CONTENTS
1. US Bolton on the DPRK
2. US Bush on DPRK Diplomacy
3. US DPRK Security Guarantee
4. PRC DPRK Fuel Promise for 6-Way Talks
5. US on KEDO Project Resumption
6. Rumsfeld Asia Trip
7. Taiwan-US Relations
8. Japan Troops Iraq Withdrawal
9. Cross-Straits Relations
10. Clinton ROK Visit
I. United States
1. US Bolton on the DPRK
Agence France-Presse (“BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAWK FIRES NEW VOLLEY AT NORTH KOREA,” Washington, 11/13/03) reported that US under secretary of state for arms control and international security al John Bolton once branded “human scum” and a “bloodsucker” by the DPRK, has vowed that the DPRK would win no reward for “blackmail and bad behavior” during a nuclear crisis. Bolton, no stranger to long-range verbal jousts with Pyongyang, also warned that Kim JoJng Il’s regime had chemical and biological agents it could deploy in the event of a war on the Korean peninsula. His new warning on the DPRK came Wednesday as top US East Asia policymaker James Kelly prepared for a new trip to Japan, the PRC and the ROK. The tour will up the tempo in the pan-Pacific diplomatic dance ahead of the second round of six-nation crisis talks expected to take place before the end of the year. Bolton said US President George W. Bush was committed to resolving the DPRK nuclear crisis peacefully, through dialogue in the multilateral framework currently being pieced together by the PRC. “By pursuing this course, the president is determined that blackmail and bad behavior on the part of North Korea will not be rewarded,” said Bolton. “North Korea will not be given inducements to reverse actions it took in violation of its treaty commitments and other international obligations.” Bolton said Washington was also concerned that the DPRK may try to get round its missile moratorium by cooperating in testing and development with foreign missile programs.
2. US Bush on DPRK Diplomacy
Agence France-Presse (“DIPLOMACY COULD WORK WITH NORTH KOREA AND IRAN, SAYS BUSH,” London, 11/13/03) reported that US President George W. Bush indicated a softening of stance against so-called rogue states Iran and the DPRK by saying that military action was not the only way to deal with problems. “Not every situation needs to be resolved through military action. And I would cite to you North Korea and Iran,” Bush said in an interview with three British news organisations ahead of a state visit to London next week. “The case in Iraq was unique, is unique, because the world, for over a decade, had spoken. The diplomatic route was tried,” Bush said in the interview with London’s Financial Times and Daily Telegraph newspapers and Britain’s domestic Press Association news agency. On Iran — which has now said it will suspend its uranium enrichment programme and cooperate fully with the UN nuclear watchdog — Bush said: “The Iranians must hear from a unified world that it is unacceptable for them to develop a nuclear weapon.” Bush thanked Britain, France and Germany for the diplomatic efforts that led to Iran promising to comply with its international obligations. Bush said he realized the bi-lateral approach to the DPRK had not worked “so I went and worked with the PRC and convinced the PRC through a variety of means of arguments that they need to be involved”. He said that with the further involvement of Russia, the ROK, Japan and the US “you’ve got five nations saying the same message to Kim Jong-il: we expect you not to develop a nuclear weapons program. “There are ways to rally constituencies and nations towards a common objective, which is precisely what we are doing.”
3. US DPRK Security Guarantee
BBC (“US SECURITY GUARANTEE CONDITIONAL ON NORTH KOREA’S WRITTEN PROMISE,” Tokyo, 11/13/03) reported that the US and its allies will demand a written DPRK promise to dismantle its nuclear weapons program as a precondition for security assurances for the communist country, a Japanese newspaper said Thursday. The US demand, endorsed by the ROK and Japan, has been unofficially presented to North Korea through the PRC ahead of a second round of multilateral talks, said the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The first multilateral meeting in Beijing in August put together the two Koreas, the US, the PRC, Japan and Russia. That meeting ended without agreement on when to hold the next meeting. ROK and Japanese officials expect the next six-nation meeting to be held before year’s end. A security guarantee for the DPRK in exchange for its agreement to dismantle its nuclear weapons program is a key pending issue. The Japanese daily said that the main point of the statement is likely to be along the vein of having the DPRK agree to “give up its nuclear development program in a verifiable and irreversible way.” The agreement, the paper said, will specify “concrete actions” North Korea should take, including allowing inspections of its nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its return to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). “The focus of the document will be on North Korea’s agreement to a verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear program,” the paper said. If the DPRK agrees on the wording of the document, it will be asked to sign it during the next six-party meeting, it said.
4. PRC DPRK Fuel Promise for 6-Way Talks
Dow Jones (“CHINA PROMISED N KOREA FUEL IN EXCH FOR 6-WAY TALKS,” New York, 11/13/03) reported that the PRC promised to provide the DPRK with fuel oil and food in a move thought to have facilitated an agreement to hold the second round of six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, conference sources said Thursday, the Kyodo news agency reported. The promise was made when top PRC legislator Wu Bangguo visited North Korea in late October and agreed with DPRK leader Kim Jong Il on resuming the talks among the North, the US, the PRC, the ROK, Japan and Russia, the sources said, according to the agency. One source said the PRC promised 500,000 tons of fuel oil and 200,000 tons of food. The PRC may have used the promise to provide energy and food assistance — lifelines for the DPRK – to get Kim to agree to take part in the next six-way conference, expected to be held in December in Beijing, Kyodo reported the sources as saying.
