A former State Department official for 15 years, Joel Wit worked extensively on nuclear arms control, non-proliferation, and North Korea issues. Since leaving government in 2002, Wit has been a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is now affiliated with the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Columbia University. He also published a lot of books and reports on Korean Peninsula.
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| ▲ Joel S. Wit ⓒPeace Network |
North Korea declared to launch a long-range rocket. Why do you think North Korea tries to launch the long-range rocket at this point of time?
You know, I don't really like to do a lot of micro-analysis of North Korea, and honestly I don't think anyone really knows the answer. So you can talk about different possibilities. So let me just mention a few that to me seem the most likely. I think the first one is that we are approaching the anniversary of Kim Jong-Il's death and Kim Jong-Un's ascension to power so I think that's an important event. Second reason I think this has been true in the past that inter-Korean rivalry plays an important part in North Korea's rocket program, obviously and particularly I should say South Korea's own rocket program. So this test may have been timed to coincide with South Korea's rocket test which didn't happen, it was postponed. The third reason is that North Korea is busily developing delivery systems for its nuclear weapons and so that's very important I think to the North and this is part of that effort. The last reason is that there is a certain element here of North Korea strengthening its position for what it believes will be the return of the United States in South Korea to negotiations. So by further-developing its missile systems and by continuing to produce materials for the nuclear weapons, North Korea puts itself in a stronger position to deal with the United States and South Korea in any negotiations.
If North Korea launches a rocket, which is believed to be a long-range missile, how would Obama Administration respond? What is your expectation about the U.S.-North Korea relations after the launch?
As for the Obama Administration, I think it's pretty clear what the reaction is going to be. It's going to be the reaction that it's always had when North Korea does something bad. They are going to go to the UN, try to strengthen sanctions, find that the Chinese don't really support that effort and end up with very little. And I think that's a calculation that North Koreans have also made. So they know what's going to happen ahead of time, it's not hard to predict. So at the end of the day, I don't think we are going to have much of a response to this particular provocation.
In 2000, missile agreement between the U.S. and North Korea was a near miss. There are some arguments that the U.S. should reopen and resume the negotiation. What is your opinion about it?
You can't relive the past and the problem here is that this program, North Korea's program, has advanced a great deal since 2000. It's gained a lot of momentum. And as a result of that, we might be able to restart the negotiation but it's going to be the price to pay for North Korea restraining itself. It has gone up enormously. And the North Koreans say that, when you meet with them, they say 'well that was a long time ago, things have happened in the intervening years." So, it's going to be very difficult and I fully understand that. We cannot think that somehow we are going to go back twelve years and just pick up where seems left off. That's ridiculous.
OK. Then I will jump into some questions about North Korean systems. It has been about a year since Kim Jung-Un took the leadership in North Korea. Some people say Kim Jong-Un's North Korea would try to change the system from "military first" to the "economy first". Do you agree with this idea?
Well, certainly in the short time he's been in an office, there have been signs about his desire to do that and of course cites his statement that 'people will not have to tighten their belts anymore. But, you know, he's only been in office twelve months or less than twelve months. I don't think we can expect this very much yet. It may take time, but what we see certainly is change in leadership style. That's very clear.
Like how?
Oh, he is very different from his father. He is more like his grandfather. And plus now, he has a beautiful young wife who maybe is pregnant. So you are seeing signs of change, but how far that will go, I can't predict.
Kim Jong-Un is known to be about 30 years old. He is very young, and if North Korean system does not collapse, he can keep his dictatorship for about 40 years. Therefore, he would have some long-term strategies. If you were him, if you were in his position, how would your long-term strategy be?
You know, I can't. I don't know what my long-term strategy would be. But there is an article by a Russian expert about that on our website. You could read that. I don't know what my strategy is for forty years.
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| ▲ North Korea leader Kim Jong Un ⓒYonhap news agency |
'Six-party talks' has been stopped for a long time. Do you think it's an efficient way for the denuclearization of the North Korea? Some people are skeptical about it.
