[Cankor] Report #254

[cankor at cankor.ca]

Dear readers,

Before you skip down to the meat of this issue, we’d like to remind you 
of our CANKOR FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN. As you will have read, this is the 
last issue for which CIDA funding is still available. Our first issue of 
CanKor was sent to a small group of interested readers on 25 July 2000. 
That means we’re heading for our 5th birthday, with some 900 loyal 
subscribers.

Here is what some of them have to say about CanKor:

“CanKor is an indispensable source of balanced news about key 
developments regarding the Korean Peninsula. I rely on it to keep my 
students in Japan and myself informed about Korea-related events.” -- C. 
Kenneth Quinones, Professor of Korean Studies, Akita International 
University, Japan.

"This excellent service is at the cutting edge of news and analysis 
about North Korea, and the peninsula more widely. I find it 
indispensable for my work as a Korea analyst." -- Aidan Foster-Carter, 
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds 
University (UK).

"I find CanKor exceptionally informative in relation to my work as the 
national coordinator for North Korea and Japan with Amnesty 
International's Canadian Section. My fellow international coordinators 
and our East Asia research team really appreciate the great work that 
you do in gathering information about North Korea that we wouldn't get 
elsewhere!" -- Sue Hickey, Executive Committee Director and National 
Coordinator with Amnesty International.

Donations are slowly trickling in. Why not surprise us with a large 
donation for our birthday? If you visit our website www.CanKor.ca, you 
will find a “Make a Donation” button, top right-hand side, which will 
connect you to PayPal, a site with “military-strength encryption,” where 
you will be able to pay by credit card in Canadian, U.S. or Australian 
Dollars, as well as Euros, Pound Sterling and Yen. It’s all very quick 
and easy, which is the way we would like to raise the remaining 
CDN$29,370 to keep CanKor striving and thriving.
You may also send us cheques payable to "Weingartner Consulting" and 
mailed to 13 Westview Dr., RR1, Callander, ON, Canada, P0H 1H0.

Thanking you in advance,
The CanKor team

*************************************************
CANADA-KOREA ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SERVICE

CanKor # 254

Friday, 30 June 2006
*************************************************

US congressman James Leach, chairman of the House International 
Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, urges the Bush 
administration to consider direct talks with Pyongyang.
“I of course share the administration's healthy skepticism about (the 
DPRK’s) strategic intentions. But skepticism is an attitude, not a 
policy,” says Leach.

Japan’s Kyodo News agency reports that Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu 
Dawei conveyed a warning to DPRK Ambassador Choe Jin Su in a meeting at 
the Foreign Ministry in Beijing. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao urges all 
parties to avoid any move that would aggravate regional tensions.

Due to the highly corrosive nature of the rocket fuel used by the DPRK, 
the missile would almost certainly have been fired by now, says Michael 
Green, formerly President Bush's adviser on Asian affairs and currently 
at Washington's Centre for Security and International Studies. The 
launch preparations may be a show for the satellite cameras above.

This week’s CanKor OPINION presents highlights of the debate over the 
current DPR Korean threat of a missile test.

Former Secretary of State and architect of the 1994 Agreed Framework, 
William Perry causes a stir among Korea experts by arguing that should 
the DPRK persist in its launch preparations, the US should immediately 
make clear its intension to strike and destroy the Taepodong missile.

“The missile test is not a violation of anything more than our pride, 
ripping a gaping hole in the false logic that talking with the North 
Koreans somehow rewards and empowers them,” says Jack Pritchard, former 
US envoy to the DPRK. A “saner” approach is to open avenues of dialogue 
with Pyongyang.

A pre-emptive strike would occur in the context of an inattentive, 
confused, and unpopular US North Korea policy, isolate the United States 
more than Pyongyang, and complicate, not ease, the US’ ability to make 
progress, says Brookings senior fellow Michael O’Hanlon.

The Bush administration has little intention of solving this crisis, 
since the DPRK’s missiles are a “useful threat,” says Canadian Columnist 
Gwynne Dyer, a “much more tactful justification for the ballistic 
missile defence programme than the Chinese rockets that the BMD is 
actually meant to intercept.”
*************************************************

Contents:
1. US LAWMAKER URGES DIRECT TALKS
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=June&x=20060629183845ajesrom0.4028589

2. PRC WARNS DPRK AGAINST MISSILE LAUNCH
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asiapacific/detail.asp?ID=85060&GRP=C

3. DPR KOREAN MISSILE UNLIKELY TO BE FIRED
http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,,1807448,00.html

OPINION
4. IF NECESSARY, STRIKE AND DESTROY
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/21/AR2006062101518.html

5. NO, DON'T BLOW IT UP; A SANER APPROACH TO A MISSILE TEST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201465.html

6. PREEMPTION AND NORTH KOREA
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20060627-090827-9732r

7. THE EVIL HERMIT AND HIS ROCKETS
http://www.embassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2006/june/21/dyer/

QUIDNUNC: Readers ask and respond to common and uncommon questions
When and why did the DPRK carve two new remote northern border 
provinces, Jagang and Ryanggang, out of the centuries-old Pyongan and 
Hamgyong provinces?

