"There sits George W. Bush and does exactly what the most powerful man on earth ought not to do: He stirs up a lot of nervousness." So reads an editorial in Munich's Süddeutche Zeitung entitled "Bush in a China shop." Asiaweek implores "Please tone down the tough talk. For Paris's Le Monde "Bush departs from the policies of Clinton regarding Pyongyang." Similarly, Italy's La Stampa writes "Bush is returning to the past canceling the opening policies of the Clinton era." In Spain's La Vanguardia "Bush restrains South Korea's haste for a pact with North Korea." And for London's conservative Daily Telegraph, "Bush sours relations with North Korea." Those are only a few comments from the foreign press following Bush's meeting with South Korean president Kim Dae Jung in Washington last week.
It comes as no surprise that Bush regards the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as an "enemy of world peace" or that his resolve to develop and deploy the NMD system to "defend our allies and interests" against missile attacks from rogue states includes North Korea among its members. However, no one, especially South Korean president Kim Dae Jung, expected such a clear break from the previous administration's support for Kim's efforts to build bridges with the North.
Kim Il Sung had ruled North Korea for 46 years, first as premier and then as president, when he died in 1994. His son, former supreme commander of the People's Army Kim Jong Il, became the country's new leader. The Clinton administration saw the generational changing of the guard as an opportunity to wean the Communist state away from its isolationist ways and South Korea was keen on cooperating with initiatives that would bring it closer to its northern cousins.
In 1995, the United States led an international consortium that planned to supervise and finance the construction of two new nuclear reactors in North Korea. In return, Pyongyang agreed to discontinue its alleged nuclear weapons program and to allow inspections of its nuclear facilities. Last year there were many events signaling winds of change for the better in North Korea: the inter-Korean summit in June, Pyongyang's attendance at the ASEAN Regional Forum summit in Bangkok in July, Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's visit to Pyongyang in October, symbolic but important steps to reunite families, and plans to establish railway links between the two countries. The South Korean president even won the Nobel peace prize for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for his sunshine policy for peace and reconciliation with North Korea that has allowed tensions to diminish between the two countries. Wiping all of that accomplishment out with a little rough and random rhetoric hardly adheres to the "peace" that the new president pretends to preach.
The think tank crowd has had much to say about the new administration's attitude toward North Korea. According to Douglas Pal of the Asia Pacific Policy Center, the president of the United States and the president of South Korea differ less in their analysis of North Korea and more in terms of their ideas about the best strategy to employ. Bush is the would-be policeman, whereas Kim is the priest. Where one would seek to disarm and be rid of Kim Jong II, the other would like to convert him, by offering the conditions that would enable change.
Chong Whi-Kim, a senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace thought that Bush might have better applied some ambiguity to his comments, especially since the administration has yet to complete its review of US policy toward the Koreas.
Selig Harrison, a Korean specialist and senior fellow at the Century Foundation in Washington is concerned about a reaction from North Korea that would endanger the missile-testing moratorium. That moratorium, agreed to in September 1999, was conditioned on the "continued conduct of negotiations with the US that were intended to lead to normalization."
Jon B. Wolfsthal, an associate in the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington entitled an editorial piece he wrote for the Los Angeles Times: "North Korea: Hard line is not the best line."
The world has been waiting for some clear signals from Washington concerning the stance of the new administration toward foreign policy issues. It was patent from the beginning that Bush had no dreams or desires to fill the diplomatic shoes of his predecessor. There would be no sleepless nights ironing out peace negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. No shuttle flights back and forth to Northern Ireland. No marathon tours on distant continents. In the last few weeks, new signals concerning foreign policy from Washington have indeed been forthcoming. However, those signals can hardly be called clear.
This is the second time in the new administration's brief period in office that its foreign policy choirmasters have sung in different keys. Both national Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are tough talkers when it comes to defending U.S. national interests in the global arena and Rumsfeld is particularly heavy handed when it comes to North Korea and China. However, Secretary of State Colin Powel had told reporters that Bush's policy toward North Korea would pick up where the Clinton administration had left off, not at all in line with what the president communicated to his South Korean counterpart.
Last month, Powel's conciliatory diplomacy had already sounded a note of discord with his boss and colleagues regarding relations with Iraq. During a visit to United Nations headquarters in New York, the Secretary of State suggested that the United States would be adopting a more emollient approach toward Iraq. The next day British and American planes bombed anti-aircraft sites outside Baghdad.
Last week, Powel told a congressional hearing that the Bush administration would not ease controls on Iraq's revenue for oil sales "until our inspectors have satisfied themselves" that no more weapons of mass destruction were being produced there. Vice President Cheney, who seems to be in the process of assembling his own rival team of foreign policy advisers, contradicted Powel in an interview with the Washington Times, saying that we don't want to "hinge our policy just to the question of whether or not the inspectors go back in there."
There's nothing wrong with Bush's quest for transparency or his insistence in verifiable means of controlling the promises that Pyongyang makes in exchange for the help it receives from its neighbors and the West. However, a more conciliatory tone rather than up the ante posturing might be more conducive to constructive diplomacy. Getting his foreign policy chorus to sing in unison would also be less confusing and troublesome to our allies and less endangering to the progress toward peace that we have already achieved with our perceived enemies.
March 2001
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