North Korea: The Struggle Against American Power

350 Pages·2005·1.4 MB·English

by  Tim Beal

North Korea
The Struggle Against
American Power
Tim Beal
P
Pluto Press
LONDON (cid:127) ANN ARBOR, MI
BBeeaall 0000 pprree iiiiii 3300//66//0055 1122::1166::4499 ppmm
First published 2005 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Tim Beal 2005
The right of Tim Beal to be identifi ed as the author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7453 2014 7 hardback
ISBN 0 7453 2013 9 paperback
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beal, Tim.
North Korea : the struggle against American power / Tim Beal.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0–7453–2014–7 (hardback) –– ISBN 0–7453–2013–9 (pbk.)
1. Korea (North)––Politics and government. 2. Korea (North)––Military
policy. 3. Nuclear weapons––Korea (North) 4. Korea (North)––Foreign
relations––United States. 5. United States––Foreign relations––Korea
(North) 6. World politics––21st century. I. Title.
DS935.5.B43 2005
951.9304’3––dc22
2005008411
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by
Chase Publishing Services Ltd, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England
Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Printed and bound in the European Union by
Gutenberg Press, Malta
BBeeaall 0000 pprree iivv 3300//66//0055 1122::1166::5500 ppmm
Contents
List of Maps, Figures and Tables vi
Timelines vii
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
Part I Fulcrum of Geography, Anvil of History: DPRK in Historical
Perspective
Introduction to Part I: Time and Place, from Past to Present 17
1 The Roots of Modern Korea: From Tangun to Liberation 21
2 Years of Struggle, Years of Hope: Korean War to First
Nuclear Crisis 46
3 Creation of the Agreed Framework and the Flowering of
Détente 80
4 Crisis Reignited: Economic Reform, Regional Accord,
Washington Discord 97
Part II The Pillars of Confrontation
Introduction to Part II 127
5 The Human Rights Record: Complexities, Causes, Solutions 129
6 Drugs and Generals: Some Surprising Facts on Narcotics,
Missiles, Terrorism and Military Confrontation 167
7 The Nuclear Confrontation 202
8 On the Precipice: Options, Positions and Dangers at the
Start of the Second Bush Administration 219
Appendices
I Economic Statistics 247
II Armed Forces, Military Expenditure and Exports 248
III Documentary Sources 251
IV A Timeline of Nuclear and Missile Issues and Activities 253
Notes 273
Bibliography 304
Index 326
BBeeaall 0000 pprree vv 3300//66//0055 1122::1166::5500 ppmm
List of Maps, Figures and Tables
MAPS
1 Korea: the divided peninsula 12
2 The Korean peninsula: strategic hub of Northeast Asia 13
3 Shadows of the past: the ancient kingdom of Koguryo
straddles modern boundaries 23
4 A dwarf amongst giants: North Korea’s military
expenditure in comparative perspective 197
FIGURES
2.1 Per capita GNP, North and South Korea, 1953–90 62
6.1 Comparative military expenditure, North Korea and
its enemies, 2003 196
6.2 The two Koreas: comparative military expenditure,
1988–2003 198
TABLES
5.1 Imprisonment rates, US, DPRK, ROK, 2001 142
5.2 Major recipients of WFP assistance, 2000–03 153
6.1 World’s largest military forces, 1999 193
8.1 China as trading partner, 2003 222
A1.1 GNP, per capita GNP and growth, North and
South Korea, 1946–90 247
A2.1 World military spending, 2001–02 248
A2.2 Comparative military expenditure, US, Japan and
the Koreas, 1988–2001 249
A2.3 The world’s top 15 individual arms exporters, 1997–99 250
vi
BBeeaall 0000 pprree vvii 3300//66//0055 1122::1166::5500 ppmm
Timelines
1 From Tangun to Japanese annexation 30
2 The struggle for independence and buildup to war 37
3 The Korean War 53
4 From Armistice to 1972 joint communiqué 55
5 1973–84 64
6 1985–92 69
7 1992–94 74
8 1995–99 82
9 2000–01 99
10 2002 104
11 2003 116
12 2004 118
All 1945–2004 (Appendix IV) 253
vii
BBeeaall 0000 pprree vviiii 3300//66//0055 1122::1166::5500 ppmm
Acknowledgements
So many people have contributed in manifold ways to producing
this book that singling out individuals is a frightening, if gratifying,
task. I am grateful to innumerable Koreans, North and South, and in
the United States, New Zealand and elsewhere, who personally or by
email have encouraged me to engage the issue of what may broadly
be called, in Roh Moo-hyun’s phrase, ‘peace and prosperity’ for the
Korean people and I hope this book makes some contribution to
that cause. My intellectual debts are best calculated by looking at the
bibliography, but if anyone should attempt to categorise this book
as ‘anti-American’, as no doubt some will on the spurious confusion
between opposing particular political policies and being hostile to a
people, then it should be noted that the authorities most frequently
drawn upon, such as Bruce Cumings, Sig Harrison, Dan Oberdorfer
and Leon Sigal, are American.
