*Denuclearization of NE Asia and of the World: Workshop III, Sept. 14-16, Tokyo, Japan

Security Environment of Northeast Asia and Prospects for the Six-Party Talks:
A South Korean View
byHaksoon Paik
(The Sejong Institute, Korea)
1. An Overview of the Current Security Environment of Northeast Asia

The current security environment of Northeast Asia (NE Asia) is characterized by several salient
attributes: Sino-American military/security competition—a reflection of China’s rise and militarymodernization vs. the U.S.’s response to it by strengthening its military/security alliance/coalitions
including the U.S.-led Missile Defense (MD) and support of Japan’s right of collective self-defense—
albeit with an expressed preference for cooperation over conflict; Sino-Japanese conflict based on
growing/ratcheting-up nationalism on both sides with the potentially-explosive Senkaku/Diaoyu
Islands dispute and Japan’s self-permission of its right of collective self-defense and the U.S.’s
support of it; an imbalance/contrast between Chinese/North Korean vs. U.S./South Korean efforts toseek and resume dialogue/negotiations for peace settlement and the denuclearization of the Korean
Peninsula; the U.S.’s and North Korea’s “open” mutual threat of nuclear attack on each other, having
broken the agreement/taboo/spirit of “no use” and “no threat of the use” of nuclear weapons,particularly during the Key Resolve/Foal Eagle in the spring of 2013; continuing deterioration ofinter-Korean relations since the Lee Myung-bak government; sharply-worsened South Korea-Japan
relations over resurfaced thorny, unresolved issues of textbook/territory, history, Japanese Army’s
enforced sex slavery and also over Japan’s proclaimed right of collective self-defense; and gloomy
prospects for an early resumption of the Six-Party Talks, which was even challenged by the South
Korean President for the effectiveness and utility of the Talks.
All these variables have combined to produce a volatile situation for security in NE Asia at thetime of power shift and order forming. The latent factors, suppressed during the Cold-War
international order and half surfaced during the transition period, has now expressed themselves in thediverse forms of nationalist and even chauvinist foreign policy and attitudes.
Under the circumstances, any possibility of a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in NE Asia
will hinge on the following four things at the minimum: whether North Korea agrees to negotiatedresolution, decides to denuclearize itself, and faithfully execute the agreement; whether the U.S.
promises North Korea not to use and also not to threaten the use of nuclear weapons against North
Korea, and faithfully abide by that promise; whether the U.S. can assure North Korea that Japan andSouth Korea will not develop, test, deploy, and use any nuclear weapons against North Korea; and1

whether the U.S. promise to provide Japan and South Korea with a nuclear umbrella/extended
deterrence and the U.S. promise not to use and not to threaten the use of nuclear weapons against
North Korea can be compatible with each other.
As a matter of fact, the aforementioned minimum four requirements for a NWFZ in NE Asia areinterconnected and could be combined to structure the relevant pending issues so that both the “rootcause” and “symptoms” of the “Korean Problem” could be resolved, thereby laying the foundation fora NWFZ in Korea and NE Asia. As of now, when this workshop is taking place in early September
2014, however, all of the four variables do not appear to bode well for a NWFZ in this region.
It may be recalled that North Korea offered a NWFZ in Korea with the expression of“denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula” in its June 16, 2013 proposal for a high-level
dialogue with the U.S. 1 after it experienced the U.S.’s “open” threat of the use of nuclear weapons
itself in the 2013 Key Resolve/Foal Eagle. In a statement issued on October 23, 2013, North Korea’s
foreign ministry’s spokesman made clear that “The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, theinvariable aim of the policy of the DPRK government… is the process of making the peninsula anuclear-free zone on the basis of completely removing the substantial nuclear threats posed to thepeninsula from outside on the principle of simultaneous actions.”2 But this offer of North Korea’s wascompletely ignored by the U.S. and South Korea, and North Korea has not put forth anything like thisafterwards until now. But there may be a light at the end of the tunnel, depending on what and how
the key players will do, creating an opportunity for a negotiated resolution of the North Korean
nuclear problem and the establishment of a NWFZ in NE Asia.

2. The U.S. PACOM’s “The Playbook” and North Korea’s counteraction in the 2013 Key
Resolve/Foal Eagle: “open” threat of the use of nuclear weapons vs. the threat ofMusudan Missile attack on the U.S.
The Key Resolve/Foal Eagle, a joint U.S.-South Korea military exercise, conducted in
March/April 2013 was not like ever before. What distinguished it from the previous exercises was the
U.S.’s “open” threat of the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea by “openly” bringing in
nuclear-capable B-52 strategic bombers, B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, and the attack nuclear submarine
USS Cheyenne. It followed the PACOM’s operation plan dubbed “The Playbook.” The Playbook “laidout the sequence and publicity plans for U.S. shows of force during annual war games with South
Korea” and “included well-publicized flights…near North Korea by nuclear-capable B-52 and stealth

1“DPRK Proposes Official Talks with U.S.,” Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Pyongyang, June 15, 2013.

