Alphen, Netherlands. 8
April. In 2000 Cranfield University’s Professor
Helen Smith posed the now seminal question about North Korea, “Bad, Mad, Sad or
Rational Actor?” Kim Jong-un, the thirty-ish leader of the somewhat mis-nomered
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) would indeed seem on the face of it to be
bad, mad and sad. On 13 March, 2013
Pyongyang unilaterally abrogated the July 1953 Armistice that ended the 1950-1953
Korean War, last week the military was apparently given the go-ahead to begin
military operations and Seoul thinks North Korea will conduct its fourth
nuclear test at its Punggye-ri testing site this coming Wednesday. But is the DPRK really bad, mad and sad?
Rather than involve
myself in the usual shark-infested ‘analyst’ media feeding frenzy such
occasions generate I took a step back and over the past week spoke to several
senior people with real knowledge of DPRK (as much as that is possible) in
search of policy perspective. Several common
themes emerged.
1.
Honouring
the ancestor: Kim
Jong-un may be trying to honour his grandfather and DPRK’s founder Kim Il-sung
by trying to re-generate some ‘ideological’ fervour in the run up to the 27
July sixtieth anniversary of the Armistice that halted the Korean War.
2.
Remembering
Stalin: March saw the sixtieth anniversary of Josef
Stalin’s death. This anniversary may
have also contributed to the search for renewal of the world’s last Stalinist
state with Kim consciously trying to re-create the Stalinist cult of the leader.
3.
“Military
First”: Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, crafted the policy of “Songun”
or “military-first”. This oppressive
regime in which much of its population is starving or close to starving is kept
going by a close system of patronage between the governing dynasty and the
military top brass. Certainly, if Kim
loses the support of the military he is finished and he may well be demonstrating
his commitment to them.
4.
China
is shifting: Chinese
President Xi has made it clear Beijing is no longer willing to tolerate the
racketeering and other practices of the dynasty it has hitherto supported. This weekend President Xi came as
close to issuing a warning to its long-time ally as Beijing has ever uttered. Irritated by the constant war rhetoric
Xi said, “No-one should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world
into chaos for selfish reasons”. Critically,
China is also building ever closer trade relations with the Republic of Korea
(South Korea) which is known to concern Pyongyang.
5.
Kim
Jong-un believes: Kim Il-sung once famously said (famous
at least in DPRK), “We are opposed to the line of compromise with imperialism. At
the same time, we cannot tolerate the practice of shouting against imperialism,
but in actual fact being afraid to fight it”.
Worryingly, Kim Jong-un may actually believe this to be true.
There can be no
question that all of the above considerations are exercising the minds of the
small policy clique close to Kim Jong-un who are normally quite considered in
the actions they advise. However,
perhaps the most intriguing possibility is that this whole crisis may have been
triggered by the well-intentioned, but perhaps naive private diplomacy of
American basketball star Denis Rodman.
At the end of February Mr Rodman made a surprise visit to
Pyongyang. It is known that in a meeting
with Mr Rodman Kim Jong-un said he wanted a direct face-to-face meeting with
President Obama.
Such a meeting would be
in line with Pyongyang’s long-standing demand that any negotiations for a final
peace treaty be conducted directly with Washington rather than with the
six-party Contact Group or through the UN.
Moreover, one of my contacts also suggested that Kim may have placed a
lot of political capital on Rodman’s visit seeing it as something akin to the
Nixon-Kissinger “Ping-Pong Diplomacy” in 1971 by which Beijing and Washington signalled to each other the desire for a new era in US-China relations.
Therefore, the current stand-off just could be
the result of Kim losing face with the military over Rodman’s visit. Here’s the rub; in spite of the current
nuclear foot-stamping the ruling dynasty could be signalling that it wants a
formal peace treaty with the US (and not the Contact Group) prior to the July
anniversary of the Armistice or at least an agreement by Washington to
begin negotiations by then. A peace treaty
would both remove DPRK's inherent and constant sense of vulnerability and
guarantee the regime’s survival. In
other words, this crisis could eventually lead to an opportunity.
Even if half correct
Kim would be taking a very big risk with the military and may need to prove his
hard-line credentials prior to any peace move.
Washington clearly understands this bigger picture and intelligently
cancelled an unrelated, routine missile test over the weekend.
North Korea; sad, bad but
perhaps not completely mad.
Julian Lindley-French
