Obama faces N. Korea's brinkmanship even before developing policy

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, April 25 (Yonhap) -- The new Barack Obama administration is facing
North Korea's time-honored brinkmanship even before developing a policy on what
to do with a nuclear-armed North Korea developing a nuclear warhead delivery
system.

With the advent of the 100th day of Obama's presidency nearing, the U.S.
president is also seeking wider access to South Korea's auto market and
consolidation of their decades-old alliance amid growing tension instigated by a
nuclear-armed North Korea.
By far, the most significant incident Obama has experienced in his relationship
with either Korea as U.S. president, however, was Pyongyang's recent rocket
launch that had awakened him before dawn at a Prague hotel.
"North Korea's missile test stimulated the first direct statements on North Korea
from the president himself," said Scott Snyder, director of the Center for
U.S.-Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation.
Despite the fact that "the administration is still in formation and the
relatively low priority of North Korea in relationship to many other issues
facing the new administration," Snyder said that "the official statement and
President Obama's public remarks in Prague on the day of the North Korean launch
have ramifications as an initial event and early test that could influence the
shape of the Obama administration's policy."
At that time, Obama described the launch as similar to the North's Taepodong
missile and called for "stern punishment," although North Korea says it was part
of a space program aimed at sending a satellite into space.
After the launch, the U.N. Security Council issued a presidential statement
calling for financial and trade embargoes of three North Korean companies
involved with missiles and other weapons of mass destruction.
The sanctions invited a strong reaction from North Korea, which threatened not to
attend six-party nuclear disarmament talks, restart its nuclear facilities and
enhance its nuclear deterrence, adversely affecting Obama's efforts to revive the
nuclear talks that have been in limbo since December over how to verify the
North's nuclear activity.
"North Korea's provocative behavior has constrained the administration's range of
inducements that it might otherwise have been willing to offer," Bruce Klingner,
senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said. "The Obama administration has
been so consumed with responding to North Korea's missile launch that they have
not had the opportunity yet to devise their long-term approach to Pyongyang."
"Initial indications are that the Obama administration is unwilling to chase
after Pyongyang or to offer additional benefits to buy North Korea back to the
negotiating table," he said.
David Straub, associate director of Korean Studies at the Shorenstein
Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, however, said that Obama
will stick to its campaign pledge to complement six-party talks with bilateral
engagement with the North to persuade the reclusive communist state to abandon
its nuclear as well as missile ambitions.
"The Obama administration's North Korea policy was clear from its inauguration,"
said the former head of the Korea Desk at the State Department. "Working in close
cooperation with the Republic of Korea and Japan, it is pursuing a principled,
long-term approach to the challenges posed by North Korea."
While campaigning last year, Obama pledged to meet with North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il or any other leaders of rogue states without preconditions, saying, "The
Bush administration has come to recognize that it hasn't worked, this notion that
we are simply silent when it comes to our enemies."
Obama has been reaching out to former U.S. foes, like Iran, Cuba and Venezuela,
in what is called the "remedy diplomacy" to balance the unilateral "cowboy
diplomacy" pursued by the former Bush administration.
The new U.S. president has not done that yet for North Korea.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said she wants to have missile talks
with North Korea, which were suspended under the administration of her husband,
Bill Clinton, amid North Korea's demand for up to US$1 billion annually in return
for its ban on the development, shipment and deployment of missiles.
Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special representative for North Korea, also said in early
April, "In my experience of dealing with North Korea, pressure is not the most
productive one of approach. We have to combine pressure and incentives."
Some analysts say North Korea's provocative acts since Obama's inauguration in
January are a strategy to up the ante in its pursuit of bilateral talks with the
Obama administration instead of the six-party talks that have been pursued
on-and-off for the past six years.
"North Koreans fear that the growing Chinese economic influence on North Korea
might eventually translate into Beijing's enhanced political influence in North
Korea," said Suh Jae-jean, president of the Korea Institute for National
Unification, noting the growing trade and investment that China, North Korea's
staunchest communist ally, has made in the North for the past decade or so.
Another issue facing Obama, who will have spent 100 days in the White House on
Wednesday, is the free trade agreement signed by the Bush administration that is
still awaiting Congressional approval.
Obama has taken issue with what he calls lopsided auto trade, although South
Korea disputes the U.S. figures, which include hundreds of thousands of autos
produced by Hyundai Motor's plant in Alabama.
Some experts say that ongoing restructuring of the U.S. auto industry will help
promote ratification of the trade deal despite growing protectionism in the
Democrat-controlled Congress, which fears the deal would undermine support from
local trade unions, a key political base, due to possible job cuts during the
worst recession in decades.
Straub described Obama as "a supporter of free trade," although he noted that "as
a candidate and as a president, like any other head of a democratic government,
he must take into account the concerns of his citizens and his national
interests."
The scholar added, "The top officials of our two governments will find mutually
satisfactory ways to address existing concerns and ratify the KORUS FTA within
the next year or so."
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk recently said he is "looking for new solutions
to the issues that have dragged on" amid U.S. officials and experts talking about
"creative ways" of avoiding renegotiation of the Korea FTA by way of side
agreements on the sensitive auto and beef issues.
Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Barack Obama held a summit early this month in
London and "agreed that the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement could bring benefits
to both countries and committed to working together to chart a way forward."
South Korea's National Assembly foreign affairs and trade committee last week
approved the FTA with the U.S. in a prelude to possible ratification by the
plenary parliamentary session in June.
South Korean officials have said they will not renegotiate it, and hope the
upcoming Lee-Obama summit will make a breakthrough on the auto and beef issues.
Barry Bosworth, senior research fellow at the Brookings Institution, however,
said that "the Korean government was misled."
"The submission of a major trade bill to the Congress in the midst of a severe
recession is too risky," he said. "I think most trade specialists believe it is a
good agreement, but it comes at a bad time, and it is not an issue on which Obama
needs to battle with the Congress at the present time."
Klingner agreed. "The pervasive sentiment within both the Obama Administration
and the U.S. Congress is that of trade protectionism, though it hides behind the
more benign moniker of fair trade," he said. "It would be impossible for Obama or
any Democratic legislator to reverse their opposition to KORUS without at least
some face-saving measure to stave off union criticism," he said.
The bilateral alliance, meanwhile, appears not to be problematic despite the
leaders' ideological differences.
Since Obama's election in November, concerns have risen that the ideological gap
between conservative Lee and liberal Obama might revive the kind of difficulty
then Presidents Roh Moo-hyun and George W. Bush had in coordinating their North
Korea policy and realigning their decades-old alliance.
Some feared an aggressive approach to North Korea by Obama would collide with
Lee's pledge not to seek inter-Korean reconciliation unless the North abandons
its nuclear weapons programs.
However, Klingner said, "There has been no substantive change to the ROK-US
alliance during the short tenure of the Obama administration."
"However, the status quo is seen as strongly reassuring from earlier South Korean
expectations that the conservative Lee Myung-bak and liberal Barack Obama would
have difficulty reaching consensus," he said. "Secretary of State Clinton's
remarks during her Asia trip strongly supporting President Lee's approach toward
North Korea and the importance of the ROK-US alliance also removed many South
Korean concerns."
Recalling their "excellent first meeting" earlier this month, Straub said, "Their
personal chemistry is good and their basic approaches to bilateral issues are
similar. At their meeting in June, they are likely to explain their vision for a
strengthened alliance and enhanced cooperation globally."
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)