2“DPRK Foreign Ministry Spokesman Blames U.S. for Posing Nuclear Threat to DPRK,” KCNA, Pyongyang, October23, 2013.

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B-2 bombers, as well as advanced F-22 (Raptors) warplanes.” 3 The bombers dropped mock nuclear
bombs or inert ammunition on a range facility on the Jikdo islands off the western coast of South
Korea.
Here, it is worth recalling that the 1994 Agreed Framework and the September 19, 2005 jointstatement explicitly and implicitly promised North Korea the U.S.’s and others’ “no use of nuclear
weapons” and “no threat of the use of nuclear weapons” against it in exchange for North Korea’s
denuclearization of itself. The U.S.’s threat of the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea andNorth Korea’s determined counteractions with “open” threat of nuclear strike on the U.S. continent,
Hawaii, Guam, and other U.S. military bases in Japan and South Korea with its ballistic missile
capabilities, dramatically escalated the crisis to a “real and clear danger and threat” of a war in Korea
in the spring of 2013, to quote U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s words. 4 In a nutshell, the tabooof “no threat of the use of nuclear weapons” was broken in Korea in the spring of 2013, which
overcast an ominous dark cloud over Korea unnecessarily long into the future.
It is also noteworthy that George Little, spokesman of U.S. Department of Defense, made clearthat “the focus of our military exercises, and what we’ve been saying publicly, is all about allianceassurance.” 5 In other words the U.S. was more focused on proving its commitment to the provision of
nuclear umbrella, i.e., extended deterrence to South Korea and Japan, than on persuading North Korea
to give up its nuclear weapons and preventing it from strengthening its nuclear capabilities.
On the other hand, North Korea countered the U.S.’s open threat of the use of nuclear weapons
against itself resolutely by taking several critical measures: the threat of “nuclear strike” on the U.S.
continent, Hawaii, Guam, and U.S. bases in South Korea and its vicinity; nullification of theArmistice agreement; invalidation of agreements on nonaggression between the two Koreas; cutoff ofall military and government communication lines between North and South Korea and between the
North Korean military and U.S. forces in South Korea; putting on the highest alert all the fieldartillery units including strategic rocket units and long-range artillery units; adoption of the newstrategic line of simultaneously pushing forward economic construction and the building of nuclear
force (byongjin noson) by convening the plenum of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers’
Party; the Supreme People’s Assembly’s passing of a law on consolidating the position of nuclear
weapons state for self-defense; threat to fire road-mobile Musudan intermediate-range ballistic
missiles (IRBM) by moving them to the East Coast and hiding them, which made it impossible for the3
Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes, “U.S. Dials Back on Korean Show of Force,” Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2013;“From the PACOM Playbook to PACOM's Plan B(MD),” Information Dissemination, Thursday, April 4, 2013, Posted by
Galrahn (http://www.informationdissemination.net/2013/04/from-pacom-playbook-to-pacoms-plan-bmd.html) (Retrieved on
September 5, 2014).
4“Hagel: North Korea presents ‘real and clear danger’ to U.S. and Allies,” The Washington Post, April 3, 2013.

5

Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr., “Little: U.S. Seeks ‘Peace and Stability’ on Korean Peninsula,”
American Forces Press Service, April 1, 2013 (http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=119664) (Retrieved on
September 5, 2014).

