DO - To the author, the rocket launch matters, because it presents the US and its allies a good opportunity to impose punitive measures against DPRK
Why North Korea’s
Rocket Mattered
By SUNG-YOON LEE , Published:
April 13, 2012
(the US and its allies should respond to the
latest rocket launch by punitive measures)
SPECTACULAR failure
though it was, North Korea’s latest
rocket launching calls for punitive measures from America and its allies.
Bad engineering is no reason for complacency; the benchmark for American policy
must be North Korea’s intent. And for decades, that government has been
determined to develop nuclear-tipped long-range missiles that would give it
leverage over the United States on a host of issues.
(when dealing with DPRK, keep in mind the fact that Kim Jong-un is following a
path of alternating provocations and peace offensives.
DO- so, the author is
categorically opposed to re-engaging with Pyongyang ? )
It’s predictable that
the misfire has triggered over-analysis and scapegoating, with calls for calm
and tales of an internal power struggle between “hawks” and “doves” in the new Kim Jong-un government. Others say America
and South Korea should re-engage the government in Pyongyang. Both views ignore
the fact that Kim Jong-un is
following a path of alternating provocations and peace offensives paved
by his grandfather Kim Il-sung and perfected by his father, Kim Jong-il.
(the military can’t contest, let alone defy,
Kim Jong-un.)
No government enjoys
total unanimity. But the notion that in totalitarian North Korea, a few
disgruntled military men might put their foot down and reverse a course of
engagement set by their leader is foolish. It ignores the nature of the power
structure in the North. For more than a half-century, the Kim clan has kept
the military in line through vicious purges, competition that fosters
loyalty to the leader, selective rewards and a multilayered security apparatus.
While a military clique may one day challenge or even overthrow Kim Jong-un,
the notion that the military wields a veto now is a mirage that plays into
North Korea’s stratagems.
(don’t be naïve as to believe that we can
persuade Pyongyang into our way. We shouldn’t be surprised that Pyongyang does
not “behave,” because we haven’t given them a “lesson.”)
And for those inclined
to believe that the North can be persuaded to change its behavior with
inducements, consider this: Except for the invasion of the South in 1950, North
Korea has never suffered a lasting or devastating penalty for its many attacks
and provocations. On the contrary, it has often been rewarded for false
pledges.
(the examples of attacks and provocations )
From January 1968 to
December 1969, North Korea acted with impunity: It sent commandos into Seoul in
a failed effort to kill the South Korean president, Park Chung-hee; it seized
the United States Navy spy ship Pueblo and its crew, killing one sailor and
holding 82 prisoners for 11 months until it got an apology from the Johnson
administration; it shot down an American reconnaissance plane, killing 31
servicemen aboard, on Kim Il-sung’s birthday in 1969; and it ambushed and
killed four American soldiers patrolling the military demarcation line in
October 1969.
A thaw followed in the
early 1970s, thanks to American rapprochement with China. Talks between North
and South ensued. Kim Il-sung called for diplomatic talks with America. But
then North Korea resumed attacks. In 1974 it made another attempt on
President Park’s life, in which his wife died. In 1976 North Korean
guards hacked two American soldiers to death.
In 1983, as North Korea sought talks with America,
its agents targeted the South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan, with a bomb in
Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar). He survived, but 17 other South Korean
officials died. In 1998 North Korea fired a missile over Japan
while America, South Korea and Japan were sending energy aid. In 2006 it
test-fired a long-range missile on July 5 and staged its first nuclear test
three months later. In 2009, it launched a long-range rocket in April
and tested a nuclear device on Memorial Day.
In all of these episodes, North Korea was never penalized in any meaningful way. Indeed, several
provocations were followed by blandishments — rewards, in effect — in the form of food, fuel and cash from North Korea’s risk-averse
adversaries in Seoul and
Washington.
(Seoul and Washington
was risk-averse ?)
Neither diplomatic civility
nor rhetorical hostility will work; only punitive measure is required.
Because DPRK, while
conducting missile and nuclear test, continue to use the possibility of
denuclearization as bargaining chip
This record shows that
North Korea doesn’t respond to either rhetorical hostility or
diplomatic civility. Its latest ballistic stunt followed a long pattern
of ignoring outside warnings. But the American response should not also be
the usual — strong on rhetorical condemnation, weak on punitive action and
generous in damage-control concessions. North Korea clearly seeks to continue
this profitable cycle by dangling before America the possibility of
denuclearization, even as it conducts missile and nuclear tests.
Now, as Kim Jong-un is
believed to be preparing for another nuclear test, the question remains
how much longer America and its allies will take before devising a new
collective strategy — one that does not settle for short-term diplomatic
gains at the cost of long-term strategic interests.
