Six Party Talks – One Year On

When the September 19 Joint Declaration in Beijing was adopted at the Six Party Talks a year ago, many people were swept by euphoria. The prevailing mood was that the Declaration marked a major step forward in resolving tension in the Korean Peninsula.

The mood in the progressive camp was no different. Many leaders in the left nationalist movement appraised the September 19 Declaration as “the defeat of the US policy of antagonizing the North” and a victory for North Korean diplomacy. Gone were the predictions about an impending war in the peninsula; instead an optimistic outlook for “the establishment of a framework for peace in the peninsula” gained currency.

Looking back a year later, it isn’t difficult to see how shortsighted such forecasts really were. Tension in the peninsula is far from resolved – in fact, it has hardly even relaxed. Following the North Korean missile tests, there are now rumors of an underground nuclear test in preparation.

Responsibility for the current state of affairs should be laid squarely at the feet of the US. The Bush administration almost literally trashed the Declaration before the ink even dried.

The US, having agreed in the Declaration to “discuss the issue of providing DPRK with a light-water reactor at an appropriate time”, declared at the end of that very same conference that it will dismantle the KEDO (Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization: the international consortium commissioned for the building of the planed light-water reactor). Even after the Declaration, US sanctions against North Korea continued to be imposed indiscriminately against all financial transactions, legal and illegal.

However, simply blaming Washington for the betrayal of post-September 19 hopes is not enough. We also need to consider whether an agreement by the “six parties” itself would be a feasible solution for establishing peace in Northeast Asia.

Those who support the Six Party Talks as a way forward invariably call for the resumption of the talks, implementation of the Declaration, and for the South Korean government to assume the leading role. But even if the six parties meet again and adopt another declaration, would the US act on it? Was it really so difficult in the first place to foresee Washington’s refusal to honor its commitments?

Baffled expectations

Professor Lee Yung-Hee, the prominent progressive commentator who has witnessed over half a century of turmoil in Korean history, said in a lecture immediately after the September 19 Declaration that not once had he seen the US honor a treaty. He warned that Washington could ignore the September 19 Declaration as well, even if for the time being “the warmongers in America had to settle the Northeast Asian issue in the way it was determined at the Beijing talks” because of the “Vietnamization of Iraq”.

“We need to keep in mind Washington’s record of honoring treaties when we make judgments on the future of Northeast Asia and the Korean peninsula.
“[We ought not] base our judgment on a piece of paper that is the Beijing Agreement.”

Professor Lee added that “while the media and academia tend to portray the joint Declaration as a huge step forward, I am rather worried”, for he still saw “an ever-present threat of war between China and the US-Japan military alliance jostling for hegemony in Northeast Asia.”

To a certain degree, Professor Lee’s clairvoyance stems from his understanding of Korean geopolitics in a wider, international context. Indeed, it is virtually impossible to understand the “North Korean question” without first understanding the post-cold war reshuffling of power in the Far East and Washington’s response to it.

The US wanted to maintain its hegemony over Northeast Asia even after the end of the cold war; North Korea offered an excuse for continued US presence in the region. Today, Washington’s strategy in the region is basically to co-opt India and to pit Japan against China. This strategy is the source of the ongoing instability in the region.

Once we understand such relations of forces, we can see what nonsense it is for the very agents of instability to come together and forge a peace deal. Of course it is better to engage in dialogue than to see tensions going up, but we shouldn’t expect genuine solutions to come out of such talks.

In recent years the mood within the Korean progressive camp has been alternating, in periods of several months, between dread of another Korean war and high hopes for the Six Party Talks. But the Bush administration itself is neither willing to take military action against, nor to negotiate with Pyongyang. This is because the administration is too preoccupied with the Middle East to be able to deal with North Korea.

If we can grasp the worldwide context in which Washington’s strategy is being played out – and how it is facing a terrible crisis – we need not get carried away either by irrational fear or unfounded optimism. Instead we should be able to take dead aim at the Achilles’ Heel of the US’ strategy: burying Bush’s war project in the sands of Iraq.

This article appeared in Counterfire No. 12 issued on September 16.