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U.S. to determine the time and place of the firing of the missiles; declaration of readjusting andrestarting all the nuclear facilities in Yongbyon including the uranium enrichment plant and the 5MWegraphite-moderated reactor; and even the closure of the Kaesong Industrial Park. 6
Under the circumstances, the problem was any small mistake or accident on either side could
trigger and escalate the conflict to a war. By now, U.S. officials began to worry that North Korea wasbeing more provoked than the U.S. had intended. Their concern was that they “were heightening theprospect of misperceptions on the part of the North Koreans,” and that “that could lead to
miscalculations.” 7 Even none other than John Bolton, the well-known neoconservative and former
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. during the George W. Bush Administration, expressed his worry that
North Korea’s rhetoric and threats were “beyond their normal playbook” and that it was “the kind ofenvironment where a miscalculation can take place on their side or on our side.”8
Of all the concerns, the U.S. had to deal with North Korea’s “open” threat of nuclear/missile
attack on the U.S. bases in Guam, Japan, and Korea with its Musudan missiles that had U.S. bases in
Guam within their shooting range. The dilemma for the U.S. was that it did not have sufficient missile
defense capabilities even with all Aegis-capable destroyers of the U.S., Japan, and South Korea
combined that were deployed in the West Pacific and in the waters of Japan and Korea, in case of aMusudan strike against the aforementioned U.S. bases.
Thus, the PACOM began to dispatch more Aegis-capable destroyers and its radar ship (SBX-1)
to the West Pacific near Japan and Korea from Hawaii. And the U.S. even decided to install Terminal
High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) at Guam and deploy Global Hawks to U.S. Air Force Base in
Misawa, Japan. The problem, though, was that it would take weeks and even months to have suchstrengthened capabilities for MD against Musudan missile attacks, while North Korea might fireMusudan at any moment even before the radar ship arrived from Hawaii. Under those circumstances,
the only option left for the U.S. was to lower tension in Korea by stopping the Playbook (Plan A),
shifting to Plan B in early April, 9 and offering dialogue with North Korea. That was exactly what
happened: the U.S. decided to postpone the April 7 scheduled test-firing of the Minuteman III, a new
type of ICBM, not to provoke North Korea, and the U.S. and South Korean Presidents in coordination
simultaneously announced on April 11, 2013 their intention to begin dialogue with North Korea.

6
Haksoon Paik, U.S.-DPRK Relations during the Second Term of Obama Administration, 2013-2014: The Threat of
the Use of Nuclear Weapons and the Breakdown of the Relationship (in Korean) (Seongnam, Korea: The Sejong Institute,2014), pp. 33-40.
7Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes, “U.S. Dials Back on Korean Show of Force,” Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2013.

8

Washington Free Beacon Staff, “Bolton: North Korean Rhetoric ‘Beyond Their Normal Playbook’,” The Washington
Free Beacon, April 4, 2013 (http://freebeacon.com/national-security/bolton-north-korean-rhetoric-beyond-their-normalplaybook/) (Retrieved on September 5, 2014).
9
Barbara Starr, “U.S. scripts North Korea ‘playbook’,” CNN, April 4, 2013(http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/04/u-s-scripts-north-korea-playbook/) (Retrieved on September 6, 2014).

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3. Traumas and Legacies of the March/April Nuclear Confrontation for North Korea andthe U.S.
The March/April 2013 crisis in Korea eventually subsided, but it was never the same comparedwith before and after. The U.S.’s “open” threat of the use of nuclear weapons, North Korea’s
counteractions including the threat of the nuclear/Musudan strike on the U.S. bases, and U.S. steppingback from “the Playbook”—all these left huge traumas for both the U.S. and North Korea.
How were both sides affected? In the first place, North Korea appears to have profoundly
shocked by the U.S. action of “open” threat of the use of nuclear weapons, and now the problem
North Korea faced was how to deal with the nuclear attack from the U.S. with incomparably advanced
nuclear weapons and most sophisticated delivery systems, while North Korea itself possessed only asmall arsenal of relatively primitive nuclear bombs and limited delivery capabilities. According to Ri
Yong-ho, North Korea’s vice foreign minister, whom Don Gregg met in February 2014 in Pyongyang,“the memory of the B-29 air raids are in the [North Koreans’] DNA,” and the nuclear-capable B-52s
flying over North Korea’s air space was “seen as a really terrible, terrible threat.”10 So the question
was whether to continue nuclear confrontation with the U.S.
Another lesson North Korea appears to have learned was that its missiles proved to be highlyeffective instruments of threat to the U.S., i.e., highly-useful politico-military instruments in dealing
with the U.S. threats, while North Korea’s rhetoric of nuclear attack on the U.S. had clear limitations
in reality. Since the Musudan had already proved to be highly-effective policy/military tool vis-à-vis
the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, now North Korea even did not have to fire or test-fire long- andintermediate-range ballistic missiles to send a message to the U.S. and the outside world. Simply, thefiring or test-firing of short-range missiles was enough, in a sense, to do the job and North Korea
purported to kill two birds with one stone: to send a message to the U.S. and the outside, and to
improve its short-range ballistic missile technology by firing and test-firing them. In the 2014 Key
Resolve/Foal Eagle, North Korea fired as many as almost 90 short-range missiles within a one month
period, which was unprecedented but appeared to be designed for the aforementioned effects.
On the other hand, the U.S. became ever more determined to complete the U.S.-led MD systemvis-à-vis North Korea, China, and Russia after it suffered the stigma of giving up its operation plan“the Playbook” due to North Korea’s threat to strike the U.S. military bases with its Musudan missiles.
In the worst scenario, the Musudan could carry a potentially-miniaturized nuclear warhead on it. For
all these concerns, the U.S. policy has now become more focused on persuading South Korea toofficially join the U.S.-led MD in order to complete U.S. defense shield against potential enemies
including China. Japan joined the U.S.-led MD long before.
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2014.

