Opinion
Kim Jong-il
Time to make peace with North KoreaRobert Willoughby
North Korea has always been a survivor. If the west is diplomatic after Kim Jong-il's death, it could be more than that
Tue 20 Dec 2011 03.40 AEDTFirst published on Tue 20 Dec 2011 03.40 AEDT
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North Koreans bow in front of portraits of Kim Il-sung, left, and Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang. Photograph: Kcna/Reuters
The death of North Korea's Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, has thrown up one certainty, that now more than ever we in the west can bring stability to the Korean peninsula by finally making peace with Pyongyang.
It's reported that Kim's death has made for much uncertainty about the state and region. Predictably, missiles have been fired into the water, but we will be shown a sea of tears in Pyongyang rather than a sea of fire on Seoul, nor is any civil implosion likely. Open opposition to the regime in North Korea essentially doesn't exist. While many tens of thousands have risked their lives by wading across the border rivers with China, North Korea lacks the critical mass of opposition, and the communication infrastructure, to precipitate an Arab spring in Pyongyang.
For all the talk of its "collapsing economy", the North Korean state is in fact incredibly resilient. It's survived decades of being on a semi-war footing with South Korea and the US, economic and diplomatic isolation and sanctions, famine, global opprobrium for its nuclear bomb programme, and the death of Kim Il-sung. What North Korea does best is survive, and it will continue to do so under the 20-something Kim Jong-un.
That said, as often overlooked in any analysis of the north are the 24 million souls trying to survive there, human beings too often portrayed in the west as brainwashed automatons slavishly revering the dead presidents, and therefore we're less bothered when they die from famines of food and fuel that western sanctions do much to bring about.
We were told that the regime, under the aegis of a madman, put its own survival first and directed resources primarily into the military. But what else would it do, when it's not at peace with either South Korea nor the hyperpower US? For all that, the west must realise that threats and throttling sanctions just don't work and take this chance to leave all the blame for the past with the dead man and his personality cult, and offer aid, trade and peace with the North Koreans, nukes or not.
It's not a question of "rewarding Pyongyang's bad behaviour", nor appeasing the regime, nor need the efficacy of any existing structure monitoring any dealings with dangerous arms or nuclear components be compromised by peace. Anyway, it has been a nuclear power for some years and the sky hasn't fallen on anyone – not least as Beijing won't allow it.
It should be remembered that the north reprised its nuclear bomb programme following claims that it had already done so from George W Bush neocons, who had already reneged on a long-standing deal for North Korea to mothball its nuclear reactors in exchange for light-water technology and fuel oil from the US. They listed the north on the "axis of evil", and didn't even bother to produce a dodgy dossier about Pyongyang's bomb-making, while invading the Middle East on lies. You'd be crazy not to make a bomb in the face of such aggression.
But worse was that the whole atomic fracas did so much damage to years of diplomatic and economic progress in bringing North Korea in from the cold and in touch with the world, first and foremost with South Korea and the US. During the 1990s, South Korea under Kim Dae-jung, with the blessing of the Clinton administration, offered the north the "sunshine policy" of rapprochement and investment, and the north, under Kim Jong-il, eagerly took it up. Pyongyang's nuclear bomb programme stopped. The anti-US propaganda stopped. Diplomatic and trade relations were founded with the EU and the UK. The North Korean people, those people who just want to have enough to feed their families and have a beer with friends, who go on picnics, and lie in the park looking at the sky – ordinary people like us but whose elders still weep for Kim Il-sung and who simply happen to live in an extraordinary state on the edge of the world – genuinely believed a new age of peace was burgeoning before the Washington neocons dashed the lot.
Yet, amid the ensuing sabre-rattling, billions of South Korean won were still invested into building factories and tourist facilities in North Korea. Parts of the world's most heavily fortified frontier, the de-militarised zone, have been de-mined and tourist buses have crossed south to north where tanks fear to trundle. As it is, hopes are that South Korea's free trade deal with the EU will be cemented by rail links running via Pyongyang. And just last week, officials from the US and North Korea met to talk about the US delivering food aid, with no strings attached to the north's bomb programme. Add peace to the bargain, and let Obama end the war with North Korea as well as Iraq.
