Lee Myung Bak’s Nightmare Scenario

Yesterday, I noted that North Korea is now demanding the full normalization of diplomatic relations with the United States as its latest demand prerequisite to nuclear disarmament … notwithstanding the fact that as recently as February 2007, it had agreed to disarm in exchange for a completely different set of demands. Having achieved its first set of demands — the lifting of U.S. sanctions, the terror-sponsor designation, and probably enough fuel oil and food to take care of its inner party cadres this year — in exchange for no meaningful performance, no disarmament, no end to counterfeiting or dope smuggling, an incomplete disclosure scrawled on a bar napkin, the return of zero abductees, and no moderation in its brutality, the North Koreans are demanding even more:

North Korea said Tuesday it will not give up its nuclear weapons unless South Korea leaves the U.S. nuclear umbrella and there is no nuclear threat from the United States. The comments by a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman, distributed by the country’s official media, were the country’s first public remarks on its nuclear programs since the latest round of the six-party denuclearization talks ended without progress in December. [Kyodo News]

You can’t blame anyone who goes into a casino, happens upon a slot machine that pays every time he pulls the handle, and decides to keep pulling. The obvious problem is figuring out what the hell the North Koreans even mean by this and where the demands will ever end, or when its own disarmament will ever begin. Clearly, part of what the North Koreans want here is to marginalize the South Koreans, who are meeting with Chris Hill’s replacement, Kurt Campbell, to try to forestall that.

The Americans asked their Korean visitors what the new U.S. administration can do for South Korea in the coming three to six months, members of the advisory group said. The group urged prudence, saying they support high-level Washington-Pyongyang dialogue, but warned haste in sending a special envoy to Pyongyang while both inter-Korean relations and the six-party talks are stalled could send the wrong signal. It was apparently a suggestion aimed at preventing the North from freezing out the South.

The visiting group also said East Asian issues including the North Korean nuclear problem should not be pushed too far down in the order of priorities as the U.S. administration is preoccupied with the Middle East and the economic crisis. A member of the group said, “We also conveyed a view that it would be preferable for the U.S. to map out a big picture for resolving the North Korean nuclear problem instead of managing it on a piecemeal basis as was done in the last years of the Bush administration.”

The Americans reportedly responded that Obama will not be yielding to North Korea as some fear and that the Seoul-Washington-Tokyo negotiation channel will be no less important than the U.S.-Japan-China group, which relies more on international power. [Chosun Ilbo]

Korea has a formidable lobby in Washington to help secure its flanks here, and has at least as good a chance of achieving its interests through effective lobbying and bitching to the right people as Roh’s government did during the Bush Administration. The management of Obama’s transition suggests that his compass points reliably toward the policy of least resistance: get that Rick Warren guy to raise my numbers with the religious people. And when the anti-religious people react, bring in that gay bishop guy, whatsisname.

Unfortunately for Lee, he may have bigger problems in the coming realignment of Japan’s politics. After decades in power, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party may soon be ousted by the Democratic Party of Japan. Conventional wisdom has it that the DPJ would pursue a more “accommodationist” foreign policy, particularly toward China. The reality of it appears to be more complicated. The DPJ is riven into many factions across the political spectrum, though “the left” appears to be dominant. But with North Korea so loathed by Japanese voters, don’t expect a dramatic shift in Japan’s North Korea policy under the DPJ. The DPJ supports a fairly robust North Korean human rights bill that has provisions for the acceptance of North Korean defectors. Personally, I’ve also observed a number of DPJ politicians in attendance at North Korea human rights events in Washington. The DPJ has also made predictably strong statements about the abductions of Japanese citizens, conditioning improvements in relations on their return:

Like many in the US, Japan views North Korea as a very real security threat. Some believe that North Korea maintains more than 200 missiles with the capability to strike anywhere in Japan and its nuclear weapons program only makes this threat more significant. We remain resolute that introducing and setting up a missile defense system and addressing security issues through the Six Party talks are priorities.

Like the United States, we look forward to normalizing our diplomatic relations and state to state relations with North Korea, and engaging in real economic support only when we are satisfied that Pyongyang has abandoned its nuclear program and has disposed of nuclear and missile related weapons. At the same time, Japan continues to uncover the details and scale of North Korea’s history of abducting Japanese citizens and finding a solution to those abduction cases is vital. We appreciate the United States’ unconditional support on this issue. Abduction is a despicable crime and human rights issue—or one could say an ongoing terrorist act. But the unilateral implementation of economic sanctions by Japan is meaningless without the support of countries like the United States. [DPJ President Seiji Meihara in Washington, circa 2005]

But unless Japan is dramatically different from America in this regard, politicians say one thing during a campaign and do another once in office. Which means that Lee’s nightmare scenario could still come to pass: a continued U.S. determination to appease North Korea at the expense of Japanese and South Korean interests (not to mention its own) without Japan’s help to moderate America’s rolling capitulation.

Worse, Lee’s own constituents continue to view their own national interests from a perspective that is so immature as to border on the infantile: headlines in Seoul today report on the identification of 30 new species found on Tokdo (!) — presumably all microbes, mosquitoes, lice, ticks, and flying cockroaches. South Korean voters lack a coherent and practical vision for North Korea’s future and how they should seek to shape it, and Lee certainly hasn’t explained either of those things to the people who elected him.

If that nightmare scenario comes to pass, Lee, pragmatic fellow that he is, would probably have to back down to North Korea’s extortion rather than allow himself to be marginalized by, and isolated from, all of the great powers that surround him. The problem for Lee is that North Korea’s internal control requires the invention of external enemies. If the North chooses to pursue a calculated and temporary moderation of its venom toward the United States and Japan, it will probably continue threatening South Korea regardless of what Lee does, at least until its relations with America sour again.