*************************************************

1. US LAWMAKER URGES DIRECT TALKS
by Jane Morse, US State Department Information Service, 29 June 2006

Nine months after North Korea committed to abandoning all nuclear 
weapons and existing nuclear programs in a joint statement of 
principles, the international community still is no closer to realizing 
those goals, according to the chairman of the House International 
Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. Representative James 
Leach, at a June 29 hearing of his subcommittee, decried the 
"lifelessness of the Six Party process" and urged the Bush 
administration to consider direct talks with the Pyongyang regime.

Two important changes have occurred since the six parties signed their 
joint statement of principles in September 2005, Leach said.

"First, the North Koreans have had an additional nine months to produce 
fissile material," he said. "An expert report released three days ago 
assesses that North Korea has now separated enough plutonium for 
somewhere between 4 and 13 nuclear weapons," more than a 50 percent 
increase over the amount they were believed to possess prior to 2003.

"Second, the North Koreans have reportedly stood up a long-range 
ballistic missile on a launch pad at Taepodong, though it remains 
unclear whether those actions represent preparations for an actual 
launch or a provocative plea for US attention," Leach said.

By rejecting most forms of direct conversation with North Korea, the 
Bush administration is "ignoring opportunities to reach mutual 
accommodation," he said. "At present, the United States is in an ironic 
circumstance where we have tied ourselves exclusively to a multilateral 
process in which other parties are taking the lead," Leach said.

"It is self-evident that the Six Party talks are a reasonable framework 
within which to pursue the denuclearization of North Korea," the 
congressman said. "But it is also true that other parties have 
supplemented Six Party contacts with bilateral discussions outside the 
Beijing framework, and that they would welcome more robust, direct US 
initiatives with North Korea."

"For us to remain instead diplomatically reactive," the congressman 
said, "cedes too much initiative to actors whose interests are not 
identical with our own, and allows the North Koreans and others to 
bizarrely paint us as an intransigent party."

Leach did concede that, "Given North Korea's track record, I of course 
share the administration's healthy skepticism about its strategic 
intentions. But skepticism is an attitude, not a policy. It is critical 
for the Administration to form a creative, coherent response to the 
growing North Korean nuclear threats to our national security." 
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs 
Christopher Hill testified at the hearing and reiterated US support for 
the Six-Party Talks.
*************************************************

2. PRC WARNS DPRK AGAINST MISSILE LAUNCH
Associate Press (AP), 20 June 2006

China reportedly summoned the North Korea's ambassador to Beijing to 
convey a warning to Pyongyang against launching a long-range test 
missile, Kyodo News agency reported Thursday. Chinese Vice Foreign 
Minister Wu Dawei conveyed the warning to North Korean Ambassador Choe 
Jin Su in a meeting at the Foreign Ministry in Beijing last week, Kyodo 
said, quoting unnamed diplomatic officials. On Wednesday, Chinese 
Premier Wen Jiabao said Beijing was paying close attention to North 
Korea's reported move to test-fire a ballistic missile. He urged North 
Korea to avoid any actions that would aggravate regional tensions and 
further derail long-stalled negotiations on its nuclear programs.

As North Korea's closest ally and a critical provider of fuel and other 
economic assistance, China carries unusual weight in diplomacy to engage 
the isolated country's government. The Chinese Foreign Ministry would 
not immediately comment on Wu's reported warning to the North Korean 
ambassador.
According to intelligence reports, a Taepodong-2, capable of reaching 
parts of the US, was being fueled at a launch pad on North Korea's 
northeastern coast.
North Korea has test-fired short-range missiles in recent years, but has 
abided by a moratorium since its 1999 agreement with the United States.
North Korea shocked the region in 1998 when part of a Taepodong-1 
missile flew over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean.
*************************************************

3. DPR KOREAN MISSILE UNLIKELY TO BE FIRED
by Julian Borger, The Guardian, 28 June 2006

Reports that North Korea has fuelled a long-range missile and was 
preparing to carry out its first test in eight years were called into 
question yesterday after more than a week went by without a launch. An 
initial report on June 18 quoted US officials as saying that the 
Taepodong-2 missile, capable of reaching the US, had completed fuelling 
and "all systems are go". The US, Japan, South Korea, and Australia 
warned North Korea it would face deeper isolation if it went ahead. But 
if the missile had been fuelled when reported, it would almost certainly 
have been fired by now, experts said. The rocket fuel used in North 
Korea is highly corrosive.

