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Source: House Policy Committee. The Crisis in North Korea

The Policy Committee publishes Policy Statements, which express the formal position of the House on important matters, and Policy Perspectives, which provide background for Members of Congress.

The Crisis in North Korea

POLICY STATEMENT

Issued: October 14, 1998

A crisis is coming in Northeast Asia. A massive North Korean military buildup centered on the development of nuclear weapons and delivery systems has coalesced with famine and catastrophic declines in all non-military sectors of the North Korean economy to produce the most dangerous of all strategic scenarios: a dictatorship with rapidly escalating military capabilities, subject to rapidly escalating internal pressures. And North Korea is not simply a dictatorship: it is a uniquely monstrous tyranny that has tormented the Korean people for half a century, creating the most completely totalitarian and militarized state in human history.

U.S. relations with North Korea last reached a crisis in 1993-94 as evidence of North Korea's nuclear weapons development was uncovered. Although the Clinton Administration's initial response was uncompromising--the President in November 1993 flatly declared that "North Korea cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear bomb"--the Administration subsequently adopted a policy of paying North Korea to pledge not to develop a nuclear bomb. North Korea's nuclear program was to be "frozen" in exchange for billions of dollars in energy aid (including two nuclear reactors) through the 1994 "Agreed Framework" and its implementing bureaucracy, KEDO. North Korea's food crisis was to be stabilized by distributing hundreds of thousands of tons of free food to starving civilians. The security crisis was to be defused by four-party negotiations to end the state of hostilities dating back almost half a century to North Korea's attack on the South in 1950. Each of these policies was designed to buy time in which the North Korean regime would either reform itself or disintegrate.

Every element of this policy is now in ruins. Rather than buying time for North Korea to reform or collapse, it has bought time for Kim Jong-Il to consolidate his political power and perfect his weapons programs. On September 5, Kim assumed full control of the dictatorship, diverting millions of dollars to celebrate his status as supreme leader in the midst of mass starvation. KEDO's rationale has been undermined by the wholesale violation of the Agreed Framework, discovery of a new North Korean nuclear facility under construction, and Pyongyang's August 31 launch of a three-stage nuclear-capable missile over Japan. Japan, which with South Korea was to bear the largest portion of KEDO expenditures, has now suspended its financial participation, and South Korea now seeks to renegotiate its own financial contribution in light of its economic crisis. The four-party security discussions to defuse military tensions and end the state of hostilities have failed to produce agreement even on an agenda, despite the Administration's concession that the North can raise any issue it wishes. Meanwhile the Administration since 1994 has repeatedly vetoed and obstructed Congressional efforts to develop and deploy theater missile defenses that could defend against North Korea's program.

The multinational food-aid program has also collapsed. Despite totalitarian secrecy and a dearth of effective international monitoring, there is now incontrovertible evidence that Pyongyang has diverted food aid from U.S. humanitarian organizations and the European Union to the military, security forces, and party elite. There can be little assurance that official U.S. or U.N. food aid has not similarly been diverted, given the obstruction and deception that the North Korean Government has used to curtail outside monitoring. Moreover, even the food aid that has reached needy civilians has been re-channeled through the state, thereby converting it into a source of control and prestige for the regime. As the defecting general secretary of North Korea's communist party has said, "North Korea controls people with food". The food distribution is a means of control." In the face of this evidence, some members of the international community, including Japan, have largely terminated their assistance, convinced that it merely perpetuates the suffering of the Korean people. On September 29, Doctors Without Borders, the largest international charity operating in North Korea, announced that it was withdrawing from the North. According to the Washington Post, the organization stated that it was "concerned that the North Korean government was applying a double standard--feeding children from families loyal to the regime while neglecting others." Regarding U.S. food aid, the Post quoted a U.S. official as stating, "In truth, we don't know what we're doing. We're just sending in lots of food and hoping against hope." This year, the United States will have supplied 84% of all World Food Program food aid to the North.

Although the underlying premises of its policy have collapsed, the Administration now offers more of the same failed policies:

• More opposition to missile defense: The Administration in mid-September reiterated its belief that any long-range missile threat to the United States was more than a decade away, despite the August 31 launch. And the Administration remains rigidly opposed to accelerating either theater or national missile defense development or deployment.

• More food aid: On September 21, two weeks after Pyongyang's ballistic missile launch over Japan, the President unilaterally announced that he would send an additional 300,000 tons of food to the North Korean Government. Bringing the United States' contribution to a total of five-sixths of the global appeal, this quantity is more than North Korea's ports can handle.

• More money for KEDO: On September 14, the Administration told Congress that it sought $27 million more to fund KEDO. It claimed that neither the missile launch nor the newly discovered underground facility violate the Agreed Framework. And the Administration is now floating proposals to supplement its failed attempt to buy off North Korea's nuclear program with a new attempt to buy off its missile program. And though the Administration is pressuring both Tokyo and Seoul to resume aid to the North, it appears to be willing to go it alone if they do not. Dogmatically multilateralist in almost every other sphere of foreign policy, the Clinton Administration is prepared to act unilaterally in appeasement.

A New Approach

North Korea's weapons program has created a national security emergency in Northeast Asia, directly threatening not only South Korea and Japan but also the 100,000 U.S. troops that defend our interests there. The Administration's policy response has severely exacerbated this crisis by systematically rewarding North Korea for its most dangerous misconduct. Time has worked to Pyongyang's advantage, and will continue to do so as the North's weapons programs advance. A new policy must be adopted now.

• Efforts to strengthen U.S. and allied defenses in the region must be given the highest national priority. These efforts must include urgent efforts to develop and deploy theater missile defenses for our allies in the Asia-Pacific region, as required by the Defense Authorization Act just passed by the Congress.

• The KEDO nuclear appeasement policy must be ended. Efforts to buy off Pyongyang's nuclear program have, predictably, only encouraged the North in further misconduct: an accelerated missile program, rampant missile proliferation to other states, and renewed and expanded efforts at nuclear-weapons development. North Korea must learn that the world, and the United States in particular, will not reward threatening behavior. KEDO funding must be permanently ended; no buyoff of the North's missile program can be permitted.

• Food aid must be safeguarded against diversion or abuse. U.S. and international food aid must be used neither to feed North Korea's military-police apparatus nor to strengthen the dictatorship's control over its people. No further food aid should go to the North unless and until we have adequate assurances that diversion to non-civilians has ceased; that military food stocks are being opened to civilians; and that the U.N. and private voluntary organizations have been permitted to take all reasonable steps to ensure that all upcoming food aid deliveries will not be diverted from needy recipients, including unsupervised, unscheduled, and unannounced visits by Korean-speaking outside monitors to recipient institutions and farmers' markets. President Reagan's key principle of humanitarian aid--that hunger knows no politics--necessitates that food aid not be diverted for political ends by Pyongyang.

Current Administration policy in Korea, though designed to avert crisis, is in fact only increasing the odds that a crisis will come at a time of Pyongyang's choosing, when its new weapons are ready and its massive military machine is fully prepared. The policy of appeasing the North has demonstrably failed, and must be replaced by a policy of peace through strength.

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