North Korea’s secretive leader is goading the West by firing dummy nuclear weapons. But why? Neil Mackay reports.
IN February this year, a secretive meeting took place in west London, attended by a group of British extremists in thrall to the Orwellian politics of Kim Jong-il and members of the North Korean ruling elite at the Saklatvala Hall in Southall – a venue used for rallies by British hard-left organisations .
At the gathering – entitled A Celebration Of The Successes Of The Korean Revolution Under The Leadership of Comrade Kim Jong-il – the delegates discussed the latest, and one of most dangerous, developments in North Korea’s hardline communist ideology. Significantly, this new twist in North Korea’s political philosophy underpins the reason for Kim Jong-il’s decision to test-fire dummy nuclear weapons, with a range capable of reaching India and the US, over the Sea of Japan on Wednesday.
The speaker who outlined Kim Jong-il’s new political philosophy was “Comrade Dermot Hudson”, the representative of the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) in the UK. The KFA, set up by North Korea’s Committee for Cultural Relations, hero-worships Kim Jong-il, denies that North Korea operates brutal concentration camps and champions the politics of the repressive regime.
At the meeting, Hudson unveiled Kim Jong-il’s “songun” philosophy for the first time to British delegates: quite simply, the threat of the gun – or, in this case, the threat of the missile – is the only way to secure North Korea’s financial and geopolitical goals.
Hudson explained that the army was now seen by Kim Jong-il as the “power propelling the Korean revolution forward”. With no money, few friends and a population that would gladly be free of communist rule tomorrow, songun politics is the leader’s only remaining power base and bargaining chip.
The belief that the army is the answer to everything has become an article of faith in North Korea over recent weeks. The regime has become increasingly panicky about military tests and naval manoeuvres in the Pacific and elsewhere by countries which it perceives to be its natural enemies.
Just two weeks before North Korea fired off its missiles, the Americans and Japanese were testing anti-missile systems in the Pacific, partly prompted by fears that North Korea was ready to test-fire a missile capable of carrying a nuclear weapon all the way to America.
On June 22, a joint US-Japan operation off Hawaii tested a system designed to shoot down incoming missiles. The tests came as the US warned North Korea that it would pay a “cost” if it dared to test-launch its Taepodong-2 missiles with a range of more than 4000 miles.
North Korea knows, however, that America’s anti-missile defence systems are limited. On Friday, President Bush admitted that the US’s $100 billion anti-ballistic systems were “modest”, and only had a “reasonable chance” of shooting down the Taepodong-2.
The navies of Canada, Australia, Japan, Peru, South Korea, the UK and the US staged an exercise throughout the Pacific Rim last month in which nearly 40 warships, six submarines and more than 160 aircraft took part in a mock scenario designed around international hostilities in the Pacific. The arms race in east Asia has also accelerated in recent weeks, with South Korea and Japan both poised to add substantially to their weaponry.
In the wake of this military escalation, North Korea stated – before its missile tests last week – that it would respond to any attack by the US with “a relentless annihilating strike and nuclear war with a mighty nuclear deterrent”. It also ramped up anti-American rhetoric, accusing the US of flying spying missions over the country throughout June. One official media report stated: “The US imperialists committed 220 cases of aerial espionage in June.”
Alice Slater, president of the Grace Policy Institute, which works on issues of nuclear power and the environment, said: “We are reaping the whirlwind when the North Korean government launches this shocking series of missile firings. The US has been hurling missiles over the Pacific, most recently in June … It is folly to think that we can tell North Korea what to do when we are unwilling to restrain our own missile testing.”
Slater pointed out that the mission statement of US Space Command – which deals with America’s missile systems – states that the US has the right to “dominate and control the military use of space”. She added that the US has also pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty – which was set up to prevent an arms race with Russia.
North Korea can exploit tension in the international community in its favour. No UN security council resolution will be passed against Pyongyang for its missile tests because neither China nor Russia – which have veto powers – would not allow such a motion to get through.
Russia, intent on eroding America’s unipolar control over the world, is keen to limit US power globally in whatever way it can. It sells weapons to North Korea, and its foreign ministry has warned that “attempts to isolate North Korea can only lead to a new escalation in tension”.
China dreads the North Korean government collapsing, and props the country up with trade, food and fuel. The fall of Kim Jong-il would lead to serious instability on one of China’s most volatile borders and the prospect of hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees fleeing into China and destabilising the Beijing government.
Jin Linbuo, a security expert with China’s Institute of International Studies, said: “If North Korea collapses, then the Korean peninsula would be wholly controlled by the United States and its coterie. North Korea’s existence protects China from American military domination.” North Korea is allowed to transport textiles to China which are then sent to Japan for export bearing the words ‘Made in China’.
North Korea also feels it has scores to settle. In 1994, under a partnership agreement called the Agreed Framework, the US promised to give 500,000 tonnes of fuel per year to North Korea in return for it abandoning any ambitions for a nuclear bomb. That agreement ended in 2002 when the world learned that North Korea was operating a secret nuclear programme.
