 From right to left: Jonathan Pollack, Sheila Smith, Katherine Moon, and Richard Bush. Image: Jonathan Corrado |
East Asian policy experts sparred over the
changing nature of the regional security environment at an event titled, North
Korea’s Fourth Nuclear Test: How will Pyongyang’s neighbors and the U.S.
respond? At The Brookings Institution on February 3, panelists agreed that East
Asia’s major powers need to find a way to escape the ‘Groundhog Day Trap’ – the
pattern of weak responses that enables Pyongyang’s provocations – but disagreed
over what constitutes a viable countermeasure. The main messages of the day? “Punishment doesn’t work for a gangster like Kim Jong Un,” and, “Getting China
to pressure their ally remains an extremely tough sell.”
Among the more colorful suggestions from
the panel were Katherine Moon’s ideas to “kick North Korea out of the U.N.” or
“host Four Party Talks” if China doesn’t want to play ball.
Katherine Moon is SK-Korea Foundation Chair
in Korea Studies at the Brookings Institution and Professor of political
science at Wellesley College. She suggested that South Korea’s current strategy
of “Trustpolitik” is bound to struggle due to the political naiveté of Kim Jong
Un, who lacks his father’s understanding that nuclear weapons are a strategic
tool to use in international negotiations. Moon said that South Korean
President Park Geun Hye’s shift from Trustpolitik to a firm response undermines
the whole point of the approach, noting, “You either have Trustpolitik or you don’t!”
Moon insisted that South Korea needs to
evolve their strategy by asking, “What do we want? How can we map the stages of
helping North Korea to make these changes?” She recommended restarting civilian
exchanges between the Koreas, such as conferences related to peace, women’s
rights, and other civil issues. She believes that the time might finally be
right for the National Assembly to pass the North Korean Human Rights Act,
which has been held up by partisan disputes. She expects South Korean interest
in the THAAD missile defense system to increase in the face of Chinese
opposition. Finally, she suggested using Russia to leverage China by entering
into Four Party Talks and sending the message, “If you don’t work with us,
we’ll do this without you.”
Attempts by Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo to
prod Beijing into taking a more active role have fallen on deaf ears. When
asked if the Chinese response to the North Korean problem is dependent upon
developments in the South China Sea, Director of Brookings’ East Asia Policy
Studies Richard Bush said that such thinking is an artifact of the Cold War. He
stressed the need for the major regional players to adapt and evolve. Katherine
Moon agreed, saying that Asia’s high degree of economic integration serves as a
deterrent to conflict that was absent during the Cold War. That doesn’t mean
cooperation will be easy by any stretch of the imagination. She stressed that,
“We need to consider goal, process, and effect” in the context of the schisms
between the regional approaches of the five major parties.
One of the main tools of the international
community are sanctions. The U.S. congress is set to vote on a fresh round of
sanctions this week that would target Chinese businesses with ties to North
Korea. As for Japan, token sanctions on ship visits, port calls, and monitoring
of remittances were relaxed in 2006 when Tokyo and Pyongyang entered into
dialogue dialogues over abductees and missing persons. However, Japan is now
willing to re-impose sanctions due to the fact that those talks have not been
fruitful. South Korea will likely continue the “bone-numbing” May 24th Measures
that seemed open for debate before the nuclear test. However, China remains the
giant question mark hovering above the sanctions discussion. The effectiveness
of sanctions is hinged to a large degree on China’s willingness to participate,
which the panelists agreed was a dim prospect for the near future.
Brookings Senior Fellow Jonathan Pollack
insisted that the fourth nuclear test did not result in any substantial policy
changes in Beijing. On the topic, Chinese President Xi Jinping did not talk to
any foreign leaders except for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Earlier,
Kerry singled China out by saying “All nations, particularly those who seek a global
leadership role, or have a global leadership role, have a responsibility to
deal with this threat.” Despite Kerry’s appeals, Beijing’s deepest concern
remains the stability of the peninsula, a position which causes them to
minimize risks rather than address crisis. Pollack indicated that while China
pines for a relationship with Pyongyang that isn’t tainted by profoundly
adversarial nationalism and will work to achieve that aim, many serious
thinkers in Beijing worry that the current situation is unsustainable.
Sheila Smith is Senior Fellow for Japan
Studies at the Council of Foreign Relations. She argued that further
demonstration that Pyongyang has mastered medium range ballistic missiles will
change Tokyo’s strategic posture dramatically, stressing the need for more
direct coordination with Seoul such as info-sharing. Relations between the two
democracies are strained by historical issues such as Comfort Women.
In sum, although some provocative ideas
were mentioned, the lack of consensus among the panelists on viable solutions
reflects the larger strategic context: crisscrossing incentives and objectives
resulting in poor coordination among the major powers.