"My understanding is that the fuel is too unstable. There is only a 
small number of days before they'd have to defuel it," said Michael 
Green, who was President George Bush's adviser on Asian affairs until 
December. "I understand that the fuel trucks moved up there, but we 
don't know if it was actually fuelled."

Mr. Green, now at Washington's Centre for Security and International 
Studies, said it was possible the apparent launch preparations could be 
a show for the satellite cameras above. The Institute for Science and 
International Security, an independent watchdog, estimated this week 
that North Korea has enough plutonium for between four and 13 nuclear 
warheads, but "there is little evidence to suggest that North Korea is 
capable of making a nuclear warhead light enough for the Taepodong-2 
missile". David Albright, the Isis director, said either a missile 
launch or a hoax could be designed to panic other countries into making 
concessions in talks about Pyongyang's nuclear programme.
*************************************************

OPINION

*************************************************

4. IF NECESSARY, STRIKE AND DESTROY
by Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry, Washington Post, 22 June 2006

North Korean technicians are reportedly in the final stages of fueling a 
long-range ballistic missile that some experts estimate can deliver a 
deadly payload to the United States. The last time North Korea tested 
such a missile, in 1998, it sent a shock wave around the world, but 
especially to the United States and Japan, both of which North Korea 
regards as archenemies. They recognized immediately that a missile of 
this type makes no sense as a weapon unless it is intended for delivery 
of a nuclear warhead.

A year later North Korea agreed to a moratorium on further launches, 
which it upheld -- until now. But there is a critical difference between 
now and 1998. Today North Korea openly boasts of its nuclear deterrent, 
has obtained six to eight bombs' worth of plutonium since 2003 and is 
plunging ahead to make more in its Yongbyon reactor. The six-party talks 
aimed at containing North Korea's weapons of mass destruction have 
collapsed.

Should the United States allow a country openly hostile to it and armed 
with nuclear weapons to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile 
capable of delivering nuclear weapons to US soil? We believe not. The 
Bush administration has unwisely ballyhooed the doctrine of 
"preemption," which all previous presidents have sustained as an option 
rather than a dogma. It has applied the doctrine to Iraq, where the 
intelligence pointed to a threat from weapons of mass destruction that 
was much smaller than the risk North Korea poses. (The actual threat 
from Saddam Hussein was, we now know, even smaller than believed at the 
time of the invasion.) But intervening before mortal threats to US 
security can develop is surely a prudent policy.

Therefore, if North Korea persists in its launch preparations, the 
United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and 
destroy the North Korean Taepodong missile before it can be launched. 
This could be accomplished, for example, by a cruise missile launched 
from a submarine carrying a high-explosive warhead. The blast would be 
similar to the one that killed terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 
Iraq. But the effect on the Taepodong would be devastating. The 
multi-story, thin-skinned missile filled with high-energy fuel is itself 
explosive -- the US airstrike would puncture the missile and probably 
cause it to explode. The carefully engineered test bed for North Korea's 
nascent nuclear missile force would be destroyed, and its attempt to 
retrogress to Cold War threats thwarted. There would be no damage to 
North Korea outside the immediate vicinity of the missile gantry.

The US military has announced that it has placed some of the new missile 
defense interceptors deployed in Alaska and California on alert. In 
theory, the antiballistic missile system might succeed in smashing into 
the Taepodong payload as it hurtled through space after the missile 
booster burned out. But waiting until North Korea's ICBM is launched to 
interdict it is risky. First, by the time the payload was intercepted, 
North Korean engineers would already have obtained much of the precious 
flight test data they are seeking, which they could use to make a whole 
arsenal of missiles, hiding and protecting them from more US strikes in 
the maze of tunnels they have dug throughout their mountainous country. 
Second, the US defensive interceptor could reach the target only if it 
was flying on a test trajectory that took it into the range of the US 
defense. Third, the US system is unproven against North Korean missiles 
and has had an uneven record in its flight tests. A failed attempt at 
interception could undermine whatever deterrent value our missile 
defense may have.

