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Briefing Report

The Present and Future of Japan–North Korea Relations and the Six-Party Talks

Dean of the Faculty of Law, Keio University
Dr. Masao Okonogi

[International] February 13 , 2006

I want to present my own thoughts on the recent conditions surrounding North Korea. While I am sure you are already well aware of the relationship between the six-party talks and the bilateral negotiations between Japan and North Korea, there are difficulties if we attempt to split up these two areas and address either the Japan-North negotiations or the six-party talks as separate issues. Therefore, I feel it is more appropriate to deliver my talk while underscoring the linkage between these two processes.

To begin, allow me to reflect back on the fourth round of six-party talks held in September last year. This round marked the first such session convened since the start of the second term of United States President George W. Bush—that is, subsequent to the stepping down of former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, with Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill taking over as the leader of the US delegation to those talks under the auspices of current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. As the head of these talks for the US side, Hill naturally can be understood to have received the support of President Bush. Meanwhile, when examining the process that led up to the resumption of the six-party talks in September, in February last year the North Korean Foreign Ministry announced that it would not be taking part in any further negotiations. With that statement in the background, the so-called “New York channel” between Washington and Pyongyang was activated, kicking off contacts between the recently launched second Bush administration and the North and leading up to the September resumption of the stalled sessions.

Examining the progress of the six-party talks to date, I see no major changes in the basic positions of either side. Both the US and North Korea maintained their fundamental stances. Washington, naturally, took the position that Pyongyang needed first to abandon its nuclear programs to get the ball rolling, while the North rejected that call and asserted that the two sides must move on a parallel basis. In short, the US stance is that the North must totally relinquish its nuclear weapons programs within a short period of time, and Pyongyang is sticking to its position that the first stage must consist of guarantees [from Washington] accompanying a freeze on nuclear development, with that to be followed by gradual progress. I believe we can say that the structure of this standoff, and the differences in the basic positions held by the two sides, have been carried on largely unchanged up to the present day.

The six-party talks held last September marked a certain climax. With regard to the potential outcome of those negotiations, there were three viable scenarios from the outset. First, there was the view that some type of consensus would be struck. Second, some predicted that the talks would break down. The third scenario, meanwhile, saw the exchange deteriorating into stalemate. There was widespread debate about which one of these paths would be followed, although with the talks having been on hold for a full year or so it seemed unlikely that they would deadlock once again. Thus, I think we can say that the talks were destined to reach a climax in either the sense that a certain type of agreement would be reached or the talks would fall apart. As it turned out, the September meetings produced a joint declaration by the six countries. Just why was this joint statement adopted? In my view, it was because all parties were apprehensive about a “breakdown” in the process. In other words, the scenario following a collapse in the talks was not a favorable one for any of the participants. A breakdown would result in the issue being presented to the United Nations Security Council, with economic sanctions against the North getting off the ground. Considering what might conspire after that conjured up images of a certain brand of crisis scenario.

The breakdown scenario was avoided at the eleventh hour of the talks, and with regard to the negotiations on the light-water reactor in particular, progress appears to have been made due to a decision by Washington to slightly ease its demands. That presented the North with a diplomatic opening, and the crisis was averted. Judging from the situation in the US at the time, it is possible to understand why such a method was taken. The conventional stance by Washington of pressing for the “Libya approach” [forcing a country to reject weapons of mass destruction] had stalled, with tension heating up in Iraq and Iran, the massive hurricane Katrina striking the US Gulf Coast, and other severe dilemmas mounting. Considering these conditions, it had grown extremely difficult for the US to become engaged in a military dispute in the Far East. Even if this issue were referred to the UN Security Council, there were doubts about whether China or South Korea would align with Washington. Thus, if the US and Japan took the lead in passing economic sanctions at the Security Council and then implementing those measures, it was projected that Pyongyang would adopt some sort of counteraction. The joint statement was announced against this backdrop, and the current situation is a kind of backlash to that statement.

