U.S.-China ties key to Korea's future

U.S.-China ties key to Korea's future

By Zeno Park

SEOUL (AFP): U.S.-China ties will be crucial in determining Korea's future, while North Korea, dabbling in limited economic reforms, will at least in the short term try to avoid contacts with South Korea.

These are the key points largely agreed upon by analysts at a seminar here on North Korea's future, staged by the U.S. Brookings Institution and Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security of the foreign ministry here Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thomas L. McNaugher of Brookings said: "They (North Korea) will continue trying to ignore Seoul, exploiting a recent agreement with the United States ... more for its contacts with Washington and Tokyo than for its enforced deal with Seoul for new (nuclear) reactors."

North Korea and the United States struck an agreement in Geneva on Oct. 21 that the North freeze its suspect nuclear program in return for economic aid, diplomatic recognition and new light-water reactors.

South Korea will offer the bulk of the cost for the reactors, estimated at four billion dollars.

McNaugher said North Korean leaders needed economic growth to survive but realized that growth could be lethal.

The North will balance these risks by seeking limited economic reform. If they succeed, he said, they will try to reinvigorate their contest with South Korea on political and economic grounds, perhaps on military grounds as well.

"More important than economic motivation in shaping inter- Korean relations and the prospects for unification, will be the quality of relations among those around the peninsula, particularly China and the United States," he said.

If U.S.-China relations sour, perhaps over human rights or over Taiwan, then Beijing's stake in North Korea's survival as a socialist regime and geostrategic buffer will grow and Pyongyang's room for maneuver will expand, he said.

"The argument that outside powers have a crucial role to play in determining Korea's future conforms to Korea's history, geography and relative size among the larger regional powers," he said.

Yang Sung-chul of the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies Kynghee University agreed that China definitely would be an intervener at best and a roadblock to South Korea-led integration process and unification at worst.

McNaugher said limited economic reform was Pyongyang's preferred initial scenario, since it promises a certain amount of economic growth but minimizes the destabilizing consequences of too energetic an opening of its economy.

The initial stages of this scenario may be very dangerous for South Korea since the isolated North Korean regime's "paranoia" is likely to run higher than usual, McNaugher said.

During this stage, the North will avoid serious talk of unification (with the South) in the hope that they can approach that subject from a stronger position down the road, he said.

Harry Harding of the Brookings Institution said if Kim Jong- il, eldest son and designated successor to late long-time ruler Kim Il-sung, succeeded in consolidating his power, he will attempt a program of limited economic reform.

But after a year or so, it will become increasingly apparent that limited reform has produced limited consequences, while loyalty to the legacy of Kim Il-sung weakens, leading to the widening of the range of policy options.

At that point, the regime will adopt more thorough economic reform, accompanied by a partial restructuring of political life, drawing inspiration from the Chinese and Vietnamese experience, Harding said.

Paik Jin-hyun, Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, agreed that North Korea's leaders would be "extremely cautious and reluctant" about inter-Korean economic exchanges and cooperation.

"In short, North Korea will introduce policy changes and reforms yet such changes and reforms are to be at best limited and selective and be pursued in such a way that their political and social impact is safely contained," Paik said.