A Denuclearization Deal in Beijing:

[Dover]

Denuclearization Deal in Beijing:

The Prospect of Ending the 20th Century in East Asia

Gavan McCormack

On 13 February 2007, a historic deal was struck in Beijing commencing the process of the denuclearization of Korea, comprehensive regional reconciliation, ending the Korean War, and normalizing relations between North Korea and its two historic enemies, Japan and the United States. The agreement is complex, and its implications are enormous, not just for the peninsula. The following paper offers a preliminary analysis.

The “North Korea Problem”

The tectonic plates under East Asia have begun to shift. In a world where gloom predominates and resort to force to settle disputes is common, and more often than not indiscriminate, the prospect of war recedes, and a new order of peace and cooperation begins to seem possible, radiating out from the very peninsula that was throughout the 20th century one of the most violently contested and militarized spots on earth. Japanese colonialism, the division of Korea and its consequent civil and international war, the long isolation and rejection of North Korea and its confrontation with the United States and with South Korea, and the bitter hostility between it and Japan: all these things suddenly seem to be negotiable.

With the end of the Cold War, in Europe accommodation replaced confrontation and the iron curtain was raised, but in Asia, especially on the Korean peninsula, things were more difficult. A US-North Korea accommodation was negotiated under Clinton in 1994, which successfully froze North Korea’s plutonium projects in exchange for US economic aid and brought bilateral relations to the brink of normalization in 2000, only to be returned to square one with the advent of George W. Bush. His administration’s hostility, near to absolute, precipitated the collapse of the Geneva Agreed Framework, North Korea’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and led, in October 2006, to its nuclear test.

From August 2003, the United States and North Korea, flanked by the regional countries ­ Japan, China, Russia and South Korea ­ have been sitting around a table in Beijing from time to time to try to solve what is commonly called the “North Korea problem.” There was, however, a fundamental difference of opinion over the nature of that problem: for the US, it was a matter of curbing North Korean nuclear weapons and ambitions. Pyongyang had to be brought to heel because, as Dick Cheney once famously said, “you do not negotiate with evil, you defeat it.” For regional countries (North Korea included) however, the nuclear issue was itself primarily symptomatic: it could not be addressed independently of the matrix of unresolved historical contradictions in which it was set. De-nuclearization and regional security were only likely to be accomplished as part of diplomatic, political and economic normalization designed to address the tragic legacies of the 20th century.

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http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2354

[louis-t]

1. And isn't it interesting how the agreement came about?

I'm talking about purported one-on-one talks with N. Korea (which w was totally against)in Germany. Wish I had a link to verify this.