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March Issue |
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By Alexander V. Nemets and John L. Scherer
North Korea has been strongly buoyed politically, economically, militarily, and psychologically in recent years by Russia and China.
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 Open arms: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov hugs North Korean Ambassador Pak Ul Chun after a meeting in October 2000 in which they signed a bilateral friendship treaty.
 s late as October 2002, North Korea, though labeled by President George W. Bush a member of the "axis of evil," was causing no particular trouble for the United States or its allies in the Far East. Diplomatic and economic relations between North Korea and Japan, and especially with South Korea, were positively tranquil.
The situation, however, has changed dramatically. Pyongyang has accelerated development of its long-range missile program, withdrawn from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and resumed production of weapons-grade plutonium. By the end of 2003, North Korea could have 10 intercontinental ballistic missiles, with nuclear warheads capable of reaching the continental United States, let alone Hawaii and Alaska.
The reversal and hardening of Pyongyang's position surprised political leaders in Washington, who had been preoccupied with handling Iraq and the search for terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. All of a sudden, the threat from North Korea became far greater than the danger from Iraq. How did this happen so swiftly?
During the past decade, China and Russia, the major political allies and economic partners of North Korea from the 1950s through the '80s, had a catastrophic effect on the country. Moscow's clumsy reforms after the disintegration of the Soviet Union led Russia to inflation and near economic collapse. This resulted in a sharp decrease in trade with North Korea and termination of economic aid and weapons deliveries to Pyongyang.
In 1992, the People's Republic of China
(PRC) established diplomatic relations with South Korea, despite fierce resistance from the North. This was accompanied by an expansion of Chinese-South Korean trade and economic cooperation. Moreover, the two countries initiated several large-scale joint projects, particularly in the Russian Far East, with the goal of forming a "Northeast Asian economic center." Simultaneously, Chinese-North Korean trade and economic cooperation significantly diminished, and Beijing-Pyongyang political contacts froze as thick as the Yalu River's winter ice. Prominent American Sinologist Robert Scalapino characterized the situation as China taking both "the beloved concubine [the South] and the unloved legal wife [the North] on the Korean Peninsula."
Kim Il Sung, North Korea's "Great Leader," found himself facing an insuperable dilemma. Pyongyang's exports of such traditional North Korean products as textiles, chemicals, steel, nonferrous metals, and heavy machinery to Russia and China dwindled, and Beijing and Moscow severely reduced their food and energy supplies to Pyongyang. From 1990 to 1992, the North Korean gross domestic product declined about 25 percent. A poor country became prostrate.
The rogue-state strategy
 im tried to solve these problems by expanding military-technological cooperation with rogue states and accelerating the development of nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. Pyongyang exported missiles and their production technology to Iran, Syria, and Libya. The North Koreans intensified work on long-range ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, with "indirect assistance" from Russian scientists and sophisticated equipment purchased from China. In addition to providing hard currency, this policy had the potential to wring concessions from the United States, Japan, and South Korea.
By spring 1994, North Korea was ready to produce nuclear warheads. President Bill Clinton took decisive measures to prevent this dangerous step. Washington and Pyongyang avoided conflict by signing a complex agreement terminating nuclear research in North Korea in exchange for large, regular shipments of fuel oil and construction of two light-water
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Alliance: China's then-President Jiang Zemin greets Russian President Vladimir Putin at a UN summit in New York last September. The two nations have formed an axis to counterbalance U.S. power.
nuclear reactors. The oil and reactors would be used to generate the electricity that had previously come from old reactors that had the objectionable trait of creating plutonium, a by-product of reprocessing spent fuel, that could be used to make thermonuclear bombs. The deal was a tactical victory for the North, and Washington averted, or at least delayed, a full-blown crisis.
In July 1994, Kim Il Sung died and was succeeded by his erratic son, Kim Jong Il. Anthony
LoBaido, correspondent for WorldNetDaily.com, described the new leader in the following way: "When not cavorting with Swedish prostitutes, watching Daffy Duck cartoons, or swilling cognac, Kim schemes for new ways to fill his already burgeoning coffers." When Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping sent a special letter to Kim urging him to begin economic reforms, the appeal got no response.
Everything went downhill from 1995 to 1998. Floods inundated a quarter of the country's arable land. Food reserves were exhausted, and the "great hunger" took hundreds of thousands of lives. Some estimates put the loss near two million, or close to 10 percent of the population. Since the mid-1990s, North Koreans have survived on food imports and remittances from relatives living abroad. Despite the famine, Beijing provided Pyongyang only moderate economic assistance in the form of fuel and agricultural supplies. Kim may have interpreted such generosity, however modest, as "tribute," rendered to avoid severing all ties between the two nations.
