Nicholas Kristof Sounds Off
It seems like everyone has got something to say about the current nuclear crisis here in Korea. The latest is the New York Times Op-ed from Nicholas Kristof.
North Korea is particularly awkward for Mr. Bush to discuss publicly because, as best we know, it didn’t make a single nuclear weapon during Bill Clinton’s eight years in office (although it did begin a separate, and secret, track to produce uranium weapons; it hasn’t produced any yet but may eventually). In contrast, the administration now acknowledges that North Korea extracted enough plutonium in the last two years for about half a dozen nuclear weapons.
In fairness, Mr. Bush is paralyzed only because the alternatives are dreadful. A military strike on North Korea’s nuclear sites might have been an option in the early 1990’s, but today we don’t know where the plutonium and the uranium are kept, so a military strike might accomplish little – but trigger a new Korean war. To fill the time, Mr. Bush has pursued six-party talks involving North Korea, but they have gotten nowhere.
Basically what I am getting from this is that Clinton appeasement is good and Bush hard line is bad. So what is Kristof’s idea to solve the nuclear crisis? Well here it is:
So what would work?
The other option is the path that Richard Nixon pursued with Maoist China: resolute engagement, leading toward a new “grand bargain” in which Kim Jong Il would give up his nuclear program in exchange for political and economic ties with the international community. This has the advantage that the best bet to bring down Mr. Kim, the Dear Leader, isn’t isolation, but contacts with the outside world.
A terrific new book on North Korea, “Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader” by Bradley Martin, underscores how those few glimpses that North Koreans have had of the outside world – by working in logging camps in Russia or sneaking trips to China – have helped undermine Mr. Kim’s rule. Yet Westerners have in effect cooperated with him by helping to keep his borders sealed.
At least China and South Korea have a strategy to transform North Korea: encourage capitalism, markets and foreign investment. Chinese traders, cellphones and radios are already widespread in the border areas, and they are doing more to weaken the Dear Leader than anything Mr. Bush is doing.
Is he suggesting Bush fly to Pyongyang ala Richard Nixon’s 1973 visit to China? Some how I don’t see that happening. As far as engagement this is exactly what the North Korean Human Rights Act is promoting.
As far as South Korea and China wanting to weaken Kim Jong Il, that is ridiculous. China does not want North Korea to collapse due to the masses of refugees that would follow. So they need to keep Kim in power, they just don’t want Kim to develop nukes because they fear Japan doing the same in response. As far as North Korean human rights abusive and aggressive rhetoric, the Chinese could care less.
South Korea does not want Kim’s regime to collapse either because Seoul does not want to pick up the bill of rebuilding the entire country after reunification. Plus the current prospects of cheap labor from the North is appealing to South Korean companies. So obviously both countries just want to keep the status quo with North Korea but would prefer one without nukes.
I also love all the pundits and politicians such as Bill Richardson on TV saying President Bush should negotiate with Kim Jong Il bi-laterally. I just keep thinking that arent’ these the same people that were criticizing President Bush for has uni-lateral (though it wasn’t unilateral) approach in dealing with Iraq? With all the US media coverage you would think the people of Seoul are heading for the fallout bunkers. I am happy to report that I still see people in the streets shopping, driving cars, and going to parks.
The pundits can't impress Westerners as being rational- technocratic experts if they lay-out the true reality of the Nork problem.
The reality: North Korea's policy is not a shrewd calculated brinkmanship of North Korean decision makers making cost/benefit analysis.
It is little more than the shere delight in jerking around larger powers: a Korean self-esteem enhancing technique.
Little do Western outsiders appreciate that both the North and South Korean street(including its policy makers) is under the thrall of a Korean master-race mythology — whispered in their ears by Korea's 5,000 year-old shamanism undergirding Korean culture.
Koreans harbor a racialized-stealth religion that has become politicized in the face of modernity — similar to our Muslim brothers: they proudly know their race and culture will someday inherit the earth in a righteous Darwinian struggle.
For this reason, North Korea is willing to martyr itself in order to effect a Korean apotheosis through Armageddon. There is a notorious erotic attraction in Asia towards self-immolating while taking others with you. While some Arabs may ululate with joy over their sons vaporizing themselves to kill Israelis, many Korean males get a heady erection at the image of an Asian Buddhist setting himself on fire — in protest against foreign powers.
South Koreans, therefore, are complacently in the streets shopping, driving cars, and going to parks — brimming with extreme pride over their defiant blood brothers up north.
To many South Koreans, Kim Jung Il is the Korean Osama Bin Laden — a true freedom fighter.
Pundits ought to be factoring this reality into their machiavellian-oriented calculator when explaining the Korean dillemma.