In the United States, and within the US government, there has been harsh criticism of the negotiations led by Assistant Secretary of State Hill and the results of the fourth round of six-party talks. In my view, the method taken by Washington on the negotiations to date, and in particular regarding the tactics used during Bush’s first term in office, was effectively that of “resolution through saber rattling.” Generally speaking, for the US there are only two ways available to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue. The first is to deal with the problem on a speedy basis, even if that means resorting to the use of military means. The second is negotiation. An examination of the track record of the administration of President Bill Clinton, however, shows us that negotiations tend to drag on for a long time. The approach taken during the first Bush term fits neither of these categories. Within an environment colored by the September 2001 terrorist strikes, not to mention the subsequent military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, I consider Washington’s stance toward Pyongyang to have consisted largely of bluff-based saber rattling. As we saw, that method succeeded with Libya. While North Korea also flinched at the approach, in this case the bluff has not paid off. Right now, the matter demanding the greatest degree of attention is whether the Bush administration will carry on this same method through its second term as well or make adjustments in those tactics.

It goes without saying that the North favors the brand of negotiations it dealt with during the Clinton years. As you know, the Framework Agreement pursued by the Clinton administration was an approach that envisioned gradual resolution to the issues over a 10-year stretch. While, upon entering its second term, the Bush administration has come to realize that resolution by saber rattling is no simple matter, it also seems that the Clinton approach of phased resolution has yet to be accepted either. Last September’s joint declaration was followed by the fifth round of six-party talks in November, but there again the Bush administration was loath to accept a gradual move toward solution. The US took the line that the North must first abandon its nuclear programs and submit to inspections and that only if such progress was made over the short term could Pyongyang expect quid pro quo. In other words, the Bush people have not budged a bit from their initial posture.

Because of this, it will be extremely difficult to establish linkage between North Korea’s abandoning of its nuclear stance in return for possible rewards for such action. Viewed from the North’s perspective, there are no guarantees that the paybacks would continue after it renounced its nukes, with the junking of such a program bringing an end to its nuclear card once and for all. This is the reason that the North sticks to its demands for step-by-step resolution of the situation. The maneuvering in this area is complicated indeed. Briefly stated, then, we can say that Pyongyang can make no concessions because it is extremely uneasy about the situation perceived as likely to evolve after passing the “point of no return.”

Although the proposal submitted by the Japan side at the fifth round of the talks reflects the US position to a considerable degree, I also view it as being an original Japanese concept. The Japanese line is the same as the US insofar as it demands that the process commence with the North renouncing its nuclear programs, with speedy moves to abandon nukes and submission to verification followed by support on the economic and energy fronts. The actual process of the North dismantling its nuclear facilities is assumed to require from six to nine months, with that supposedly clearing the way to talks on the light-water reactor issue. This is Japan’s stance, which leads us to the question of wherein lies the original Japanese part of the equation. On that point, and as we have seen in the recent Japan–North Korea bilateral talks, in addition to the tradeoff of nuclear renunciation and verification for energy and economic aid, Japan is also visualizing a separate bilateral track between itself and Pyongyang. We refer to this as the Japan–North Korea “comprehensive parallel formula.” This would see the bilateral negotiations held under the six-party talks umbrella, thereby avoiding a situation in which the two different negotiations are split apart. Under that approach, failure to advance the six-party talks will doom Japan–North Korea negotiations, while lack of progress on the bilateral front would likewise slam the brakes on the six-party talks as well. The tactical approach being advanced by Tokyo in this area, therefore, is characterized by this reciprocal structure.

The most recent round of Japan–North Korea talks, held on February 4–8, divided the negotiations into three categories. With the meetings having just concluded, I imagine they are still fresh in your mind. The six-party talks themselves outline three separate tracks, with the third and final track in that set consisting of the Japan–North Korea talks. Therefore, please think in terms of this so-called Tokyo-Pyongyang track of bilateral talks as having been further divided into three separate themes—namely, the past abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents, normalization of bilateral diplomatic ties, and nuclear weapons and missiles and other security issues.

