U.S. must stand firm
on Korean reunificationU.S. must maintain clear ties
By Ralph Cossa
to South Korea, while acting as
fair negotiator with NorthFINALLY, after 19 months of haggling, North Korea agreed on Nov. 21 to enter into four-party peace talks with South Korea, the U.S. and China, starting on Dec. 9 in Geneva. The primary goal of the U.S. and Republic of Korea (ROK) since making the initial four-party talks proposal in April 1996 has been to get the North Koreans to come to the table.
Now that this is finally about to be realized, it's time to carefully lay out a coordinated roadmap of where we hope the talks will lead.
When it comes to dealing with North Korea, the U.S. and ROK share two very critical goals: to deter aggression and to bring about eventual peaceful reunification.
There is a strong coincidence of views on how the first is to be achieved - namely, through the combined deterrence provided by the U.S.-ROK security alliance and the presence of 37,000 American troops in the ROK.
The quest for peaceful reunification has proven much more difficult to manage, in large part because this also required Pyongyang's cooperation in its own ultimate demise.
Those pursuing peaceful reunification under Seoul must recognize that, in reality, we are asking the North to please die a graceful death, a request that no leader in Pyongyang today should be expected to accept willingly.
We must assume that personal and regime survival continue to motivate Kim Chong-Il and his colleagues in the North. This factor must be taken into account, at least in the near term.
The first thing that is needed is a clear-cut expression of overall U.S./ROK security strategy for the Korean Peninsula that articulates how the four-party peace talks fit into this overall plan.
This new strategy should be aimed neither at propping up nor at hastening the collapse of the current North Korean regime, but at establishing an environment more conducive to eventual reunification through a gradual opening up of the North.
Such an approach is based on the premise that when reunification occurs is not as important as how it occurs, i.e. with a whimper, not with a bang, and that neither side is ready for this momentous event.
Close consultation is required between Washington and Seoul to hammer out a comprehensive, coordinated long-term plan for dealing with the North, one that has clearly defined objectives and which specifically links U.S. and ROK promised benefits to specific North Korean actions along specified timelines.
Central among these actions, of course, is meaningful direct dialogue between the North and South.
While the U.S. and ROK have been right not to link humanitarian assistance to the start of four-party talks, once the formal Geneva negotiations begin, food aid should indeed be discussed but in the context of overall agricultural reform.
An ROK-led multilateral effort to assist North Korea in achieving agricultural self-sufficiency is not unreasonable, if tied to specific improved behavior on the part of the North.
In the interim, humanitarian relief should be handled through international humanitarian agencies at the discretion of those nations which may choose to help alleviate the suffering in the North.
The U.S. and South Korea have also indicated that confidence-building measures should be on the four-party talks agenda. These could include mutual force reductions, general officer talks, and agreement to accept North Korean membership in multilateral governmental organizations, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum.
North Korean participation in economic organizations such as APEC may be a bit premature. However, a recent suggestion by David Brown of the Asia Pacific Policy Center that North Korea be invited to participate in the quasi-official Pacific Economic Cooperation Council is worth considering, as is greater World Bank and Asian Development Bank involvement in North Korean development efforts (with appropriate strings attached, of course).
Revitalization of the 1991 North-South Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression, and Exchange and Cooperation should also be on the agenda.
A re-evaluation of the ROK policy prohibiting economic and personal contacts with the North also appears in order. If a gradual opening up of the North is a worthwhile goal, then the South's policy of restricting contacts works to its own detriment. It reflects an unwarranted lack of confidence in the viability and superiority of the South's political and economic systems.
Washington and Seoul must also continue to make clear what things are non-negotiable. For example, as highlighted by the four-party talks proposal, South Korea cannot and will not be excluded from any peace agreement.
In addition, Washington and Seoul must emphatically assert that the continued presence of U.S. troops in the ROK is not a bargaining chip but an essential stabilizing force which makes North-South dialogue possible.
Finally, some have argued that the U.S. must pursue a more "balanced" policy toward the peninsula in order to serve as an "honest broker" - implying a degree of neutrality which the U.S., as a security ally of the ROK, does not and should not have.
The United States is, must be seen and must portray itself unambiguously as the ROK's foremost ally.
The U.S. must be seen as honest, and must continue its attempts to broker a peace treaty between North and South.
But Washington must continue to be seen, in the eyes of South and North Koreans alike, as a staunch ally of the ROK, if nonetheless dedicated to a fair and lasting peace on the peninsula.
It is a peace which can best be achieved through direct dialogue between North and South.
Ralph A. Cossa is executive director of the
Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu, a nonprofit, foreign policy
research institute affiliated with the Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.
