The Korean nuclear issue: Past, present, and future – A Chinese perspective

THE US-DPRK AGREED FRAMEWORK AND THE FIRST KOREAN NUCLEAR CRISIS

The year 2003 was a watershed for China’s role in helping address the Korean nuclear issue. Prior to that, the issue was addressed exclusively by the US and the DPRK through bilateral negotiations resulting in the Agreed Framework Between the United States of America and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (hereafter, the US-DPRK Agreed Framework). After 2003, however, an international multilateral settlement mechanism was formed, with China as the main mediator.

My narrative starts from the visit of US Secretary of State Colin Powell to China in February 2003. I was present at his meetings as a member of the Chinese receiving team in my capacity at that time as the director-general of the Asian Affairs Department of the Foreign Ministry of China. His visit came at a time of two significant world events. First, on Jan. 10, 2003, North Korea announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), resulting in the second Korean nuclear crisis. Second, tensions were rising in the Gulf region and US military action against Iraq was imminent. Then US President George W. Bush sent Secretary Powell to China to ask for help on the Korean nuclear issue in order to avoid confronting pressures in the Middle East and East Asia at the same time. Hu Jintao, the Vice President of China at the time, met with Secretary Powell and his delegation, who made it quite clear that the US wanted China to mediate on the Korean nuclear issue. Specifically, Powell said that the US could no longer trust North Korea, but it could adopt a multilateral approach to seek solutions and suggested that China invite delegates of the US and North Korea to Beijing for talks.

Secretary Powell’s visit to China followed the second Korean nuclear crisis, which was largely due to the fact that the US-DPRK Agreed Framework had not been honored by either side and that the relationship between the US and the DPRK had broken down. When Secretary Powell arrived in Beijing, the Agreed Framework was about to fail to meet its target date of 2003, by which point the US should have replaced the DPRK’s graphite moderated nuclear reactor and related equipment with two 1,000-megawatt light water reactor power plants. North Korea also appeared to fall short of completing all of its commitments in the agreement. And this was happening against the backdrop of over half a century of ups and downs in the Korean Peninsula and the entangled relationship of the parties concerned. But one thing was clear: as reflected in the name of the US-DPRK Agreed Framework, the US and North Korea were the two protagonists in this phase of history.

To understand the Korean nuclear issue, one needs to trace back to the settlement of the Korean War — a war which in a legal sense has not yet ended.

On July 27, 1953, the Korean Armistice Agreement and the Interim Supplementary Agreement of the Armistice Agreement were signed in Panmunjom between, on one side, the supreme commander of North Korea’s Korean People’s Army and the commander of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army and, on the other side, the commander-in-chief of the United Nations Command.

But these were only armistice agreements, not peace treaties, leaving all sides in a state of truce, which is one of the root causes of prolonged instability on the Korean Peninsula.

After the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement, the Korean Peninsula remained divided along the 38th parallel north between the ROK in the south and the DPRK in the north. Supporting the South were the Western powers headed by the US, while the socialist camp led by the former USSR supported the North. The Korean Peninsula became a front of the Cold War, at which the US and the USSR battled for hegemony. Nonetheless, the Peninsula was relatively calm over a period of time as the two superpowers were in relative equilibrium.

However, generally speaking, the military presence on the Peninsula after the war was stronger in the South, as the US preserved its army garrison in South Korea and, starting in 1957, deployed an array of offensive weaponry, including tactical nuclear weapons. In the early 1990s, with the implementation of the US-USSR Nuclear Disarmament Initiative, the US withdrew all of its nuclear weapons from the peninsula, with its Pacific Headquarters undertaking nuclear protection of South Korea.

In the early period of the Cold War, North Korea believed that it was under tremendous threat and chose to rely on the USSR for security, economic and energy guarantees and assistance. It also received assistance from the USSR in conducting limited nuclear research. In 1959, North Korea, with the help of the USSR, established the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center for the peaceful use of nuclear energy. In 1965, North Korea had its first two-megawatt small light water reactor, after which the Soviet experts returned home. It may be worth noting that the USSR did not appear to have the intention to help North Korea develop nuclear weapons. While passing on nuclear physics technology, it did not provide uranium enrichment or plutonium production technology.

From the beginning of the 1980s, North Korea started to construct a five-megawatt natural uranium graphite gas-cooled reactor, which would be able to produce six kilograms (13 pounds) of weapons-grade plutonium each year after its completion. From this point, the US started to pay attention to the growth of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. In 1985, the US pressured the USSR to force North Korea to accede to the NPT. In ex- change, the USSR signed an economic, scientific and technological agreement with North Korea and pledged to provide it with new light water reactors. However, the USSR failed to live up to its obligations in this agreement, and North Korea never performed its duty to accept inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in accordance with NPT requirements.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the decline and disintegration of the USSR and the end of the Cold War broke the balance on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea, having lost its main backer, felt extremely insecure and the whole country fell into a “systematic predicament.” Without assistance and support from the USSR, the DPRK’s industrial and agricultural production plummeted. In contrast, the economy of South Korea soared in the 1970s, and continued to maintain high growth over quite a number of years.

On Sept. 17, 1991, the UN General Assembly unanimously agreed to accept both North Korea and South Korea as members of the UN. In 1991, when the DPRK-Soviet Union Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance expired, Russia, the successor state of the USSR, did not declare an automatic renewal of the treaty (and in 1994 annulled the agreement). Soon after, North Korean President Kim Ilsung visited China and discussed with Chinese leaders the disintegration of the USSR and its consequences.

Deng Xiaoping, in his meeting with Kim on Oct. 5, 1991, commented on the current situation and stated that China needed to “mainly observe, hide light and cope with the situation with composure” when dealing with international issues. “To keep a low profile” became an internal guideline for China’s diplomatic behavior. China had broken away from the Soviet Bloc long ago and did not see the end of the Cold War as an event that placed China in a leading position within the so-called socialist camp.

China and South Korea established diplomatic relations in August 1992, but well before then, the two countries’ exchanges and relations had already grown full-fledged. North Korea was unhappy and disappointed at this development and felt ever more isolated. It halted most high-level exchanges with China until 1999, when Kim Yong-nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, visited China.