positive emerged because the basic conditions
remain unchanged. Namely, North Korea wanted to be treated as a nation with
normal relations with the US.
What did changed was that
China was now the responsible party for the North Korea debacle. From the US
point of view, China keeps North Korea’s economy alive, from its collapse, has
most influence on the Pyongyang regime, etc., etc.
Washington, whether oblivious
to history or unwilling to face inconvenient reality, has for the last sixteen
years been waiting for Beijing to bail America out of the mess.
All President Trump has to do
is to ignore the legacy of his two predecessors and ask Secretary Tillerson to
make a fresh approach with Pyongyang. I am sure President Xi would be happy to
assist.
