[Senate Hearing 108-471]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 108-471
THE NORTH KOREAN NUCLEAR CALCULUS: BEYOND THE SIX-POWER TALKS
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 2, 2004
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana, Chairman
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio BARBARA BOXER, California
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee BILL NELSON, Florida
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire Virginia
JON S. CORZINE, New Jersey
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Staff Director
Antony J. Blinken, Democratic Staff Director
(ii)
?
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Cha, Dr. Victor, Associate Professor of Government, School of
Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, DC......... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 22
Feingold, Hon. Russell D., U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, statement
submitted for the record....................................... 41
Kelly, Hon. James A., Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian
and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC.. 3
Responses to additional questions for the record from Senator
Feingold 41
Lugar, Hon. Richard G., U.S. Senator from Indiana, opening
statement...................................................... 1
Malinowski, Mr. Tom, Advocacy Director, Human Rights Watch,
Washington, DC................................................. 26
Prepared statement........................................... 28
Taylor, Mr. Terence, President and Executive Officer, U.S.
Office, International Institute for Strategic Studies,
Washington, DC................................................. 14
Prepared statement........................................... 17
(iii)
THE NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR CALCULUS: BEYOND THE SIX-POWER TALKS
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TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2004
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met at 4:10 p.m., in room SH-216, Hart Senate
Office Building, Hon. Richard G. Lugar, chairman of the
committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Lugar, Hagel, and Feingold.
opening statement of senator richard g. lugar, chairman
The Chairman. This hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee is called to order.
Today the Foreign Relations Committee again turns its
attention toward North Korea. We are pleased to welcome
Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly. We look forward to
his timely update on the six-party talks in Beijing, from which
he has most recently returned.
The North Korean regime's drive to build nuclear weapons
and other weapons of mass destruction poses a grave threat to
American national security. All of us remain concerned about
the potential for miscalculation that could lead to a deadly
incident or broader conflict. We are also concerned about the
transfer of North Korean weapons, materials, and technology to
other nations or terrorist groups.
The administration and our allies understand the importance
of the six-party talks for regional stability and global
security. The United States has consulted closely with other
countries in the region in an effort to make these talks
productive. The goal of United States policy must be to stop
and to ultimately dismantle the North Korean nuclear weapons
program. To achieve this objective, we cannot rule out any
options.
Even as we attempt to achieve our objectives through the
six-party talks, the United States must continue to refine its
analysis and its options related to North Korea. Previously I
outlined four factors that I believe we should keep in mind as
this analysis occurs. First, the central interest of the North
Korean regime is its own survival. Second, given their lack of
friends and their dysfunctional economy, the North Korean
leaders increasingly perceive that their backs are to the wall.
Third, recent events, including the ousters of Saddam Hussein
and the Taliban and even the voluntary opening of Libya's
nuclear program, have pressurized the geopolitical environment
for North Korean leaders, who may believe they face the threat
of United States military action. Fourth, although there is
still ambiguity surrounding the precise configuration of North
Korea's nuclear program, the North Korean regime sees the
program as the primary means through which it can protect and
perpetuate itself. It will not give up its nuclear ambitions
easily and these realities combine to create a dangerous
situation that requires focused attention by the United States
and our allies.
Any satisfactory agreement with North Koreans on
permanently ending their nuclear program must ensure absolute
verification. There is no method that achieves a higher degree
of verifiability than United States sponsorship and
implementation of the dismantlement operations. The Pentagon
has built a record of success in such operations through
programs such as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction
program in the former Soviet Union. And Congress recently
authorized the administration to use $50 million in Nunn-Lugar
funds outside the former Soviet Union for nonproliferation
operations such as those that might present themselves in North
Korea. As talks continue, we must begin to think about how a
negotiated settlement to the North Korea nuclear question could
be effectively implemented.
In addition to our examination of security issues, this
hearing will also consider North Korean economic and human
rights issues. The regime keeps its grip on power by repressing
political dissent with a vast gulag system of cruel prisons and
labor camps. This committee has devoted considerable time and
energy to oversight of policies related to the conditions
within North Korea, and we will continue to do so today.
After Secretary Kelly has testified, we will hear from a
second panel of expert witnesses. Terence Taylor is President
and Executive Director of the United States Office of the
International Institute for Strategic Studies. Mr. Taylor will
provide his perspective on nuclear issues, including an
appropriate verification model related to North Korea's nuclear
program. Dr. Victor Cha is Associate Professor of Government of
the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University. He will
share his perspective on North Korea's economic situation. Mr.
Tom Malinowski is Advocacy Director of Human Rights Watch. He
will testify regarding human rights conditions in North Korea.