Garson Yiu, “North Korea Sent Kenneth Bae to Labor Camp to Protest B-52 Flights,” ABC NEWS, February 14,5The U.S. pressure on South Korea to join its MD system was amply demonstrated in the firstPark-Obama summit in May 2013 in Washington, D.C. “Interoperability” was the key word foralliance defense posture: both Presidents decided to strengthen “our comprehensive, interoperable,
and combined defense capabilities, to include shared efforts to counter the missile threat posed by
North Korea and integrated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems.” 11 At the Seoulsummit held in April 2014, the U.S. succeeded in making South Korea join the U.S.-led MD in
exchange for the reconsideration, i.e., the postponement of the 2015 timeline for transferring wartime
operational control of the South Korean Army to South Korea. It was done when South Koreans’attention was almost completely diverted to the Sewol ferry disaster. The U.S.-South Korea joint
communiqué titled “The United States-Republic of Korea Alliance: A Global Partnership” reads:“Both the United States and Republic of Korea continue to develop interoperability and readinessthrough the use of annual joint and combined exercises such as Ulchi Freedom Guardian, Key
Resolve, and Foal Eagle,” and “the Republic of Korea is also developing its own interoperable
ballistic missile defense systems and enhancing the interoperability of the Alliance’s command,
control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) systems.” 12
In the joint press conference President Park of South Korea said: “We also agreed to beef up ourcapacities to effectively deal with DPRK’s nuclear and missile threats. As a part of that effort, Korea’s
air and missile defense, KAMD, will be developed into an independent system and will collaborate toenhance KAMD’s interoperability [with the U.S.-led MD] while securing its efficient operation.” And
President Obama said: “In our discussions today, we agreed to continue to modernize our alliance,
including enhancing the interoperability of our missile defense systems. 13 And U.S. Deputy Defense
Secretary Robert Work demanded “an extreme interoperability” from Korea when said at the Osan Air
Base in South Korea on August 21, 2014: “What we hope is to have an extremely interoperable
system between the United States’ theater missile defense and the KAMD.” 14 And the U.S. isreportedly planning to deploy THAAD in South Korea.
4. Imbalance of North Korea/China vs. the U.S./South Korea in pursuit of
dialogue/negotiations for “peace”/“peace environment”
After the horrible experience of March/April 2013, North Korea and China had to find a way outof the crisis and also a solution to the confrontation with the U.S. and South Korea in order to stabilize
Korean and Northeast Asian politics devoid of nuclear confrontation and threat of war. In this context,
11“Joint Declaration in Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the Alliance between the Republic of Korea andthe United States of America,” The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, May 7, 2013.
12“The United States-Republic of Korea Alliance: A Global Partnership,” The White House, Office of the Press
Secretary, April 25, 2014.
13“Press Conference with President Obama and President Park of the Republic of Korea,” Blue House, Seoul,
Republic of Korea, April 25, 2014.
14

Oh Seok-min, “US calls for 'extreme interoperability' with S. Korea in air defense system,” Yonhap News Agency, August 21, 2014.

