Bush Wins in North Korea Deal

The metric by which any diplomatic deal is judged is simple: Which side got more for less? By that measure, the U.S. and the Administration of President George W. Bush are the hands-down winners in the North Korean nuclear deal announced this week.

It might not look that way at first. North Korea's 60-page declaration of its nuclear capabilities is probably only mildly helpful. It may contain new information on how much plutonium it has produced for its weapons arsenal, or shed light on other aspects of its program. But unpacking North Korea's lies from any strands of truth is a lifetime's work.

What the U.S. did get, though, was real progress on a long-standing aim - the destruction of the Yongbyon nuclear facility, where North Korea's plutonium has been produced. The 1994 deal agreed by the Clinton Administration required that nuclear work at Yongbyon be verifiably frozen, but the new deal requires that the plant be incapacitated. On Friday the North Koreans blew up the facility's cooling tower and they have also committed to destroying, under international monitoring, the other functioning parts of the plant.

Gary Samore of the Council on Foreign Relations, who negotiated the agreed framework in 1994 for President Clinton, says the new North Korean deal gets more than what he got on Yongbyon.

"The Bush Administration has achieved an additional measure beyond what the Clinton Administration achieved in terms of Yongbyon ... a very, very substantial disablement which would make it difficult and time-consuming for the North Koreans to resume production." Says his Council colleague Charles Ferguson, "The Bush Administration has achieved more than the Clinton Administration in terms of really doing a substantial amount of disablement of that facility."

And what did the U.S. give in order to achieve this? The primary chit handed over by the U.S. was to take North Korea off the list of state sponsors of terrorism. That sounds important, but Pyongyang has been on that list for more than a decade solely for the purposes of negotiation.

The last act that could qualify as a sponsorship of terrorism by North Korea was its involvement in the bombing of a South Korean airliner in 1987, and diplomats have been dangling removal from the list for the better part of ten years as an inducement to give up some of their nuclear capabilities and information.

"The state sponsor of terror list is a very political list," says Ferguson, "From a technical standpoint they should have been taken off that list a long time ago." Most important, the only significant result of taking the North off the list is that the U.S. is no longer required by law to block international lending to Pyongyang. The U.S. still can, if it likes, block that lending given the control it has over such loans at the World Bank and elsewhere. "

If we learn 45 days from now that the North Koreans lied and cheated in their plutonium declaration," says Samore, "there's nothing that prevents the United States as a matter of policy from blocking loans."

None of which means the overall deal gets the U.S. free and clear of the North Korean nuclear threat. On the contrary, that threat is as bad as it has ever been, practically speaking. For starters, the North still has, by most estimates, between six- and ten-weapons worth of plutonium, obtained since the Bush Administration in 2001 abandoned negotiation in favor of confrontation. The U.S. has a long and hard road to negotiate that plutonium out of Pyongyang's hands. Just as bad, the North very likely has an equally threatening uranium-enrichment program separate from the plutonium program, and though no one knows where it is or how much, if any, highly enriched uranium it might be capable of producing.

Still, considering that U.S. negotiator Chris Hill has managed to get destruction of Yongbyan in exchange for the meaningless delisting, the U.S. and President Bush have made out quite well in this deal.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080628/wl_time/bushwinsinnorthkoreadeal;_ylt=AgC.2fbfNVYUdW..vcwn8MyCscEA

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Bush Wins in North Korea Deal

North Korea invites TV crews for nuclear show

North Korea has invited foreign television stations to broadcast its planned destruction of a key facility at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator said Sunday.

Five broadcasters — each from the five countries in nuclear talks with North Korea — have been asked to cover the planned blowing up of the cooling tower at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, Seoul's nuclear envoy Kim Sook told reporters.

Kim said CNN was chosen as U.S. broadcaster, but did not name the other four stations invited from South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.

Pyongyang also has notified the five stations of a date for the tower's destruction, Kim said, without elaborating.

The North's move indicates a breakthrough is imminent in the impasse that has held up the six-party nuclear negotiations for months, since the tower's destruction is supposed to come only after Pyongyang submits its long-delayed list of nuclear programs.