In response, North Korea claimed the US had not kept all its promises under the 1994 Agreed Framework, including providing the country with two light-water nuclear reactors which would provide energy but not constitute a military threat. The North then stepped up its nuclear programme and refused to give weapons inspectors access to nuclear facilities.
The US fuel aid provided up to 30% of North Korea’s fuel needs. Its withdrawal thrust the country into an energy crisis that left much of the nation in mediaeval darkness at night.
South Korea – the North’s biggest food aid donor – has also suspended food and fertiliser shipments to its neighbour, including 500,000 tonnes of rice. The sanctions will be a cruel blow to the North’s starving people, but it’s doubtful what effect additional sanctions like this will have on Kim Jong-il. His regime survived a famine in the mid-1990s that saw up to two million people die.
What North Korea really wants is bilateral talks with America in which the US agrees to sign a non-aggression pact, resumes fuel supplies and provides the light-water reactors which would produce enough energy for the country. The reactors could also produce a surplus that the impoverished North could trade regionally. The US has so far refused face-to-face meetings with North Korean government officials, but Kim Jong-il seems intent on forcing the US to the negotiating table.
Pyongyang’s missile tests also acted as something of a showcase for those countries willing to trade in weapons technology with a member of the so-called axis of evil. North Korea earns $600 million from arms sales to Yemen, Syria, Egypt and Iran, and showing off its new know-how may make its weapons more marketable and bring in desperately needed money.
Mark Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said one of North Korea’s objectives behind the launch was to set out its stall for “potential customers”. He added that Kim Jong-il also wanted “to demonstrate to his people and everyone else that he is not going to be pushed around. The North wants to gain attention and show that it cannot be bullied.”
Fitzpatrick said that US actions designed to crack down on criminal fundraising activity by the North Korean government, such as money laundering in Far East banks, also added to pressure on Kim Jong-il. This restriction is killing the country and stopping its richest citizens – namely the party elite – getting their hands on their own money. Again, Kim Jong-il wants to negotiate with the US to end the embargo. Again, his bargaining chip is his bomb.
Unsurprisingly, North Korea was not quick to tell its people that it had test-fired the missiles. Not a word was said internally about the event until Thursday when a foreign ministry spokesman told the country’s media that the launch was carried out to “strengthen self-defensive capabilities”.
“It is clear to anyone,” the spokesman said, “that it is not necessary for only us to unilaterally withhold missile launches … History shows that if the balance of power is destroyed, instability and crisis are created and even a war could break out. This is the cold-hearted reality in international relations, as shown in today’s Iraqi situation.
“If we did not have a powerful self-defensive deterrent, the United States would have attacked us several times. They had designated us as part of the axis of evil and a target for pre-emptive nuclear attack … Ultimately, our missile development, tests, production and deployment are important factors in ensuring a balance of strength in the northeast Asia region and in guaranteeing peace and stability.”
Pyongyang also described as “preposterous” claims that it should have given notice that it was going to test missiles, pointing out that as America is “technically in a state of war with us” the North Korean missiles could have been intercepted and shot down. It was also made clear that North Korea would “continue to conduct its missile launch exercises in the future … Should anyone attempt to find fault with, and mount pressure over this, we will inevitably have no choice but to take more powerful physical action.”
With such threats hanging in the air, it is little wonder that both Japan and the US – with the support of the UK – are desperate for a UN resolution to be issued that hammers North Korea with sanctions for its missile tests. Bush said on Friday that he wants to rally world support in confronting North Korea over its missile tests in order to send an unmistakable message to the leader of the communist regime. “It’s your choice, Kim Jong-il,” the president said. “You’ve got the choice to make.”
Japan has already imposed unilateral sanctions on North Korea, banning North Korean officials from travelling to Japan and forbidding North Korean trading vessels from entering Japanese waters. Japan has also drafted a UN security council resolution that would ban all countries from transferring funds, material and technology that could be used by North Korea to develop missiles programmes. North Korea has warned it will take “countermeasures” if sanctions are imposed.
However, China and Russia have said that diplomacy, not sanctions, is the only was to deal with the stand-off. The two countries favour a UN statement – not a resolution – which contains no threat of sanctions. They want negotiations to lead to the re-opening of “the six-party talks” on the nuclear issue between North and South Korea, the US, Japan, Russia and China.
Kim Jong-il knows only too well that whenever he has acted belligerently in the past, he has usually won some sort of concession. In 1998, he fired a missile over Japan and ended up with former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright popping over to Pyongyang in 2000 for a chat. In 2003, he withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and was rewarded with the opening of the six-party talks. And then in 2005, he told the world he had the bomb, only for Bush to say that the US was not focused on regime change in North Korea.
Many people in the West see Kim Jong-il as a delusional lunatic, but Western diplomats and officials who have met him say that he is far from stupid. In fact, he’s politically very astute and keenly up to date on global affairs. With the Western powers stretched to the limit in the Middle East, Kim Jong-il knows that the time is ripe for him to chance his hand one more time to wring out the concessions he wants. This time, however, the bomb makes this the biggest gamble of his life – and the ultimate gamble for the unfortunate citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic, aka North Korea.
