As America inches closer to war with Iraq, it has abruptly been presented with a new threat from the east -- North Korea. North Korea's choice to withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty has presented the world with the possibility of the development of weapons of mass destruction from the rogue nation, whose population suffers daily under intense political oppression and waves of famine. The United States' proposal Monday to encourage private investment in North Korea that could help ease energy shortages in exchange for disarmament, however, is a step in the wrong direction. As in past exchanges with economically similar nations, specifically China and Cuba, the idea of creating incentives or restrictions to encourage certain behavior -- using dollars as diplomats -- has been consistently ineffective. Rather than negotiate using North Korea's crippled economy to promote de-escalation, the United States should follow South Korea's strategy and pursue heavy diplomatic negotiations. The aim should be to push the economically devastated nation to back away from its threats, in the interests of preserving the already fragile balance of life in North Korea.
North Koreans suffer daily hardships at the hands of a leadership that could not care less whether its people live or die. Since his acquisition of power in 1994, North Korean President Kim Jong-Il has repeatedly shown that any political movement within his country will be geared toward his regime remaining in place. According to the CIA World Factbook, in 2001 North Korea placed a great deal of emphasis on development of information technology and attracting foreign investment, but in no way at the expense of de-centralizing government controls or undergoing market reforms. It was only in 1997 that North Korea publicly acknowledged for the first time that one in seven children in the country was suffering from malnutrition due to food shortages.
Additionally, much skepticism remains regarding giving international food aid to North Korea -- nearly one-fourth of North Korea's national budget goes toward defense, leaving many wondering whether the aid is reaching those who truly need it.
Similar doubts could arise regarding any energy deal between the United States and North Korea, in that foreign resources and investment may not be directed to those that need it most urgently. Given this, dangling the prospect of foreign investment in energy in exchange for nuclear de-escalation seems inherently flawed. If North Korean leadership is indifferent to whether or not an energy shortage exists and its people suffer as a result, then the bargaining chip the United States has played is completely worthless. A new path to a resolution should be pursued using strictly diplomatic channels -- not economic ones. North Korea exists in a condition where the ideas of freedom and choice are unheard of.
North Korea lives in many ways in a state of complete isolation from the outside world. Religion is purely government-sponsored to give the illusion of widespread religious freedom. All economic activity is government-regulated. According to visiting scholar Chi Lew of Johns Hopkins University, there is an information blackout on foreign information for all citizens, subject to frequent checks of in-home materials by police. The purpose of this government mandated blackout is to keep North Koreans in the dark as to how bad their state of living is. The nation essentially lives and dies by the whims of government officials. To think that adding investment in energy resources to the mix of tight government controls will have any impact on the government's new moves to develop nuclear weapons -- particularly after its announcement that it was withdrawing from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty -- seems like an exercise in futility.
Beginning heavy negotiations with North Korea along with neighboring nations -- most notably South Korea, as well as Japan and China -- will have a number of immediate and significant impacts that, arguably, economic toying would not. First, local East Asian as well as international pressure to stop development of nuclear weapons would become quite visible to North Korean leadership. North Korea would at the very least see, accepting it or not, that the international community at large is serious about them ceasing this buildup. Second, North Korea would not have an out for saying that the United States is playing its usual economic games in negotiating, acting as the bully of the world to get its own agenda across. Instead, the United States would stand shoulder to shoulder with other nations on equal footing in negotiations. Third, changing tack from the typical dollars-and-cents diplomacy to that of face-to-face negotiations would give the United States much more leverage in the international arena. This would be a far better approach than the everyday "United States sends special envoy" tactics that have been tried, tested and proved ineffective in the past in North Korea as well as in the Middle East.
Attempting to push North Korea's economic buttons will only slow down efforts to stop their drive to develop nuclear weapons. In a country whose number one national priority is defense, and leadership remains both oppressive and detached from its people, a lack of energy resources will remain back-burner priorities as this crisis continues to develop. The United States and the international community at large should pursue diplomatic channels to resolve this crisis instead of economic ones in order to help preserve North Korean lives and not waste valuable time and resources on methods that history has already proven largely useless.
(Austen Givens' column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily.
He can be reached at agivens@
cavalierdaily.com.)
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