Policy Forum

Joel S. Wit, visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the founder of its Web site 38north.org, writes, “In the aftermath of the Cheonan sinking, the United States and South Korea must recognize that a return to dialogue would serve our interests. It is the only realistic way to rein in North Korea’s objectionable activities.”

John Delury, Associate Director of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and director of the North Korea Inside Out Task Force, writes, “The final misconception is that Hu might have demanded an explanation from Kim as to the causes of the fatal sinking of a South Korean vessel in late March. Hu… may have discussed the issue with Kim, as well as the intense pressure Lee is under to respond, if not retaliate. But the Chinese do not assume that North Korea is guilty. Even in the face of strong evidence of North Korean wrongdoing, the Chinese are inclined to view the incident in the context of inter-Korean relations, and do not want to let it determine the fate of the Six Party Talks.”

Hyun-Wook Kim, Professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS) in South Korea, writes, “It is important for both the U.S. and South Korea to develop a concrete plan for extended deterrence… Tailored extended deterrence should be established separately for Korea and Japan, covering not only nuclear elements but also diverse military, economic, political and legal elements that would produce more comprehensive extended deterrence measures.”

Alexander Mansourov, Nautilus Institute Senior Associate, writes, “North Korea is changing. The latest demonstration of the government’s desire to facilitate change is the new package of economic adjustment measures. Those measures seek to displace imports, restore self-reliance, and consolidate state control over the economic system at the expense of the newly emerging proto-markets in retail trade and the small private merchant class that may create political headaches for the regime down the road.”

Tong Kim, Research Professor at Korea University and Adjunct Professor at SAIS Johns Hopkins University, writes, “If paranoid North Korea is assured of its security for survival and non-interference in its internal affairs, it will be open to serious discussions on denuclearization. The task is how the U.S. and other partners can provide such assurances.”

Scott Snyder, Director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation, writes, “How the PRC central government handles Rajin-Sonbong may provide additional needed leverage to drive a financially hurting regime back to the negotiating table, or it may provide the North Koreans with a lifeline that sustains the leadership and provides it with the capacity to avoid necessary reforms. Given that many Chinese private firms recognize the risks of investing in North Korea under the current regime, a central government decision to invest in the Rajin-Sonbong is likely to be aimed more at perpetuating the status quo than at achieving the regime transformation necessary to promote North Korea’s economic integration into the region.”

Georgy Toloraya, Director of Korean Programs at the Institute of Economy, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, writes, “the talks should not concentrate exclusively on the nuclear issue. They should deal with comprehensive security problems, dating back several decades. Denuclearization is only one track of these talks, and actually it is even a secondary one. As the member of the talks with the least “egoistic” interests and responsibility to manage the issues of the mechanism of peace and security in North East Asia, Russia should put forward such an agenda.”

Wooksik Cheong, representative of the Korea Peace Network, writes, “The Obama administration has offered ‘carrots’ along with ‘sticks’ when it comes to North Korea. It has implied that the US will offer ‘negative security assurance’ only if North Korea lets goes of its nuclear weapons and returns to the NPT. It is understood to be somewhat unfair for both sides under an armistice situation, when the only assurance of security is conditional on abandoning nuclear weapons first. From this point of view, it seems a strong probability that North Korea will expand its nuclear arsenal.”

Park Seong-won is a Visiting Fellow, Miles Pomper is a Senior Research Associate, and Larry Scheinman is a Distinguished Professor at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. The authors write, “nuclear power has brought important benefits to the ROK, but also one particularly negative consequence: an accumulation of spent nuclear fuel that will soon outstrip the country’s storage capacity for highly radioactive waste. With the current nuclear cooperation agreement between South Korea and the United States set to expire in 2014, and an increasingly urgent need to find a solution, Seoul and Washington will have to overcome previous tensions on the issue.”

James E. Hoare was Britain’s Chargé d’Affaires to the DPRK from 2001-2002 and opened the British Embassy in Pyongyang. In this article on the Sunshine policy he writes, “Slowly, the policy was creating a group of people who could see benefits in remaining on good terms with South Korea and who had wider links with the outside world. Engagement has worked in other countries, most noticeably China, and I believe that it was beginning to work in North Korea. There was never going to be a speedy change in attitudes built up over sixty years, but stopping the process after ten was not a wise decision.”