June 1st 2003
US keeps delegates guessing over its options for dealing with N. Korea, but hints that China should tighten noose
AMERICAN Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz would probably make an astute poker player, as he is adept at keeping his opponents guessing about which cards he holds.
Indeed, at the Asia Security Conference yesterday, he kept delegates guessing on what options Washington would use in dealing with Asia's most dangerous state - North Korea.
Since October, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il - an avid poker player himself - has shown a lot of his cards.
He has provoked Washington with the re-activation of mothballed nuclear facilities and the disclosure of a uranium-based nuclear programme.
But try as they might yesterday, the 200 or so delegates at the conference did not manage to extract an explicit answer from Mr Wolfowitz on Washing- ton's options for North Korea.
The former international relations don would only say that Washington was keen on working with its partners, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, to solve the problem.
Multilateral talks would still lead to a verifiable solution, where inspectors would make 'intrusive' checks on North Korea's nuclear facilities.
While not new, Washington's stress on verifiability is important, since Pyongyang has reneged on virtually every deal it has signed since the 1980s.
At the very least, Mr Wolfowitz scratched out some options: 'The military option cannot solve the problem. Large-scale bribery won't solve the problem.
'I'm open to ideas, but what seems to be the case is long-term Asian patience,' he quipped.
Mr Wolfowitz's reserve is understandable, since Washington is still trying to get some consensus from its partners on a way to tackle North Korea.
South Korea and Japan are loath to take any military action, while China has restricted itself to a largely honest broker role.
Moreover, infighting between Washington's hawks and doves over North Korean policy means extended talks would apply - for now.
The key factor for the hawks, however, is that extended talks would give North Korea a rope to hang itself.
Yesterday, it was Senator Jack Reed, a member of the US Senate's Armed Services Committee, who gave a feel of the hawks' instincts.
'We must understand that there is a point at which we must be prepared to use increasingly robust coercive measures,' he told the conference.
Some observers have noted that Washington could interdict North Korea's missile and drug exports, or slam a Cuban missile crisis-style naval blockade.
While the cagey Mr Wolfowitz did not mention such options yesterday, he did hint at economic weapons to strangulate Pyongyang.
'Countries of the region that are helping keep North Korea afloat need to send a message to North Korea that they are not going to continue doing that if North Korea continues down the road it is on,' he said.
Understandably, this was a message directed at China, which supplies 30 per cent of North Korea's food and 90 per cent of its oil.
Asked why a nuclear-armed North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where few weapons of mass destruction had been found, Mr Wolfowitz was more frank.
'To look at it a bit simply, the primary difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had vir- tually no economic options in Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil,' he noted.
On another front, Mr Wolfowitz tried to soothe anxieties about a a reconfiguration of its 100,000 troops in Asia.
Since the Cold War, US allies South Korea and Japan have depended on these troops to pre-empt threats from communist China and Russia.
On Thursday, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Pentagon was considering withdrawing Marines from Japan.
Yesterday, Mr Wolfowitz said 'the fundamental point' of press speculation was largely accurate but some specifics were off target. He did not elaborate.
He said that there would be a shift towards using highly-mobile forces and more precision weapons - just as in Iraq.
But the key would be using fewer troops with more combat 'punch', he stressed.
'Maybe someone in the eighth level of the bureaucracy had dreamt of moving our forces from Okinawa to Australia. I can assure you that that is not going to happen,' he said to laughter.
All these new plans, however, might be put on hold until Washington tackles the thorny issue of North Korea.
To a region already hard hit by an economic slowdown and Sars, many in Asia are hoping that Mr Wolfowitz will show his cards soon.