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North Korea offered the U.S. a high-level dialogue to discuss for a solution to sanctions, armistice,denuclearization, etc. It is noteworthy that “the denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula” wasemphasized and added to the existing two of North Korea-demanded quid pro quo for denuclearizing
itself, i.e., U.S. abandonment of hostile policy toward the North and the transformation of thearmistice into a peace regime.
As explained already, North Korea’s demand for denuclearizing the whole Korean Peninsula waspractically a demand for a NWFZ in the Korea Peninsula, in which U.S. nuclear weapons cannot be
brought in by land, air, and sea in the spirit of no use of nuclear weapons and no threat of the use of
nuclear weapons against North Korea. Later on October 23, 2014, as quoted already, the spokespersonof North Korea’s foreign ministry issued a statement: “The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,
the invariable aim of the policy of the DPRK government… is the process of making the peninsula anuclear-free zone on the basis of completely removing the substantial nuclear threats posed to thepeninsula from outside on the principle of simultaneous actions.”15 But the U.S. ignored an
opportunity for a NWFZ in Korea.
Nevertheless, against the U.S./South Korea’s cold shoulder and non-action did North Korea
launch a “dialogue/peace offensive” with a clear idea that it needed a “peaceful environment” foreconomic development and the improvement of the people’s standards of living in North Korea. North
Korea never stopped conducting its dialogue/peace drive until the U.S. and South Korea agreed on the“tailored deterrence strategy” on October 2, 2013, in which, North Korea thought, an element of
nuclear preemptive strike against North Korea was included. It has to be pointed out that North
Korea’s genuine intent of promoting peace by resuming bilateral/multilateral talks with the U.S. andSouth Korea was evidenced by North Korea’s abstention from criticizing the U.S. during the 2014
Ulchi-Freedom Guardian (UFG) against North Korea, despite the B-52 strategic bombers’ practice
bombing runs in South Korea targeting the North.
It should be noted that North Korea’s policy toward the U.S. has been closely coordinated withand strongly supported by China, and that China itself made serious efforts to persuade the U.S. tocome to the negotiating table and resume the Six-Party Talks. For instance, when Choe Ryong-hae,
Kim Jong Un’s special envoy, visited Beijing and met Chinese President Xi Jinping on May 24, 2013,
Xi strongly emphasized that denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and peace and stability in thisregion were common aspiration for all the peoples in this region and that China had a clear idea for it.
Choe agreed “by accommodating China’s suggestion” to properly resolve pending issues throughvarious forms of dialogue and negotiation including the Six-Party Talks and requested China’s good
offices for the resumption of U.S.-North Korea bilateral dialogue. Xi played his part when he met
Obama in the Sino-American summit held in California in early June 2013. And on September 9,
15“DPRK Foreign Ministry Spokesman Blames U.S. for Posing Nuclear Threat to DPRK,” KCNA, October 23, 2013.

7

2013, in the Sino-American summit held in St. Petersburg, Russia on the occasion of the G-20
Summit Talks, Xi suggested Obama an early resumption of the Six-Party Talks, but Obama’s response
was lukewarm.
5. Deterioration of U.S.-North Korean Relations: the 4th Nuclear Test Warned

The relationship between North Korea and the U.S. has deteriorated dramatically after the
tailored deterrence strategy, which North Korea understood as a preemptive nuclear attack strategy,
was adopted on October 2, 2013 at the 45th U.S.-ROK Security Consultative Meeting in Seoul. And
U.S. State Secretary John Kerry used the term “rogue state” against North Korea in late October 2013,
and Chuck Hagel used the term “rogue nation” in early February 2014. The use of the term “rogue
state/nation” in line with George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” reflected the practical failure of U.S.’s
North Korea policy. And the U.S. and South Korea conducted the 2014 Key Resolve/Foal Eagle inlate February to mid-April 2014. This year, B-52 strategic bombers reportedly did the mock nuclear
bombing on Jikdo islands before, not during, the joint military exercise. And “Ssangyoung Drill,” thelargest-ever landing exercise in Korea since 1993, was conducted with its main objective reportedly“to occupy Pyongyang.”
As a countermeasure, North Korea fired in training its short-range missiles and also mediumrange Rodong missiles, and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) “condemned” it. North
Korea argued that the rocket-launching drills were “self-defensive” and “to cope with the gravesituation created by the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK which has been pursued for the past
several decades and the evermore intensified exercises for a nuclear war.” North Korea also criticizedthat the UNSC, “shutting its eyes to the U.S. madcap nuclear war exercises, ‘denounced’ the KPA's
self-defensive rocket launching…” North Korea finally warned that “it would not rule out a new formof nuclear test for bolstering up its nuclear deterrence.” 16
The relationship between North Korea and the U.S. continued to worsen to a breakpoint by thetime of the U.S.-South Korea summit in Seoul on April 25, 2014. In addition to the decision tostrengthen U.S.-Korea allied defense capabilities and U.S.-Korea-Japan cooperation in sharing
military information, as well as to increase punishment to North Korea against another nuclear test,
Obama consented to Park’s request for the delay of transfer of wartime operational control of South
Korean forces and Park, presumably in exchange, consented to Obama’s demand for South Korea’s
joining U.S.-led MD. All this incited North Korea’s anger against the leaders of the U.S. and South

16

2014.

“DPRK FM Blasts UN for Taking Issue with DPRK over Its Justifiable Rocket Launching Drills,” KCNA, March 30,

8Korea, and it lashed out with more than its usual vehement rhetoric at both Presidents, even resorting
to racist insults on President Obama by even likening him to an ape.

