NORTHEAST ASIA PEACE AND SECURITY NETWORK ***** SPECIAL REPORT ***** June 15, 1999 The following is the complete translated text of an April 23 speech by Lim Dong-won, presidential senior secretary for foreign affairs and national security who was named Minister of Unification on 24 May 1999. The speech is entitled, "How to End Cold War on the Korean Peninsula," and was delivered at a working breakfast meeting hosted by the Korea Development Institute [KDI] in the Orchid Room of the Intercontinental Hotel in Samsong-dong, Seoul at 0730 on 23 April. ----------------------------------------------- Today I would like to discuss two issues that are closely inter-related. First I will discuss the North Korea policy of the people's government and then look into the method for fundamentally resolving the Korean peninsula question and terminating the Cold War. What are our national goals and interests? They can be boiled down into five: national security, prosperity and development of the nation, preservation of the value of liberal democracy and market economy we treasure, enhancement of national prestige, and reunification of the homeland. What then is the objective of reunification, the craving of the entire people? Why should we achieve reunification? The objective of reunification is to realize the values we treasure, namely, to construct a democratic country guaranteeing liberty and human rights and a welfare country that prospers and develops under the market economy. Our wish is to realize such a reunified country independently and peacefully without recourse to war or violence and under democratic procedures by pooling the will of all the Korean people. The three principles for independence, namely, independence, peace, and democracy, are our reunification principles that have been maintained since the Yi Sung-man [Syngman Rhee] Administration. Achieving reunification peacefully and democratically means that reunification cannot be gained overnight but should be realized step by step. This is why it is often said "reunification is a goal and, at the same time, a process." In other words, reunification is a process that progresses 10 percent, 25 percent, 50 percent, and so forth. What then can we now do for reunification? I believe there are two immediate tasks. One is the issue of North Korea policy regarding how to manage North-South relations, that is, how we, while pursuing reunification, should handle the DPRK for the peaceful management of the state of division. The other is how to remove the obstacle to the reunification process, namely, the "Cold War structure," so as to overcome division and facilitate reunification. The issues of the suspected underground facilities of Kumchangri, North Korea and the missile question are all rooted deeply in the Cold War structure. It has been ten years since the international Cold War system fell apart. But, only the Korean peninsula, a victim of the Cold War, has yet to break away from the Cold War that has persisted for over half a century. The question of ending the Cold War is an important pending task that has to be resolved by all means in the interests of reunification. The question of North Korea policy is an intra-national issue. Since the question of ending the Cold War is of an international nature, it is an issue we cannot handle as we please. Herein lies our dilemma. For any administration to shape its North Korea policy, it should first establish its view of the DPRK. The incumbent government's view of the DPRK can be summed up in the following four: First, the North Korean system is already a failed system. Second, there are slim chances for North Korea to collapse any time soon though it is a failed system. Third, a change of North Korea is inevitable and the change has already begun. Fourth, nonetheless, the DPRK's strategy to trigger a revolution in the South and military-first policy will be carried on. Shall I go into a little more details? First, since the North Korean system is a failed system, it will not last long. The chronic shortage of energy and foreign exchanges clearly proves that the North Korean system has failed. In particular, as the ration system, a system that may well be the backbone of the socialist system, has collapsed due to the shortage of foods, the North Korean people have deserted their workshops to roam around begging for foods, causing the production system itself to crumble. This is the reality of North Korea today. The socialist system is characterized by the state taking care of people's clothes, foods, and dwelling through rations and thus controlling its people. The shortage of energy and foreign exchanges has deepened the overall economic crisis. This means that the problem stemming from the structural inconsistency dwelling in the North Korean system will not be controlled unless there is a fundamental change. Second, we see little chances for the DPRK to collapse early though it is a failed system. Until several years ago, there was much talk that the DPRK might crumble in a few days or within a year or that the DPRK may crash anywhere at any time as it is like an airplane experiencing mechanical trouble. Many people thought its collapse could come very shortly. But, it failed to turn out to be true. Why? It was because of the peculiarity of the North Korean system. In other words, because of the peculiarity, namely, North Korea being a collectivist camp society under an iron-fisted rule, individual discontents cannot escalate into social discontents or an organized anti- government force cannot emerge. At the same time, China and other surrounding countries do not want to see the DPRK collapse. What should be noted here is that because of the uncertainty and unpredictability [of the DPRK], we cannot rule out the abrupt collapse of it, either, and, therefore, we should be prepared for it. Third, the DPRK is unavoidably undergoing a change now. Unlike the East European Communist bloc, the DPRK seems going through the Asian Communist model as is the case with China or Vietnam, that is, a model of steady change of system. The DPRK pursues relations