Newswise — On Monday North Korea reported that it had tested a nuclear device underground, inciting condemnation from leaders and citizens worldwide and prompting the U.S. to call for new U.N. sanctions on North Korea.
According to Prof. Thomas Kim, professor of politics and international relations at Scripps College, "the North Korean test is not irrational, but instead, the logical outcome of six years of a U.S. unwillingness to negotiate with the North Koreans. Faced with a Bush Administration that has never committed itself to genuine diplomacy—not only in North Korea but almost everywhere else in the world—and has gone even further by taking active steps to torpedo North Korean diplomatic efforts to normalize relations with the U.S., the North Koreans are deeply skeptical that talking with a U.S. government unwilling to negotiate in good faith would lead to genuine progress."
Dr. Kim also points out that "North Korean leaders obviously knew that testing its nuclear capability would bring it worldwide condemnation yet they went ahead anyway. Given the efforts North Korea has made, efforts that have been expanded in recent years, to forge relations with other nations, one can only conclude that they felt themselves under a threat worse that the extremely costly effects of worldwide disapprobation—that under the threat to their very survival posed by the Bush Administration, the North Koreans calculated that having an effective deterrent was necessary. Finally, the only way that we can possibly hope to resolve the conflict between the United States and North Korea is through genuine—and not faux—diplomacy. Diplomacy has not failed over the past six years. It cannot have failed because it has not been tried."
Professor Kim can also discuss:
- Why a single-issue approach—whether it be nuclear weapons or human rights—to negotiations with North Korea is doomed to failure, and how U.S.-Korea relations over the past six decades have shaped current relations. - Whether North Korea will be a reliable negotiating partner, and how media portrayal of North Korea and its leaders has shaped public perception of the country. - Precedents for the current controversy, including Kim Jong-Il's 1999 conversation with Madeline Albright in which he famously told her that North Korea was done with missile testing, and how the Bush Administration has fared in continuing diplomatic conversation with North Korea.
Kim is a professor of politics and international relations at Scripps College in Claremont, CA and executive director of the Korea Policy Institute (www.kpolicy.org), a think-tank that promotes pragmatic U.S. policy toward Korea. Professor Kim is an expert on U.S.-Korea relations and North and South Korea relations. He has published his opinions in U.S. newspapers and done interviews on U.S. radio and South Korean television, as well as in the U.S. Congressional Record. Formerly a Fulbright Scholar and professor of political science at Yonsei University (Seoul, Republic of Korea), Kim also is a member of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned About Korea.
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