You know, I don't know whether your questions reflect this or not, but I think a lot of people, particularly in South Korea and particularly on the left of the spectrum, really aren't being realistic about what they are dealing with here. Going back to the era of the 'sunshine policy', which I think is a good idea, maybe very difficult because North Korea is very different today than it was even six years ago. Situation is much worse than it was six years ago and I think that's obvious. So it's going to be very difficult to start up a policy again where we have some active diplomacy going on. And it's going to be difficult for South Korea. If Mr. Moon wins, it's not as if the North Koreans are going to reverse course and say "wow, this guy is interested in talking to us! We are happy to do that." I think they will make it difficult.
Secondly, on how to solve this problem with diplomacy as one tool that we use, and what I emphasize here is that the diplomacy is not the only tool that we should be using, we need a very different approach. I think it is a really time to reevaluate our policies and come up with different ideas and I know that's been happening in South Korea to some degrees. So by that I mean, 'six-party talks' should continue but I don't see it as the main arena anymore. It's just sort of an umbrella that exists where people meet maybe once or twice a year to consult to do whatever.
Even if there would be changed governments and powers in all six participants?
It doesn't matter, doesn't matter. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with what you are trying to accomplish and what's the best way of doing that. So on that score, what we need to do is shift away from the approach that's been taken, I would say, ever since the Bush Administration, if not sooner, and try to address the key issues here for both sides. One of the key issues is replacing the armistice with permanent peace arrangement. That has to start. The second key issue that should be closely linked to that, and we should be proceeding on two parallel tracks, is denuclearization. That's our key issue. Those two have to the center pieces of the new approach. How would you structure that discussion, what will the process be? I think certainly part of the process should be some sort of four-party meeting. Four parties would be United States, South Korea, North Korea, and China. That has to certainly be the center piece. How they would work the denuclearization talks or discussions into that, I am not quite sure. I have to give some more thoughts. But that's not important. What's important is what we are trying to do. And then, you figure out what the process is. So that's what we need to do. We need to stop fooling around and address the key issues here. The key issue here is 'how do you build peace on the Korean Peninsula?' That's the key issue and second key issue is denuclearization.
Next year would be the 20th year for North Korea to announce the withdrawal from the NPT, causing the nuclear issues in Korean Peninsula. How can we banish the feeling of languor and pessimism to solve the nuclear issues in Korean Peninsula?
I think it's pretty easy. It's pretty clear that their programs, weapons of mass destruction programs, are going to expand on the next five to ten years. So just imagine, it's five years from now. North Korea has fifty, fifty nuclear weapons, continues to build more, has deployed new missiles, and continues to develop more. I think that's pretty shocking. If people don't care about that, then okay, you know that's fine. If people in South Korea don't care about that, that's fine. If anyone cares about the reunification anymore in South Korea, think about it. That means it's never going to happen if North Korea has that capability. It's never ever going to happen. Secondly, I really find this interesting, the provocations in 2010, the sinking of Cheonan and the artillery attack, we are interested in a sense that at least for the artillery attack, there was a very serious danger of escalation. Well, are people on Korean Peninsula willing to accept the possibility that there might be a Second Korean War because of the inadvertent escalation? Wars don't always start because people say, "Oh, yeah! Let's have a war!" Sometimes they are accidental, sometimes they are inadvertent. So, in the 2010 artillery attack, I don't think it's commonly known, but there was a serious chance that that was going to escalate. And if it escalates, it's going to get very bad. So, to me, those are pretty good reasons why people should be thinking what we are going to do about it.
2013 is also the 60th anniversary of the ceasefire. You mentioned that transforming it into the permanent peace arrangement would be a start. Some people in Korea also say that we need a new momentum for the denuclearization, and changing the ceasefire treaty into 'peace regime' can be it. So you basically agree with that idea, right? Could you go deeper?
Yes, we need to start those kinds of negotiations quickly. But what we also need to do is to make sure they are tightly linked to the process of denuclearization. So, both should proceed in parallel.
But in Korea, it is true that some people are against it. How could we persuade them?
