intentBlog:

Lord Alton: How do you solve a Problem like Korea?

Dear ATCA Colleagues; dear IntentBloggers

[Please note that the views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats.]

We are grateful to:

. The Lord Alton of Liverpool from the Palace of Westminster for "How do you solve a Problem like Korea?";

in response to Andrew Leung for his submission to ATCA, "North Korea: To win without waging war."

David Alton (Lord Alton of Liverpool) is Chairman of the British Parliamentary All-Party Group on North Korea and believes this is the time to engage North Korea through constructive engagement: Helsinki With An Asia Face. He has visited North Korea and regularly meets North and South Korean diplomats. He began his career as a teacher and, in 1972, he was elected to Liverpool City Council as Britain's youngest City Councillor. He served for 18 years in the House of Commons. David was made a Life Peer in 1997. He has sat for the past 10 years as a Crossbencher in the House of Lords and is Professor of Citizenship at Liverpool John Moores University. A Fellow of St.Andrew's University his books include "Citizen Virtues" and "Faith In Britain." He was one of the founders of the British Human Rights Organisation, Jubilee Campaign. Lord Alton writes:

Dear DK and Colleagues

Re: How do you solve a Problem like Korea?

No, not a new arrangement for the well-known song from The Sound of Music - that has been the question increasingly vexing diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic. As the international community now tests the sincerity of North Korea's decision to step back from nuclear brinkmanship, we should take every possible opportunity to draw the country out of isolation and into constructive dialogue and incremental economic engagement.

Since North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon, in October last, the international community has puzzled long and hard about how to respond. Quietly, a welcome change of attitude has been taking place in Washington about how best to handle the quixotic Communist Regime of Kim Jong Il. That change of heart was given a welcome boost this week at the six-nation talks in Beijing. That a change was coming was underlined last month when one of the most senior officials in the Bush administration was in Berlin meeting with North Korean counterparts. In two-way talks, which hitherto the Americans had refused to hold, the crucial questions of recognising North Korean sovereignty and guaranteeing its security were on the table. The US seems ready to sign a formal peace treaty to formally end the 1950-1953 Korean War.

And, in London, last month, I hosted a talk by Jay Lefkowitz, President Bush's Special Envoy on Human Rights in North Korea. Increasingly, officials like Lefkowitz, seem to accept the desirability of directing a new Helsinki Process towards North Korea - a process used so effectively by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in helping to transform the former Soviet Bloc countries. Helsinki With An Asian Face would recognise that there are some circumstances that are unique to North Korea but that the underlying principle of critical engagement, dialogue, and the insistence of respect for the human rights of North Korea's citizens would be paramount.

But if the international community has been reassessing how to handle North Korea, the regime itself needs to fundamentally alter direction. If it doesn't, we could very soon see a repeat of the catastrophic famine of the 1990s when some 2 million people died -- and it could face an invasion, perhaps from an unexpected source.

As of now, North Korea is around 1 million tonnes short of the 5 million required for basic rations to feed the entire population at subsistence level. The World Food Programme's contribution to North Korea is down from its peak of 1.5 million tonnes to just 150,000 tonnes and, having fed 6 million people, it is now only feeding 1.9 million people. An international community, increasingly hostile to a North Korea, is leaving the country to stew in its own mess. It says that North Korea has scandalously used at least 30 per cent of its GDP on armaments and in developing nuclear weapons-resources that should have been used to develop the country's economy. It says, why should we give it food when it tries to blackmail us with nuclear weapons?

All very understandable and in a large measure, true. But who pays the price? More than 37 per cent of six year-olds in North Korea are chronically malnourished. Stunted growth among the population has even led to the height requirement for the North Korean army being reduced from 4 foot 11 to 4 foot 3. It's people are paying the price.

Malnutrition and a weakened population make their people especially vulnerable to disease. Conditions are right for pandemics to emerge there. A hopelessly compromised water system, the break down of sewage and piping, little soap, poor hygiene and a scratchy public health and immunisation programme, are a toxic combination.

In one recent year 220 of every 100,000 people infected, died of TB and in 2006 half of all children's deaths were from diarrhoea and respiratory infections. Maternal deaths have increased substantially in the past decade. Poverty related diseases like cholera; scarlet fever and typhoid are all on the rise. Solving a problem like Korea is a matter of life and death for millions of ordinary Korean people.

And don't imagine that ignoring Korea is an option. Recently reported cases of Avian Flu on the Korean Peninsular, and SARS infection, make North Korea a hot spot for diseases which could sweep around the world. Meanwhile, their degraded, unsafe and often non-existent infrastructure makes the danger of a nuclear or chemical accident very likely. Their nuclear sites (identical to Chernobyl) are close to the Russian and Chinese borders and their chemical sites are close to the border with South Korea. No wonder their neighbours are waking up to the dangers.