We should not conceal our determination to strike the Taepodong if North 
Korea refuses to drain the fuel out and take it back to the warehouse. 
When they learn of it, our South Korean allies will surely not support 
this ultimatum -- indeed they will vigorously oppose it. The United 
States should accordingly make clear to the North that the South will 
play no role in the attack, which can be carried out entirely with US 
forces and without use of South Korean territory. South Korea has worked 
hard to counter North Korea's 50-year menacing of its own country, 
through both military defense and negotiations, and the United States 
has stood with the South throughout. South Koreans should understand 
that US territory is now also being threatened, and we must respond. 
Japan is likely to welcome the action but will also not lend open 
support or assistance. China and Russia will be shocked that North 
Korea's recklessness and the failure of the six-party talks have brought 
things to such a pass, but they will not defend North Korea.

In addition to warning our allies and partners of our determination to 
take out the Taepodong before it can be launched, we should warn the 
North Koreans. There is nothing they could do with such warning to 
defend the bulky, vulnerable missile on its launch pad, but they could 
evacuate personnel who might otherwise be harmed. The United States 
should emphasize that the strike, if mounted, would not be an attack on 
the entire country, or even its military, but only on the missile that 
North Korea pledged not to launch -- one designed to carry nuclear 
weapons. We should sharply warn North Korea against further escalation.

North Korea could respond to US resolve by taking the drastic step of 
threatening all-out war on the Korean Peninsula. But it is unlikely to 
act on that threat. Why attack South Korea, which has been working to 
improve North-South relations (sometimes at odds with the United States) 
and which was openly opposing the US action? An invasion of South Korea 
would bring about the certain end of Kim Jong Il's regime within a few 
bloody weeks of war, as surely he knows. Though war is unlikely, it 
would be prudent for the United States to enhance deterrence by 
introducing US air and naval forces into the region at the same time it 
made its threat to strike the Taepodong. If North Korea opted for such a 
suicidal course, these extra forces would make its defeat swifter and 
less costly in lives -- American, South Korean and North Korean.

This is a hard measure for President Bush to take. It undoubtedly 
carries risk. But the risk of continuing inaction in the face of North 
Korea's race to threaten this country would be greater. Creative 
diplomacy might have avoided the need to choose between these two 
unattractive alternatives. Indeed, in earlier years the two of us were 
directly involved in negotiations with North Korea, coupled with 
military planning, to prevent just such an outcome. We believe diplomacy 
might have precluded the current situation. But diplomacy has failed, 
and we cannot sit by and let this deadly threat mature. A successful 
Taepodong launch, unopposed by the United States, its intended victim, 
would only embolden North Korea even further. The result would be more 
nuclear warheads atop more and more missiles.

Ashton B. Carter was assistant secretary of defense under President Bill 
Clinton and William J. Perry was secretary of defense. The writers, who 
conducted the North Korea policy review while in government, are now 
professors at Harvard and Stanford, respectively.
*************************************************

5. NO, DON'T BLOW IT UP; A SANER APPROACH TO A MISSILE TEST
by Charles L. "Jack" Pritchard, Washington Post, 23 June 2006

For 1,971 days the Bush administration ignored North Korea's missile 
program as unimportant and unthreatening to the security of the United 
States. Then it woke up. Unfortunately, the alarm clock was North 
Korea's preparation to test a long-range missile. By simply putting a 
Taepodong ICBM on the launch pad, North Korea has managed to turn truly 
smart people into foolish ones.

In the week or so since word spread that Pyongyang was erecting and then 
fueling a Taepodong, we have seen a spate of opinion pieces declaring 
the following: that North Korea is in violation of its own missile 
moratorium and the Sept. 19, 2005, Beijing Joint Statement; that the 
Chinese and South Koreans are at fault for coddling the enemy; and that 
South Korea is a runaway ally full of appeasers, and we should work 
around it.

But the most egregious suggestion comes from an American treasure whom I 
admire beyond words: William J. Perry, former defense secretary and 
special assistant for North Korea policy. Perry and co-author Ashton B. 
Carter advocate a preemptive military strike against North Korea's 
missile while it sits on the launch pad. While criticizing President 
Bush's preemption in Iraq, Perry justifies a strike against North Korea 
as a prudent policy before mortal threats to US security can develop. He 
argues that because we will forewarn North Korea that South Korea had 
nothing to do with it, Pyongyang is unlikely to attack the South. But 
just to be prudent, he says we should beef up our military forces in 
South Korea. That way, if war does break out, we will prevail swiftly 
with less cost in lives.

If you were Kim Jong Il and saw a buildup of American forces on the 
Korean Peninsula before an announced preemptive airstrike, would you be 
thinking that it would be only a limited strike and not the start of an 
effort to bring down your regime?