We welcome all of our witnesses. We look forward to their
insights and their analysis. And I would express to all of them
my appreciation for their patience. We are only an hour late in
beginning the hearing, but better late than never, and we are
at least at a point in the Senate's schedule where the last
rollcall vote has been cast for the day. Therefore, we will not
be interrupted again.
Secretary Kelly, we have appreciated so much your coming to
the committee frequently throughout the talks and negotiations
with North Korea. Certainly your appearance today is timely. We
know you may be weary after long travels, as well as your work
there in Beijing last week, but we deeply appreciate your
coming. We look forward to your testimony. Take the time that
you wish. Your entire statement will be made a part of the
record.
Secretary Kelly.
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES A. KELLY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE
FOR EAST ASIAN AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS
Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not have a formal
statement, but I do have some opening remarks that we have
provided to the committee, and I will try to be brief.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to review our
efforts to deal with the threat that North Korea's nuclear
programs pose to regional peace and security and to the global
nonproliferation regime. Having just returned from the six-
party talks in Beijing, I am grateful to have the chance to
discuss with you and your colleagues our work, together with
like-minded countries at the talks, toward a nuclear-free
Korean Peninsula.
The multilateral process is off to a very good start. The
false notion that North Korean nuclear weapons are the unique
concern of the United States is all but gone. Our goal,
complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of North
Korean nuclear programs, has been dubbed by the South Koreans
CVID, and that acronym and the important goal it represents has
been accepted by all at the six-party talks except the North
Koreans. And with each of the countries having large and direct
interest in the issue, the process is unusually well-focused.
The first round of six-party talks, in August of last year,
provided the opportunity to governments directly concerned with
the Korean Peninsula and the nuclear issue in particular to
state their positions authoritatively before all of the other
parties. This created a solid baseline from which we are
working together to bring about a diplomatic solution to the
problem.
We began the second round last Wednesday, February 25, with
hope for concrete progress that would lay the basis to continue
moving forward. I am pleased to report that the talks are
working to our benefit and are moving a serious process
forward. The parties agreed to regularize the six-party talks,
to convene a third round of talks before June, and to establish
a working group to continue our efforts in the interim.
This is a good foundation on which we can build in future
rounds. Key, substantive differences do remain that will need
to be addressed in further rounds of discussions. However, we
worked closely with our partners in the talks and were pleased
with the high degree of cooperation among us. Most importantly,
we kept the talks focused on our objective, the complete,
verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea's
nuclear programs, by which we mean plutonium and uranium
enrichment-based programs. It was clear by the conclusion of
the talks that this is now very much on the table.
The onus is on the DPRK to demonstrate its commitment to
abandoning its nuclear programs by being forthcoming about the
entirety of its efforts, including uranium enrichment. The
other five parties are all in full agreement on this
fundamental idea. North Korea heard what it needs to do in
sessions with all the parties represented and it heard it from
us in direct encounters on the margins of the formal sessions.
By the way, after these encounters, I was quick to brief the
other parties. Transparency is an important part of the six-
party talks and essential to its core premises.
These accomplishments are evidence of a very different and
promising atmosphere at this round. All parties came prepared
to be blunt about their positions, but also ready and willing
to take on board the concerns of the other parties. The North
Koreans came to the table denying a uranium enrichment program
and complaining about the inflexibility of the U.S. position,
but they have gone along with the institutionalization of the
process.
The achievements from the talks are in no small part due to
the extensive efforts of the Chinese. They have worked as
intermediaries to bring about and host a second round, and we
are grateful for the hard work they have been doing. More
importantly, China has been active as a participant and makes
clear that it will not accept nuclear weapons on the Korean
Peninsula. The Republic of Korea has also made a valuable
commitment. It would offer fuel relief to the North if there
were a halt or a freeze of the nuclear programs. But South
Korea has made clear that any such freeze is to be but a
temporary measure toward the larger goal and will have to be
complete and verifiable.
We will continue working side by side with the Chinese, the
Russians and our Japanese and South Korean allies to reach the
result we seek. We have already begun to discuss next steps and
will be actively consulting with China, the Republic of North
Korea, Japan, and Russia in preparation for the next round in
the intercessional working group.
The process of transforming the situation on the Korean
Peninsula in the interest of all these parties must begin with
a fundamental decision by the DPRK. The DPRK needs to make a
strategic choice for transformed relations with the United
States and the world, as other countries have done, including
quite recently, to abandon all of its nuclear programs. We also
made clear that there are other issues that, as the nuclear
issue begins to unfold, can be discussed with the U.S.