The precedents have long been set that working with Pyongyang pays off, and aid and trade would at the very least give some deliverance to the suffering populace. Now's the time to make the death of Kim Jong-il the greatest event in the history of North Korea.
The death of North Korea's Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, has thrown up one certainty, that now more than ever we in the west can bring stability to the Korean peninsula by finally making peace with Pyongyang.
It's reported that Kim's death has made for much uncertainty about the state and region. Predictably, missiles have been fired into the water, but we will be shown a sea of tears in Pyongyang rather than a sea of fire on Seoul, nor is any civil implosion likely. Open opposition to the regime in North Korea essentially doesn't exist. While many tens of thousands have risked their lives by wading across the border rivers with China, North Korea lacks the critical mass of opposition, and the communication infrastructure, to precipitate an Arab spring in Pyongyang.
For all the talk of its "collapsing economy", the North Korean state is in fact incredibly resilient. It's survived decades of being on a semi-war footing with South Korea and the US, economic and diplomatic isolation and sanctions, famine, global opprobrium for its nuclear bomb programme, and the death of Kim Il-sung. What North Korea does best is survive, and it will continue to do so under the 20-something Kim Jong-un.
That said, as often overlooked in any analysis of the north are the 24 million souls trying to survive there, human beings too often portrayed in the west as brainwashed automatons slavishly revering the dead presidents, and therefore we're less bothered when they die from famines of food and fuel that western sanctions do much to bring about.
We were told that the regime, under the aegis of a madman, put its own survival first and directed resources primarily into the military. But what else would it do, when it's not at peace with either South Korea nor the hyperpower US? For all that, the west must realise that threats and throttling sanctions just don't work and take this chance to leave all the blame for the past with the dead man and his personality cult, and offer aid, trade and peace with the North Koreans, nukes or not.
It's not a question of "rewarding Pyongyang's bad behaviour", nor appeasing the regime, nor need the efficacy of any existing structure monitoring any dealings with dangerous arms or nuclear components be compromised by peace. Anyway, it has been a nuclear power for some years and the sky hasn't fallen on anyone – not least as Beijing won't allow it.
It should be remembered that the north reprised its nuclear bomb programme following claims that it had already done so from George W Bush neocons, who had already reneged on a long-standing deal for North Korea to mothball its nuclear reactors in exchange for light-water technology and fuel oil from the US. They listed the north on the "axis of evil", and didn't even bother to produce a dodgy dossier about Pyongyang's bomb-making, while invading the Middle East on lies. You'd be crazy not to make a bomb in the face of such aggression.
But worse was that the whole atomic fracas did so much damage to years of diplomatic and economic progress in bringing North Korea in from the cold and in touch with the world, first and foremost with South Korea and the US. During the 1990s, South Korea under Kim Dae-jung, with the blessing of the Clinton administration, offered the north the "sunshine policy" of rapprochement and investment, and the north, under Kim Jong-il, eagerly took it up. Pyongyang's nuclear bomb programme stopped. The anti-US propaganda stopped. Diplomatic and trade relations were founded with the EU and the UK. The North Korean people, those people who just want to have enough to feed their families and have a beer with friends, who go on picnics, and lie in the park looking at the sky – ordinary people like us but whose elders still weep for Kim Il-sung and who simply happen to live in an extraordinary state on the edge of the world – genuinely believed a new age of peace was burgeoning before the Washington neocons dashed the lot.
Yet, amid the ensuing sabre-rattling, billions of South Korean won were still invested into building factories and tourist facilities in North Korea. Parts of the world's most heavily fortified frontier, the de-militarised zone, have been de-mined and tourist buses have crossed south to north where tanks fear to trundle. As it is, hopes are that South Korea's free trade deal with the EU will be cemented by rail links running via Pyongyang. And just last week, officials from the US and North Korea met to talk about the US delivering food aid, with no strings attached to the north's bomb programme. Add peace to the bargain, and let Obama end the war with North Korea as well as Iraq.
The precedents have long been set that working with Pyongyang pays off, and aid and trade would at the very least give some deliverance to the suffering populace. Now's the time to make the death of Kim Jong-il the greatest event in the history of North Korea.
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