Before the Iraq invasion, we were concerned that Saddam Hussein would 
use human shields to prevent US airstrikes on critical facilities. The 
same holds true for North Korea. Under the Perry plan of prior 
notification, you can imagine that, rather than evacuating its engineers 
from the missile test site, Pyongyang might instead erect bleachers and 
bring in schoolchildren to watch the launch. Worse yet for US security 
is the prospect that Pyongyang might bide its time and retaliate by 
transferring weapons-grade plutonium to al-Qaeda, along with a map of 
New York City. So we should step back and take a breath, and give our 
chest-thumping, feel-good opinions a rest.

First, let's get the facts straight. On Aug. 31, 1998, North Korea 
test-fired a Taepodong I long-range missile over Japan without making 
the appropriate prior notifications. The United States did not then, in 
response to the missile launch, initiate a high-level dialogue (which 
would amount to rewarding North Korea for bad behavior under the current 
standard). The Clinton administration was already engaged with the North 
Koreans, confronting them over suspicions of a secret underground 
nuclear facility, which, if proven true, would have been in violation of 
the 1994 Agreed Framework.

The US negotiating team began a concentrated effort to walk back 
Pyongyang's missile program, and the result was the missile moratorium 
of September 1999. The moratorium specified that North Korea would not 
launch a long-range missile of any kind while talks about its missile 
program were going on between Washington and Pyongyang. North Korea 
subsequently extended the moratorium unilaterally in September 2002. In 
March 2005, Pyongyang announced that it would no longer observe the 
missile moratorium. Fifteen months later, we are caught like a deer in 
the headlights.

So what do we do now? Attack North Korea and cross our fingers in the 
hope it doesn't annihilate Seoul or pass weapons of mass destruction to 
al-Qaeda? Refuse to talk to the North Koreans? Take them to the UN 
Security Council and slap their wrists?

Make no mistake: A missile test is a step in the wrong direction, and 
the appropriate first response would be for the United States to 
reimpose the specific sanctions that were lifted in 2000 as a direct 
result of the missile moratorium.

But the missile test is not a violation of anything more than our pride, 
ripping a gaping hole in the false logic that talking with the North 
Koreans somehow rewards and empowers them. To the contrary, we should be 
opening avenues of dialogue with Pyongyang. The six-party process should 
remain the clearinghouse for action and the primary vehicle for talks 
with North Korea, but not the only vehicle. Direct talks have a role. 
Talks among subsets of the six parties are also valuable as long as the 
United States is a player and not simply sitting on the sidelines.

By not talking with North Korea we are failing to address missiles, 
human rights, illegal activities, conventional forces, weapons of mass 
destruction, terrorism and anything else that matters to the American 
people. Isn't it about time we actually tried to solve the problem 
rather than let it fester until we blow it up?

The writer resigned in August 2003 as special US envoy for negotiations 
with North Korea. The views presented here are his own.
*************************************************

6. PREEMPTION AND NORTH KOREA
by Michael O'Hanlon and Mike Mochizuki, Washington Times, 28 June 2006

As North Korea makes initial preparations for a possible launch of a 
three-stage missile that could in theory reach the United States, a 
fascinating debate has erupted in the United States over what to do 
about it. But what is most important now is not to focus on the 
specifics of this possible missile test. Rather, we need to use the 
current mini-crisis as a moment to reflect again on the broader danger 
we face in dealing with North Korea dating back at least three years -- 
and in another sense more than 50 years. Our North Korea policy is a 
mess, North Korea's actions are egregious and unacceptable, and we need 
to figure out a better approach before North Korea's nuclear status 
becomes formalized and effectively irreversible.

First, a word on the recent debate over the missile dilemma. Keeping 
with its longstanding preference to downplay North Korean misbehavior, 
the Bush administration has been fairly quiet about US options, only 
intimating that it could try to shoot down the missile if it passes near 
American territory and within range of the recently deployed national 
missile defense system based primarily in Alaska and California. But two 
top former Clinton administration defense officials, former Secretary of 
Defense William Perry and former Assistant Secretary Ash Carter, have 
recently suggested that the United States destroy the North Korean 
Taepdong 2 rocket on the launch pad if the DPRK regime took further 
steps to prepare it for launch.

