North Korea has long extracted weapons-grade plutonium and is now making efforts to weaponize its nuclear explosive devices.19 Any measures taken in the future to strengthen the NPT-IAEA regime are no longer helpful for denuclearizing North Korea. What policy options are left for the
27 international community, in particular for the five states (the United States, South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan) of the Six-Party Talks?
Some may argue for launching a surgical air strike against Pyongyang’s nuclear facilities,20 as Israel did vis-à-vis Iraq in June 1981 and Syria in September 2007. However, there is almost no prospect for a military solu-tion to the North’s nuclear development. Bombing North Korea’s nuclear facilities, which already house nuclear and radioactive materials, would most likely cause environmental hazards that would hurt innocent North Korean people. In addition, given the paranoid and impetuous nature of North Korea’s leadership, any military strike on the DPRK is likely to invite Pyongyang’s counterattack on Seoul, resulting in devastation of the city. For this reason South Korea has never supported and will not support such military action. On top of that, the feasibility of a military solution would diminish over time, since North Korea is advancing toward attain-ing a nuclear-armed missile capability. Moreover, a military solution such as an air strike would not be an ultimate solution; it can at best only delay the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a determined proliferator, as shown by Saddam Hussein’s resumption of his clandestine nuclear development after the Israeli air strike against Iraq’s nuclear reactor.
On the other hand, there is a view that the United States and other members of the international community should find ways to live with a nuclear-armed North Korea. The argument is based both on past experiences that include the failure of several rounds of sanctions to compel the DPRK to relinquish its nuclear weapons and also on the fear that the current North Korea policies of Seoul and Washington risk creating a scenario in which a nuclear-armed North Korea, convinced that its adversaries are determined to destroy it, may launch a desperate, live-or-die counterblow in a dire crisis.21 However, recognizing North Korea, an NPT-noncompliant and the only state that has withdrawn from it, as a nuclear-armed state is a nightmare for the NPT-IAEA regime since such a concession seriously erodes the credibility and reliability of the regime. Thus it is better to examine once again if there remains any room for persuading Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.
Analyzing North Korea’s motivation for developing nuclear weapons can guide us. First, the North’s leadership appears to believe that nuclear
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weapons serve as an effective deterrent against US and South Korea’s mili-tary intervention and as a means for preventing foreign domination and interference. The North Korean elite may believe that Saddam Hussein might still be living in his palace today had he successfully developed nuclear weapons. Second, by having nuclear weapons, North Korea can grab the attention of the international community and extort economic assistance from its neighboring states and the United States. Nuclear blackmail is an effective way for Pyongyang to maintain its failing economy. Third, North Korea may well believe that nuclear weapons serve as an important tool to consolidate support within its military. Such thinking may have been fostered by poor economic conditions and difficulties caused by UN sanc-tions in acquiring advanced conventional weapons from foreign countries.
Fourth, the North Korean regime needs the prestige of nuclear weapons status to balance against rival South Korea’s enormous economic successes.
All of these purported motives, apart from the third one, are susceptible to engagement and actions by other states.
In order to persuade Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons, whether through sticks, carrots, or any other means, more extensive collaboration and greater policy consistency among the five countries of the Six-Party Talks are absolutely essential. In the past the absence of a united front and policy consistency among the five partner countries often created an environment of indecisiveness, allowing the North Korean regime to effectively exploit policy differences among the five countries. While the US administration under George W. Bush was listing North Korea as one of the “axis of evil”
states, South Korea’s Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun governments were providing Pyongyang with helping hands through the “Sunshine Policy.” While the United States, South Korea, Russia, and Japan were implementing economic and trade sanctions mandated by UNSC resolu-tions, North Korea’s only ally China was supportive of North Korea and provided much-needed economic assistance, despite Pyongyang’s failure to comply with UNSC resolutions calling for it to dismantle its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. It is even reported that China’s trade with North Korea increased in the aftermath of UN sanctions against North Korea.22
Glyn Davies, the US special representative for North Korea policy, said in June 2013 that Washington had not tried a “concerted multilateral effort”
that should have sent “common signals” to Pyongyang from the United States,
29 South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan. He declared that the United States has now put higher priority on efforts to coordinate with partner countries so that they speak with “one voice” before negotiating with Pyongyang on denuclearization.23 When sticks and sanctions against the North are deemed necessary, as it stands today, it is indispensable for the United States, South Korea, Russia, and Japan to encourage China to pursue a more concerted North Korea policy.
The US policy adjustment appeared to be facilitated by China’s unprec-edented tough stance toward Pyongyang after its third nuclear test conducted in February 2013. Immediately after the test, China’s then–Foreign Min-ister Yang Jiechi summoned the North Korean ambassador in Beijing and protested sternly, saying China was “strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed” to the test, and urged North Korea to “stop any rhetoric or acts that could worsen situations and return to the right course of dialogue and consultation as soon as possible.”24 In condemning Pyongyang’s nuclear testing, China voted in favor of UNSC Resolution 2094, which tightened financial sanctions by making mandatory some of the existing measures.
In addition Beijing agreed, in a departure from the previous sanctions, to make obligatory the interdiction and inspection of all suspicious ships and cargo en route to or from North Korea.
Indeed, North Korea’s continued nuclear and ballistic missile develop-ments and provocative actions jeopardize China’s national security interests.
First, China arguably does not want to see neighboring North Korea, a coun-try difficult to rein in and unstable by nature, armed with nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. Second, North Korea’s attempt to acquire nuclear-armed long-range missiles has stimulated the United States to upgrade its home-land ballistic missile defense capability, which can damage China’s strategic deterrent vis-à-vis the United States. The Obama administration decided to augment its missile-interceptors for homeland defense from thirty to forty-four25 after Pyongyang’s launch of a long-range rocket in December 2012. Third, North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile developments and provocative actions contribute to the strengthening of the US alliance system in Northeast Asia that Beijing considers a tool of encirclement of China.
Having said that, it is still not clear whether China is ready to impose heavy and harsh sanctions that may risk inviting the downfall of the North Korean regime. China cannot afford to risk disorder and chaos in North
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Korea. This would not only be likely to generate destabilizing effects on the China-DPRK border but also would cause a serious confrontation with the United States and South Korea over the political settlement of a post-Kim North Korea. More importantly, strategic and political trends in East Asia decrease the likelihood that Beijing will dramatically alter its North Korea policy. The Chinese leadership appears to consider ongoing US rebalancing toward Asia as a policy of containing China. Furthermore, China has incited an intractable territorial issue with Japan.26 These fundamental Chinese security issues will not evaporate even if North Korea is denuclearized or its regime is ended.27 Thus China’s North Korea policy will be a measured one, as it has been, balancing delicately between assisting North Korea’s survival by maintaining a certain level of economic and trade interactions with the protégé regime while at the same time trying to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. In short, there is little chance for the United States, South Korea, and Japan to see China’s North Korea policy change into a more coordinated one and to expect denuclearization of North Korea in the foreseeable future.