Denuclearization, reunification, rehumanization.
Those three polysyllabic words describe the long-range South Korean and international objectives for the Korean Peninsula. But three monosyllabicwords stand in the way of a peaceful, democratic, reunified Korean nation: Kim. Jong. Un.
Until Kim voluntarily, or under internal and external pressure, changes his ways, which are carried on from his late father, Kim Jong Il, and his late grandfather, Kim Il Sung, peaceful regime change will be the Korean people’s and the world’s only release from the gruesome and increasingly dangerous rule in nuclear-armed North Korea.
Last week, a conference was held in Washington, D.C., to honor the 70th anniversary of the Republic of Korea-United States Alliance. It was conducted by several organizations devoted to reunification of the two Koreas and improvement in North Korea’s human rights record: One Korea Foundation, Alliance for Korea United, Global Peace Foundation and Action for Korea United.
Denuclearization received little more than a passing reference at the conference. That is not surprising, considering that the national security experts devoted to the subject, both in and out of government, have reluctantly concluded that a peaceful avenue is no longer available to rid the world of North Korea’s nuclear weapons threats.
The international community can thank the Chinese Communist Party, North Korea’s senior partner, ally in aggression, and permanent protector, for its role in creating this precarious state of affairs. Starting with China’s transfer of nuclear technology to North Korea in the 1990s through Pakistan’s A.Q. Kahn network to its diplomatic cover by delaying, diluting and then undermining U.N. and Western sanctions to its expanded purchases of North Korean coal and other, more illicit, economic aid, China has kept the Kim government surviving and functioning over several tempestuous decades.
All the while, Beijing managed to convince Western officials and foreign policy experts, led by then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, that China shared the world’s concerns regarding Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. The righteous posture won Beijing undeserved plaudits as a responsible international player and a good-faith negotiating partner. It also gained Western indulgence for China’s multiple violations of international law and norms in trade, theft of intellectual property, human rights, and its aggressive moves in the region, including the South China Sea and Taiwan. The standard explanation for giving Beijing a virtual permanent pass for its transgressions was always “we need China’s help on North Korea” — something that has never materialized.
The Beijing-Pyongyang partnership has accomplished the result it sought for North Korea: an all-but-officially recognized status as a nuclear power and a preemptive defense against any kinetic Western response. Behind that nuclear and missile shield, Kim feels freer to make increasingly credible threats toward South Korea, Japan and even the United States.
Its hardened military posture makes Pyongyang even less interested in the prospect of peaceful unification with South Korea, though it still harbors the ambition to unify the peninsula on its own terms, as it disastrously attempted with China’s collusion in the Korean War.
During their meeting in Washington, President Biden and South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol reiterated their commitment to pursuing the three long-term goals for the two Koreas. They voiced the same unification hopes as was the focus of the private conference: “The two Presidents are committed to build a better future for all Korean people and support a unified Korean Peninsula that is free and at peace.”
Similarly, Biden and Yoon “condemn[ed] the DPRK’s blatant violation of human rights and the dignity of its own people and its decision to distribute its scarce resources to weapons of mass destruction.” They “reiterate[d] their commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and reaffirm[ed] that a DPRK nuclear test would be met with a strong and resolute response from the international community.”
The growing North Korea nuclear threat, and the re-emergence of South Korean anxiety over American willingness to use its nuclear deterrent to defend it, had led some in South Korea’s security establishment to speculate about Seoul acquiring its own nuclear weapons.
To forestall America’s democratic ally from entering the nuclear club, likely to be followed by Japan, the Biden administration used the summit with Yoon to announce the Washington Declaration deepening Washington’s extended deterrence commitment.
The essence of that commitment, based on the Nuclear Posture Review, is that America’s nuclear umbrella will protect U.S. treaty allies against nuclear, or even nonnuclear, strategic threats. Biden said, “Our mutual defense treaty is iron clad and that includes our commitment to extend a deterrence — and that includes the nuclear threat, the nuclear deterrent.”
Biden and Yoon also pledged greater bilateral coordination on the deployment and use of the U.S. nuclear deterrent. As a first step, Biden agreed to deploy a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine to South Korean waters to symbolize the U.S. commitment, even though its nuclear reach already exceeded a 1,000-mile range.
Should North Korea defy the Biden-Yoon warning against a nuclear test, the “strong and resolute response” they promised should include serious secondary sanctions against China. Beijing continues enabling North Korea’s provocative behavior as a useful distraction, along with Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, from Western attention to China’s own aggressive moves in the Indo-Pacific, especially against Taiwan.
Biden should certainly avoid repeating, with North Korea on South Korea and China on Taiwan, the kind of muted “warning” he gave Putin before he invaded Ukraine: “It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion.”
Finally, the Biden administration should consider reinstituting what may have been former President Trump’s most potentially consequential component of his maximum-pressure campaign against North Korea: the delegitimization of the Kim regime. In three major speeches in 2017-2018 — at the United Nations, before the Korean National Assembly, and in his State of the Union Address — Trump described the horrors of what is happening to the North Korean people and questioned Kim’s fitness to govern the benighted country. It caught Pyongyang’s attention and opened the door to initial denuclearization negotiations — that is, until Kim’s big communist brother intervened and brought him to heel.
Never forget: The world’s North Korea problem is part of the world’s China problem.
Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He served in the Pentagon when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and was involved in Department of Defense discussions about the U.S. response. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA.