US Secretary of State John Kerry seemingly did not see any irony in his calls for the Chinese to change their policy direction towards North Korea despite the fact that the US’s current course is clearly not working.
The Obama administration would do well to heed the lessons of late Ambassador Stephen Bosworth’s successful engagement with North Korea. His ideas and policy prescriptions for the Korean peninsula were exceptionally effective and successful in the 1990s, and yet so tragically and counterproductively ignored over the past 15 years. His impact on policy toward the DPRK — and in particular his view of the roles of the United States, other states and NGOs such as the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) — represent some of the most important missed opportunities of 21st-century US policy.
KEDO is still one of the most imaginative and effective models for successful deals towards disarmament and development. The recent progress towards deals on nuclear energy with Iran, and re-opening diplomatic relations with Cuba, owes much to KEDO and to the 1994 Agreed Framework between the United States and the DPRK. All three agreements reject the optics of surrender that are often demanded by their critics. All recognise that any agreement must provide an advantage that is strategic and credible from the point of view of the other side. And all can have multiple positive impacts in their region if followed in both letter and spirit.
Bosworth’s ideas and his accomplishments also led directly to the moment when one of the two most reckless and ill-considered policy initiatives of the George W. Bush era were undertaken. The United States’ radical reversal of its North Korea policy in 2001 still reverberates today. With the abandonment of the Agreed Framework, and with it the KEDO structure, prospects for a non-nuclear North Korea were destroyed. That alone has negatively impacted the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.
Over a decade of careful diplomatic work by the United States, South Korea and others was substituted for a naïve expectation, by President Bush and his successor, that China would do what the US administration was unwilling to do and convince North Korea to limit its nuclear program. It almost doesn’t matter which was worse; that the two administrations and their supporters never expected the Chinese to curb North Korean nuclear expansion, or that for some reason they did. Either way, honest policy discussion ceased.
It was clear in 2001, that careful yet momentous changes in the region were about to be squandered. The ambition to achieve what little positive change could be expected would now evaporate. Hollow posturing and ideology dressed up as strategy would take its place. Childish notions from US officials like ‘we don’t negotiate with evil’, ‘buying the same horse twice’ and ‘rewarding bad behaviour’ would embarrass a generation of US policy specialists. And the consequences of those mistakes may be felt well into the future.
Bosworth had quite a different view. As an obituary in The Washington Post quoted: ‘Much of diplomacy is rewarding bad behaviour’, Bosworth once remarked on the PBS program ‘Frontline’, responding to critics who argued against meeting with North Korea. ‘You’re trying to figure out how you can stop the worst of the behaviour at the lowest-possible price’.
Bosworth would have probably preferred to overcome the North’s accumulation of a batch of uranium reprocessing hardware and materials, mainly from Pakistan, by using the enormous leverage created by the Agreed Framework process, Kim Dae Jung’s North–South Korean and multilateral engagement and accumulated previous efforts. It would only require modest diplomatic skill to use some of that leverage to suppress and eliminate the uranium channel necessary for a bomb. Preserving and using the KEDO process could have changed the region.
Some of the distrust and tension now evident in Northeast Asia can be traced to wounds inflicted by the lack of good faith and the arrogance demonstrated by the Bush administration — which has been embraced by the Obama administration.
US policy needs to acknowledge those wounds, as well as the real Chinese and American interests on the Korean peninsula and how they must be addressed in order to effectively curb North Korea’s nuclear programs. Without such acknowledgement there is little likelihood that the next US administration will fairly review the past 16 years and find a practical way forward. Four presidential terms, a disastrous policy trail, and the exit of many of the best diplomatic professionals who knew the Northeast Asian landscape have rendered the US almost paralysed before these challenges.
Neither the Japanese nor the Chinese currently have the capability or strategic vision to change today’s trajectories towards insecurity: quite the opposite. And on the Korean peninsula, the place where Bosworth did some of his best and most important work, the forces that could lead to a serious rethink of how to address regional problems are divided and not yet prepared to argue, to persuade and to fight for a better solution. I wonder what Bosworth would advise them now, if he could?
Stephen Costello is an independent analyst and consultant and the producer of AsiaEast. He was formerly director of the Korea Program at the Atlantic Council, director of the Kim Dae Jung Peace Foundation, USA, and Vice President of Gowran International.
