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Thursday, April 1, 2010     GET REAL

Top North Korean defector has only scorn for U.S. reliance on China

By Donald Kirk

WASHINGTON — The highest-level North Korean to defect from the regime in Pyongyang responds with impatience bordering on anger when asked what he thinks Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il will tell the Chinese or what the Chinese will tell him during Kim's next journey to Beijing.   

"We do not need to care anything about his trip," said Hwang Jang-Yop, once a secretary of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, of which Kim Jong-Il is general secretary. "I do not care a bit about what they will say."

Hwang's remark, in an appearance on Wednesday at an influential think-tank in Washington, indicated his disgust with what he called "a lot of hoopla" surrounding efforts to get North Korea to return to six-party talks on its nuclear weapons program. Kim is expected to go to Beijing in the near future, according to reports in the United States and in Seoul, but Hwang said "I turn the page in the newspaper" whenever he sees an article speculating about the trip.


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Hwang heaped scorn on talk about "the need to engage Kim Jong-Il" — that is, to draw him into dialogue. "That is not the way to conduct the cold war," he said. "It is not Kim Jong-Il who should be targeted. We need to focus on human rights. We need to alert the people, to enable the people to have a voice. Once we can have ideological warfare, we have a real solution."

Hwang, who defected to the South Korean embassy in Beijing in 1997 and has lived ever since in Seoul, believes China has a central role to play in bringing North Korea to terms, but he plainly views six-party talks, last held in Beijing in December 2008, as a waste of time.

How, he asked, can China serve as host while closely allied with the North? "As long as China is in alliance with North Korea," he said, "it is fantasy if you think it is possible" for China to deal effectively with Kim Jong-Il. "How can an ally be a moderator," he asked rhetorically. "China is bound to side with North Korea."

By the same token, he asked, "do you think it's possible for the United States to serve as a moderator" while it is "allied with the Republic of Korea?"

Hwang, 87, elaborated on his views on the prospects for peace and reconciliation on the Korean peninsula in an extraordinary visit to Washington in which he has been talking to a wide range of contacts in and out of the government. South Korean authorities have in the past discouraged him from going abroad for fear his outspoken attacks on the North Korean regime would undermine attempts at North-South reconciliation.

Hwang spoke at a critical juncture in which U.S. and South Korean officials are worried about a possible North Korean role in the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, in which 46 South Korean sailors were trapped, in disputed waters near North Korea's southwest coast.

As pressure mounted to find out the cause of the explosion that sunk the corvette Cheonan during routine patrol duty, U.S. President Barack Obama in a phone conversation with South Korea's President Lee Myung-Bak offered condolences — and assured him of "extended nuclear deterrence".

The conversation indicated mounting concerns over North Korea's refusal to negotiate. A State Department spokesman urged the Chinese to talk to Kim Jong-Il about six-party talks "if he does in fact go there", but the tone was distinctly pro forma. James Steinberg, deputy secretary of state, said the U.S. would not consider removing sanctions against North Korea "unless there's a real willingness".

The fact that Hwang is in the U.S. and will be going to Japan in the next few days underlines the relatively tough outlook of the conservative government of President Lee after a decade of efforts at reconciliation by his predecessors. Kim Dae-Jung, president from 1998 to 2003, initiated the "Sunshine" policy and flew to Pyongyang to meet Kim Jong-Il for the first inter-Korean summit in June 2000, and his successor, Roh Moo-hyun, met the North Korean leader for the second inter-Korean summit in October 1997. Both Kim Dae-Jung and Roh Moo-Hyun died last year.

While deriding six-party talks, Hwang clearly believes China remains crucial to bringing meaningful pressure on North Korea. "To priority should be given to China," he said, calling China "the lifeline" of the North Korean regime. "If China decides to sever relations with North Korea, it will be a death penalty for the regime. It will collapse right away."

Experts are increasingly dubious about the chances that six-party talks, if they resume, will accomplish much. The six-party process broke down last year when North Korea refused to follow through on deals reached in 2007 under which it was to give up its entire nuclear weapons program on a carefully negotiated timetable.

Victor Cha, who served as director for Asia in the national security council during the presidency of George W Bush, evinced skepticism about the talks after moderating Hwang's discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. China, he said, might entice Kim Jong-Il to return to talks by the promise of an enormous aid package. Critics have noted, however, that any significant aid for North Korea would undermine sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council after North Korea's second underground nuclear test on May 25 last year.

Michael Green, who also served as director for Asia in the Bush White House, said he believed the six-party talks had lost much of their meaning and that the talks were not likely to produce significant results even if they resumed.

But what role then could China play that might actually bring about a shift in North Korea? Hwang's answer was strengthening ties among all the countries with the most influence over the North — the United States, Japan and South Korea.

"To address the North Korean conundrum, the first priority should be separating China from North Korea," said Hwang, whose words in Korean were translated simultaneously for a tightly limited audience. "One means to achieve that goal would be a free trade agreement between China and [South] Korea." Such an agreement, he said, would be a step toward working with China as "a strategic partner".

By a similar token, Hwang emphasized the need for the U.S. to finally enter the free trade agreement that was negotiated with South Korea during the George W Bush administration — a deal that still awaits approval by the U.S. Congress. "If the United States were to enter into the free trade agreement with South Korea, North Korea would realize South Korea was more closely allied with the U.S.," he said.

Hwang criticized the U.S. for placing excessive emphasis on the nuclear issue. "The sole focus of the United States is the nuclear program. They don't mention changing the nature of the regime at all."

Rather, he suggested that all the countries with a stake in North Korea's future should see the struggle as strictly ideological. "We need to take a lesson from the Cold War," he said. "We had a great victory over the Soviet Union without firing a single rifle. We can prevail without resorting to military might."

Kim Jong-Il "will start to lose ground if there is much momentum for reform," Hwang said. He saw the North's nuclear program as likely to end only after the regime fails. "Look at their nuclear warheads," he said. "If they are in the hands of a maniac, we have a problem, but if they are in the hands of reasonable people, we can have a solution."

Hwang doubted, however, if Kim Jong-Il's third son, Kim Jong-Un, assumed to have been selected as his heir, would be the answer. "What's the point of discussing him," he asked. "He will be no better than him — if not worse"



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