North Korea agreed last year to disable its nuclear facilities and fully account for its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and political concessions.

The denuclearization process reached an impasse as Pyongyang failed to meet an end-of-2007 deadline for declaring its nuclear activities, although the North has made progress in disabling its nuclear facilities so they cannot be easily restarted.

Kim said the North is expected to present the nuclear declaration "soon" but declined to specify a date.

The cooling tower's destruction — a symbolic act designed to show Pyongyang's intent to abandon its nuclear ambitions — is part of a series of carefully sequenced reciprocal moves that
Pyongyang and Washington agreed to take to move the nuclear talks forward.

Once the North submits a nuclear declaration, the U.S. government is supposed to begin the process of taking Pyongyang off Washington's terrorism and sanctions blacklists. Next would come the North's destruction of the cooling tower, which is supposed be followed by a resumption of six-nation nuclear talks.

U.S. officials said all of these developments could happen within the next 10 days while U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in or en route to Japan, South Korea and China next week.

Kim said he would travel to Beijing later Sunday for talks with his U.S. and Chinese counterparts. U.S. chief nuclear envoy Christopher Hill has been in the Chinese capital since Friday for talks with China's envoy Wu Dawei.

The six-party nuclear talks were last held between late September and early October.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080622/ap_on_re_as/koreas_nuclear;_ylt=AryjrS4PbaA8T2CVl1fQJ0dvaA8F
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North Korea invites TV crews for nuclear show

Let Then Eat Juche

A DECADE after a famine killed 500,000-1m people in North Korea, recent news from the benighted country suggests it is once again on the brink of mass starvation. The state food distribution system seems to have broken down everywhere, including the capital, Pyongyang, which usually gets special treatment from Kim Jong Il's regime. In the absence of public distribution, North Koreans rely increasingly on informal or illegal markets for grain. There, a new paper by the Peterson Institute for International Economics (IIE) in Washington argues, recent extreme price rises appear consistent with the onset of famine.

Good Friends, a Buddhist human-rights group in South Korea, says that in rural areas families are again adding tree-bark and grass to their diet, and foraging for food in the wild. It says that in South Pyongan province in west-central North Korea, people are already dying of starvation, while listless farmers ignore officials' calls to plant this year's rice. Last month the World Food Programme (WFP) called for urgent help to avert a “serious tragedy”.

North Korea, admittedly, has a chronic food crisis. The 23m-odd population is large for the country's arable land, and the weather is often unfavourable: late-summer floods in 2006 and 2007 caused widespread damage. But North Korea's neighbours, China and South Korea, share similar features without going short of food. By contrast, North Korea is both international ward and pariah. Its reckless foreign policy hinges on nuclear blackmail, which deters foreign donors, and the regime frustrates efforts to ensure aid goes to those who most need it. It has suppressed agricultural markets while failing to spend on rural infrastructure or even fertiliser. Crucially, an unreformed economy means inadequate exports of goods or commodities that could pay for food imports.

Calculating North Korea's food needs is a politicised game of inadequate data. The IIE paper, by Stephan Haggard, Marcus Noland and Erik Weeks, reckons that the country needs 4m tonnes of grain a year (one-fifth less than estimates by the WFP). The authors conclude that, in the absence of the massive food aid that was supplied in the years after the famine, there is now less than 100,000 tonnes to spare.

In one sense the situation is more critical than in earlier years. In 2005, after a decent harvest, the regime sought to stamp on burgeoning markets, redirect grain supplies through the public-distribution system and get people to return to their work units: male vendors were banned from markets and then, last year, women under 50. Yet the public system is under strain. Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University says that some cities have not accepted ration coupons for food since last year. It is not just grain itself: electricity and fuel for threshing and transport are also short. People are forced on to the black market, where rice has shot up from 860 won (about $6) a kilo a year ago to 3,100 today. Income per head is perhaps $500 a year.