Arguments are that's all it's going to work basically. There are no other approaches that are going to work. So the argument here is that if you try to look ahead and think about where we are heading, and if you are comfortable with where we are heading, that's fine. You don't need it. We don't even need to have negotiations. Just let the North Koreans move forward, be willing to accept the possibility of further provocations, be willing to accept the possibility of the escalation that may get out of control. If you can live with all that, that's fine. If you can't live with that, then you got to be thinking about the ways of heading it off that may work. The only way that's going to work here is to address the core security issues and by that I mean, you need to replace the armistice with the permanent peace regime and as that process moves forward, the threat perceptions on both sides will decrease. So it's not a gift for the North Koreans. It's also something that adds to South Korea's security. I think that's the point. The problem is, a lot of people are not willing to change. They just want to keep going ahead the same way. People who worked for President Lee and other conservatives, I am sure, would not support this approach. And they believe that if we get into this negotiation, the North Koreans are going to succeed in destroying the alliance and getting the U.S. to take its troops off the peninsula. Well, if we were that stupid to let the negotiation resolve in that, maybe we deserve it. But, I would hope we are not that stupid.
I would hope so, too. Now, I will jump into the U.S. approaches. In February 2009, Obama Administration made a position and said "If North Korea is genuinely prepared to completely and verifiably eliminate their nuclear weapons program, the Obama administration will be willing to normalize bilateral relations, replace the Peninsula's long-standing armistice agreements with a permanent peace treaty, and assist in meeting the energy and other economic needs of the North Korean people." In this saying, what does the 'If North Korea is genuinely prepared to' mean? Specifically, what should North Korea do to make the U.S. believe that North Korea is prepared?
First of all, North Korea is not willing to do anything. It's not going to happen. I don't know what the administration would say now but you are talking about something that was three years ago. And there have been a lot of stuffs happening since then. I don't know if the administration would still say that. The most recent statement by president Obama in Burma, to me, was meaningless. I worked in the U.S. government on this issue for almost ten years and the statement he made, I probably heard Clinton and other people say it thousand times. It's the same statement we've been making for years. So there is nothing new about it and for North Koreans who have experience working on this issue, I think they'd just dismiss it as rhetoric and not meaningful.
So, it's just symbolic?
It's not even symbolic. Actually, it is symbolic. It is symbolic of the U.S. not being serious, not of the U.S. being serious. That's the symbolism.
Do you think it will continue in the second term of the Obama Administration? They talked about rebalancing recently.
When you think about it, here is the U.S. saying "We are going to put greater emphasis on our relations in Asia and the Asia-Pacific regions." I don't understand. How can you say you are putting greater emphasis on that part of the world and yet not really dealing with probably the main security challenge in that part of the world? We are not dealing with it effectively; we are trying to ignore it. We've been doing that for three years. So, to me, that doesn't make a lot of sense. What will the Obama Administration do in the second term? Right now, it is pretty clear where we are headed. If the North Koreans conduct the missile test, the administration is going to go to the U.N., seek sanctions which are going to fail. And then, I don't know what it's going to do. It's just going to pretend again like North Korea isn't there for four or five months. In the mean times, North Korea may do other things. There are a lot of other things they can do. And in the mean time, you South Korea will have a new president. I don't know who it will be, but either one of the candidates will have a different approach from President Lee to North Korea. They will visit the United States early next year. Still, it's unclear how successful a new president will be in convincing the Obama Administration to change its approach. So all these things are kind of happening, and I can't really predict where it's all going to end up. But, let me add one thing. I think the Obama Administration will have the very strong will to continue the approach of the first term no matter what.
So, it's not going to be very different?
No, it won't be.
OK, more about the rebalancing. If the U.S. goes over the fiscal cliff, cuts in armament expenditure seem inevitable. How would it act as the variable?
Well, first of all, we may not go over the fiscal cliff, but you can expect that there will be defense cuts over the next decades. I think this is an important point because it's another reason why what we are doing with North Korea doesn't make sense. On the one hand, you have North Korea building up its weapons of mass destruction. Threat is going to grow over the next five to ten years. They can't be ignored. I mean it's a security challenge. The challenge is going to get greater and greater. So, that's one trend. On the other hand, you have a different trend. I can't predict exactly how it will affect the U.S. military posture in Asia, but we have another trend where defense budgets are going to be cut. We are going to have to be scaling back of our capabilities in certain parts of the world. So, we have these two different trends that are going to intersect at some points and I think they are going to create problems. It's going to create problems for the alliances in the North-East Asia, it will create tensions maybe in our relationships. I don't know where that will lead us, but if we are being smart, we would be saying to ourselves "gee, we are going to have to cut our defense expenditures that may result in some downsizing of our forces overseas." So we should be using every tool possible to prevent new threats from emerging. But we are not doing that.