6. North Korea’s Policy for NWFZ in Korea/NE Asia

We may wonder if there is a glimmer of light at the end of the dark tunnel we have entered. It isnoteworthy that none other than Kim Il Sung advocated and supported a “nuclear-free, peace zone” inthe Korean Peninsula as well as in NE Asia since 1980. Before 1980, he supported nuclear-free, peacezones around the world.
A review of Kim Il Sung: Works shows that he offered a nuclear-free, peace zone over the
Korean Peninsula on as many as thirty-six occasions (forty-four times if a nuclear-free, peace zone
over NE Asia is included) during the fifteen-year period from his Opening Speech at the Sixth
Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea on October 10, 1980 to his talk with the chairman of theCentral Committee of the Belgian Labor Party on June 30, 1994, a week before his death. 17 The“federal-state” unification formula he offered at the Sixth Party Congress that North Korea still holds
made clear that the federal state “should make the Korean peninsula a permanent peace zone andnuclear-free zone” and that “our Party will strive to turn the Korean peninsula into a nuclear-free,peace zone and will actively support the struggle of the world’s people to create such zones in Asia,
the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Europe” 18 Kim Il Sung also offered the NE Asian nuclearfree peace zone from March 1981, as demonstrated in the “Joint Declaration on the Establishment of a
Nuclear-free Peace Zone in Northeast Asia” with the Japan Socialist Party. It was on June 23, 1986
that the North Korean government officially announced a proposal for a nuclear-free, peace zone over
the Korean Peninsula. In early September 1986, Kim Il Sung convened in Pyongyang an international
conference for a nuclear-free, peace zone over the Korean Peninsula. On July 13, 1987, North Korean
foreign ministry issued another statement on a nuclear-free peace zone over the Korean Peninsula. In
mid-October 1988, North Korea convened another international conference on the denuclearization of
the Korean Peninsula and peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.
On January 20, 1992, North Korea signed the “Joint Declaration of South and North Korea on
the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” which was the first-ever official agreement with otherparty, South Korea, on denuclearizing the whole Korean Peninsula, a stepping stone toward a NEFZ
in NE Asia. And Kim Il Sung repeatedly confirmed his will and the North Korean policy faithfully
abided by the Joint Declaration up until his death.
17

Kim Il Sung: Works, Vol. 35-44 (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1989-1999).

18“Opening Speech at the Sixth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea” (October 10, 1980), Kim Il-Sung: Works, Vol.
35 (Pyongyang, Korea: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1989), pp. 338, 343-344, 350-351.

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It is noteworthy that, despite the intermittent mention of the need to establish and carry out anuclear-free zone in the whole Korean Peninsula and the “simultaneous-action principle” as a way toachieve it, North Korea practically dropped its support for a NWFZ in Korea or in NE Asia during theperiod of nuclear confrontation with the U.S. from July 1994, when Kim Il Sung died, until recently,
when North Korea re-advocated a NWFZ in Korea in the June 16, 2013 proposal for a high-level talks
with the U.S. It is to recall that North Korea succeeded a few times in making agreements with the
U.S. and others such as the Agreed Framework, September 19 Joint Statement and the two agreements
to implement it, U.S.-DPRK Joint Communiqué, and the “leap day” deal. During the period of nuclear
confrontation with the U.S., however, North Korea tended to demand talks for “nuclear arms
reduction,” rather than “denuclearization.” But after the appalling experience of U.S. nuclear threat
against North Korea in the spring of 2013, it appears that North Korea has not abandoned the idea ofcreating a NWFZ in Korea, as demonstrated in the June 16 proposal and the October 23 statement.

