Spotlight: East Asia and the Transition in North Korea

▪ 1995

      The kingdom of Koguryo, the 7th-century equivalent of North Korea, had a distinctive way of dealing with outside enemies: avoid direct confrontation and maintain a formidable military capability inside fortified cities, including Pyongyang, the capital. For much of the post-World War II era, modern-day North Korea pursued a similar strategy. Contact with the outside world was severely limited; the armed forces were built up aggressively; and the nation was guided by the firm hand of a single leader, Kim Il Sung, whose guiding principle had been juche ("self-reliance"). One manifestation of that strategy was North Korea's energy program. To lessen dependence on foreign oil, the country launched a program to build two nuclear power plants—and, its neighbours feared, an unknown number of nuclear weapons. When North Korea in 1994 refused to allow international inspection of its atomic facilities, global tensions soared, and the worst suspicions about Kim's nuclear intentions seemed to be confirmed.

      In the space of a few weeks, however, the course of North Korean history took an abrupt turn. First, the country began direct talks with the United States over the future of its nuclear program. Then Kim Il Sung died on July 8 at age 82, reportedly of a heart attack. After a long mourning period it appeared that his son, Kim Jong Il, would become North Korea's new leader. Finally, North Korea concluded a sweeping agreement with the U.S. to suspend its nuclear program in exchange for international energy assistance, diplomatic relations, and commercial ties. Under the deal an international consortium including the U.S., South Korea, and Japan would contribute $4 billion to build two light-water nuclear reactors for North Korea. Compared with the gas-graphite models they would replace, the new reactors would be safer and produce less plutonium, a key material in nuclear bombs. The consortium would also provide North Korea with 500,000 tons of heavy oil a year, or roughly the amount received from the Soviet Union before its breakup.

      This international agreement predictably drew criticism for its vagueness and its reliance on North Korean goodwill. Nonetheless, the deal offered the distinct possibility that after four decades of isolation, North Korea might join the world community. Clearly, the country needed foreign investment to rebuild its crumbling roads, bridges, and other elements of infrastructure and to shore up an economy that had been shrinking by 5% a year. A more prosperous, less dangerous North Korea was an especially welcome prospect for the country's closest neighbours: South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan.

      South Korea had perhaps the most to gain if North Korea were now to change its stripes. Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, the two countries had remained intensely hostile as they faced each other across the Demilitarized Zone, which separated them. Both sides maintained relatively large defense establishments; the North Korean military, with one million men under arms, was considered very much the equal of the less numerous but better equipped South Korean force. (In addition, the U.S. maintained 37,000 troops in the South.) To combat what it saw as North Korean subversion, authorities in South Korea had for years outlawed virtually all contact with the North and maintained tight controls over free expression and political activity. Although the South had become more democratic in recent years, any hint of ties with, or sympathy for, North Korea was still prohibited. After the nuclear deal with the U.S. was signed, the South Korean government of Pres. Kim Young Sam did its part to ease tensions by announcing that businessmen could make limited investments in the North, thus ending a ban that had been in effect since the Korean War. Although Pyongyang immediately rejected the notion of South Korean investments, analysts expected that they would eventually be welcomed. Outside investment was in fact desperately needed, and the North had already been negotiating deals with a number of South Korean firms.

      For China, North Korea's agreement with the U.S. solved a delicate problem. Beijing (Peking), which had remained Pyongyang's only major ally, found itself torn between loyalty to an eccentric friend and the need to increase trade with that friend's sworn enemies, the U.S. and South Korea. Only weeks after the accord with the U.S. was signed, Beijing felt free to initial its own agreement with Seoul for the construction of nuclear reactors in China.

      For Russia, which shares a relatively short border with North Korea, the nuclear agreement was expected to have little immediate effect on a touchy issue: the occasional defections of North Korean workers from logging camps run by North Korea in Siberia. In the long run, though, it was expected that fewer North Koreans would want to flee their country if it became more prosperous and opened its doors to the outside world.

      Japan remained wary of North Korea despite the evident lessening of nuclear tensions in the region. Tokyo did not follow the U.S. in moving to establish diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. One continuing problem was the presence of more than 100,000 North Koreans living in Japan. Many of them remained loyal to Kim Il Sung and sent considerable sums of money to their homeland. Japan presumed that many were involved in espionage and did not expect the situation to change as a result of the nuclear agreement. In addition, some Japanese officials said that they had learned a lesson from the international crisis that had preceded the nuclear agreement. Until then, Japan had relied heavily on U.S. intelligence about the region. But during the negotiations, they said, the U.S. had withheld key information from Japan, prompting the Japanese to begin developing their own intelligence capability.

      The country with perhaps the biggest stake in fostering good relations between North Korea and other nations lay nearly half a world away. The U.S. had put its prestige on the line by signing an accord with a country that lacked experience in global diplomacy and was led by a man who came into power with virtually no experience. Kim Jong Il had been known to the outside world chiefly for his bouffant hairdo, elevator shoes, vast video collection, and taste for fine cognac. Some Westerners who had met him, however, reported that he was serious and intelligent. In any case, he had for years remained in the shadow of his father, who dominated the country and had attained cult status among its people. The younger Kim was unlikely to assume that mantle in the foreseeable future. Indeed, he was slow to take on all of his late father's titles and positions, and some analysts wondered whether his authority would be challenged by a rival family member or someone in the military. As the year drew to a close, however, Kim Jong Il appeared to have no serious challengers—and to be at least nominally in control of his country's destiny as it took steps to become part of a wider world that his father had barely known.

      Donald Morrison, who has been at Time magazine since 1968, is currently the editor of the Asian edition of Time International. He was the coauthor and editor of Mikhail S. Gorbachev (1988), Massacre in Beijing (1989), and The Winning of the White House, 1988 (1988).

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