This proposal is provocative and serious. Messrs. Perry and Carter 
provide several reasons why the strike could make sense. First, North 
Korea, clearly an outlaw state and probably the world's last Stalinist 
regime, would be violating a moratorium it declared in the late 1990s on 
missile testing, legitimating an American response in Messrs. Perry and 
Carter's eyes. Second, the test would clearly be a provocation -- 
perhaps designed to coerce the United States into direct bilateral 
negotiations -- and as such warrants no protection as the independent 
action of a sovereign state. Third, North Korea tends to sell weapons it 
is good at producing, meaning that this missile might be marketed after 
a successful test. Fourth, and most importantly of all, North Korea has 
blatantly disregarded its obligations not to pursue nuclear weapons. It 
has in the last three years probably quadrupled its nuclear inventory to 
about eight weapons, violating various treaties and other commitments in 
the process. In this light, any improvement in North Korea's missile 
force brings the DPRK one step closer to being able to credibly threaten 
the United States with a nuclear attack (even if North Korea might have 
other ways to deliver nuclear weapons against the United States or its 
regional friends).

As powerful as the Carter/Perry idea appears, we do not support it at 
this time. There are two main reasons. First, though a North Korean 
missile test would be dangerous, it is not as serious as the DPRK's 
nuclear shenanigans of recent years -- and would not pose as direct or 
urgent a threat to the United States. Thus it does not clearly meet the 
necessary threshold for preemptive action.

Second, it would occur in the context of an inattentive, confused, and 
unpopular US North Korea policy. Only Japan, among major regional 
players, has been supportive of the Bush administration's basic North 
Korea policy, which has been a muddled combination of the ideas of those 
seeking regime change in the North and those seeking to give talks a 
real try. (This debate has been unfortunate; while it is true that 
regime change would be the best option for North Korea, it is 
unattainable through any policy levers within credible reach of 
Washington, and it is regrettable that the Bush administration has not 
clearly recognized as much.) In this context, striking North Korea 
preemptively would probably isolate the United States more than 
Pyongyang. It could throw the US-ROK alliance into serious jeopardy. It 
would complicate, not ease, our ability to make progress on the real 
threat, which is the North's nuclear weapons program.

Our North Korea policy should not be consumed by debates over whether 
the latest North Korean offense should lead us to cut off talks for a 
few more months, or meet only in one setting rather than another, or 
offer somewhat soothing words to Pyongyang rather than combative ones. 
Unfortunately, the Bush administration has often been transfixed by such 
procedural questions.

Instead, the administration should build its North Korea policy around 
the notion that we need to present Pyongyang with a choice -- improve 
its behavior, reform its country, and engage with the world, or retreat 
further into isolation and lose many of the benefits it enjoys now 
(especially from South Korea and China, to the tune of more than $2 
billion a year in aid and trade). We should focus on substance, not 
process; on core values, not tactical judgments.

To make this policy workable, we need to make it appealing in Beijing 
and Seoul. That means offering enough positive inducements, should North 
Korea be willing to try the path of reform that Vietnam and China itself 
have taken in the last 30 years, to show that we are willing to work 
with the regime under the right circumstances. Only if a sincere effort 
at engagement fails will China and South Korea consider the sorts of 
economic coercion needed to make Kim Jong Il and his cronies in 
Pyongyang feel real pain from their actions.

And on the subject of preemption, while the missile launch does not 
itself constitute a sufficient threat to warrant preemption, other 
dangers lurk that could do so. Specifically, North Korea may complete 
two large nuclear reactors that were put in mothballs as part of the 
1994 Agreed Framework that is no longer operative between Washington and 
Pyongyang. Those reactors could produce enough plutonium for several 
dozen nuclear warheads a year. They must not be allowed to operate. 
Preemption would make good sense against them. But despite the 
seriousness of that threat, gaining international support to carry out 
an attack against those reactors would require laying the groundwork of 
serious negotiation first. If we are to have that option against North 
Korea someday, we need our friends and partners aboard in advance, so 
Pyongyang realizes we really would conduct such a strike -- and thus 
hopefully be deterred from completing the reactors in the first place.

The missile test debate, despite its importance, does not really compare 
with the significance of what North Korea has done in the last three 
years in expanding its nuclear arsenal. Even more to the point, it is 
just a warm-up for the real problem we could be facing in a few short 
years if North Korea policy continues to fail. We should use this 
opportunity to refocus on what may be, despite all the attention placed 
on Iraq and Iran, the most significant nuclear crisis of our time.

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Mike 
Mochizuki are authors of "Crisis on the Korean Peninsula: Dealing with a 
Nuclear North Korea."
*************************************************

7. THE EVIL HERMIT AND HIS ROCKETS
by Gwynne Dyer, Embassy, 21 June 2006

When I was a little boy, and I knew that I was being watched, I would 
sometimes put on a show for the hidden audience -- generally by acting 
in ways that I thought were tough and dangerous -- without ever letting 
on that I knew the observers were there. And that's exactly the 
relationship that the North Korean regime has with the US satellite 
cameras that are almost constantly overhead.

