Now is the time to engage N Korea
Kim Jong-un’s recent cyber shenanigans only add to the list of reasons for the US to isolate the North Korean regime: its growing nuclear arsenal, its increasingly sophisticated ballistic missiles, its appalling brutalisation of its people. Yet these are also precisely the reasons the US should seek to engage Pyongyang.
Although some in Congress are convinced that more powerful sanctions will eventually spark a revolt against Mr Kim, a years-long effort to cut off the North Korean regime has not produced any viable opposition. At this point, spurred by tentative market reforms, the country’s economy appears to be growing modestly. And though China is clearly tiring of Mr Kim, it is not about to abandon its longtime proxy; China remains keen to prevent a collapse in the North that would result in a reunified, US-allied Korea. (Beijing was careful to play down the recent killing of four Chinese citizens by a rogue North Korean soldier.)
If anything, the boy-dictator who came to power three years ago has grown more powerful — especially since the public purge and execution of his uncle Jang Son-thaek. In his New Year’s Day message, Mr Kim was confident enough to suggest detente with South Korea and a summit with President Park Geun-hye.
Much of this rhetoric isn’t new, and the US was right to reject Pyongyang’s spurious offer to suspend nuclear testing in return for calling off joint US-South Korea military exercises. Nevertheless, Mr Kim, who has sought to take credit for improving standards of living among the North’s tiny but growing middle class, is beginning to look outward. Eager for investment from some source other than China, he has more reason to make a deal now than at any point in his leadership. Neighbours have noticed. Ms Park has said she is open to eventually sitting down with Mr Kim “without preconditions”.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has also held out the prospect of a summit, if Pyongyang properly accounts for and repatriates Japanese citizens abducted by its spies in past decades. In May, Russia’s Vladimir Putin is set to play host to Mr Kim at World War II anniversary celebrations in Moscow — Mr Kim’s first overseas trip while in office. With its refusal even to talk until North Korea agrees to denuclearise, the US risks falling out of step with its erstwhile partners in the Six-Party Talks.
The chances are nil that Mr Kim will negotiate away the very weapon that gives North Korea leverage against the US (Don’t think leaders in Pyongyang didn’t notice what happened to Moammar Gaddafi of Libya after he signed away his nukes.) A smarter long-term strategy for the US would focus on changing the nature and calculus of the regime, to the point where it no longer finds a nuclear arsenal essential to its survival.
The US can begin by supporting Ms Park’s and Mr Abe’s efforts to reach out. Behind the scenes, Washington should dangle the carrot of at least low-level diplomatic relations, as it has recently with Cuba. A mission in Pyongyang should be viewed not as a reward for bad behaviour, but as a window into North Korea that US officials have never had.
US spy chief James Clapper and other recent visitors to Pyongyang have described legitimate divisions within the regime: between older and younger officials, and between hardliners and those who might be described as economic technocrats. No one imagines that the more open-minded elements are about to usher in democracy. But continued isolation only starves them of oxygen and generally encourages a paranoid mind-set.
In time, the goal should be to encourage internal efforts to integrate the North Korean economy into the region’s. The steadily expanding aspirations of Mr Kim’s own people will ultimately be the greatest threat to his rule.
The US can begin by supporting Ms Park’s and Mr Abe’s efforts to reach out.