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| ▲ U.S President Barack Obama ⓒAP |
So that's the problem.
It could be a very serious problem.
You have been pretty much critical to the Obama's first term. If you evaluate foreign policy of the Obama Administration, out of 100, how much would you give? What was the best and worst part of the Obama's first term?
I haven't really thought about it, but probably, about 60.
60? Oh, what was the best and what was the worst part?
I don't know the answer to that, I haven't really given that much thought.
What improvement would you suggest for the U.S.'s Asian policy?
Once again, I haven't really thought about it. I am focused on one part of the world pretty much.
Then, for the North Korea in particular, what would you suggest?
We need to have much more active diplomatic efforts working with South Korea. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing other things. There are other things we should continue to do. We should be if possible strengthening sanctions. I am not opposed to that. We also should be looking for ways to improve security through military measures. There may be other things we can do too. But, none of that is really meaningful without actively trying to talk to North Korea as well.
Do you think North Korea is willing to talk to the U.S.?
Well, that is a good question. It's hard to say. They say they are and they say they want better relationship with the United States. I think the key issue is 'how much are they willing to pay for better relations with the United States? Are they willing to restrain their nuclear programs and missile programs at all? What will they do in those areas in return for better relations?' So, that's the key issue. And I don't know the answer to that. Honestly, I don't know how far they are willing to go down that road.
And there are a lot of variables.
Oh, yes and there are a lot of unknowns because we haven't really seriously explored it.
Like you said, if Korea changes its approaches towards North Korea in its next government, if Korea's next government loosen the economic sanctions and strengthen the economic cooperation such as resuming the 'Kumgang Mountain tour program' without the progress in solving the North Korean nuclear problems, how would Obama Administration respond to it?
I think any new Korean government is smart enough to realize that it can't launch this kind of initiatives without working closely with the United States. It can't go forward on its own. I don't know how that discussion is going to go between a new Korean president and the U.S.
But, during the first term, Obama Administration seemed to trust the Korean policy and let Korea take the initiatives on these issues.
That's not going to happen this time around, unless President Lee was reelected.
So it's going to be different and the U.S.'s perspective would affect the policies?
Yes.
In Korean presidential election, NLL (Northern Limit Line) has emerged as a major issue. How should Korea's next government cope with the NLL issue?
Well, I understand this is very difficult issue politically. But, the reality is that the line is an artificial line and I think everyone understands that. If they go on the internet and find lots of studies including the U.S. government studies, they would know that it is an artificial line. At least for us, experts, we understand it's an artificial line. Secondly, I think the President Roh had the right approach trying to create a zone of peace in the West Sea and building up greater cooperation in that area and eventually dealing with this specific problem but in the mean time preventing any further confrontations. I think that's the right way to go. It is gradual but it is cooperative. It is way of getting somewhere. It may take time and it may take a lot of efforts, but in the short term at least and in the midterm, it prevents any further provocation and that's what's important.
I think you already made some points about it but I want to hear some details. Would you compare the Roh government and the Lee government in North Korea policies? Tell me the pros and cons of each perspective.
Sunshine policy wasn't perfect but I think it is infinitely preferable to President Lee's policy. They are basically two approaches: either you try to work with the North Koreans or you somehow think they are going to collapse or become flexible as you put pressure on them. So you adopted different approach than the Sunshine policy, and the second track never works. It never works. And that's what President Lee did. He moved down that track. I think in part because people thought North Korea was vulnerable. Kim Jong-Il had strokes and if you read South Korean press, there is all this garbage about economic problems and instability and people believe what they read. So, a lot of government people felt they'd really put the pressure on the North and get better deals. But, that never works. It has never worked. Look at the past five years; it's been a real failure.
If we try the sunshine policy again after all these pressure, do you think it will work?
Well, I don't know.
I mean, is the consistency in policy more important or should we show North Korea some variations in our approaches?
It would depend on the circumstances, but I think that the overall approach has to be consistent. It doesn't mean it has to be mind-less, you don't have to be a robot. But you have to have consistent approach. It may take a while to actually get some results.
Now, we have more variables than before. China is growing fast and some people are saying they are struggling for the supremacy with the U.S. Do you think that would result in any changes?