In theory, America is ready to assist with big supplies of aid, but that could take time and, possibly, a satisfactory declaration of North Korea's nuclear programmes. The WFP struggles to raise money and awareness over North Korea's plight. Yet since late 2005 North Korea has restricted its operations in the country.

Grain can come fastest from China and South Korea. But China is concerned about its own food supply, imposing taxes and quotas on exports as global prices rise. China is coy about food donations, but North Korean ingratitude probably reduces the potential amount. After last summer's floods, China refused to ship UN grain by rail until North Korea returned at least some of its 1,800 missing wagons.

As for South Korea, previous levels of aid are now in doubt under the new administration of Lee Myung-bak. Mr Lee has tied future South Korean assistance to the North to denuclearisation and human rights. Emergency aid is exempt from such conditions, he says, but the North must request it. Having reacted furiously to Mr Lee, Mr Kim's regime will be loth to do so.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans escaped the previous famine by fleeing to China. Covert cross-border trade also helped alleviate some misery. This year, ahead of the Beijing Olympics, China wants no trouble, while North Korea has also cracked down at the border. Good Friends says that in February 13 women and two men were executed for planning to cross into China. The regime calls the first famine the “arduous march” under Mr Kim's glorious leadership. If there is to be a second march, it seems no North Korean is to be allowed to escape its rigours.

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11332771 ◦

Let Then Eat Juche

Rocketman vs. the Bulldozer

JUST a few weeks ago, when the New York Philharmonic performed in Pyongyang, Kim Jong Il's North Korea seemed to want to present a friendly face to the world. Its scowl is back, with a vengeance. On March 27th it expelled all South Korean officials from an inter-Korean industrial complex just north of the shared border. The next day its navy fired elderly ship-based missiles into the sea. This week the government said it needs its “nuclear deterrent” to ensure its survival, and labelled South Korea's president, Lee Myung-bak, a “traitor”, not to mention an “anti-North confrontation advocator”. North-South relations seem in a tailspin.

North Korea has been working itself up to this hissy fit since the inauguration of the conservative Mr Lee, nicknamed “the Bulldozer”, in February. Mr Lee has linked further economic co-operation with North Korea to its keeping its promise to declare all its nuclear programmes to America's satisfaction. North Korea bristles at this.

South Korea's Chosun newspaper has reported that North Korea's MiG fighters have on at least ten occasions since February crossed South Korea's “tactical action line”, some 20km (12 miles) north of the border, after which they can be over Seoul in minutes. Chosun also reported that mechanised North Korean army units have been moving towards the border.

South Korea's response to the military provocations has been muted. The foreign ministry described the missile tests as “routine military exercises”. Some in Seoul link North Korea's belligerence to parliamentary elections in the South on April 9th. The North may hope voters will reject Mr Lee's Grand National Party (GNP). It also hopes that by stoking security fears in South Korea it can drive a wedge between it and its American ally. Those fears might encourage Mr Lee to soften his stance in order to avoid worsening tension and risk damaging South Korea's investment climate. Mr Lee was elected on the promise of revitalising the economy.

Mr Lee's critics believe a South Korean government has no option but to co-operate with the North, especially on humanitarian matters such as family reunions or food supplies for malnourished North Koreans. They say Mr Lee is in thrall to GNP hardliners. These are mostly older politicians who scorn the “sunshine policy” towards the North of former presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. A decade of sunshine, they grumble, has cost a fortune in economic assistance to an evil neighbour, without enhancing national security: witness North Korea's successful nuclear test in October 2006.

Still, every South Korean president has to profess support for closer integration and eventual reunification with North Korea. Mr Lee has promised massive economic assistance and investment if the North gives up its nuclear programme.

That does not seem very likely in the near term. Progress on the six-party deal supposed to lead to the North's denuclearisation has stalled. Few in Seoul hold out hope that North Korea will make a proper declaration of its nuclear programmes, including its secret uranium-enrichment activities. It was supposed to deliver this by the end of 2007. On April 2nd Christopher Hill, the American negotiator on the issue, said in Seoul that he was “very concerned” by the lack of progress.