Missiles, conventional forces, and serious human rights
concerns could be discussed and progress could lead to full
normalization.
There is also something else important that is beginning
with the six-party talks. As the committee knows, the numerous
and intensive security dialogs of Europe are not matched in
East Asia where the only comparable institution is the annual
and slow-growing ASEAN Regional Forum, the ARF. Northeast Asia
has had no such event. But the chemistry of articulating
interests in a direct but respectful way, on an equal footing,
is developing at the six-party talks in a way that I anticipate
will some day pass well beyond the DPRK nuclear issue.
In his February 11 remarks to the National Defense
University, President Bush called on other governments engaged
in covert nuclear arms programs to follow the affirmative
example of Libya. The Libyan case demonstrates, as President
Bush has said, that leaders who abandon the pursuit of weapons
of mass destruction and their delivery means will find an open
path to better relations with the United States and other free
nations. When leaders make the wise and responsible choice,
they serve the interest of their own people and they add to the
security of all nations.
We discussed Libya's example with our North Korean
counterparts and we hope they understand its significance. Once
North Korea's nuclear issue is resolved, discussions would be
possible on a wide range of issues that could lead to an
improvement or normalization in relations.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to meet with
the committee today. We remain convinced that our multilateral
diplomatic approach is correct and will bear fruit, though we
know that more work is ahead. The President is committed to the
six-party talks. We are offering North Korea a chance to choose
a path toward international responsibility. We hope we and our
partners in the six-party talks can bring North Korea to
understand it is in its own interest to take the opportunity.
And we will continue to work closely with this committee as we
proceed.
I will be happy to take any questions, sir.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Secretary Kelly. We will
have an 8-minute limit for the first round of questioning, and
we will have more questions if those are required.
Secretary Kelly, you mentioned once again the uranium
program, in addition to the plutonium program. There is
ambiguity in terms of North Korean statements about this, as I
recall--at least there were press accounts that North Koreans
said this is a peaceful project in which we are going to go
into power or something of this variety. It is not headed down
the trail toward weaponization.
How are we likely to see resolution, first of all, of what
the program is, where it is, its extent? How are we to have a
reasonable discussion in these negotiations? Perhaps you
visited with other parties at the talks who have ideas, in
addition to your own. This appears to be a factor. Even if we
came to conclusions of destruction of the Yongbyon facility and
the plutonium situation, sort of root and branch, out here now
is still this issue that was raised in your encounter last fall
with North Koreans. Can you amplify further where that is
headed?
Mr. Kelly. I would be pleased to, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, in meetings last week and, as far as I know,
elsewhere, the North Koreans have not tried to claim that a
uranium enrichment project is part of a peaceful program. Now,
they have insisted, and did so last week, on exempting some
undefined peaceful nuclear program, except that all of the
nuclear programs that North Korea has, of which we are aware,
are all committed in one fashion or another, at least
primarily, toward weapons usages.
With respect to highly enriched uranium, Mr. Chairman, they
would not give us any satisfaction and continued a denial,
although not so prominently.
The recent disclosures and publicity, however, of Mr. Khan
of Pakistan, of the Libyan situation--there have been
disclosures in the German courts of attempted shipments of
aluminum tubes for use as centrifuges, precisely the kind that
are most efficient for separating and enriching uranium. All of
this evidence is starting to pile up publicly, and we did not
find any of our other partners involved in the denials or even
expressly stating that they do not know whether this is the
case.
So this remains a serious problem. We believe it is one
that has to be included in the solution. I would put it most
charitably that North Korea is going to have to analyze this
for a little longer, and maybe they will find a way to include
this in the eventual solution because it has to be there.
The Chairman. Clearly, as you just pointed out, from the
time you had these initial talks with the North Koreans last
fall, much has happened in the world, including Libyan
renunciation of weapons of mass destruction. Coincident with
this or as a part of this, we have witnessed these revelations
of A.Q. Khan and all of the transactions that apparently
involved North Korea, Libya, Iran, and Iraq, as well as a
number of situations. Maybe more will be forthcoming. This does
add a good bit more texture to the whole business.
As you point out, you have arrived at a situation where
another round may occur in June. Other talks amongst some of
the parties will be occurring fairly continuously. You have
suggested, at the end of the day, that North Korea must come to
a conclusion as to what kind of a relationship it wants to have
with us, with China, with the other parties. You have just
suggested that they have not quite come to that conclusion at
this point. You have stated--and I think this is important--
that the road map of how to get there has been laid out, and
that clearly the other five parties had direct conversations.
