North Korean missile launch
Glynn Ford
MEP is a member of the Parliament’s Delegation with Relations to the Korean Peninsula and a noted author on North Korea, most recently with ‘North Korea on the Brink’ where he analyses the Pyongyang regime and how the EU can engage with them. After the recent missile launches by North Korea, he talks with New Europe on what the regime is up to.What is North Korea trying to achieve by the recent missile tests?
I think both the nuclear test that took place in April and the subsequent tests of medium and long range missiles is performing two tasks. Firstly it is consolidating the regime internally. We know that Kim Jong-il is preparing for a transition of power. It looks as though he favours his youngest son, who is the favourite of his wife.
Other candidates include his oldest son, his brother in law and his half brother that might form an alternative collective leadership. Kim Jong-il is clearly trying to organise a succession and he needs to do that from a position of strength. Who can say if he’ll still be in power five years or even five months from now?
At the same time, the regime is attention seeking, the US has a policy of what I call malign neglect. They’re engaging with Iran but not North Korea. For the North Koreans, even those who are in favour of economic reform, this can’t take place while the shadow of US sanctions hangs over the country. Nobody in their right mind is going to invest in North Korea in the current situation, particuarly when you’ve got China next door where salaries are about the same and much more stable.
For them to take a Chinese or Vietnamese approach to reform, the sanctions must go and that requires negotiation and the US administration has not fully engaged. Their special Advisor on North Korea is part time! It’s difficult to imagine that they’re taking North Korea seriously if they can’t afford a full time special envoy.
Will another dynastic succession weaken the leadership?
One of the reasons the regime has survived is that it is an indigenous regime, not one imposed from outside. I think, generally, dynastic succession does lessen the legitimacy somewhat. The regime comes from a strong resistance to Japanese rule and Kim Il-Sung was a leading member. To be yet a further generation away from the key people who established the regime will have less legitimacy.
China has a troubled relationship with the regime. How much do influence they have on the regime?
Yes it does have a troubled relationship. But they have a stronger relationship with Pyongyang than any other country, China has more influence than any other country. Nevertheless the North Koreans are very sensitive about their sovereignty and autonomy. People who think all it takes is for the Chinese to tell North Korea what to do are deluded. The Chinese are annoyed at the moment because North Koreans actions are threatening the spread of an arms race throughout Asia.
The Japanese are deploying theatre missile defence in Japan and that weakens China’s position vis a vis Japan, forcing the Chinese to spend more on their military, especially on inter-continental ballistic missiles. At the moment, the Chinese are struggling with the problem of 300 million people who have lost their jobs and 100 million who left the cities to return to the countryside and the Chinese want to spend money on that problem.
The six party talks must be the most frustrating and traumatic experience for the negotiators
No, no, it’s far worse! They’ve had over five thousand meetings since the armistice in 1953! The format of the talks has been very difficult and part of the reason is the US. They refuse to have bilateral relations and the fundamental breakthrough must come from the US and North Korea.
It would be hard for politicians to gain support for actions that could be seen as aiding a dictatorship with a terrible reputation.
The regime may be hard-line and difficult, but they’re not mad. Kim Jong-il is a rational actor making hard decisions. It is possible to have a dialogue and find a solution with him.
What role could the EU play?
We do engage and we do talk. One of the reasons the North Koreans treat the Eu reasonably seriously is because, unlike Japan and the US, we actually talk to them.
Is there the political will to send out a unified message to the regime from the EU?
There is a will, but the problem is that it’s largely an echo of what the US does at the moment. We have some of the same interests, especially in non-proliferation but the lesson North Korea learned from the Iraq war was that you need WMD! We need to be aware of that.
Where next for the EU?
We need the Lisbon Treaty, we need a common foreign and security policy. Hopefully whoever takes that role will understand why North Korea is important. We’ve got China, the world’s biggest country, Russia, that plays its own role, Japan, the world’s second biggest economy and South Korea, our fourth largest trading nation. If something goes wrong on the peninsula all those countries are destabilised in different ways and that will impact on us.
What practical steps can the EU take?
It would be inappropriate for us to be giving anything but humanitarian aid and assistance but what we can do is indicate what might be available should a solution be found. I’d like us to be sending teams over to look at what we might achieve.
The EU made the decision in 2001 to establish the EU diplomatic relations, but the French have blocked it actually happening. We’ve given 8 billion in aid. on that basis we should have permanent people in Pyongyang looking at our interests and expressing our viewpoint.
