REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Progress in Beijing
China finally leans on Kim Jong Il.
President Bush responded cautiously to North Korea's promise yesterday to give up nuclear weapons. "That's a wonderful step forward," he said, "But now we've got to verify whether or not that happens."
That's for sure. But if it does happen, it will be a triumph for U.S. policy, removing a nasty threat to the security of the U.S. and its allies. And this time there is one important reason to believe it could work, past deceptions notwithstanding: China's vital interest in a denuclearized Korean peninsula and continued good relations with the U.S. and Japan.
China has said frequently it opposes Pyongyang's nuclear program, but it has taken its time in responding to U.S. entreaties that it apply muscle to Kim Jong Il, the North Korean dictator. Although China did not feature prominently in yesterday's communiqué from the six-party talks in Beijing, there is reason to believe it played the major role in forcing North Korea to foreswear nukes. That would vindicate Mr. Bush's insistence on six-party talks as opposed to bilateral negotiations with the North.
In yesterday's agreement, Pyongyang "commits" to giving up its nuclear weapons program, and the U.S. expresses "respect" for Pyongyang's desire to pursue peaceful nuclear energy. The agreement leaves many important details to be worked out later. But it suggests that the signatories have more effective methods in mind for verifying compliance than relying on the International Atomic Energy Agency, which North Korea has duped in the past. China could demonstrate its sincerity by taking a major role in verification.
Yesterday's breakthrough came just a week after Mr. Bush met Chinese President Hu Jintao in New York. The U.S. has also been telling China that it could no longer tolerate the status quo and would have to start squeezing Pyongyang harder. Last week the U.S. moved against a Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia Ltd., for laundering money for North Korea, causing a bank run. We'd also note that North Korea's promise to cooperate came one week after the re-election of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who has promised a more assertive foreign policy.
China does not want Japan to become a nuclear power, which would certainly happen if North Korea kept its nukes. Beijing's leaders also have a powerful strategic interest in continued good economic relations with the U.S. and Japan, whose investment and trade have helped fuel China's rapid economic growth. While Beijing didn't want to be seen throwing an ally over the side--and thus didn't want to sign on to an agenda of regime change in Pyongyang--it also doesn't want a break with the U.S.
Beijing's involvement was a key component missing from the Agreed Framework that the Clinton Administration struck with Kim Jong Il in 1994. North Korea's word by itself is worthless; it has made promises hand on heart in the past and has broken nearly every one, most recently when it kicked out U.N. inspectors and withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. China is either taking on the implicit role of inspector here or this agreement will also be impossible to verify. But if China is doing so, however quietly, it will be a major victory in the battle against WMD proliferation.
The six-party negotiators will take up the many items still to be resolved later in November. One key issue is North Korea's insistence that it has "the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy," as yesterday's statement put it. The five other parties "expressed their respect and agreed to discuss at an appropriate time the subject of the provision of light-water reactor to the DPRK." But it looks as if that help will come only at the end of process, after the North has given up its program and (we assume) its plutonium.
The chief U.S. negotiator at the talks, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, yesterday urged North Korea to close its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon, where it has boasted of producing warheads with plutonium. "What is the purpose of operating it at this point?" he said. "The time to shut it off would be about now." The North never did shut down Yongbyon as part of the 1994 Agreed Framework. Japan's chief envoy, Kenichiro Sasae, added that Pyongyang would have to fulfill all its pledges before the light-water issue was discussed.
No doubt some will describe this agreement as a triumph of diplomacy alone. But it would never have happened if Mr. Bush hadn't been willing to resist those--John Kerry, Colin Powell--who urged that the U.S. deal with the North one-on-one. And it wouldn't have happened without the U.S. willingness to squeeze the North out of its smuggling and proliferation money.
As a former U.S. President liked to say, "trust but verify." In this case, we are trusting that China will help verify that North Korea is fulfilling its pledges. If that's what plays out in coming months, Pyongyang could join Iraq, Pakistan's A.Q. Khan network and Libya on the list of anti-proliferation successes.