The opening of diplomatic relations between America and the North looks increasingly unlikely. Nor does the Bush administration seem willing to remove the North from the list of nations that sponsor terrorism. For its part, Kim Jong Il's regime seems to be biding its time until it can deal with a new American president.

As inter-Korean relations deteriorate, so do prospects for investment by South Korean firms in the North. Optimists had hoped that this might help open the country and hasten political change. But South Korean shipbuilders, for example, who had been exploring setting up shipyards in the North, have shelved such plans.

In the meantime many in South Korea expect mounting tension on the border. North Korea is expected to conduct further provocative military exercises near the demilitarised zone and the maritime “northern limit line”, which it wants moved further south. Some in Seoul predict naval clashes. One gloomy North Korea expert who has Mr Lee's ear expects North Korea to restart its nuclear-weapons programme and perhaps conduct another test this year. Even if he is wrong about that, few dispute his view that “a very tough time” looms on the peninsula.

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Rocketman vs. the Bulldozer

North Korea: Capitalist sprouts in unfertile soil

SOME members of North Korea's elite have long drunk the world's most expensive cognac and nibbled caviar. Others in Pyongyang, capital of the world's last Stalinist regime, drive luxury imported cars. Fairness and equality are proudly touted as the hallmarks of North Korea's self-reliant brand of socialism. But with more cash circulating under the country's economic reforms and goods more plentiful, Pyongyang residents are fast becoming consumers. Remarkably, some are also becoming investors in the property market—despite the government's theoretical monopoly on the allocation of housing.

Inspired by neighbouring China, North Korea initiated economic reforms in 2002. Most wage and price controls were dropped and the market was opened to some private commerce. After five years of reform, the new wealth has gravitated mainly to the city's privileged class.
One recent trend is for residents to trade up to bigger, newly built apartments. Under the country's Land Law, passed in 1977, all land belongs to the country and co-operatives, and cannot be bought, sold or even occupied. Yet a North Korean student who studied in China says businessmen are satisfying the demand for up-market housing by obtaining land rights from the local authorities and financing construction with capital from their customers. Chinese experts on North Korea say that the government itself has actually played an active role. Some of its agencies have financed the redevelopment of their properties with capital from their staff. They have then turned a profit by selling the new apartments through the government's housing department.

The student says each apartment covers about 150 square metres (1,600 square feet) and costs as much as $40,000 in the popular Moranbong and Central districts of Pyongyang. Construction is now under way at six or seven sites in the capital's residential areas. The building methods used are outdated, dominated by handmade concrete bricks. A five-storey building can take six months to complete. Because the construction is illegal there are fears that some of the newly built blocks might lose their permits or be confiscated even if they have already been paid for.
Officially, each citizen is entitled to receive 14 square metres of living space. But occupation, rank and “contribution” to the country can make a big difference. A “hero mother” who gives birth to triplets would receive a 200-square-metre home. One 28-year-old woman, who works as a tour guide, boasts of living in the Moranbong district in a 170-square-metre apartment with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, thanks to her father's senior government position. Only married couples are eligible for an apartment from the government, but the guide, who says she is single, claims to be wangling one for herself.

The government probably tolerates privately financed buildings because it is strapped for cash and cannot afford to build housing for its citizens. Many uncompleted, suspended building projects dot Pyongyang's skyline. Cranes gather rust, still perched on top of the buildings. North Koreans hope that foreign capital will help finish the buildings. According to Tigereye62.com, a website covering business in North Korea that is based in China's border city of Dandong, the government is soliciting $50m-60m for Pyongyang's historic Taedong-gang Hotel. The building, where “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il spent many years with his father, Kim Il Sung, burned down four years ago. The government is also hoping foreign investors will stump up $30m-45m for the partly completed Ryugong Hotel, which was designed to be Asia's tallest, with 105 floors. Construction has been stalled since 1992 because of a lack of funds.

The building mini-boom is good for the tiny cognac-sipping elite. But its members must worry about how the poverty-stricken majority, reared on promises of equality, will react to the sight of their new homes and growing prosperity. ◦

North Korea: Capitalist sprouts in unfertile soil