Examining the outcome of the talks, the stance taken by the North was more severe than predicted. In fact, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described that response as “not zero, but negative.” Let’s take the abduction problem as a case in point. The North demanded the return of the alleged remains of Megumi Yokota [one of the kidnap victims who the North insists has already died] that Pyongyang had furnished as evidence of her death but subsequent DNA testing in Japan showed to be the ashes of other individuals. It also criticized the actions of a nongovernmental organization [NGO] that provides assistance for defectors from North Korea, and even demanded the extradition as criminals of those who helped such defectors escape from the North. In other words, while Japan has demanded that the North turn over the operatives who actually engineered the abductions, the North Koreans have countered with calls for the individuals and NGO members engaged in activities to help people defect from the North to be handed over. With regard to Pyongyang’s ballistic missile testing, it appears that the North’s negotiators made statements to the effect that the freeze on its missile-testing program has been scrapped. The North also leveled extremely tough demands on the normalization issues as well. As this shows, in all three of these tracks the North Korean demands exceeded those of the Japan side, with the expression of that strong stance by Pyongyang emerging as the defining characteristic of these latest talks.

I believe there are certain reasons that the North adopted an attitude far tougher than expected. The results can be traced to Pyongyang’s view that the prospects for the six-party talks appeared far more pessimistic than they did in recent exchanges—that is, during the fifth round of the talks in November or with the September joint declaration prior to that. I want to comment on that later, but I do feel that further progress on Japan–North Korea negotiations will be difficult to attain until new prospects are established for the six-party talks. If the North Koreans were to make major concessions in the bilateral talks with Japan, this would be interpreted at the six-party level as a showing of weakness by Pyongyang. Fearful of jeopardizing the six-party talks, therefore, the North refuses to make concessions in its dealings with Japan. This does not mean that the bilateral talks have no significance. Rather, I believe that the process will be carried on in the form of having the next round of Japan–North Korea negotiations take place if the six-party talks are convened again.

In terms of timing, we are training our attention on the period from this April to September. Chinese President Hu Jintao is scheduled to visit the US in late April. In September, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will be stepping down as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and will thus conclude his tenure as prime minister. Therefore, if there is to be any major progress on the nuclear issue, it will most likely come during this six-month span. If no further six-party talks are held by April, the situation will grow quite severe. Recent news reports state that former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung has voiced his intent to visit Pyongyang in April, leading me to think that the initial key maneuvering will occur around then. This period of maneuvering, meanwhile, should continue through September.

The greatest barrier currently in the path of the six-party talks is the money-laundering problem. While I feel no extensive need to explain the background on this issue, suffice to say that a certain bank, the Banco Delta Asia of Macao, is suspected of involvement in the laundering of money obtained by the North through counterfeiting, black-market stimulant drug transactions, and other routes. A statement released by the US Treasury Department on September 15 last year first broached the subject, although I cannot conjecture whether or not Washington made this announcement with political intentions in mind. I would imagine that this is not the case. At the six-party talks, US delegation leader Hill also repeatedly stressed that those negotiations and any legal action are separate issues. However, I feel there is ample potential that this problem is being studied at the US government’s National Security Council and similar agencies as a possible negotiating card with the North. Whether such studies were implemented from the start, or if this process has emerged in the midst of developments that have suggested the potential for this issue as a pressuring tactic, is a complex problem tough for me to read.

Nevertheless, this is emerging as the “stick” component in an extremely clever “carrot-and-stick” policy toward the North. In other words, as has been pointed out by both President Bush and a high-ranking State Department official, these moves do not comprise economic sanctions but rather simply a crackdown on illegal actions. While both State Secretary Rice and President Bush have clearly stated their will to continue talking with the North, they have also said that they will take rigid legal action. As long as the measures being taken amount to a crackdown on illegal acts, and not economic sanctions, no one can reasonably object. This goes for Beijing as well. China is currently striving to become an internationally responsible state, and in that sense as well it cannot afford to oppose efforts to clamp down on criminal activity of this type.