On a personal level I am particularly grateful to Gill Goddard,
East Asian Studies Librarian at the University of Sheffi eld, and James
Grayson, Director of the Centre for Korean Studies there, for helping
me mine their Korean collection. My stays in London were made
possible, and always pleasant, by the hospitality of Pat and Bärbel
Daly and Lesley Sheringham, of Arthur Probsthain’s famous Asian
bookshop, whose smile was always welcoming. Hazel Smith who
fi rst encouraged me to move from articles and papers on Korea to
the more daunting challenge of a book. Karin Lee, and John Feffer,
who provided hospitality, and sanity, in Washington. On the home
front, Kala S. Retna and John Beal were forbearing of my frequent
absences, both of body and of mind. Christine Dann gave soothing
and wise advice and was largely instrumental in the establishment
of the New Zealand Korean Peace Committee. Still in New Zealand I
have no greater long-term debt than to Don Borrie who, decades ago,
founded the NZ-DPRK Society with Wolf Rosenberg and has laboured
over the years to foster better understanding of the DPRK in New
Zealand and to improve relations between our two countries.
Peter Thirkell, Val Lindsay, and my colleagues at the School of
Marketing and International Business at Victoria University of
Wellington have been tolerant of my attention to Korean issues in
the best tradition of accepting that scholarship leads beyond the
viii
BBeeaall 0000 pprree vviiiiii 3300//66//0055 1122::1166::5500 ppmm
Acknowledgements ix
narrow confi nes of academic departments. In this respect, Stephen
Epstein, my colleague at Victoria who straddles European Classics and
Korean Studies, was a supporting encouragement. Gordon Anderson
and Sally Davenport, of the Research Committee of the Faculty of
Commerce and Administration, provided some much appreciated
research funding. Hugh Blackstock in Earth Sciences produced the
maps very speedily and effi ciently.
Julie Stoll, Sejal Chad and Roger van Zwanenberg of Pluto Press
patiently and professionally kept me focussed on producing the best
possible manuscript pretty much on time, but not at the expense of
thorough research and careful writing.
I owe special thanks to Yang Wen, who brought her librarian skills
to bear on bibliographic matters, both helping me locate books in
Sheffi eld, London and Washington, and keeping citations in proper,
professional order.
My greatest personal debt in bringing this project to fruition is to
Ankie Hoogvelt. Although she should have known better, having
put up with my vagaries for many years, she was so generous with
her hospitality in Sheffi eld and unstinting with her time in reading
and meticulously commenting on draft chapters.
BBeeaall 0000 pprree iixx 3300//66//0055 1122::1166::5511 ppmm
Introduction
Born out of the division of Korea following the surrender of the
Japanese empire in 1945, North Korea had been one of the star
performers of the developing world, vigorously industrialising on
the basis of a proclaimed programme of ‘self-reliance’. However, in
the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was plunged
into a dreadful economic crisis which caused widespread death and
malnutrition. Even today, according to the World Food Programme,
about a quarter of the population are in need of international aid.1
The economic crisis was compounded by bad weather but it had its
roots in the long-standing hostility of the United States, which had
long imposed sanctions and threatened military action, including
nuclear strikes, and the geopolitical environment that engendered.