improvement with the United States which it once called an "archenemy;" withdrew its "One Korea" policy as it entered the United Nations jointly [with the ROK], a joint entry which it so vehemently opposed earlier denouncing it as a "two Koreas" scheme; seeks to introduce Western capital and technology by establishing a special economic zone; and agreed on the North-South Basic Agreement that calls for reconciliation and cooperation. Last year, the DPRK revised the Constitution to introduce a socialistic market economy. The ROK Government regards this as a highly significant change. In other words, it has started to recognize private properties. The Constitution has employed the idea of a self-supporting accounting system and the concept of cost, price, and profit, a core concept in the principle of capitalist market economy. It has granted the freedom of travel. All these appear in the Constitution that was revised last September. More than 300 open markets have sprung up across North Korea. And, cadre officials have begun to undergo training abroad to study market economy principles and capitalist economics. Last year, more than 110 cadres were trained in Western countries like Australia, Switzerland, and Singapore excepting China with support from the UNDP. The areas of major concern to them were capitalist economics, business administration, international law, and so forth. This may be a minor change. But, it is desirable that these small changes will accumulate and pick up speed. Fourth, in spite of this, the DPRK's military-first policy and scheme to trigger a revolution in the South will be carried on. These policy and scheme have provided the most important logic to the survival of the North Korean system and served as a tool to exact sacrifice from people in the past 50 years. It is too self-evident that the DPRK will not give up its military superiority, the only upper hand it enjoys over the South. P'yongyang seems developing weapons of mass destruction even today with high zeal. The DPRK keeps emphasizing a military-oriented policy contending that even though people's lives are harsh, construction of a militarily powerful state and ideologically powerful state is more important. Infiltration and other provocative acts are expected to continue. It is true that the expansion of North Korea's military strength has slowed down and military equipment are becoming superannuated at an accelerated pace due to serious economic slump in the 1990s. I discuss this because many of you here served in the military. North Korean tanks numbered 3,800 about 10 years ago. This year's National Defense White Paper gave the same figure, 3,800, as the number of North Korean tanks. This means that its arms buildup has come to a standstill. Among the tanks are a considerable number of 1950s-vintage T-30s. And, about two thirds of the fighter planes the DPRK has are more than 30 years old. As you know, the DPRK's war ability has been limited. As you may also know, the DPRK, unlike in the Cold War age, cannot count on any supporting forces in the background. For this reason, the DPRK may not be able to provoke a war. But, the maintenance of firm security preparedness is a must because the DPRK has the ability to unleash a suicidal war if driven to the corner. To boil our four-point view of the DPRK further down into two, the DPRK's change is unavoidable and threat to national security still exists and will continue to exist. Given such a perception of the DPRK and difference in war ability between the two Koreas, we can have one of three policies toward the DPRK, the three being a containment policy, a non-interference policy, and an engagement policy. As for a containment policy first, this can work if the DPRK's collapse is imminent. For, containment can accelerate the collapse. But, many problems are inherent to such a containment policy. As is the case with Cuba or Iraq, even a containment policy has not led to the outright collapse of the country against which it was employed. Rather, a containment policy often results in prolonging dictatorship and worsening people's pains. It also is true that a containment policy works to further intensify confrontation, setting off an arms race and deepening mutual distrust and misgivings. Second, a non-interference policy cannot be taken as a proper policy in view of the reality of the Korean peninsula. In a circumstance in which the DPRK continues pursuing a strategy to set off a revolution in the South, holds fast to a military-first policy, firing missiles, perpetrating infiltration, and developing nuclear weapons, can it be possible in reality for us to ignore these and refrain from interfering? I believe we cannot. Similarly, can it be desirable from a humanitarian and nationalistic point of view for us to merely look on to the plight of the starving North Korean people, our compatriots? Non-interference, therefore, is not a policy we can use. Third, there is an engagement policy. The objective of the engagement policy is to turn inter-Korean relations of distrust and confrontation into a relationship of reconciliation and cooperation, to foster an environment and conditions for the DPRK's openness and change, and thereby to prevent a war and lay a base for peaceful reunification. As President Kim Dae-jung stated in his inaugural address, there are three principles for the North Korea policy of the people's government: first, the South will not tolerate any military provocation from the North; second, the South will not harm the North or try to achieve reunification by forcibly absorbing the North; and third, the two sides should peacefully co-exist through reconciliation and cooperation, that is, to abide by the North-South Basic Agreement. The policy of pursuing both solid national security and reconciliation and cooperation is a strategy for double approaches. The engagement policy, which seeks reconciliation and cooperation based on strong deterrence buttressed by firm security preparedness, is by no means a policy and strategy to employ by the weak. We can introduce the engagement policy because we are the strong.