Policy Forum

Cheong Wooksik, representative of CNPK, writes: “The six-party talks, which was primarily arranged to resolve the US-North Korean conflict, could serve as a good opportunity to make the idea of a nuclear-free Northeast Asia public.”

Karin J. Lee, Senior Fellow at the East Asia Policy Education Project of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, writes: “In the midst of round four, the six party process if finally off to a good start but there is a long way to go. At an August 7th Press Conference, Assistant Secretary Hill reiterated his commitment to continue direct talks with North Korea during the recess. Such an approach will go a long way toward whittling away at the divisive issues and may result in more good news.”

Leon V. Sigal, director of the Northeast Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) in New York and editor of The North Korean Nuclear Crisis: Regional Perspectives, wrote: “Far from isolating North Korea, the United States is itself becoming odd man out in the region. If this misguided course had a name, it would be hawk disengagement.”

Mitchell B. Reiss, Vice Provost for International Affairs at the College of William & Mary and former Director of Policy Planning at the State Department from July 2003 to February 2005, wrote: “[The] multilateral approach has helped bring North Korea back to Beijing, but Washington must now reassert its leadership and help shape a safer future for Northeast Asia.”

Peter Van Ness, visiting fellow at the Contemporary China Centre and lecturer on security in the Department of International Relations at Australian National University as well as author of Confronting the Bush Doctrine: Critical Views from the Asia-Pacific, wrote: “The outcome of the Six Party Talks is likely to transform the strategic relations of Northeast Asia and beyond. If they are successful and North Korea agrees to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs in a verifiable way in return for security and economic assistance, there would be an opportunity to begin to build new security institutions in one of the most volatile regions in the world, thereby providing both strategic stability and economic opportunities for all six participant countries to advance trade and investment projects that would benefit them all.”

Gavan McCormack, professor of social science at International Christian University, Tokyo and the author of Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the Brink, wrote: “What has maintained the dictatorship in the North for so long has been above all the uncompromising hostility of its enemies, allowing the regime to capitalize on national pride and determination to remain independent. Rather than more intervention to bring about ‘regime change’ what Korea needs is to be left alone to redress the long-continuing trauma caused by the massive interventions of the past.”

Peter Hayes, Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute, and Scott Bruce, the Nautilus Fellow at the University of San Francisco Center for the Pacific Rim, wrote: “In short, bad intentions and bad faith can only breed further mistrust, accelerate nuclear proliferation in the region, and extend the frozen cold war in Korea indefinitely into the future. The DPRK case shows once again that strategic drift is not substitute for realistic policy when it comes to nuclear weapons.”

Drifting into the Six Party Talks? Drifting into the Six Party Talks? Policy Forum Online 05-59A: July 19th, 2005 Drifting into the Six Party Talks? By Peter Hayes and Scott Bruce CONTENTS I. Introduction II. Essay by Peter Hayes and Scott Bruce III. Nautilus invites your responses I. Introduction Peter Hayes, Executive Director of the […]

Erich Weingartner, Editor-in-Chief, CanKor Virtual ThinkNet on Korean Peace and Security (www.cankor.ca), wrote: “Re-framing is not an escape from reality. It is a conscious effort to return to reality. It requires communication, dialogue, learning and teaching, refusing to walk away when the going gets tough, engaging without illusion for the purpose of influencing outcomes. These may be viewed as very small steps, but this is a very long-term problem. And as we have learned from the six-party process, any step is better than no step at all.”

Charles Wolf Jr., a senior fellow at the RAND Corporation and Hoover Institution and the co-author of “North Korean Paradoxes”, wrote: “How and exactly when unification may occur — whether by system evolution or collapse, by internal dissidence, by fragmentation or by conflict — is no less conjectural now than it was a decade earlier. At that time, such conjectures were rife, and we were surprised that none of the envisaged possibilities ensued. Now, when such conjectures are absent, and attention instead is pre-empted by North Korea’s threatened or actual acquisition of nuclear weapons, we may be surprised again — but this time in a reverse direction.”