Such a trip had been anticipated earlier. Given Pyongyang’s abiding goal of being beholden to no single benefactor, one would expect it to seek to balance and mitigate its new dependence on Beijing. Russia is an obvious candidate to play off against China, as Kim Il-sung skilfully did during the Sino-Soviet dispute from the 1960s onwards. There was a rumour that Kim Jong-il would meet Russian president Dmitry Medvedev when the latter visited Vladivostok at the end of June.
A June visit to Vladivostok did not materialize. Whatever the reason, for Vladivostok in late June read Ulan Ude in late August.
While Kim’s visit was as ever described as unofficial, the usual bizarre pretence that it was not happening until it was all over and he was safely home, was dropped. KCNA reported his entering Russia promptly on August 20.
On August 21 Kim Jong-il visited the largest dam in the Far East region, the Bureya hydropower plant. This caused a frisson in Seoul. Bureya produces more electricity than can be used locally, and Russia would like to sell the surplus to Korea — North and South. For Kim to visit this site is thus significant.
On August 24-25 KCNA released a thick file of reports, including an account of an outing on Lake Baikal on August 23. This stressed how Kim was following in the path of his father Kim Il-sung half a century earlier.
But where was Kim the day before his Baikal cruise? There seems to be no report of what he got up to on August 22. By some accounts he may have visited Skovorodino: the starting point of a 1,000 km oil pipeline to China and Russia’s Pacific coast. Whether he did or not, energy pipelines were certainly on Russia’s agenda.
As anticipated, Kim Jong-il’s summit with Medvedev was held in the rather exotic locale of Ulan Ude, capital of the Buriat Republic. The Buriats are a Mongol people. On his journey home, Kim would later pass through inner Mongolia in China. For completeness he should also at some point visit Mongolia proper. But not this time, for Lee Myung-bak was one step ahead on his own simultaneous if rather brisker inner Asian odyssey — Lee travels by plane, like normal people — which saw him in Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar during August 20-22, followed by visits to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Lee returned home on August 26, the day before Kim, having wrapped up energy-related deals in all three countries worth a total of some US$12 billion.
For all the excited persiflage in which North Korea wrapped Kim’s talks with Medvedev, it is unclear how much they accomplished. There was no formal concluding communiqué, let alone any substantive new treaty or detailed economic agreements. However, two agenda items stand out.
First, Kim reiterated the current DPRK stance of alleged willingness to return to the nuclear Six Party Talks (6PT), stalled since 2008, without preconditions. That may sound good, but it cut no ice in Seoul, Washington or Tokyo, all of whom do have a precondition: that in the wake of last year’s two Northern attacks on South Korea, not to mention getting nowhere much at a snail’s pace during the six long years (2003-08) when the 6PT did meet, this time Pyongyang really has to offer something new, different and substantial to show that it is sincere and means business. (Typically, while Russian reports mentioned a supposed DPRK offer of a moratorium on nuclear and missile tests, KCNA said nothing about this.) Yet the US does need to discuss and curb the DPRK’s uranium enrichment program. And however unfairly, to say you have no preconditions makes you sound the reasonable party. Hence South Korea and its allies will continue to mull what kind of engagement with North Korea is feasible; not least for fear of losing out as Kim cozies up to China and now Russia.
The second key agenda item involved energy and infrastructure cooperation, which for Seoul presents a new twist. KCNA was perfunctory in its report:
‘The talks discussed a series of agenda items on boosting the economic and cooperative relations in various fields including the issue of energy including gas and the issue of linking railways and reached a common understanding of them. It was decided at the talks to organize and operate working groups to put the above-said issues into practice and the two countries agreed to continue cooperating with each other in this direction’.
Yet to be fair, KCNA also reported Medvedev’s amplification of this in his banquet speech:
‘Cooperation among Russia, the DPRK and the Republic of Korea in carrying out the grand plans in the fields of infrastructure and power has a great prospect. I am convinced that to realize this cooperation would be beneficial to all our three countries and have a positive impact on providing a favorable environment for dialogue and confidence-building between the DPRK and the ROK’.
‘It is our common task to put an end to the confrontation between the north and the south that has lasted for more than half a century, I think’.
For KCNA thus to use South Korea’s official name — Republic of Korea, or ROK — is almost unheard of. It usually says ‘south Korea’ (note the lower case s), or as often as not ‘puppet clique’ and similar insults. Nothing in DPRK media happens by chance, so at the very least this suggests that Kim Jong-il is entertaining the idea — or dangling bait for the South to bite.
What is at stake here is twofold. Firstly, Russia and South Korea would like to link their rail systems — especially for freight. That involves crossing North Korea, as well as upgrading its decrepit and outmoded railway system, which will not come cheap. Tracks across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the inter-Korean border, were rejoined in 2003 but are almost never used.
Secondly, in 2008 Lee Myung-bak and Medvedev — meeting in Moscow almost three years before the latter finally caught up with Kim Jong-il — announced with much fanfare a US$90 billion deal for Russia’s Gazprom to send gas to the ROK’s KoGas for the next thirty years. This would mean a pipeline across North Korea: an idea first floated over 20 years ago by the Hyundai group’s prescient founder, Chung Ju-yung. Yet the DPRK was not party to the Moscow announcement, which thus appeared oddly undiplomatic. It has taken another three years to bring Kim Jong-il on board — if indeed he is, as opposed to feigning interest.
For now, what is clear is Kim’s great tactical skill. He has waited to play the Russian card for maximum effect. Suddenly he has two friends again, not just one. China, through which he travelled home can hardly complain. Russia is keen on the rail and gas projects. These are also an offer which resource-poor South Korea can ill afford to refuse. Lee Myung-bak may hesitate, but Kim will not give him the pleasure anyway for two reasons: deep mistrust, and his being a lame duck. Lee’s five year term of office is drawing to a close: by early 2013 someone else will be in the Blue House. Whoever it be, they are unlikely to ‘nix’ gas from Siberia, despite the obvious risks that Pyongyang will play games, turn off the taps and so on. It is too early to be sure, but northeast Asian politics and economics alike might be entering a new era.
Aidan Foster-Carter is honorary senior research fellow in sociology and modern Korea at Leeds University, and a freelance consultant, writer and broadcaster on Korean affairs.
A longer version of this article first appeared in, and is used with the kind permission of, NewNations.com.