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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
In February 2007, agreement was reached at the Six Party talks in Beijing on the parameters for resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. The frame was one of comprehensive settlement of one of the long unresolved legacies of the 20th century and the prospect it opened was for a new, diplomatic, military, political, and economic order.
This paper asks why the settlement has taken so long to reach, considers the major obstacles to its implementation, and assesses its prospects. It argues that to understand the “North Korea Problem” close attention has to be paid to the “America Problem” and the “Japan Problem.” It suggests that, while North Korean strategic objectives have been consistent through the decade and a half of crisis, the US and Japan have vacillated, torn between conservative, neo-conservative, and reactionary forces on the one hand and “realists” on the other. The US strategic shift of February heralds the dawn of a 21st century Northeast Asian order; whether that dawn is to prove a true or false one should be clear by year's end.
[1] “Initial Actions for the Implementation of the Joint Statement,” Joint Statement from the Third Session of the Fifth Round of the Six- Party Talks, 13 February 2007. Nautilus Institute, Special Report, 13 February 2007. Se detailed discussion in Charles L. Pritchard, Failed Diplomacy: The tragic story of how North Korea got the bomb, Washington, Brookings Institution Press, 2007, p. 159.
[2] “Dokyumento - Gekido no Nanboku Chosen,” Sekai, June 2007, pp. 263-70, at p. 269.
[3] “Heiwa kyotei 9 gatsu made ni,” Asahi shimbun, 11 May 2007.
[4] Limb Jae-un, “Thing tank assigns 116 trillion won tab for South-North deals,” Joongang ilbo, 17 October 2007.
[5] Unification minister Lee Jae Joung spoke of the “reconnecting the severed bloodlines of the Korean nation.”
[6] “Sanbutsu wa toitsu? Gaika?” Asahi shimbun, 15 June 2007; Dick K. Nanto and Mark E Manyin, “The Kaesong North-South Korean Industrial Complex,” CRS Report for Congress, 19 July 2007.
[7] “Dokyumento - gekido no nanboku Chosen,” Sekai, September 2007, pp. 302-309, at p. 308.
[8] See Wikipedia.
[9] George W. Bush at APEC summit in Sydney, September 2007, was explicit on this when pressed by President Roh Moo-Hyun. (And see “New era of peace is coming on the Korean peninsula,” The Hankyoreh, 8 September 2007.)
[10] Reports of the September Six-Party working group sessions between US and North Korea in Geneva and between Japan and North Korea in Ulan Bator. On Japan: Takashi Horiuchi and Yoshihiro Makino, “Japan to answer N. Korea's call,” Asahi shimbun, 6 September.2007.
[11] Paik Nak-chung, “Twenty years after June 1987: Where are we now, and where do we go from here?” Keynote speech to International Symposium on “Democracy and Peace-Building in Korea and the Choice of 2007,” Los Angeles, 12 May 2007.
[12] Gavan McCormack, Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the Brink of Nuclear Catastrophe, New York, Nation Books, 2004.
[13] Gavan McCormack, “Criminal States: Soprano vs. baritone — North Korea and the United States,” Korea Observer, Seoul, The Institute of Korean Studies, Vol. 37, No. 3, Autumn 2006, pp. 487-511, and (in Korean) as chapter 1 of Beomjoegukga: Bukhan Geurigo Miguk, Seoul, Icarus, 2006, p. 15-40.
[14] For a compendium of all US sanctions against North Korea prepared by the Atlantic Council, see “U.S.- North Korean Relations: An Analytic Compendium of U.S. Policies, Laws and Regulations,” April 13 2007.
[15] “Kita Chosen uran noshuku honto,” Asahi shimbun, 26 February 2007.
[16] David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, “US had doubts on North Korean uranium drive,” New York Times, 1 March 2007.
[17] See David Albright, “North Korea's alleged large-scale enrichment plant: yet another questionable extrapolation based on aluminum tubes,” Institute for Science and International Security, 23 February 2007.
[18] Reuters, “U.S. acknowledges gaps on N. Korea nuclear program,” 22 February 2007.
[19] The Sunday Times, 1 May 2005. See Mark Danner, The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq War's Buried History, New York, New York Review Book, 2006.
[20] Robert Gallucci (chief negotiator of the 1994 agreement), quoted in Richard J. Bernstein, “How not to deal with North Korea,” New York Review of Books, 54, 3, 1 March 2004.().
[21] Charles L. (Jack) Pritchard, “Six Party Talks Update: False Start or a Case for Optimism,” Conference on “The Changing Korean Peninsula and the Future of East Asia,” sponsored by the Brookings Institution and Joongang Ilbo, 1 December 2005.
[22] Funabashi Yoichi, Za peninshura kueschon, Asahi shimbunsha, 2006, pp. 610. See also Joseph Kahn and David E. Sanger, “U.S.-Korean deal on arms leaves key points open,” New York Times, 20 September 2005.
[23] C. Kenneth Quinones, “The United States and North Korea: Observations of an Intermediary,” lecture to US-Korea Institute at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University, 2 November 2006, audio link.
[24] Tom Lantos, from January 2007 chair of the House International Relations Committee, quoted in Selig Harrison, “A humbled administration rethinks North Korea and Iraq,” The Hankyoreh, 28 November 2006.
