Since April and May, when North Korea launched a long-range rocket and conducted a second nuclear test, and the mid-June adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1874, the state of affairs on the Korean peninsula has entered a new phase.
At the U.S.-South Korea Summit Talks on the 16th, a stronger U.S.-South Korea military alliance, including extended deterrence, was confirmed in the “Joint Vision” for the Alliance. Both sides also agreed on the need for the complete and verifiable elimination of all North Korea’s nuclear weapons and programs, and that they would no longer compensate the North for its wrongdoings.
No substantive differences in opinion between U.S. President Obama and President Lee Myung Bak could be discerned.
For its part, North Korea strongly resisted Resolution 1874 and raised the enriched uranium development issue in response. Simultaneously, intelligence seems to suggest that an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) has already been transported to a missile launch site in Dongchang-ri in North Pyongan Province, while it was reported on the 17th that a U.S. reconnaissance satellite has captured the movement of a specialized train presumed to be carrying an ICBM to North Korea’s older launch site at Moosudan-ri.
From Kim Jong Il’s perspective, he has succeeded in elevating military tensions on the peninsula to the highest level, seemingly taking aim at the U.S., Japan and South Korea simultaneously.
As a result of all this, Director of the North Korean Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces Kim Young Chun’s unconfirmed visit to China on the 13th has generated considerable interest.
Why did Kim go to China? The analysis posited by some is that he visited China on a mission regarding the succession issue, but that seems misguided. There is no reason why he would be reporting on the succession issue to China. Moreover, he is not qualified to discuss the succession issue with China.
If Kim Jong Woon, who is apparently being considered for the post-Kim Jong Il leadership post, were to have visited China, his father would be likely to have taken him along personally for a clandestine introduction to the Chinese authorities, as Kim Il Sung did with Kim Jong Il many years ago. Therefore, reports in the Japanese media that Kim Jong Woon visited China on the 10th and met with President Hu Jintao seem out of place. On the other hand, Kim Young Chun’s visit seems to have really taken place.
At this point in time, Kim Jong Il will have felt the need to react to U.S.-South Korean Summit Talks. The biggest question at hand is the message that Kim Jong Il wanted to deliver to China through Kim Young Chun.
The chances are that the Dear Leader, while explaining the inevitability of military tension on the Korean peninsula, informed the Chinese through Kim that Pyongyang has military action in mind.
Kim Jong Il, through Kim Young Chun, may well have pointed out the following: “We are already a nuclear power, and if UN Security Council sanctions are imposed, we will have no choice but to respond with military action. If that is the case, then China will be faced with a crisis in its backyard. Why don’t you arbitrate on our behalf so that the U.S. is able to compromise?”
Further, Kim Jong Il most likely conveyed his desire for China to play a greater role in bringing the U.S. to the negotiating table and altering the policy of the Seoul administration. This author believes that Kim’s state of mind regarding the triangular relationship between South Korea, North Korea, the U.S. and China has not undergone much of a change.
In particular, after suffering from a stroke last year, Kim Jong Il’s judgment must have been affected. Kim Jong Il is probably counting down to July 4th, U.S.’ Independence Day, for another ICBM launch. In the meantime, the North could be planning to incite an incident along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) or in the Yellow Sea. Therefore, the South Korean government will have to engage in an aggressive diplomatic battle to elicit the cooperation of China and Russia in particular as well as concentrate its energy on security against North Korea.
Affairs on and around the Korean Peninsula are unfolding even more precipitously than in the past.
.
In order to reach the stage of securing democracy and a free market economy in North East Asia as urged in the U.S.-South Korean “Joint Vision,” surrounding nations including South Korea have to try to analyze the situation calmly, deal with the approaching future actively in the spirit of prevention, and start building creatively.