The 2001 reversal of US policy towards North Korea was caused when NK confronted with evidence about their attempt to use uranium to achieve a nuclear bomb admitted they were enriching uranium. Obama appointed S. Bosworth as special representative to NK, he arrived in South Korea on 3/9/09 and NK tested their second bomb on 5/25/09, four month into the Obama administration. Again Obama tried with the Leap Year deal in 2012 to achieve a break-through with NK which they broke two weeks later. It appears that Mr Costello is a supporter of the Sunshine Policy which was a complete and utter disaster. China is never made to pay a price for their support of North Korea which could not survive without Chinese aid and trade. China enjoys a 350 billion dollar balance of trade surplus with the US, this would be a good place to apply pressure, however the US elites will never allow this.
In hind sight, efforts of the five parties involved in the attempt to prevent and limit the North Korea’s nuclear programs achieved very little. China may need to bear a greater share of responsibility, given the reliance of North Korea on China in terms of trade and other support. However, blaming China for the current North Korea nuclear situation overstates the limited influence of China on North Korea. Further, China has probably faced with huge uncertainties in terms of how to best deal with North Korea and potential consequences of a failed state should North Korea collapse. Nevertheless, China should review its policy towards North Korea and its effects. Maybe a tough love approach is needed.
Dear Lintong Feng,
Thank you for your comment. I very much agree with you, that blaming China overstates its responsibility for the DPRK nuclear programs. A constant review by China of its North Korea policy is also probably wise. To break the current impasse, it may be helpful to imagine the overlapping interests of China, North Korea, South Korea, and the US. They are imortant. – Stephen Costello
I’d agree that the Bush/Cheney ‘axis of evil’ approach to dealing with the DPRK has been a dismal failure. So have the 6 Party Talks. I’d like to read more about how KEDO supposedly made headway. Or, as noted below, is Mr. Costello an apologist for the Sunshine Policy, which according to some also failed.
The DPRK has the ‘advantage’of having lifetime leaders. Therefore, their time perspective is far different than those in the USA, S Korea, or Japan who are in office for a limited time. China’s leaders are in power for 10 years. And they have a vested interest in using the DPRK as a cushion between them and the South/USA. So, the incentives driving the different parties are very different. How/where can they find common ground? Through something like KEDO?
Dear Richard,
KEDO and the Sunshine Policy were working. Of course we will never know, but continuing with the widely and regionally-supported US and ROK policies of 1994-2000 would probably have prevented a nuclear DPRK. Hard to see why anyone would consider an apology needed. Quite the opposite. The 6 Party Talks, along with the gift to China of chairing them, were badly concieved, and as you noted, a failure. There is a strong argument, which some Chinese advance, that a developing and disarming North Korea is a better neighbor for them than the current one. That may some day be part of a KEDO-like return to interests. – Stephen Costello
From the conventional geopolitical point of view, I would agree to the point that Chinese leaders do “have a vested interest in using the DPRK as a cushion between them and the South/USA.” Any independent minded person would say, why not?
Don’t the US have, at least from time to time, attempt to contain China? What the current US president said on at least couple of occasions, that he does not like for China to write the rules and the US’ exclusion of China in the TPP negotiations, re the TPP in the context of economics and trade?
Even in that context, China did not and does not like to see the development of the North Korea’s nuclear program that is not in China’s interests.
Any link for China’s policy to the North Korea’s nuclear program is misguided and wrong. It is to blame China but that is wrong and unlikely to be helpful.
China have probably been hoping that the North Korea leader may heed its hope not to go forward with its nuclear program, given its support to North Korea. But the later obviously has not been following China’s wish.
I would argue China’s policy amid uncertainties regarding North Korea has not achieved its objectives. It should have long ago reviewed its policy effectiveness and changed course. In real world, its never too late to adopt a better policy.
KEDO is a 2.5 billion dollar hole in the ground and a testament to the foolish nature of politicians. The Clinton Administration agreed to build two 1,000 MW reactors in exchange for the closure of a 5 MW reactor the was not making electricity. Those Democrats are very tough and shrewd negotiators. The North Koreans want to go back to the days when they were paid billions in exchange for nothing, and the US and South Korea have little or no appetite to provide aid of any kind and want North Korea to move toward denuclearization before aid. China provides the aid to keep North Korea from collapse, but wants NK to reform. North Korea knows it can’t reform without risking collapse, so they wont engage in real reform. China might want to think about a collapse scenario, where Kim Jung-un is in his office and the end of his government and life appear imminent. Beijing is 400 miles away, he is very upset with China and has nukes and missiles. Now Xi has to think about those stories about Kim torturing small animals as a boy.
Mr Costello, the sunshine policy lasted ten years and cost South Korea between 7 to 10 billion dollars. You say it was working, OK point to one concrete thing that South Korea got for their money, other than helping to fund the North Korean nuclear program. Don’t worry I will not wait for your answer that won’t come because you and I know there was no benefit, in fact they never even got a thank-you. And KEDO is deader than dead, thankfully.