The Marmot’s Hole

Just a quick post, because I’m in no condition at all today to do much blogging. Firstly, the Hankyoreh ran an interview with former President Kim Dae-jung that I really will try to fisk either today or tomorrow. The problem with these kinds of fiskings, however, is that for blogging purposes, I’ve got to translate the thing into English first, which, as I’m sure you can imagine, is a real pain in the ass. Actually, it’s not that big of a pain in the ass, and there’s a possibility I might be doing it for a living pretty soon, but it does take time, especially with an interview the length of Kim’s. Add a fisking to it, and it’s a major project. Anyway, back to the point - which is the interview itself - I almost got excited about it, both from the Hani’s introduction and the Oranckay’s brief note concerning it. As the Oranckay writes:

Currently the top Korean story at the Hankyoreh is an interview with former president Kim Dae-jung, in which Kim says that the North should give up its nukes first and that Kim Jong Il should be more responsible toward the whole of the Korean nation.

Cool, I thought - perhaps the ex-prez was laying off the soju after all. Sure enough, the Hani’s headline for the story reads, “Kim Dae-jung: ‘Only if the North first announces that it will give up its nuclear program.’ ” The problem is this - the headline means just what it says - Kim wants the north to first announce that it will give up its nukes, and then begin asking what the US will do for it. As he explains:

It’s not a question of what the US must do first in order for North Korea to give up its nukes; it’s that the North must first announce that it will give up its nukes. I ask them to say this - we fill freeze our nuclear program at its current stage and give it up, and since we are going to strip ourselves bear, what are you (the United States) specifically going to do.

When the Hani wondered whether the US would accept such a declaration from the North Koreans, Kim said:

Therefore, the responsibilities of the other four states [in the six party talks] as mediators are very important. The four shouldn’t just sit and watch - they should present fair plans to both sides [and by "both sides", I'm assuming Kim means "the US and North Korea," which is interesting, because it would seem to indicate that Kim doesn't view South Korea as being part of any "side" in this dispute]. China, Russia, and others [do "others" include South Korea, per chance?] can take on responsibility as guarantors. If this is the case, there will be meaning in the six-party talks.

Let me ask Kim this - do you mean to say that if, or better still, when the North Koreans start screwing around again, the Chinese and Russians are going to put the screws on Pyongyang? Excuse my cynicism, but I highly doubt it. And what really irked me is the way in which Kim seems to regard South Korea as a “mediator” between the DPRK and the US rather than an ally of the later. This is kind of odd, because earlier in his interview, he describes the United States as “our indispensable ally from all perspectives - security, diplomacy, economy, trade, and so on.” Whether or not this is true is a matter of debate, but assuming Kim actually believes that the US is an indispensable ally, has he considered how that ally might react if the ROK - an ally that is, quite frankly, very dispensable from the perspective of many in Washington - were to start acting less the ally and more the moderator in an issue as important to American security as the North Korean nuclear issue?

Also on a Hani note, they’ve begun to translate their editorials into English, which saves me the burden of having to type up a translation myself before proceeding to fisk them. For this rather welcome development, we have Oranckay to thank, although it does present the rather odd spectacle of having the same man translating the editorials of both the right-wing Chosun Ilbo and the left-wing Hankyoreh Shinmun. Anyway, to celebrate this occasion, allow me to post below a snippet of the kind of nonsense we should expect to see regularly in the year to come:

We are of the position that the resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue lies almost entirely with the determination of the United States. At the first round of talks the North reaffirmed its commitment to the principle of nonproliferation of the Korean Peninsula, and laid out a proposal for a step-by-step resolution to its nuclear program and the missile question. Recently it also hinted at the possibility it could yield to the Americans on the issue of a non-aggression pact. The problem is the uncompromising, hard-line approach to North Korea shared by the neoconservative elements in the Bush Administration. They scrapped the Geneva Agreement without a plan as to what should happen next, and at the six-way talks have not been demonstrating a serious and sincere desire for agreement. We strongly urge the Bush Administration to be true to its stated principles of peaceful resolution to this matter, and to bring closure to the North Korean nuclear issue and to the problem of peace on the peninsula with an approach that is rational and compromising.

This is going to be a long year.