We need to talk to Kim, dislikable as he may be
N. Korea's bizarre boss has been isolated for decades; scorn and sanctions won't change him
BY MICHAEL ZIELENZIGER
Michael Zielenziger, former Tokyo bureau chief for Knight Ridder Newspapers and a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley
July 9, 2006
North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-Il, may wear awful leisure suits and sport a bouffant hairdo. He is also unpredictable, isolated from the world and deeply unscrupulous. But as this inveterate CNN watcher proved again last week, he is an expert negotiator and a public relations genius.
In choosing to launch his own Fourth of July fireworks - an advanced ballistic missile fired just six minutes before the Discovery space shuttle took flight - Kim angered NASA by making North Korea's threat the lead story on the evening news rather than America's long-delayed return to space. Worse, the red glare of North Korea's rocket, part of a seven-weapon salvo of test-firings that continued on Wednesday, threw sand in the face of an American president who refuses to negotiate with a North Korean regime desperately seeking international legitimacy even as it maintains the stubborn isolation necessary to keep Kim himself in power.
While the administration of President George W. Bush offers as-yet undisclosed "incentives" for Iran to abandon its nuclear program, the White House consistently refuses to talk with a Pyongyang regime that already has processed enough plutonium to arm five or six nuclear weapons. The North Koreans see this as the latest in a long line of slights and insults leveled at them by a president with a deeply personal, deeply ideological grudge - and one who might actually want to attack them. It's hard to see how further isolation will move a Stalinist strongman who starves his own people while maintaining a vigorous million-man army.
Six years ago, just before the 2000 election, the administration of President Bill Clinton was on the cusp of a plan that would have walked North Korea off its nuclear ledge, with a greater likelihood of diplomatic recognition by the United States, reparations from Japan - overdue from World War II - and limited outside investment to help North Korea deal with persistent fuel and food shortages.
The incoming Bush team saw Clinton as "weak," however, and said that negotiations with a godless madman should never take place. Then, bolstering their sentiment, they discovered in 2002 that the North was secretly enriching uranium to build nukes. (Whether this covert, illegal activity was going on before Bush took office is not clear.)
The looming possibility that Kim would possess nuclear weapons should have hastened emergency talks to get him to stop, but instead of holding one-on-one talks Bush demanded six-party negotiations, with Russia, China, South Korea and Japan joining the United States and North Korea at the table. These talks proved to be a joke since the key player, Bush himself, never wanted to deal.
Given Bush's utter antipathy, Kim must feel he has nothing to lose by ratcheting up his brinksmanship. It is tempting to ignore the bluster. Kim's sputtering missiles are not yet truly threatening. Yet, as long as Washington refuses to offer some kind of deal, Kim finds more reason to consider selling some of his nuclear bombs to the highest bidder - and that group could even include a Mideast terrorist organization. This would give Kim needed cash and the clout to be a kingmaker among the world's rogue elements.
It is hard to see how economic sanctions will make a difference. Kim has been isolated from the international community for decades, firmly believes in self-reliance and refuses to push economic reforms that might loosen his grip on power.
China and South Korea, Kim's closest neighbors, don't want to squeeze Pyongyang too hard; they prefer an isolated North Korea to one that implodes, spilling millions of desperate refugees across its borders.
In the short term, it's possible that a U.S.-led effort to upgrade North Korea's electrical grid, provide fertilizer and food aid, and continue South Korea's investment in new factories across its northern border would leave Kim comfortably isolated but with enough domestic assistance to be persuaded to let nuclear inspectors back into the country and over time abandon his nuclear ambitions. He'd still insist, however, that the ultimate goal is diplomatic recognition from Washington.
Invading North Korea cannot work because Kim's troops are dug into underground fortresses.
The fact that the man is disreputable, dislikeable and cruel and wears silly suits does not change the fact that at some point we will have to sit down and talk with him.
In the real world, not the ideological one, you can't always choose your negotiating partner.
Michael Zielenziger, former Tokyo bureau chief for Knight Ridder Newspapers and a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of "Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation," being published in September.