As social welfare sunk, North Korea reached new heights in missile development, production, and export. Pyongyang upgraded its Nodong ballistic missile, which has a range exceeding 600 miles, and developed the Taepodong rocket, which could reach targets 4,000 miles away. Pyongyang expanded exports of missile technology to states unfriendly to Washington. In July 1998, Iran tested the Meteor-3 midrange ballistic missile, based on the
Nodong. The September 1998 test of the Taepodong-1 intermediate-range rocket frightened South Korea, Japan, and America, since all were now within striking distance.
Courted by Beijing and Moscow
 ecoming a near nuclear power changed everything. In 1999, North Korea found it was no longer isolated from the rest of the world, suddenly becoming a focus of international attention and a "valuable asset" of the emerging Chinese-Russian alliance. Following the impressive performance of America's Operation Desert Fox in Iraq and acceleration of the U.S. National Missile Defense
(NMD) program, Beijing and Moscow decided to strengthen and codify their strategic-military alliance. This partnership was upgraded after the Yugoslav war and again from June through December 1999. China's Colonel-General Zhang Wannian visited Russia in June. Then--Chinese President Jiang Zemin and then--Russian President Boris Yeltsin held summits in
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in August, and in Beijing in December. At the end of the year, an energetic Putin administration, heavily staffed by former KGB officers, replaced a corrupt and lethargic Yeltsin government.
Moscow and Beijing began to view Pyongyang as the "trump card" in their anti-American strategy. The PRC expanded its food and fuel deliveries; Russia cautiously resumed its weapons exports. Official exchanges between Pyongyang and Moscow and Pyongyang and Beijing became frequent and friendly.
The rapprochement accelerated in 2000. In mid-February 2000, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov visited Pyongyang to sign the Russian--North Korean Friendship and Good Neighbor Treaty. Ivanov was the highest-ranking diplomat to visit in a decade. Kim secretly traveled to Beijing at the end of May.
In July, Putin visited Pyongyang, where he and Kim reached a preliminary agreement on reconstructing economic projects built with Soviet assistance. The two leaders signed memoranda on military-technical and political cooperation.
In July and August, China and North Korea increased military and political contacts. At that time, the Chinese media published a series of articles demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea.
The dangers were real enough. Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) warned that Kim was buying satellite photos of U.S. and South Korean military installations from the Russians. At the beginning of 2001, Beijing, Moscow, and Pyongyang formed a "united front" against the U.S. NMD and the East Asian Theater Missile Defense projects.
North Korean Defense Minister Kim Il Chong visited Moscow at the end of April 2001 and signed protocols promising Russian weapons technology to the North. That July in Moscow, Jiang and Putin initialed a new Chinese-Russian Friendship and Good Neighbor Treaty, establishing the Sino-Russian alliance, which included "clients and satellites" of the two countries, primarily, North Korea, Belarus, and some Central Asian republics.
Resurgence in Relations
im's "triumphal visit" to Russia in August 2001 restored relations to the level of the 1950s. Kim and Putin emphasized their determination to force U.S. troops from South Korea. With the visit of Jiang to Pyongyang at the beginning of September, the Chinese-Russian-North Korean alliance became a geopolitical reality.
With this powerful backing, Pyongyang intensified its verbal assaults against the United States, Japan, and South Korea but did not stop there. In December 2001, a North Korean naval vessel fired on a ship of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces.
Impatient with weakness, Kim seemed to reason that Seoul, espousing a "sunshine policy" toward the communist North, had ceased to be a threat. Kim Jong Il apparently thought that then--South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, disliked economic sanctions and would not support a U.S. military strike against North Korea. Additionally, Kim figured that Washington could be held at bay by the combination of Chinese manpower and newly required economic clout and Russian nuclear might.
After Bush included North Korea in the "axis of evil" in January 2002, Moscow and Beijing came to its defense. The two nations strengthened military and political ties from January through May 2002. At the Jiang-Putin
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Fast friends: Then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin reviews an honor guard with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Khatami, near Tehran in April 2002. China and Russia have shown a willingness to embrace anti-U.S. governments.
summit in St. Petersburg in June, both sides pledged support to North Korea, bolstering its confidence and increasing its belligerence. On June 29, North Korean patrol boats attacked South Korean naval vessels 100 miles off the southern city of
Inchon, sinking a frigate and leaving dozens dead or injured.