The crisis of the 1990s was exacerbated by a escalating confrontation
with the United States over nuclear issues. This period of crisis and
privation came to be called the ‘Arduous March’.
In 1994 the DPRK – Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to give
it its formal name – had signed an agreement with the United States
called the Agreed Framework. Under this, the Koreans mothballed
their graphite-moderated nuclear reactors which the Americans
suspected had produced plutonium that could be used in weapons,
in exchange for a package which included two light-water reactors,
heavy fuel oil as interim compensation for the electricity forgone,
formal guarantees against nuclear attack and movement towards
lifting of sanctions and the normalisation of relations. Although
the North Koreans were generally punctilious about complying with
the Agreed Framework, the United States was dilatory in keeping its
promises, partly because Clinton had lost control of Congress to the
Republicans.
In 1997 Kim Dae-jung, a long-time opposition leader, was elected
president of South Korea (Republic of Korea or ROK). He soon
enunciated a policy on engagement with the North which came to
be labelled the ‘Sunshine Policy’. North Korea was initially sceptical,
because peace accords between North and South had fallen apart
in the past, but after secret negotiations a summit took place in
Pyongyang in June 2000 between Kim Dae-jung and DPRK leader
Kim Jong Il.
1
BBeeaall 0011 iinnttrroo 11 3300//66//0055 1122::1166::2277 ppmm
2 North Korea
The easing of North–South relations warmed up that between the
DPRK and the US. North Korea’s third-ranking leader, Jo Myong
Rok, visited Washington in early October 2000, had a meeting with
Bill Clinton and invited Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to
the DPRK. On 10 October 2000, on the eve of her visit, and on
the occasion of the 55th anniversary of the founding of the Korean
Workers’ Party, North Korea proclaimed that the ‘Arduous March’ was
over.2 She returned to Washington with an invitation to President Bill
Clinton to visit Pyongyang and to consign to history the enmities
of the past.
Pyongyang’s elation was premature and North Korea was forced
to continue the Arduous March. George W. Bush won the election
and there was an abrupt change of Korean policy. This shift was not
confi ned to Korea, and it was soon labelled as the ABC – Anything
But Clinton – policy. Infl uenced by ‘neoconservatives’, the Bush
administration was to withdraw from international treaties and
embark upon a programme of confrontation with countries and
peoples it regarded as an impediment to American interests. This more
aggressive stance, which was to lead to the invasion of Iraq, predated
11 September 2001 and was built into administration policy from
the beginning. The attacks of 9/11 were used by President Bush and
his advisors to legitimise plans and policies already in place. Whilst
it is important not to overlook the continuities between Clinton and
Bush, and the underlying drivers of American imperialism, there
were defi nite fi ssures in policy, and in few places would they be more
signifi cant than in Korea. Clinton, under pressure from Kim Dae-jung,
had been moving to a less hostile position and Gore, had he become
president, might have continued the process towards normalisation
of relations and the implementation of the Agreed Framework. It
is an open secret in Washington that the new Bush administration
did not want coexistence, however frosty, with the DPRK, but its
destruction; what is euphemistically called ‘regime change’.3 Worried
by this, President Kim Dae-jung fl ew to Washington in March 2001
to try and salvage things, but was rebuffed.
Relations between Washington and Pyongyang became increasingly
acrimonious. North Korea was labelled as part of an Axis of Evil
and mentioned as a possible target in the Nuclear Posture Review.
However, although the Agreed Framework was much disliked by the
administration as a relic of the Clinton era, it limped on. Then, in
October 2002, a crisis erupted.
This is how the US State Department tells the story:
BBeeaall 0011 iinnttrroo 22 3300//66//0055 1122::1166::2288 ppmm