7. Inter-Korean Relations at the Nadir

Currently, inter-Korean relations are seemingly at a nadir with no government-to-government
dialogues in progress. Basically, North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats made the Park Geun-hye
government more hawkish to the North, and South Korea’s head-to-head confrontation with the North
based on its close alliance cooperation with the U.S. also made North Korea more hawkish toward theSouth. A series of war of nerves has contributed to deepening distrust.
On the South Korean side, the “May 24 Measure” the Lee Myung-bak government took as
sanctions on North Korea after the Cheonan Incident in 2010 still holds, even preventing
humanitarian cooperation between the two Koreas. The South Korean government has monopolized
any meaningful contacts and dialogue with the North. Differing ideas/discourses or policy
options/alternatives were suppressed and criticized by the government and pro-government
conservative news media as harmful to the spirit of the “unity of national consensus” in the pursuit ofnational unification. But this attitude is something that does not appreciate the free competition ofideas and policies, which democratic polities try to promote.
Another problem with South Korea’s May 24 Measure is that the South has not pursued any
engagement with the North in conduction with the economic sanctions it applied to the North. In
principle, if we apply an economic sanction to make the target country give in, we have to combine itwith a political engagement with the country, so that we could give it an opportunity to step back andmake concessions and compromises. By not taking meaningful engagement with the North when it
applied sanctions to the North, the Lee and Park governments of the South have ignored and lost thevaluable opportunities to make the North save face and compromise with the South.
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From January 2014, the Park government’s policy line changed from “trust process” to“preparation of unification.” The rationale for the preparation of unification was twofold: the“instability” of Kim Jong Un’s power in the North and the net benefit of unification based on thethesis of “unification as bonanza,” an expression President Park herself used in a press conference inearly January 2014. The Blue House is known to have regarded the execution of Jang Song Thaek as asign of the instability of the Kim Jong Un regime, and President Park and her government turned tothe emphasis of the net benefit, particularly the net economic benefit of unification, reversing theirthitherto position that stressed the “prohibitive” cost of unification. Conservative news media, progovernment opinion leaders, and government-affiliated think tanks were fully mobilized to justify therationale for such change in policy line. The Blue House organized the “Presidential Committee for
Unification Preparation” with the President as the chair of the committee, which mobilized various
sectors of the South Korean society including senior officials of the government, academia, education
workers, the press, the NGOs, etc. The committee basically appears to be an effort on the part of the
President and her government to encourage pro-unification policy ideas and make people rally aroundthe government’s unification policy, thereby enlarging and strengthening the pro-government
constituency in the South.
The most serious problem with the unification-preparation policy is that it has failed to get North
Korea’s cooperation and support. The Park government has demanded the denuclearization of North
Koreas as a precondition for improvement of inter-Korean relations, and President Park, during her
visit to Germany in March 2014, publicly announced the German unification model, an absorptionist
model, to be the model for Korean unification. As a result, the Park government’s policy of unification
preparation has become a policy for domestic consumption regardless of the genuine goal of thepolicy in the absence of North Korea’s cooperation whatsoever.
North Korea’s criticism of the Park government’s North Korea policy includes: President Park’s
persistent demand for North Korea’s denuclearization as a precondition for improvement of interKorean relations; her pro-American policy and attitude; South Korea’s joining in the U.S.-led MD;
her “tailored deterrence strategy” with the U.S. against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats; hercontinuation of the “May 24 Measure”; her repeated request for China to put pressure on North Korea
for denuclearization; lack of South Korea’s good-will support for North Korea’s participation in the2014 Inchon Asian Games, etc.

8. The Future of the Six-Party Talks

Finally, what are the prospects for the Six-Party Talks? The Six-Party Talks have been stalled forabout five years. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s address delivered at the Commemorative11

Seminar “Retrospect & Outlook: A Decade of the Six-Party Talks” held in Beijing on September 18,
2013 makes many important points. 19
First, there is no refuting Wang Yi’s observation that “Looking back on its tortuous course overthe last decade, we find that whenever all parties were actively committed to dialogue andconsultation, situation on the Korean Peninsula would be basically stable; and whenever the Six-Party
Talks was deadlocked, situation on the Korean Peninsula would become tense or even risk getting outof control. All of us need to take concrete actions to cherish and uphold the strategic value of the SixParty Talks.”
Second, Wang Yi correctly understood the root causes of the Korean Problem when he said“[t]he root causes for the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula can be traced to the legacy of theCold War and the serious distrust between relevant parties” and also rightly appraised the September
19 joint statement when he explained “[t]he September 19 Joint Statement reflected in a balancedmanner the concerns of all parties, and identified such important goals as the denuclearization of the
Korean Peninsula, normalization of relations between relevant countries, promotion of cooperation onenergy, trade and investment, and joint commitment to lasting peace and stability in Northeast Asia.”Then, what is to be done for the resumption of the Six-Party Talks? Currently, the U.S. positionis that it can come to the negotiating table for the resumption of the Six-Party Talks if and only if
North Korea first demonstrates its trustworthiness by showing in action its decision to denuclearize
itself. On the other hand, North Korea demands that the Six-Party Talks be resumed without any
preconditions. There has been no convergence between the two positions until now.
Then, what should be done to make the Six-Party Talks an effective problem-solving
mechanism/venue for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula? Basically, the North Korean
nuclear problem is a problem that can be resolved only when North Korea “voluntarily” gives up its
nuclear weapons and weapons programs. Then the question is how to make North Korea do so. In
principle, there is no other way but to meet the demands of North Korea. North Korea has demanded
three things as a quid pro quo for denuclearizing itself: U.S. abandonment of hostile policy toward theNorth, the transformation of the armistice into a peace regime, and the denuclearization of the whole
Korean Peninsula. As pointed out already, North Korea’s demand and agreement that the whole
Korean Peninsula should be denuclearized is conducive to the establishment of a NWFZ in Korea andeventually in NE Asia.
Wang Yi’s proposals at the aforementioned Commemorative Seminar in Beijing are worth
listening to: “The parties should adopt integrated measures and address the concerns of the parties in a
19
Wang Yi, Foreign Minister, “Stay Committed to the Six-Party Talks for Lasting Peace,” Address delivered at theCommemorative Seminar “Retrospect & Outlook: A Decade of the Six-Party Talks,” Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Beijing,
China, September 18, 2013 (http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjdt_665385/zyjh_665391/t1078892.shtml) (Retrieved on
September 6, 2014).

