North Korea's despotic "Dear Leader" has died and is now succeeded by the newly dubbed "Great Successor." It may be time for the makers of Team America World Police to issue a sequel to memorialize in Western pop culture both the demise of Kim Jong Il and the rise of a son, Kim Jong Un, few know much about other than alleged, celebrated ruthlessness.
As the media race to tell the story of the weirdness of hereditary succession in a communist state, I wanted to share a couple of observations and historical slices in time that should add color and nuance to what little we know about Kim Jong Il and his kingdom.
First of all, watch for any writing by North Korea expert and scholar Peter Beck as well as Center for International Policy senior fellow Selig Harrison, who met Kim Jong Il on several occasions. Evans Revere, a former senior state department official and former Korea Society President, is also of of America's best experts on all things Kim. Wendy Sherman, newly installed Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, also played a role during the Clinton administration as an envoy on North Korea affairs and laid the groundwork for the historic visit of then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to North Korea in October 2000.
Several other interesting policy practitioners on the US side are Ambassador Christopher Hill who now heads the Josef Korbel Center of International Studies at the University of Denver; US Special Representative for North Korea policy and Fletcher School Dean Stephen Bosworth, former Korean Talks envoy Charles Kartman; and senior Asia policy adviser to President George W. Bush Michael Green.
Some miscellaneous thoughts. . .
First, China knows more than it tells the US on North Korea (of course) but its influence over North Korean leadership decisions has been weaker than many presume. An imperfect but still useful analogy for the China-North Korea relationship is America's relationship with Israel, in which the ties that bind are tight but where the smaller party has figured out how to impose painful costs on the patron in the relationship. Yes, Israel is a democracy and North Korea is one of the most backward, repressive regimes on the planet -- but they share a resolve and confidence about their status that often has more influence on more cautious, large states than the other way around.
Chinese Premier Li Peng in the late 1990s was frustrated with the lack of high quality intelligence the Chinese government had on North Korea's Dear Leader and thus decided to up China's brief by inviting himself to visit Pyongyang to visit Kim Jong Il. The North Korean government sat for a bit on Li's self-invitation only to counter that it would be more appropriate for Kim Jong Il to visit China -- and this he did in May 2000 in his iron train.
While North Korea depends on Chinese economic support and does enjoy some privileged access and latitude in the relationship that is greater than any other nation, the threat of instability on the Korean peninsula and prospect of millions of refugees streaming into China from North Korea in the event of a crisis has emboldened the regime in Pyongyang to push the limits in its demands from China and the rest of the world.
Essentially, North Korea survives through extortion -- and thus has had few incentives to stabilize itself, rid itself of nuclear weapons, and to stand down militarily. It's too lucrative for North Korea to threaten the world with its naughtiness -- and for the rest of the world, including China, paying off the North Korean regime is cheaper than all other options.
Chinese intelligence and the senior political leadership has probably known for some time the severity of Kim Jong Il's ailments -- though some told me as recently as two months ago that they thought his health was rebounding, that in the recent trip Kim had made with his heir apparent son that Kim Jong Il was more robust than he had been in other trips.
US intelligence on the other hand had a remarkably good read on Kim's coming, likely demise -- arguing in a number of sensitive analyses that the violent clashes, missile launches, and the mysterious sinking of a South Korean warship were a function of leadership succession struggles inside Pyongyang. Former Ambassador Christopher Hill once told me that what we were seeing was the manifestations of "Kim Jong Il being 'Kim Jong Not Well'".
One other measure of the North Korean regime's isolation from the world hit me in 1995, after Kim Il Sung's death and in the early period of Kim Jong Il's reign. At that time I directed the Nixon Center in Washington and was hosting Japan's Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Koichi Kato for a meeting. Kato told me that he was getting frequent calls from Kim Jong Il and other elites close to the leader at his home phone number. These calls ranged from questions about potential rice imports from Japan to various other kinds of political, economic, and cultural queries.
Because of the outreach, Kato worked hard to understand who the new power centers around Kim were -- and what was driving the rise and fall of political players in Pyongyang. I called Senator John McCain's office to see if he would like to meet with Kato and hear the reports on these calls he had received as well as other intel info that the Japanese government had assembled. McCain listened carefully, taking precise and extensive notes -- and then asked Kato if he could share the material with the Central Intelligence Agency and defense intelligence. Kato agreed.
The takeaway from Kato's telephone encounters was that the North Koreans had almost no sense of what was happening in the outside world. These calls eventually led to large scale visits of Japanese Diet members to North Korea -- the slow-built honeymoon ending with the counter-trend of Japanese anger at revelations about North Korea's abduction of scores of Japanese citizens who were later held against their will in order to inform Kim Jong Il and the North Korean state about culture and events beyond their border.
As my colleague Max Fisher points out, doubts abound about the solvency and stability of a regime under the new "Great Successor," Kim Jong Un. He will face not only self doubt about the genuineness of loyalty from those in the military -- but will face tests from China, Japan, South Korea, the US, even Russia in how competent he is and how solid his control of the political and economic machinery of the country is.
