The Hudson Institute’s Michael Horowitz, in town to participate in a seminar hosted by the Christian Group Save North Korea, unleashed a rather scathing evaluation of President Roh Moo-hyun’s North Korea policy on Tuesday. From the Korea Times:
President Roh Moo-hyun’s government is alone in its opposition to regime change in North Korea, according to a former U.S. official who played a key role in drafting the recently enacted North Korean Human Rights Act.
Michael Horowitz, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., claimed that all of the other countries engaged in the six-party nuclear talks with North Korea are preparing for the inevitable collapse of the Kim Jong-il regime, while Roh continues to live in denial.
“He is making love to a corpse,” said Horowitz, who was in Seoul to participate in a seminar hosted Tuesday by Save North Korea, a local Christian group. “Only Roh Moo-hyun, so far as I am concerned, is out there working for and acting on this strategic premise that we can keep this lunatic regime in power.”
Roh, delivering a series of speeches on the North Korean nuclear crisis during his current tour of European nations, has argued that the collapse of the Pyongyang government is “very unlikely” and warned that calls for regime change by hardliners in the U.S. are hampering the multilateral negotiations.
Horowitz pointed out some might have a hard time taking Roh seriously:
But Horowitz said the international community would be highly skeptical of the “increasingly frantic pleas by a South Korean president who has declined to speak out on North Korea’s human rights abuses and continues to pursue a policy of appeasement.
“The head of the nation is saying ‘let my brothers and sisters (in North Korea) starve to death and be governed by a lunatic because it would be too expensive for me if they were free,’” the international religious liberty expert said in an interview with The Korea Times. “That is not the position of a great, democratic nation, and South Korea is a great nation.”
OK, now I tend to agree that the current South Korean head of state has been making extremely naive remarks about North Korea, and some of the crap I’ve heard coming from the current Minister of Unification about the defector issue is simply unfathomable. I also happened to think the premise the Roh administration seems to be operating under, namely, that Pyongyang wants to reform and open up and “co-existence and co-prosperity” is an achievable goal, is very much mistaken, and the costs of propping up North Korea — moral issues aside — are likely to make unification even more costly in the long run. This being said, some perspective is required. South Korea, unlike the United States, is located next to a potentially unstable regime that is not only starving, but also maintains a million men under arms, many of those in its artillery and rocket forces. Moreover, of North Korea’s starving masses, none have had experience with democracy, and almost all have been subject to extremely shrill nationalist propaganda for most of their lives and extreme material deprivation for at least a decade. What this means that even if the current leadership were to collapse — as I think it inevitably will — there is no guarantee that it would be replaced by a regime with a firmer grasp of reality. As hard as this may be to imagine, there are scenarios worse than continued rule by Kim Jong-il. Far worse. And yes, South Korea is the one that would have to bear the brunt of the economic, social and political costs inherent in administering the North should it go belly-up, even without a pre-emptive war or Chinese invasion. Morally repugnant as it would seem, Seoul wouldn’t be the first democracy to bankroll a scumbag because its perceived economic and strategic interests indicated it should.
It should also be pointed out that official bullshit for North Korean and local voter consumption aside, the South Korean government does have contingency plans for a North Korean collapse, although for perfectly understandable reasons, the Ministry of Unification doesn’t like to advertise this fact while engaged in very tense negotiations with Pyongyang over its nuclear programs.
Anyway, Horowitz also took issue with Roh’s belief that China will prop up Pyongyang till the Second Coming:
Horowitz also rejected Roh’s assertion that China is “arm-in-arm” with South Korea in seeking a diplomatic solution to the North Korean nuclear standoff without regime change.
“For China, the cost of supporting Kim Jong-il will be increasingly great, particularly in terms of its relations with the U.S.,” he said, indicating that Beijing is actively planning how to assert its influence on North Korea after its “Dear Leader” is ousted.
Horowitz said China should not be concerned about a flood of North Korean refugees resulting from regime change. “If there is an overnight collapse of the regime, they will not be going into China, they are going to be heading across the DMZ into South Korea with all the desperate economic consequences that will bring.”
Well, I really don’t know what to make of this. I definitely think it’s possible that China will write off North Korea eventually. If I were in charge in Beijing, I’d believe my interests were better served by a Korean Peninsula minus North Korea, and for a myriad of reasons. Still, it seems pretty clear at the moment that China finds North Korea at least marginally useful. It also seems to be quite intent to prevent any sort of “refugee flood” that might presage a North Korean collapse. South Korea and the U.S. should be working to figure out what it will take — in terms of either carrots or sticks — to get Beijing to consider a change in policy. No one should assume, however, that it naturally will anytime soon.