5. US on KEDO Project Resumption
Korea Times (Seo Soo-min, ” HUBBARD SAYS US WON’T RESUME KEDO PROJECT,” 11/13/03) reported that the US has no plans to revive the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, or KEDO, project, building two nuclear power plants for North Korea, even if the North agrees to dismantle its suspected nuclear weapons program, US Ambassador to Seoul Thomas C. Hubbard said on Thursday. “If North Korea does in fact clearly, verifiably, irrevocably abandon its nuclear program, we are prepared in supporting other forms of energy assistance to North Korea,” the ambassador said in a seminar hosted by the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, a state-affiliated think tank. He said the US would consider giving a conventional power plant to the DPRK due its dire power shortage. The ambassador’s statement is likely to be received with displeasure by the ROK, which hoped to revive the KEDO project once the crisis is over.
6. Rumsfeld Asia Trip
The Associated Press (Robert Burns, “RUMSFELD’S TRIP TO ASIA BEGINS IN GUAM,” Tumon, 11/13/03) reported that on the first leg of a six-day trip to Asia, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he would “test various ideas” with regional allies for changing the makeup and basing of American combat forces in Japan, the ROK and elsewhere to meet new security threats including terrorism. In an interview en route to this US island territory, Rumsfeld declined to offer any specifics other than to say the Pentagon might want access to more or different locations in Asia and the Pacific. His trip, to include stops in Japan and South Korea, is his first to Asia since becoming defense secretary in January 2001.
7. Taiwan-US Relations
Agence France-Presse (“TOP TAIWAN OFFICIAL LAUNCHES LOW-KEY US VISIT,” Washington, 11/13/03) reported that Taiwan’s top policymaker on relations with the PRC launched a low-key visit to Washington, hours after Beijing delivered a stern rebuke to President Chen Shui-bian over what it said was a drive for independence. Tsai Ing-wen, head of the Mainland Affairs Council, was due to address a Washington think-tank and meet academics and the local Taiwanese community after arriving in the US capital late Wednesday. But US and Taiwanese officials here declined to say if she would hold any meetings with members of the Bush administration or leading members of Congress. “We meet from time to time with Taiwan representatives but we do not provide details of regarding these contacts,” said a State Department official. In practice, US and Taiwanese officials often engineer informal meetings, often at conferences or think-tanks not held on official US government property. The US has no formal relations with Taiwan, in deference to the PRC’s One China policy.
8. Japan Troops Iraq Withdrawal
Agence France-Presse (“JAPAN PULLS BACK FROM SENDING TROOPS TO IRAQ AFTER LATEST KILLINGS,” Tokyo, 11/13/03) reported that in a new blow to US efforts in Iraq, Japan pulled back from sending troops to bolster international forces in the country, a day after the worst attack yet on US-coalition forces. The conditions were not right for Japan to send troops, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told reporters, hours after an attack on an Italian police base in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah claimed 27 Italian and Iraqi lives. “If the situation allowed our Self-Defense Forces to participate, they could go at any time… Unfortunately, it is not such a situation,” Fukuda told a news conference. His comments come as US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld prepares to visit Japan for talks which had been expected to see Tokyo commit to sending troops to aid its US ally. Only hours before the attack in Nasiriyah, Japan had issued its strongest public message to date that it planned to send troops later this year. “We are firm in our thinking that we will have a dispatch this year,” Fukuda said Wednesday.
9. Cross-Straits Relations
Agence France-Presse (“CHINA WARNS CHEN PUSHING TAIWAN ‘TO THE BRINK OF DANGER,’ Beijing, 11/13/03) reported that the PRC warned Taiwanese leader Chen Shui-bian his efforts to promote independence were pushing the island towards “the brink of danger,” and the mainland was ready to crush any attempt to split the country. “Chen Shui-bian has been pushing the island closer and closer to the dangerous brink of Taiwan independence,” Li Weiyi, a spokesman for the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office was quoted as saying by the Xinhua news agency. “This will ultimately drag Taiwan compatriots into a disaster, and will prompt PRC people to make preparations to crush the conspiracy to achieve Taiwan independence,” Li said. He warned efforts to push for independence were doomed to fail and would not be tolerated by the PRC. “Taiwanese independence is not in accordance with the people’s will. Taiwan separatism has nowhere to go. The PRC people will never allow the attempt to split the country to be successful,” Li said. The spokesman did not elaborate on what measures the PRC might take to crack down upon on Chen’s activities.
10. Clinton ROK Visit
Asia Pulse (“FORMER US PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON TO VISIT SEOUL,” Seoul, 11/13/03) reported that former US President Bill Clinton will come to the ROK, the Korea-America Friendship Society, which invited him, said. “Clinton will meet with political and business leaders during his four-day stay here,” the association said. In particular, the ex-head of state will meet President Roh Moo-hyun and his predecessor, Kim Dae-jung, on Friday. Clinton comes from Beijing, where he attended a ceremony Monday to open an office of Korea Life Insurance Co., an affiliate of the ROK’s Hanwha Group, whose chairman is the co-chairman of the Friendship Society. The visit is his first since he stepped down as president in 2000. He made a state visit to Seoul in November 1998.
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