I don't think that will have an effect. I think that if the United States and South Korea adopt more diplomacy in dealing with the North Korea, Chinese are going to go with that. They are not going to oppose it. They are going to support it.
It's a quiet casual but fundamental question. I know there have been commitments between the U.S. and Korea about the unification of the South and the North. Do you think the U.S. really wants the peaceful unification in Korean Peninsula or does the U.S. prefer the status quo?
This question always comes up. People don't understand how governments work. No one in the United States has thought a lot about this issue because it's not something that appears to be happening. It's not something that's going to happen tomorrow. If you ask a U.S. government official, 'Do you support the reunification of the Korean Peninsula?', of course, they are going to say yes. It sounds good and they would support whatever South Korea wants. I think they are serious. I don't think they are lying. However, if you get to details beyond that, there aren't any. But I can tell you one thing. No one is going to support reunification if North Korea has large nuclear arsenal. It could up in the hands of the reunified Korea. So, denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is going to be the key requirement to the reunification. It is absolutely how the U.S. sees it.
Do you think unification that the U.S. wants and the unification that China wants can go together? China might see it with different perspective.
This is another reason why President Lee's policy has been a real failure. South Koreans probably rightly believe if the North Korean government goes away and if there is a chance of the reunification, South Korea should play the leading role in that process. Well, President Lee has been really dumb because what he has done is that he has enabled China to build up its influence in the North. Even during discussions I had with Chinese maybe seven years ago, they said 'We are not going to let South Korea and the United States determine what happens during the reunification. We have to be part of that process.' So they would argue that the process has to be run through the Security Council where, of course, China has the veto. So now, seven years later, China's influence in North Korea has grown enormously. So they will be even less willing to allow South Korea to play the role South Korea would like to play in case of the reunification. So, the bottom line here is, if anyone is interested in reunification eventually, they should be trying to minimize Chinese influence on the peninsula, not help them increase the influences.
So, South Korea's more cooperation with the North is needed in order to do that?
Part of minimizing Chinese influence is exactly that. When you had President Roh leave the office, there was Chinese influence in the North but not to the degree there is now. By cutting off a lot of North-South contacts, we essentially pushed North Korea into China's arms.
But, some people in Korea say North Korea should say sorry about the incidents and provocations prior to that.
I could understand that, but you would end up like the Japanese who become obsessed with the abduction issue for the past six or seven years to the point where they made themselves irrelevant on these issues. I think a lot of people understand this that if South Korea became adment about the apology issue, there wouldn't be any additional North-South contacts. It won't happen. North Koreans are not going to apologize. They should, but they are not going to do it. So, people have to make a choice. "What's going to make our country safer in the long run? Consisting on an apology and not doing anything until we get it or doing something and continuing to raise that issue in some way and moving forward with policies that might make us more secure in the future?" They should choose.
Thank you for the interview. This is personal question. What was the most impressive historic event in Korean Peninsula for you?
I have lived through the first crisis in 1993 and 1994 and I think the reaching the 94 agreement was the real milestone. I still think that it's a real milestone. The problem is that a lot of people just don't understand history. They would say "That was a failed agreement". Sure, it collapsed in 2002, but it wasn't a failed agreement. What most people don't understand is that in 1993 into 1994, there were very serious concerns in the U.S. government, over that decade North Korea might build as many as hundred nuclear weapons. That's a lot of nuclear weapons. They had a very active program that represented billions of dollars of investment over decades. So what the agreed framework did was it killed most of that program. Some of it survived obviously, but it killed a lot of their program and they never revived it. To me, that was a really important accomplishment and what's disturbing is most people don't understand that. They don't know the history. And that's the serious problem with this whole issue: most people don't understand the history.
How should we popularized this issue and make people think more about the history?
Well, I don't know. You should be thinking about that. Americans don't really care but Koreans should care. When people say, "Gee we've been talking to these guys for twenty years and we've made no progress". That is not true. There's a lot that's been happening over the past twenty years. You need to really show that to people somehow through history. There are lots of books written on this issue in past twenty years by Americans and South Koreans, and there are lots of history books, but no one reads history books. So..I don't know, I guess that's the challenge for you guys. 구글에서 프레시안을 더 자주 만나기
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