A declaration made by the North Korean Foreign Ministry several days ago was of interest. The North insisted that it has not been involved in counterfeiting or money laundering, while going on to say that its consistent policy is to oppose money laundering. The North Koreans have become aware of the fact that failure to resolve this problem will impede any further six-party talks. The posture of China on this issue is also complicated. Beijing is in the delicate position of being unable to condone illicit behavior but also not wanting to censure Pyongyang. On this issue as well, China is serving as an intermediary between the US and the North. After North Korean leader Kim Jong Il finished his talks with the Chinese leaders, US delegation leader Hill used China as a go-between to meet with Kim Kye Gwan of North Korea. Contrary to what is widely rumored, the North is not in such a weak position on this issue, making it dubious whether it will offer to make any concessions right away. I believe, in short, that the North wants to somehow control the damage in moving to resume the six-party talks without acknowledging any criminal behavior. I do not believe there will be any overall capitulation by Pyongyang on this point. Because of that, I think we can say that a certain sort of speed control was exercised this time around with regard to the Japan–North Korea negotiations.

I also wanted to discuss the visit to China by Kim Jong Il, but I will attempt to address that issue in the Q&A session. Thank you for your kind attention.


QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Q: In your previous press briefing [February 14, 2005], you made comparisons between the Bush and Clinton administrations in this context. Specifically, you mentioned that while the reprocessing of nuclear fuel in the North was frozen for six of the eight years that Clinton was in office, if the Bush administration’s North Korea policy fails to succeed, it means that fuel reprocessing will have been continued for five of his eight years as US president. You went on to say that this would be a “very serious development” to Japan. Just what actual conditions did you have in mind when you spoke of this “serious development”?
A: First of all, I feel honored that you remember my comments of a year ago. I previously noted that the period from this April through September is shaping up as important. What will happen if no progress is forged during these months, and Prime Minister Koizumi simply steps down when his term expires? Or, let’s say that the failure of Washington’s North Korea policy becomes manifest prior to the midterm elections for the US Congress this November. I believe these scenarios run consistent with the points I raised a year ago. Simply stated, the crisis for Japan did not conclude with last September’s joint declaration, and we cannot afford to discount the possibility that yet another crisis will emerge a year after that joint communiqué.
We can be either optimistic or pessimistic about this situation. For example, while we feared that the negotiations last September might break down, they did not. Thus, we can take the upbeat stand that this outcome was a result of the desire of the participating parties to avoid the worst-case scenario, and this will likely continue to be the case at the next round of talks as well. Or on the contrary, this may not be the case, with the gulf between Washington and Pyongyang failing to be bridged and the North taking an even harder line prior to the US midterm polls in effectively steeling itself for confrontation during the final two years of the Bush presidency. We can certainly view the situation in these terms – in short, that the North Koreans will begin to tailor their moves with the next US administration in mind. When we consider the current situation in Iran, there is no reason to believe that the North will not grow even more obstinate than a year ago. This is the gloomy scenario, in which case the North’s nuclear development would continue for the next two years plus and we would face the need to mount some type of countermeasure. What I am saying, therefore, is that pressure would rise to target the nuclear issue with the implementation of economic sanctions. If no resolution is hammered out on the issue in September and beyond, I believe that Japan will also have little option but to break off the talks and seriously consider the case for economic sanctions.

