Who Needs a Contingency Plan? Everyone Near North Korea
The most persuasive evidence I’ve yet seen that there is a real danger of instability in North Korea comes from the people who probably have the best intelligence about events in Pyongyang:
The Chinese military has boosted troop numbers along the border with North Korea since September amid mounting concerns about the health of Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, according to US officials.
Beijing has declined to discuss contingency plans with Washington, but the US officials said the Peoples’ Liberation Army has stationed more soldiers on the border to prepare for any possible influx of refugees due to instability, or regime change, in North Korea. [….]
One official cautioned that the increase in Chinese troops was not “dramatic”, but he said China was also constructing more fences and installations at key border outposts. Wang Baodong, the Chinese embassy spokesman in Washington, said he was unaware of any increased deployments. [Financial Times, Demetri Sevastopulo and Song Jung-a]
With fuel prices high and given the likely high cost of deploying the military to Tibetan regions recently, I doubt the Chinese would move those troops without the support of reliable intelligence. I don’t doubt that China has plans which it updates frequently. That’s a great deal easier when you don’t have to cooperate with other governments.
And what of the Americans? We had a contingency plan once, and it was known as Oplan 5029. The plan, written in the Cold War days before North Korea descended into economic and social collapse, is overdue for an update. Former President Roh Moo Hyun ended South Korea’s participation in 5029 planning out of fear that he’d give offense to the very people who reduced North Korea to a sooty, barren, diseased prison.
If the details of 5029 need revisiting, so does the big picture — especially the question of who will occupy and rebuild the North. Robert Kaplan, and later, Capt. Jonathon Stafford, have been warning us about the changed circumstances surrounding that question for a while now. It took Lee Myung Bak’s election and reports of Kim Jong Il’s incapacitation to awaken a few minds from their slumber.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has thrown his weight behind renewed calls from the U.S. to turn a conceptual scheme to deal with sudden contingencies in North Korea into a concrete action plan. Conplan 5029, long on the shelves because the previous South Korean government felt it interfered with sovereignty issues, is once again on the cusp of being turned into an operational plan.
A government source on Tuesday said Gates’ call came at the 40th bilateral Security Consultative Meeting in Washington on Oct. 17 to Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee. [Chosun Ilbo]
A Financial Times editorial calling for contingency planning notably includes China in the states to be involved in the planning, which raises the possibility of some fairly unrealistic expectations. China neither means us well nor shares our interests in the region. It won’t participate in a spirit of cooperation or collegiality, and it will probably do its utmost to frustrate the goal of a unified and democratic Korea. But China doesn’t want war any more than we do, which is why I hope that our diplomats are working on some quiet understandings with the Chinese about whose forces will enter Korea in the event of internecine fighting or outright collapse.
The best solution for China, the United States, and Korea would be a secret agreement that Koreans alone should occupy and rebuild North Korea.