There has always been an assumption in North Korea that it would be the Americans (with around 20,000 troops in South Korea) who would intervene militarily but in reality it is China which has most to lose from North Korea and they are losing patience. There is even open talk of annexation of North Korea by China.

There are six members of Kim Jong Il's Politburo - four are over 80 and one is 93. The army generals who surround him are no younger. It is the army who, under North Korea's ideology of "the military first", call the shots. Some of these leaders are steeped in and conditioned by the patriotic struggles against Japanese occupation and the immense cruelty of the Japanese occupation of Korea.

They have spent all their lives hoping to see the reunification of the Korean Peninsular and an end to foreign troops on Korean soil. That, incidentally, is an objective with which I entirely agree. Those leaders are now well aware that to withstand China, North Korea needs to make its peace with South Korea and negotiate a settlement with the US. Long overdue changes in White House attitudes now make this a real possibility and the North Koreans should seize it.

Best wishes

David Alton

[ENDS]

-----Original Message-----
From: Intelligence Unit
Sent: 15 February 2007 14:37
To: 'atca.members@mi2g.com'
Subject: ATCA: North Korea: To win without waging war -- Andrew Leung

Dear ATCA Colleagues

[Please note that the views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats.]

We are grateful to Andrew Leung for his submission to ATCA, "North Korea: To win without waging war."

Andrew Leung has over 40 years of experience in a number of senior positions working closely with mainland China, including Hong Kong, with a focus on commerce, industry, finance, banking, transport, social welfare and diplomatic representation. He has addressed numerous local and international business and strategic fora, groups and organisations on China, including making regular television appearances. He has written many key commentaries on China for various organisations including ATCA. His target audience includes finance and investment houses, institutional investors, large businesses, think tanks, senior officials and business schools. Andrew was twice sponsored personally by the US Government on briefing visits to the United States, including a month-long visit to brief Chairmen and CEOs of multi-nationals in regard to China, post-Tiananmen Square. He was also sponsored by the Economist as a speaker at the China conference in Berlin with the German Foreign Affairs Institute. He was invited to brief personally the Duke of York and the Lord Mayor of London prior to their China visits.

Andrew is on the Governing Council of King's College London; the Advisory Board of Nottingham University's China Policy Institute; and the Executive Committee of the 48 Group Club with historical and working links with the Chinese leadership. He has been appointed as a Global Representative for Changsha City, China. He chairs the China Interest Group of the Institute of Directors' City Branch. He is a Visiting Professor of the International MBA Programmes of China's Sun Yat-Sen and Lingnan Universities. He will shortly begin lecturing as a Visiting Professor at NIMBAS University, Utrecht, Holland. Andrew is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). He was awarded the Silver Bauhinia Star (SBS) in the 2005 Hong Kong's Honours List. He has qualifications from the University of London, Cambridge University, The Law Society and Harvard Business School. He speaks Cantonese and Mandarin and practices Chinese calligraphy as well as fine art. He writes:

Dear DK and Colleagues

Re: North Korea: To win without waging war

As I have already written about North Korea not too long ago [ATCA: North Korea, the Beijing Consensus, Soft Power, and the Art of War, 9th October 2006], I will be brief.

It is right to greet this 'breakthrough' with North Korea with all the caution that country deserves. During the past tortuous negotiations, there were simply too many false starts to merit immediate belief. Yet having exploded a Bomb only recently and now agreeing to trade its latest nuclear installations for energy and financial assistance seems to suggest a calculated mind upping the stakes for a maximum bargain rather than a fickle temperament with the instinct of a scorpion. But as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stressed, the test of the pudding is in the eating. Time is of the essence to test North Korea's good faith in the next 60 days as stipulated in the agreement.

If North Korea should prove not to eat her own words again, this would mean that she seems to be a good student of the Art of War for getting what she wants - by applying the tactic of knowing your adversary as much as you know yourself. She calculates clearly that the US does not have the appetite or the political capital to face a simultaneous war in the Korean Peninsula whilst still being embroiled in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.

This would also seem to vindicate the approach of China as host of the six-party talks (and that of neighbouring South Korea and Russia) of not resorting to military confrontation. A satisfactory outcome for all would serve to add to China's growing Soft Power.

But perhaps this would prompt the US to realise that Vietnam was won over by economics and not by military coercion, which ended in ignominious withdrawal. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, North Korea could be poised for the same winning recipe, which of course happens to coincide with what South Korea, China and indeed everybody wants.

But who is winning? North Korea or those on the other side of the table? Well, perhaps both. As Sun Tzu says, it is always better to win without waging war.

Andrew Leung

[ENDS]