Q: I have two questions. The first concerns the visit by Kim Jong Il to China. While we read reports about his agenda, the speed of the trains he took, and so forth, I would like to hear if any specific fruits arose from that visit. The second question is whether there is any political potential for Prime Minister Koizumi to visit Pyongyang again before the expiration of his term as LDP president in September.
A: There have been many reports about Kim’s visit to China, some of them rather extreme in nuance. When we get down to the basic nature of what took place, however, I feel we need to pay close attention to the five-year plan that will start up in China this year. Once every five years, there are assistance negotiations between Beijing and Pyongyang. Right now, China is the strongest it has ever been. Last October President Hu went to North Korea, and among the numerous news reports that ensued was mention of $2 billion of economic assistance to Pyongyang. This amount is clearly excessive for a single year’s commitment. China normally informs North Korea how much assistance it will give within the five-year plan, and according to my personal information I believe the correct figure here is $1 billion and not $2 billion. In other words, China promised the North $200 million in economic assistance per year over the five-year period. With regard to the details of this aid, however, I don’t believe that any decisions were made as of last October. As is always the case, the North doesn’t really want to receive a set sum of $200 million each year, but rather $300 million one year, $100 million another year, and otherwise have assistance doled out to fit the implementation of its own economic blueprints. Talks on the specific contents of the support have continued into this year, with the negotiations on that assistance comprising the most important task for Kim on this particular mission to Beijing.
With his trip to China lasting nine days in all, I can’t really imagine that the money-laundering issue suddenly prompted the visit. I think the proper interpretation here is that the North conceived the plan for Kim to travel to Beijing soon after the October visit to Pyongyang by President Hu, with a new item simply added to that agenda. We can pretty much assume, furthermore, that the subject of money laundering came up between the two countries in their Beijing exchanges and that they most certainly conferred on the six-party talks as well. There is no doubt that the Chinese wanted to take advantage of this once-every-five-year opportunity to nudge the North into the direction of dialogue, and with President Hu scheduled to visit the United States this April, cooperation with Washington is also important. In that sense, I believe that President Hu wanted to apply ample pressure on Pyongyang against this backdrop. But the game has yet to wind up, and with the North Korean leaders extremely tough in their stance, it remains unclear at this stage whether or not President Hu will have any positive souvenirs to offer the US on his upcoming visit there.
On your second question, I believe that Prime Minister Koizumi is in fact prepared to travel to Pyongyang again if the terms can be arranged. The question here, however, lies in the “terms” to be so engineered. In other words, in the event of the absence of prospects for progress in the nuclear program talks and no major fruits for the Japan–North Korea bilateral talks either, Koizumi will not make the trip even if he would like to. For that to happen, Kim would have to be prepared to make a strategic resolution toward Koizumi, which in turn would require prospects for a breakthrough with the North’s relations with Washington to make the whole picture come together.

Q: You mentioned the Japanese government’s idea of creating linkage between the Japan–North Korea negotiations and the six-party talks. For its part, the US government has connected the currency counterfeiting and money-laundering issues. If the North can somehow resolve that problem—that is, as long as such behavior can be halted—the thinking appears to be that the issue can be settled in a means that saves face for Kim without him having to admit that he personally sanctioned such transgressions. Do you think that such a solution strategy, in a format enabling Kim to likewise save face, is possible for the abduction issue as well? If so, how might it come to play out? It is clear that some individuals were abducted under the direct orders of Kim and died later in camps.
A: For Kim, this is an extremely difficult decision. He has already completely lost face on this issue once, in September 2002 in Pyongyang, when he admitted the kidnappings and apologized to the visiting Koizumi. Since he took that stand once, perhaps he will go there again. Or, on the contrary, having admitted those actions once, maybe he cannot be expected to repeat that stance. So I guess it depends how you view the prospects.
An environment must be arranged under which Kim will be willing to make concessions even if he loses face. But I don’t believe that Japan can stage such a situation on its own. More precisely, I don’t think that Kim offered the September 2002 apology simply to receive economic assistance from Japan. Following the 9/11 attacks, the North has been under extremely strong pressure from the US. In the long run, therefore, I see no solution for this issue if Tokyo and Washington fail to team up in a bold and masterful partnership to get the job done. Without bringing a big carrot and a big stick to the table, I don’t believe the North will budge on this matter.

Q: You mentioned Iran, and I wonder if, in view of the attempts by China and Russia to link the Iranian issue to North Korea, Pyongyang won’t harden its own attitude, leading to a situation in which both Iran and North Korea might come to possess nuclear weapons?
A: That is an extremely difficult question, and in fact one that exceeds my ability to respond. The greatest asset for Pyongyang in opposing pressure from the outside is South Korea. This refers to the possibility that a military attack against the North could lead to a second Korean war. Setting aside the matter of whether this will actually come to pass or not, as long as there is no resignation to that ultimate potential I see no real scenario of military strikes against the North. In the case of Iran, and I caution to add that I am by no means an expert in this area, I see no military means being taken unless we are prepared to go through another oil crisis. From our viewpoint, Iran is of far greater strategic importance to the US than North Korea. Therefore, even more so than Tehran being able to take advantage of the situation in North Korea, Pyongyang is blessed with an opportunity to utilize the Iran standoff to its own benefit.

* Given on February 13, 2006, at the Foreign Press Center/Japan. This paper is reserved for internal use; any reproduction or quotation is forbidden without prior permission from the FPCJ. 　
©FPCJ 2006