A Neo-Nixonian approach that I have been supportive of for some time would be one that strongly promoted political and economic engagement with North Korea's leading generals and political glitterati. As they have watched former comrades in Russia as well as China join the world's billionaires rosters and be courted into outfits like the World Economic Forum, there may be a substantial amount of robber baron envy stirring inside North Korea.
One way to change a regime is to seduce half of a nation's top leadership with gold and treasure and a horizon for increasing their power while leaving the other half alone. Some senior Chinese authorities believe that this approach is something that they feel is the only way to eventually get North Korea on a China-like track that emphasizes economic development and progress while not necessarily yielding on political control.
Chalmers Johnson used to pay back-handed respect to Kim Il Sung, grandfather to the new leader of North Korea, by suggesting that he dug a big hole and painted a bucket red, saying that he had a nuclear weapons program underway -- and the world began to grovel. Former President Jimmy Carter went to North Korea, preempting an American attack on the big hole in the ground during the Clinton administration. Madeleine Albright visited with Kim Jong Il -- and Bill Clinton came remarkably close to visiting North Korea as the closing act of his tenure in office -- choosing instead to distract himself with another failed act in Israel-Palestine peacemaking.
When George W. Bush came into office, Secretary of State Colin Powell worked hard to maintain continuity with the progress the Clinton team had made with the North Koreans -- only to be undermined by then Under Secretary of State John Bolton's sharp attacks on the North Korean leader (which were substantively true but undermined US diplomacy) as well as George W. Bush's own disdain (then) for the kind of realist foreign policy track that emphasized deal-making with thugs over regime change.
President Obama's foreign policy team did not make much headway with North Korea. Attempting "not" to over-react to North Korea's predictable, global irascibility has marked Obama's approach more than anything distinctly proactive. Obama & Co. will no doubt work to test the waters of a more stable, more sane and constructive relationship with the new North Korean leader -- but my hunch is that the leadership will double down on its misbehavior and threaten its neighbors and the global system.
Now may be the time for Obama, as well as leaders in Japan, South Korea, China and Russia to offer trips to North Korea's political and military elite -- to show them what they could have if they engineered some shifts inside the regime.
Then just stand back and watch.
-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons
Follow Steve Clemons on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SCClemons
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But our actions must accept their right to self-determination and pride.
Who gets to decide what their self-determination entails? You?
The most likely scenario will be an increased emphasis on military build ups in both China and Russia.
China certainly doesn't need the refugee problem, however, they certainly don't want the US building military bases on their border either. North Korea provides a geographic buffer zone for China at a reasonable price.
Japan is content with the current status as the last thing they would wish for is a united Korea which would undoubtedly lead to another regional economic powerhouse.
Some South Koreans may dream of a united Korea, however, that would mean stepping into the shoes of China et al with respect to food aid and other massive economic assistance.
As it stands the South needs the cooperation of the North as well as China if it is to obtain Russian oil and gas, something that cannot be overlooked in the long term. I think it's fair to say that the North needs the cooperation of the South as well as China and Russia simply to exist.
If the US or the others want to find out what the new leader wants, if anything, asking him would be a great place to start.
Of course that would involve a diplomatic approach, not a US strong point.
The path Clemons outlines is bold and realistic and has plenty of merit. Believe me, a plutocracy needs a lot more stepping forward than a communistic country that rewards only loyalty to tired, old entrenched party members. to argue that converting to a free market system with some plutocrats being created along the way is possibly worse than starving and living like medieval serfs is nonsense because there's absolutely no equivalency between the two alternatives.
Yes, send SECSTATE. Gawd, what would they think? Have her arrive with a few thousand tons of food, a couple of hundred tractors and combines etc etc as gifts from the people of the US. Ask how many kids they want to send to US colleges on full scholarship next year, and how where they would like their embassy to be located in Washington. Love your enemies. They'll wonder what the hell you're up to.
With the demise of Kim, JI, it is time to move to the next level, a FEDERATED UNION model. Imagine an enlarged region with united responsibilities on defense and central banking, but with regional control over local governance issues, such as the choice of officials (the locals get to decide whether they want multiple parties, and whether they want elections). That can solve N. Korea's food shortage problem, completely defuse the N. Korean nuclear arms issue, and open up direct access for China to the Sea of Japan and beyond. The model can be repeated in various forms with Mongolia, and maybe even Taiwan.
Heck, the results would be so good mayhap others would like to join too - Myanmar would be a good candidate.
The combination of resources, and the resulting geometric growth in trade, would greatly lower military tensions in Asia, and jack up GDP for all countries involved. Just think of the infrastructure work that would come out of the union!!
Their objective is not to become wealthier. It is to remain in power. And we have nothing to teach them on that score. The North Koreans already run the most efficient totalitarian regime on the planet, bar none.
So why bother? All you'll do is show them more gadgets they'd like to exploit the toiling masses for.
It was the machinations of these very states and empires over the last few hundred years that set Korea on the path that led to where it is today. They will probably be very skittish about trusting any of them.
It was the machinations of the states and empires of the United States, Japan, China, and Russia over the last few hundred years that set the Koreas on the paths that led to where they are today.