From August 20--24, 2002, Kim visited major defense enterprises in the Khabarovsk and Primore regions of the Russian Far East, conferring with Putin in
Vladivostok. The partners followed a familiar formula: promising more weapons to modernize the North Korean army and planning construction of the Trans-Korean Railway to connect Seoul, through North Korea, with the Trans-Siberian Railroad and western Europe. The new rail line would benefit the Russian economy and, simultaneously, diminish U.S. influence in South Korea. Russian and Chinese media discussed the details in September and October 2002, but the Western media did their best to ignore them.
Putin's plenipotentiary in the Russian Far East, Konstantin
Pulikovsky, a career KGB officer, played a key role from his headquarters in
Khabarovsk. He became a close friend of Kim, accompanying him on long trips through Russia in August 2001 and August 2002. The Russian governor-general has visited Pyongyang on several occasions. As de facto commander in chief of Russian forces in the Far East, the affable Pulikovsky provides a link between Putin and Kim, in effect, guaranteeing the safety of the North Korean leader.
In October 2002, vessels of the Russian Pacific Fleet held joint maneuvers with the North Korean navy for the first time in decades. The war games were less a military exercise than a demonstration of the new power alignment in Asia.
Egging Pyongyang on
 n autumn 2002, North Korea revealed to the United States that it had resumed its weapons program and criticized Washington for allegedly failing to comply with terms of the 1994 "fuel oil and reactors" agreement. Washington reacted by stopping deliveries of fuel oil as winter set in.
During October 2002--March 2003, Kim Jong Il repeatedly challenged America, with Moscow and Beijing prodding and propping him up. In December, a Spanish naval vessel patrolling the Arabian Sea for al Qaeda terrorists intercepted a ship carrying North Korean Scud missiles to Yemen. The following March, four North Korean MiGs pursued an American spy plane flying in international air space 150 miles off its coast. The Bush administration countered by sending two dozen B-52 and B-1 bombers to Guam.
From time to time, Russian and Chinese diplomats have chided Pyongyang for its aggressive stance, but their criticisms cannot be taken seriously. The benefits for Moscow and Beijing are obvious: the U.S. political and military positions in South Korea are being undermined, and a sizable part of the South Korean populace and political elite are eager to appease Pyongyang. This attitude is necessary for completion of the
"superprojects" envisaged by Moscow, such as the Trans-Korea Railroad, an ambitious pipeline from the natural gas deposits around Irkutsk to South Korea, and the rebuilding of several dozen huge Soviet-era industrial enterprises in the North.
Furthermore, the increase in tensions opened a virtual "second front" on the Korean Peninsula, forcing Washington to split its forces between Northeast Asia and the Middle East. That circumstance temporarily helped Baghdad, another client of Moscow and Beijing at that time. Finally, export prices for Russian petroleum and natural gas could possibly rise considerably with "no war, no peace" in Asia.
Can America and North Korea avoid a military conflict? The United States and South Korea have every reason to hope so. The North has over a million men under arms, most stationed near the demilitarized zone, and Seoul, with 10 million residents, is just 30 miles from the DMZ.
Beijing and Moscow benefit from a crisis in Korea and have nothing against Pyongyang's development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. North Korea is their ally, not their enemy, and any increase in its military power strengthens their triangular relations. Neither Beijing nor Moscow appears concerned that, as a result of the tension, Japan may establish its own nuclear arsenal, with South Korea possibly following.
But, for Russia and China, nuclear crisis is better than nuclear war. Beijing understands that any conflict would undermine the stability of Northeast Asia. The PRC has numerous economic problems, and needs investment from the United States and Japan. What would happen if America and Japan were to take military action against North Korea or China? Even if Beijing managed to establish some form of protectorate over a "united Korea" as a result of war, victory would not compensate the PRC for the huge military and economic losses it would suffer.
The best solution for Beijing is no solution. On the other hand, Moscow would benefit from a clash on the peninsula or elsewhere because the price of crude oil and natural gas would skyrocket. In addition, the United States, Russia's chief nemesis, would become entangled in another dangerous conflict, further isolating itself from the rest of the world.
The Bush administration has encouraged Moscow and Beijing to put pressure on Pyongyang to back off its nuclear weapons program. White House officials want China to use its trade and economic aid as leverage, but the PRC has not supported economic sanctions against North Korea, preferring bilateral negotiations. Moscow abstained during a recent vote targeting North Korea by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Russian delegate asserted that sending the question of the reactors to the UN Security Council would prove "premature and counterproductive."
None of this is surprising. For Washington to expect Russian and Chinese cooperation to resolve this critical issue is to misperceive the stakes of the participants and to misread the new geopolitics of Asia.
As a researcher at the Science Applications International Corporation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Alexander V. Nemets has prepared scores of major reports on Chinese-Russian relations. John L. Scherer for many years published a yearbook called USSR and is now a professor at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis. |
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