This time, it's a rocket: a great big two-stage Taepodong 2 rocket that 
has been erected on its launch pad at the Musudan-ri base in 
north-eastern North Korea. Pyongyang has not said anything officially 
about ending the moratorium on rocket launches that it voluntarily 
imposed on itself in 1999, shortly after test-firing a shorter-range 
missile across Japan into the Pacific, but it appears to be fuelling the 
rocket.

The American spy satellites picked up all the activity, of course, and 
now the US government is having an entirely predictable fit. Test-firing 
this new, longer-range missile "would once again show North Korea 
determined to deepen its isolation, determined not to take a path that 
is the path of compromise and a path of peace, but rather instead to 
once again saber-rattle," warned US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. 
"It would be a very serious matter indeed."

That is presumably what Kim Jong-il's regime wanted her to say, since 
the whole point of the exercise is to stir up anxiety among North 
Korea's neighbours and more distant adversaries and force them back to 
the bargaining table. Pyongyang needs a deal that brings in foreign 
food, fuel and cash if the regime is to survive, and the only thing it 
has to trade is a promise to stop looking so dangerous. Which means that 
until it gets the deal, it must go on looking dangerous.

The "six-party talks" (North Korea, South Korea, China, Russia, Japan 
and the United States) is where the deal would be made, and those talks 
only came into existence because of panic about North Korea's alleged 
nuclear weapons. ("Alleged", because although Pyongyang officially 
claims to have nukes, it might well be bluffing.) But the talks have 
been stalled for the past six months because the United States has 
imposed financial sanctions against the North Korean government in 
retaliation for its counterfeiting of US dollars.

Governments rarely admit their crimes and apologise; North Korea never 
does. So how can Pyongyang force everybody back to the six-party table 
without admitting wrong-doing, and get some aid and security guarantees 
out of them? By looking dangerous again, of course. But an actual 
nuclear weapons test might provoke extreme reactions (and besides, there 
may be no reliable nuclear weapons). Whereas another rocket test, this 
time with a longer-range missile, conveys just the right amount of menace.

That, at any rate, is the logic within the North Korean regime, which is 
not best known for the subtlety of its negotiating tactics. So why does 
the United States keep falling for it?

Partly because North Korea's rockets are a quite useful threat. They are 
useful to a Japanese government that is determined to commit Japan to 
much closer military cooperation with the United States, but must 
persuade a reluctant population to stop fretting about the "peace 
constitution" of 1947. They are also useful to the United States, 
because they are a much more tactful justification for the 
administration's beloved ballistic missile defence programme than the 
Chinese rockets that the BMD is actually meant to intercept.

And above all, North Korea's rockets are not really very threatening. 
North Korea may or may not have a few nuclear weapons, and it might be 
able to deliver them as far as Japan, but it has no functional 
capability to reach the United States, nor is it likely to develop one 
in the near future. (The best guess on the range of the still untested 
Taepodong 2 is that it might be able to reach Alaska.) If Pyongyang ever 
did attempt to fire a nuclear weapon at South Korea or Japan, it would 
be reduced to radioactive cinders by the US retaliation within hours.

When North Korea originally set out down the road towards nuclear 
weapons and long-range rockets at least a decade ago, it was undoubtedly 
seeking the ability to deter an attack against it by much more powerful 
potential enemies: South Korea, Japan or the United States.

It has now more or less achieved that deterrence, and apart from some 
questions about the credibility of its nuclear weapons claims, that 
should be the end of the story. Maybe it could be bribed to give them up 
and come back under the jurisdiction of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, 
although that would take a lot of foreign aid and some very firm 
security guarantees. But in the meantime, the North Korean "threat" 
serves a number of different agendas, so we can expect to hear more 
about this huge and terrifying rocket.
*************************************************

QUIDNUNC
In this section of CanKor, we invite readers to send questions, answers, 
or responses. Answers should be under 150 words and may be edited for 
space.

*************************************************
WHEN AND WHY DID THE DPRK CARVE TWO NEW REMOTE NORTHERN BORDER 
PROVINCES, JAGANG AND RYANGGANG, OUT OF THE CENTURIES-OLD PYONGAN AND 
HAMGYONG PROVINCES?
*************************************************

The question is not a difficult one: Briefly here it is:

Traditionally Korea had 8 provinces. Five provinces (P'yongan, Hamgyong, 
Ch'ungch'ong, Kyongsang, and Cholla) were administratively split into 
north and south provinces, such as P'yongan-pukto and P'yongan-namdo, 
Cholla-pukto and Cholla-namdo, etc. Three provinces remained as they 
were (Kangwondo, Kyonggido, and Hwanghaedo). Therefore, Korea had 13 
provinces at the end of WWII when it was liberated.