[25] Tim Johnson, “Macao tycoon wants his bank back,” McClatchy Newspapers, Washington Bureau, 6 July 2007.
[26] David Asher, interviewed in Takase Hitoshi, “Kin Shojitsu o furueagareseta otoko,” Bungei shunju, October 2006, pp. 214-221, at p. 216.
[27] David Asher, senior adviser on North Korea matters to the Bush administration, interviewed, Takase Hitoshi, “Kin Shojitsu o furueagareseta otoko,” Bungei shunju, October 2006: 214-221, at p. 216.
[28] US Treasury figure of October 2006, Client State, p. 110.
[29] Kevin G. Hall, “Swiss authorities question U.S. Counterfeiting charges against North Korea,” McClatchy Newspapers, 22 May 2007.
[30] Klaus Bender, “The mystery of the ‘supernotes’: Washington accuses North Korea of counterfeiting dollar bills on a huge scale, the evidence militates against it,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 7 January 2007. See also Bender's Moneymakers: The Secret World of Banknote Printing, Weinham, Wiley-VCH, 2006.
[31] “North Korea: Illicit activity funding the regime,” US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs,” 25 April 2006.
[32] See my Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, London, Verso, 2007, p. 110.
[33] Glenn R. Simpson, “US tracks Saudi bank favored by extremists,” Wall Street Journal, 26 July 2007.
[34] See part two of McGlynn, “Financial Sanctions and North Korea under the Patriot Act's Catch 22,” North Korean criminality examined, Japan Focus, June 2007.
[35] Paul Bracken, “Financial warfare,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, E-Notes, September 2007.
[36] For two recent pieces in this genre, Sheena Chestnut, “Illicit Activity and Proliferation: North Korean smuggling networks,” International Security, vol. 32, No. 1, Summer 2007, pp. 80-111, and Bill Powell and Adam Zagoria, “North Korea: The Sopranos State,” Time, 12 July 2007
[37] See the three-part analysis by John McGlynn, “North Korean criminality examined: The US Case,” Japan Focus, May-July 2007.
[38] “Briefing on Release of Annual Report on the Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries for FY 2008,” Christy McCampbell, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Washington, DC, 17 September, 2007, .
[39] Ryu Jae Hoon, “Rocky road ahead, and not a lot of time, for NK denuclearization,” The Hankyoreh, 9 July 2007.
[40] John Bolton, “Pyongyang pussyfooting,” Wall Street Journal, 3 July 2007.
[41] “Kim Jong Il and the prospects for Korean unification,” US-Korea Institute, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, 28 November 2006.
[42] Japanese historian Wada Haruki's term, in his various writings on the modern history of North Korea.
[43] This matter is addressed in detail in my Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, London, Verso, 2007.
[44] “Keri moto Beikokumu jikanho rachi ‘Nihon wa kibishii ketsudan mo’,” Asahi shimbun, 29 April 2007.
[45] “North Korea may still be nuclear in 2020,” The Hankyoreh, 18 February 2007.
[46] For detailed analysis: Gavan McCormack and Wada Haruki, “Forever stepping back: the strange record of 15 years of negotiation between Japan and North Korea,” in John Feffer, ed, The Future of US-Korean Relations: The imbalance of power, London and New York, Routledge, 2006, pp. 81-100.
[47] Most recently Abe on 16 June 2007, quoted in “Shusho no doshi uttae tesaguri,” Asahi shimbun, 28 June 2007.
[48] See my “Reshaping the Japanese State: the Koizumi and Abe Agenda,” in forthcoming Routledge volume edited by Glenn D. Hook and Hiroko Takeda of Sheffield University.
[49] Naohito Maeda and Nanae Kurashige, “With US shift, Abe's N. Korea containment policy falls apart,” Asahi shimbun, 15 February 2007.
[50] Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Exodus to North Korea: Shadows from Japan's Cold War, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007.
[51] For a brief account, “Criticism of Iraq war,” editorial, Asahi shimbun, 8 February 2007.
[52] Speaking on TV Asahi on 16 September, quoted in “Rokusha kyogi ridatsu mo,” Asahi shimbun, 16 September 2007.
[53] North Korea seems eager to become an American friend. Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan in New York in March suggested the United States think of using North Korea as a kind of buffer to contain China. A similar point was made to visiting New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson on his April visit to Pyongyang. (Quoted in “Bei to no kyori Kankoku hyoryu,” Asahi shimbun, 16 March 2006.)
[54] On this controversial point, see the writing of James Carroll, in most succinct form the following interview “Tomdispatch interview - American fundamentalisms,” TomDispatch, 17 September 2007.
[55] All these state might learn from South Korea. Both South Korea's current president, Roh Moo Hyun, and his predecessor Kim Dae Jung, have been noted for plain-talking to their opposite number in Washington.
[56] Christopher Hill, quoted in Brian Lee, “No peace with plutonium, Hill says,” Joongang ilbo, 17 October 2007.
[57] Gerald L. Curtis, “The US in East Asia: not architecture, but action,” Global Asia, 5, 2, Fall 2007, pp. 43-51, at p. 51.
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