Of course, one could argue that in the big picture, allowing China to continue flushing yuan down the North Korea toilet might not be such a bad thing, but you do run the risk of North Korea doing something stupid in the time it takes either Pyongyang to collapse or Beijing to get tired of wasting its money.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
As someone who generally advocates for Japan’s welfare in foreign policy (I want it to be there when I finally move back) I couldn’t agree more. The time to reunite the Korean Peninsula is close at hand, and it would solve way more problems than it creates, in my opinion. As sympathetic as I am toward China and South Korea, which would incur moderate economic hardship due to refugees, at least they wouldn’t have to subsist on corn meal (at best) anymore.
There used to be a time in the 1990s when many South Koreans were crying foul and accusing every surrounding power of wanting to prevent Korean unification. Now I think there would be those who would claim the opposite, that some great powers (notably the US) appears to be forcibly foisting (alliterative!) unification onto the Koreans when they don’t want it.
Marmot, I am curious as to what scenarios you see that are worse than a continued reign by KJI and family.
And may I go on record as stating that I do not believe that
end of the Kim regime = Korean unification.
While I am in definite favour of the former, I am very cautious about the latter, and think it is best delayed – if that is possible – for a good few years after the regime has ended/changed.
Anyone with me on that?
I’ll take you up on that, Hamel.
Who could be worse than KJI? Anyone of his family members, for starters, or the provincial commanders who have staged abortive coups in the past. I’m surprised (oh, well, not very) that Washington can back the Iraqi National Congress to overthrow Hussein or yeltsin for so long in Russia, but can’t find at least a dubious figure in Pyongyang to start co-opting.
Instead of talking about the nukes, or radios and BBQ on the DMZ, so much, EU and American negotiators should discuss ways Pyongyang could legally get cash that neighbors would be willing to help promote. let greed act like acid through the bonds of loyalty that glue accomplice to criminal in the upper levels of the hierarchy. I’d like Pyongyang to have more options beside Kaesong and Beijing as role models for liberalization.
I’d give NK at least a century to catch up with SK, but not with only Seoul as a role model. if that’s the case, both countries will lose. In the long run, the best scenario involves a North Korea capable of competing with South Korea and getting the best terms for unification at the time of both of NK people’s (and the South Korean people’s) choosing.
Infidel – I agree.
If the US said that it will never give KJI 1 dollar and then followed up with a promise of billions of dollars to the next North Korean regime, and security guarantees, KJI’s life expectancy would rapidly decrease.
Wow. There seems to be something very simple that none of you are talking about.
A “regime change” is not the same thing as a “forced regime reformation”. You are asking South Korean conscripts to put their baby sisters into the mortar tubes and fire at North Korean positions.
Please take a good look at our “Regime Change” program at Iraq. And we are talking about a country of people who HATED Saddam. So far, all the intelligence sources seem to indicate that KJI has succeeded in brainwashing NK people into supporting him and ONLY him. He is not merely a “great leader” to them, but GOD. NK operatives swallow cyanide pills when they are captured. These guys are a lot more hadcore than Iraqi suicide bombers. How do you propose a “Regime Change”? If you think Iraqi insurgents are tough, boy, you really don’t know anything about NK commandos. These guys were using guerilla warfare 50 years before the Iraqis even knew what using human shields were all about.
I support actions to bring down information barriers in NK in the hopes that such actions could bring reforms in NK—maybe ONLY after KJI dies from a heart attack, but how do you propose we knock off KJI? Send in a CIA operative into NK? Impose a “sanction” on NK? Oh I got a great idea, we will “starve” them to death! This is almost comical.
It’s one thing to be a noble and brave civic minded hero and sacrifice one’s life in the service of the army trying to free NK people. It’s another thing entirely to use your mom as a human shield to take NK barrages, just long enough for you to launch a counter-attack.
It’s time to take our collective heads out of the sand and admit the following: There is NOTHING we can do to stop NK from going nuclear. NOTHING. Won’t happen. Can’t. Clinton failed. Bush is failing.