When the peninsula was divided arbitrarily into North and South at the 
38th parallel in 1945, North Korea had 6 provinces, or more (P'yongan 
pukto, P'yongan namdo, Hamgyong pukto, Hamgyong namdo, and parts of 
Kangwondo and Hwanghaedo) and South Korea had 7 provinces, more or less 
(Kyongsang-namdo, Kyongsang-pukto, Cholla-namdo, Cholla-pukto, 
Ch'ungch'ong-namdo, Ch'ungch'ong-namdo, Ch'ungch'ong pukto, and almost 
all of Kyonggi-do). These administrative units remained the same at the 
time of the establishment of two governments (DPRK and ROK) in divided 
Korea, but they were geographical unequal politically less manageable.

After the Socialist government was established in North Korea, 
P'yongan-pukto was divided into two manageable administrative provinces: 
P'yongan-pukto and Chagangdo by the decree of the Supreme People's 
Assembly on January 31. 1949. This redistricting measure had more an 
administrative rather than political significance, because 
P'yongan-pukto was an unusually large province.

Yanggang-do is little different. It is created by the decree of the 
Supreme People's Assembly after the Korean War on October 30, 1954, 
splitting the Hamgyong namdo. Provincial capital is in Hyesanjin, where 
Kim Il Sung came to liberate the town briefly after the Poch'onbo battle 
in 1937. However, Hamgyong-namdo was also unusually large province 
compared with others. North Korea further divided Kangwondo and 
Hwanghaedo into North and South (Kangwon-pukto and Kangwon-namdo; 
Hwanghae-pukto and Hwanghae-namdo) on October 30, 1954. These measures 
seem like the change in administrative units of governance and do not 
seem to have any political implications.

Dr. Dae-Sook Suh, College of Social Science, Hawai’i
*************************************************

WHAT NOW?

Why do some North Korean elites change their names?
- albeit only slightly. For example:

* Foreign minister Paek Nam Sun was at one time known
as Paek Nam Jun.

* Kwon Ho Ung, senior cabinet councilor and chief delegate
to the inter-Korean ministerial talks, was first known as Kwon Min.

* Jon Kum Jin, Kwon's predecessor, formerly went by
the name of Jon Kum-chol.

All the above come from KBS's very useful DPRK Who's Who, at:
http://world.kbs.co.kr/english/event/nkorea_nuclear/general_05.htm
(nb! this is in Korean alphabetical order, rather than Western.)

I can add another:
* Ri Jong Hyok, vice chairman of the Asia-Pacific Peace Committee
- in effect, in charge of relations with South Korea - was definitely
Ri Dong Hyok when I knew him in the 1980s in Paris, where he headed
North Korea's quasi-embassy and Unesco delegation.

What is the point of this? The change is so small, that it hardly counts
as a proper disguise - unlike Kim Song Ju, known to history by his nom de
guerre Kim Il Sung; or his grandson Kim Jong-chol, who reportedly
is attached to that same Paris office under the alias Kim Chol-song
- when not skiving off to Eric Clapton gigs in Germany; see
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200606/kt2006061617473010510.htm

Aidan Foster-Carter, Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & 
Modern Korea, Leeds University (UK).
[Answers should be e-mailed to: editor at CanKor.ca]

QUESTIONS STILL PENDING:

If the 6-Party talks were successful and the DPRK gave up its nuclear 
programme, and if the USA negotiated a peace treaty, would we not be 
stuck with supporting and thereby strengthening a regime that severely 
violates human rights?

When and where did the last round of bilateral missile negotiations 
occur between the USA and the DPRK and what were the results?
*************************************************

End CanKor # 254

*************************************************
CanKor is an electronic information service for readers interested in 
the issues of peace and security on the Korean peninsula, published by 
Weingartner Consulting. Views expressed on the CanKor website or weekly 
digest are those of the respective authors, and do not necessarily 
reflect the official policies or positions of CanKor or Weingartner 
Consulting. CanKor accepts no liability for inaccuracies, errors or 
omissions. Copyright of all items listed or reprinted rests with the 
original publishers. CanKor provides links to originals when available. 
To subscribe or unsubscribe, and for all other communication, please 
address the CanKor editorial team by e-mail at editor at CanKor.ca. Editor: 
Erich Weingartner; Managing Editor: Miranda Weingartner. We would like 
to thank Kaizen Denki incorporated for hosting www.cankor.ca. For 
information about this company, visit www.kaizendenki.com.
*************************************************