Policy Forum

Glyn Ford, Member of the European Parliament and part of the Parliament’s Delegation for the Korean Peninsula, writes, “Pyongyang and Washington agree on one thing, that you can’t trust the other. And they’re both right. Any final solution requires both sides’ agreement, but not enthusiasm. The nuclear package could be put together with South Korean money, Russian technology and Chinese political will.”

Mark J. Valencia, a maritime policy analyst based in Hawaii and the author of “The Proliferation Security Initiative: Making Waves in Asia”, writes, “Thus for both Straits states and user states the agreement is much ado about little. The only incremental change is the establishment of a forum in which user states can use to pressure the Straits states regarding their security concerns. User state assistance in improving safety and security in the Straits remains elusive. And the interests of the Straits states and the user states are likely to continue to clash.”

Zhiqun Zhu, assistant professor of international political economy and diplomacy at the University of Bridgeport, writes, “Now that North Korea has taken a giant step towards joining the nuclear club, finger pointing is unhelpful. All major players involved share responsibilities for the diplomatic failure. The international community needs to think prudently what to do next.”

Moo-jin Yang, Director for External Affairs at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, writes, “With the reopening of the Six-Party Talks at hand and the Democratic victory in the U.S. midterm elections, it is highly possible that the means of resolving the North Korean nuclear issue will switch from the single track of sanctions to a two-track diplomacy of pressure and negotiations. South Korea must strengthen its role as an active mediator in the process of negotiations and utilize the opportunity presented by the restoration of inter-Korean relations.”

Bradley O. Babson, a former World Bank official and expert on Asian affairs with a concentration on the North Korean economy and Northeast Asia economic cooperation, writes, “Depending on the choices made by stakeholders both inside and outside the DPRK, the future path could be highly destabilizing or highly transformational with positive outcomes for regional security and economic prosperity for the North Korean people.”

Wonhyuk Lim, Fellow at the Korea Development Institute (www.kdi.re.kr) and Korea National Strategy Institute (www.knsi.org), writes, “Just as it is not appeasement to talk to North Korea or any other potential adversary, it is not appeasement to hire North Korean workers and pay their wages. Instead of blaming economic engagement that promotes internal changes in North Korea, it would be far better to contain and reduce potential military threats through arms control negotiations and re-establish the policy synergy the United States and South Korea enjoyed in dealing with North Korea.”

The Singapore Institute for International Affairs (SIIA), a non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to the research, analysis and discussion of regional and international issues, writes, “tackling Southeast Asian health and terrorism problems seems to be the priority. For now, human right issues are still being brewed in the Congressional Democratic pot.”

Gavan McCormack, a coordinator at Japan Focus and author of the forthcoming book Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, writes, “In Okinawa more than anywhere else in Japan, the precarious and one-sided nature of the supposedly ‘mature’ and ‘second-to-none’ US-Japan relationship is palpable. In his eagerness to please his Washington friend, Prime Minister Koizumi promised Bush something that he almost certainly could not deliver: a solution to the long-running dispute over relocating the Futenma base; his successor, Abe, was left with the obligation to deliver on that promise.”

Siegfried S. Hecker, researcher at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, writes, “My general impression is that the Oct. 9, 2006 nuclear test, which followed DPRK’s Feb.10, 2005 announcement of having manufactured nuclear weapons, will make it much more difficult to convince the DPRK to give up its nuclear weapons… The prevalent view we found in China, with which I concur, is that the United States must demonstrably address DPRK’s security before there is any hope of denuclearization.”

Tatsujiro Suzuki, Senior Research Scientist, Socio-economic Research Center, Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI), and Visiting Professor, Graduate School of Public Policy, the University of Tokyo, writes, “The primary driving force behind Japan’s reprocessing program is the management of spent nuclear fuel. The back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle, i.e. management of spent fuel and waste, would pose significant financial, political, and social risks to Japan’s nuclear power program. Japan should explore alternative socio-political solutions, including multinational approaches, to its complex spent fuel management issues.”