(DO – I will be
interested in hearing particularly about the long-term strategic interest)
They can start by
responding to the failed launching on Friday as if it had succeeded. The Obama
administration is correct to cancel food shipments, which were contingent on a
halt to missile and nuclear tests. But it should go further and act with its
allies to hit the Kim government itself — by tightening economic sanctions
aimed at the privileged few at the top of the Kim dynasty’s power structure; by
not relenting in that pressure for the mere privilege of talking with North
Korea; and by taking new measures to counter the propaganda apparatus with
which the government controls the long-suffering North Korean people.
(DO – the author seems
to be in favor of the explicit linking of food aid to the nuclear freeze)
That may not stem
North Korea’s provocations in the short term. But the alternative is, at best,
another half-century of putting up with provocations from the North or, far
worse, a major nuclear crisis that ends in a devastating war.
Sung-Yoon Lee is
a scholar of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
at Tufts.
==
===
Press split after
North Korean rocket launch
14 April 2012
Chinese pundits and
editorial writers warn the US, Japan and South Korea that overreacting to North
Korea's failed rocket launch could lead to further unpredictable actions on the
part of Pyongyang.
Papers in Hong Kong
and Taiwan are divided over whether North Korea may now be driven towards
reforms or whether the crisis on the Korean Peninsula will be
aggravated.
Japanese and South
Korean dailies denounce the launch as an act of folly and urge a united response
to Pyongyang's "provocations".
Call for restraint
"Overreaction may
provoke" North Korea and "corner it into further isolation",
Ruan Zongze, the vice-president of the China Institute of International
Studies, told Beijing's state-run China Daily in a front-page interview. He
added that China was opposed to the US, Japan and South Korea deploying
anti-ballistic missiles because this "will only militarise and
spark conflict in the region".
(Do- China has good
reason to say so. It wants to be the only regional power.)
An editorial in
Beijing's Global Times, the English-language edition of the state-run newspaper
Huanqiu Shibao, agreed that the US, Japan and South Korea "should avoid
aggravating current tensions, which could prompt North Korea to take new,
unpredictable actions". According to the paper, China "should urge
all relevant parties to understand the long-term reward of restraint and
refraining from bluffing and blustering".
The president of the
China Institute of International Studies, Qu Xing, told the same paper that a
"Cold War mentality will inevitably lead to an arms race on
the Peninsula and prompt Pyongyang to resort to counter-deterrence measures
against Washington and Seoul".
An editorial in
Beijing's Huanqiu Shibao said the US, Japan and South Korea often call on China
to take action to rein in North Korea while "the real key to changing
North Korea's behaviour is held in their own hands".
But in an interview
published by Hong Kong's Ming Pao, Prof Zhang Liangui of the Chinese Communist
Party School acknowledged that it "will be a problem" for China to
convince the international community that "China's aid has nothing to do
with North Korea's radical rhetoric and initiatives".
Prospects for change
A commentary in Hong
Kong's The Sun said North Korea's "rare admission of defeat"
showed that "Kim Jong-un's way of doing things is different from his
father's generation, and may show that the truth cannot be hidden in the
internet age". The paper believes that the inability even of a
totalitarian regime such as North Korea to deceive its people "will be
the driving force for North Korea to head towards reform".
An editorial in Hong
Kong's South China Morning Post said the rocket launch would have been a
project inherited by Kim Jong-un, and "now that it has been completed,
though it ended in failure, it is to be hoped this will serve to push Pyongyang
to return to the six-party talks brokered by China to end its nuclear programme".
An editorial in Hong
Kong's Singtao Daily, on the other hand, drew the opposite conclusion, arguing
that the failed launch is a setback for North Korea "which makes one worry
that... its hostility and anxiety towards surrounding countries will
increase, thus pushing the crisis on the Korean Peninsula to a more
dangerous brink".
Taipei's China Times
warned in an editorial that "as long as countries do not unite and
co-operate, North Korea will definitely replay its tricks and the problem will
keep continuing".
"Folly"
An editorial published
on the website of Japan's Asahi Shimbun daily described the rocket launch as an
act of "folly" since "a higher priority was put on consolidating
the foundations of the new regime of Kim Jong-un, a third-generation hereditary
leader, than on feeding his starving people".
It added that Japan,
the United States and South Korea "need to put up a united front and get
China and Russia to join their efforts to send a strong message to North
Korea".
An article by Park
Byung-soo on the website of South Korea's Hankyoreh judged that the rocket
launch had left North Korea "a loser on all fronts" since it
was now "facing increased isolation and the possibility of extra sanctions
on the international front, and a credibility crisis, rather than
political success, at home".
An editorial published
on the website of South Korea's Dong-A Ilbo agreed that Kim Jong-un "has
lost face due to the botched launch" and warned that "the world will
not turn a blind eye to Pyongyang's provocations".
"Hopefully, the
failure will help the North's leader end the delusion of bringing about a
powerful country and instead feed his people," the paper said.