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balanced manner”; “a holistic approach should be adopted to address both the symptoms and root
causes”; “we should advance in parallel the goals outlined in the Joint Statement, accommodate thelegitimate concerns of all parties, gradually implement the consensus in a phased manner, and strive
for solid progress.”
The author of this writing argues that there should be a more tightly-integrated way, which goesbeyond Wang Yi’s “parallel” approach, to implement any future agreement on denuclearization. The
author argues that the promise/track for North Korea to denuclearize itself, on the one hand, and thepromise/track for the Six-Party Talks parties to provide the quid pro quo for North Korea’s
denuclearization, on the other, must be combined into an integrated single track, not separate bothtracks proceeding in parallel. This is important because the past experience shows that there has
always been a gap or imbalance between the two promises/tracks due to the differences inpriorities/preferences of the players in the game, which led to the failure of the Six-Party Talks. For
instance, North Korea has been less enthusiastic about denuclearizing itself than about securing thequid pro quo for it, while the U.S. has been more enthusiastic about denuclearizing North Korea thanabout providing the quid pro quo for North Korea’s denuclearization.
In closing, there are some ominous signs for the future of the Six-Party Talks. On September 23,
2013, Ben Rhodes, then Deputy National Security Advisor for President Obama, commented that theinternational community needs to take different approaches toward North Korea and Iran with regard
to their nuclear programs because, unlike Iran, North Korea has already developed nuclear weaponsand conducted tests. On the other hand, President Park Geun-hye of South Korea said in her jointpress conference with President Obama after their summit in Seoul on April 25, 2014, that “if North
Korea is actually going to carry out the fourth nuclear test, that is going to change fundamentally the
security landscape and I believe that all our efforts to resolve the nuclear issue through the Six-Party
Talks is going to be completely dissolved. It's going to go in the air.” 20 President Park reiterated thepoint in her interview with The Wall Street Journal on May 28, 2014. She said “a new nuclear test by
North Korea could have a domino effect by providing its neighbors with a pretext to arm themselveswith nuclear weapons.” She also expressed her worry that “stalled negotiations over Pyongyang's
nuclear program involving the U.S. and regional powers would end for good.” 21
So, is there a light at the end of the tunnel we are in? At this moment, the prospects for the SixParty Talks are as gloomy as ever, but the author believes that there could be another chance ofcomprehensive give-and-take to resolve the “Korean Problem” if either North Korea or the U.S./South
Korea changes polices in good faith toward the other party. This prediction of the author’s has much
20
“Press Conference with President Obama and President Park of the Republic of Korea,” The White House, Office of
the Press Secretary, Blue House, Seoul, Republic of Korea, April 25, 2014.
21
Gerard Baker and Alastair Gale, “South Korea President Warns on Nuclear Domino Effect,” The Wall Street Journal,
May 29, 2014.

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to do with North Korea’s “strategy of survival and development for the 21st century,” as he sees it:
North Korea’s strategy requires, more than anything else, the termination of the Korean War,transformation of the armistice into a peace regime, national reconciliation and cooperation with theSouth, normalization of relations with the U.S. and Japan, and economic reform and opening in North
Korea. It is to note that all these requirements, if met, are absolutely contributive to a NWFZ in Korea
and NE Asia.
The requirements above, however, cannot be met unless North Korea decides to denuclearize
itself to secure U.S.’s/South Korea’s cooperation and unless the U.S./South Korea help North Korea
do so. In other words, for North Korea, finding a solution to the nuclear issue is an integral part of its
strategy of survival and development. For the U.S. and others, in the same vein, helping North Korea
give up its nuclear weapons and weapons programs is also an integral part of their strategy of peaceand co-prosperity for all in this region. The question is whether both North Korea and the U.S./South
Korea are ready to take a genuine, problem-solving approach to each other for a win-win outcome,making a clear departure from the past.

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