We need to be thinking extremely long term. We need to foster a culture change in North Korea–and in order to do that we really do need to destroy the information blockade. I don’t think this will trigger a war. Even in Iraq, where everyone hated Saddam, noone was willing to die for freedom. Even if we succeed in destroying information blockade, KJI will probably find that he can still instill enough fear in NK to rule. But at least we are preparing NK for the eventual death of KJI.
The “eventual” collapse of NK? There is an entire generation of people in Korea who have been waiting their entire lives for the “inevitable” collapse of government opposite the 38th parallel, just like there have been billions of Christians waiting for the second coming of Christ.
My anger at Noh is his obstinate refusal to make deals quid-pro-quo and his actively anti-NK refugee activities.
Virtual wonderer.
I see your point. But ?€œregime change?€? in Afghanistan was considered almost hopeless not long ago. The US was going to be going into a country that the British Empire and Soviet Union were repulsed in. I country that had seen decades of war and as a result had seasoned guerrilla style fighters. But here we are now and the Taliban regime changed. There were peaceful free and fair elections (which is more than I can say for Ukraine right now). I don?€™t know if NK would be more like Afghanistan or Iraq. I also don’t know if it would be worth it.
I totally agree with bringing down information barriers in NK. It?€™s a shame the SK government is trying to keep up the information barriers.
Non-korean
What I worry is the number of human casualties by a military conflict. Taliban, thank God, has no weapons of mass destruction. Sure, if we attack North Korea, we would decapitate KJI. But at what cost? Let’s assume you don’t care about the number of South Korean (let alone North Korean) deaths. Let’s just say we care only about Japanese lives. How many Japanese lives dead when Taepodong start to hit Tokyo? It’s going to have chemical warheads.
But let’s just say we don’t care about “gooks” in general. We only care about white people. Taepodong on Okinawa or Guam with a chemical/biological warhead. (Let’s assume they can’t put their nuke on their missile yet) Or let’s say North Korea smuggles a nuke on a Japanese freighter, kills all the crew and heads towards San Francisco. No doubt, certain conservatives elements in the US might be gleeful that NK mangaged to wipe out 50% of our democrat voting gay population, but suredly, US cannot get away with less than 10,000 deaths at least. (all Bush lovers) Heck, with a casualty rate so low, I would go out of my way to advocate war. Maybe I’ll even enlist to fill the 10,000 death quota. You know and I know that the U.S. second infantry is still human shields sitting on the DMZ. And please note I have not even begun to talk about the economic consequence of freaking out just the Japanese investors.
How many American lives are you willing to sacrifice for NK?
I don’t mean to be such an a$$, but those NK muchachos are not joking around. If I belived our Army could easily romp the NK army like we do to the Taliban, I would be putting yellow ribbons all over my neighborhood proclaiming open season on the People’s Army. But the sheer difference in quantitative military assets between DPRK and Taliban should make you think twice. Add to that WMD, and crazy guys who think that collapse of DPRK means that Yankee invaders will rape every women and enslave every men (and that is what Juche religion has succeeded in making them think) they will fight to the last bitter man.
I for one, vote no for war.
What I don’t like about the idea of putting US foreign policy solely in the hands of a government broadcasting service. First, the information has questionable value. Just look at the quality of SK TV, for crissakes!
Second, its not just factoids (look at the new Chinese curriculum), but what the people do with that information. If NK citizens actually knew the rice they receive is South Korean, or how to look for a job, etc, facts lead to empowerment. Its not just what you know, but how you use it. So, if the world shows NK how to kick ass with trade, not bombs, they’ll want more info to get more power.
Finally, lets not insult the average Nk citizen. South Koreans in 1945, and that generation still lives. with help and luck, did a good job. Now, this latest generation is world-competitive. Comparing Koreans to a fixed standard is good for measure, but they’re not far off world quality. As a matter of fact, there’s not much difference between the worst economy and the best. Koreans are not from Mars, although it does seem as if a black hole did set itself up on this peninsula at times.
As for the other comments, all the bravado, like Iran or Brazil, is about finding a way to catch up quick to the developed world. Its not the leadership that’s the problem, its the terrorists and religious fundis without a plan except for heaven that need watching. The more you let Pyongyang’s blather rattle you, the more you let them in your head. Once they get going, it will befast, just like the Industrial revolution took relatively little time. Its just a matter of relative position, but they get the benefit of all the developed world’s errors. For that matter, NK’a situation is just a product of all the unsolved problems the West neglected these past centuries.
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