It was not one on one, or somebody rushing out of the room in
protest, but apparently sort of a full-scale exploration of
what will be required in the relationship. Is that a fair
summation of what you saw?
Mr. Kelly. Yes, sir, I think that is a very fair summation.
The fact is I was asked personally by the North Korean
delegate. He said, why do you not give us the proof about our
uranium enrichment, and I just said, Mr. Kim, Mr. Vice
Minister, the reason that countries often enter into uranium
enrichment programs is because they are more easily concealed
than plutonium programs, and if I were to give you all that
information, it might make it easier for you to conceal it. It
was that kind of a direct exchange of information that we will
just have to continue.
But uranium enrichment is a serious problem. It was a
problem when I went there in October 2002. And it is the
violation of the Agreed Framework and several other agreements
that has led us to where we are now, and it is going to have to
be addressed in one form or another.
The Chairman. I was intrigued that in your direct testimony
today you said you have also made it clear that there were
other issues that can be discussed as the nuclear issue begins
to unfold. Missiles, conventional forces, serious human rights
concerns could be discussed. Progress could lead to full
normalization. That final possibility, it seems to me, may be
new in terms of our diplomacy, or maybe not so. Please say
something more about that.
The thought in the past was that here is a regime that was
odious, and we have described how we think they are. You are
suggesting a number of things along this road map that we ought
to discuss long before we get to it. At the end of the trail,
maybe, we will reach full normalization of relationships.
Mr. Kelly. During 2002, Mr. Chairman, when I was scheduled
to go and then finally did, the President had directed us to
enter into what was called a bold approach of negotiations, and
I in fact presented this to the North Koreans when I was there
in October 2002.
There are serious differences in many areas between the
U.S. and the DPRK, but we are ready to address these in
discussions with them, the items you listed and others as well.
The problem, of course, was that in the summer of 2002, we
received the information of this alternate nuclear weapons
program and that was such a violation of the Agreed Framework,
that we had to make clear that we had to have the process of
resolving the nuclear issue well underway before the rest of
this could begin.
The Chairman. I appreciate your mentioning that this talk
occurred in 2002. When I previously mentioned last fall, the
years seemed to flood together, but in fact it was not 2003. It
was the fall of 2002 when you had this initial important
conversation, and when you had the revelation by the North
Koreans about the uranium program, which has floated over this
situation ever since.
Mr. Kelly. But we did not say, Mr. Chairman, that every
last part of the dismantlement of the nuclear program must be
complete before there can be any progress on other measures,
but it is very important that we begin the progress and we see
the commitment of the DPRK toward ending nuclear weapons. And
they have said that they do not believe that the Korean
Peninsula should include nuclear weapons, that this is just a
deterrence of some vague threat from the U.S.A. President Bush
has talked about security assurances that can be documented,
but we need to start work on the nuclear program and then many
other things can begin to happen.
The Chairman. You made a very important comment that China
has made a decision that it is unacceptable to have nuclear
weapons on the Korean Peninsula, and that they have adopted
that as a part of their negotiating posture.
Mr. Kelly. Yes, sir. The CVID, complete, verifiable,
irreversible dismantlement, of the nuclear weapons programs of
whatever origin is necessary and all of the countries
participating in the six-party talks agree to that, except of
course the DPRK.
The Chairman. Senator Hagel.
Senator Hagel. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Secretary Kelly, welcome. Thank you for your good work.
Mr. Secretary, how would you assess the intelligence on
North Korea that has been provided by the American intelligence
community over the last 2 or 3 years, certainly since you have
had the responsibility that you have today? Has it been good,
bad, what?
Mr. Kelly. I think it is very solid, Senator Hagel. I was
out of government for 12 years before I came back, and it was
my impression, when I was working on North Korea at both the
White House and the Pentagon in the 1980s during the Reagan
administration, I was very much struck with how little concrete
information, other than technical information, that we really
had about North Korea. There has been a lot of work over that
time and I think this is pretty solid, and the information we
got in the summer of 2002 about uranium enrichment is an
example.
Senator Hagel. So overall, you would rate it as improved
from where it was.
Mr. Kelly. Yes, sir, I would. This is a very difficult
target. There is no more closed society in the entire world,
and getting human information especially is excruciatingly
difficult. But it is not impossible. North Korea is isolated,
in many respects a self-isolation, but it does need things from
outside. It needs the key elements for its nuclear programs. It
needs money. It needs, for that matter, food and fuel. It is
also engaged in illicit activities of drugs and counterfeit
currency outside of its borders, and these two provide
opportunities and vulnerabilities. So I would say the
intelligence is much better, and I think the dedication of the
community is really quite laudable.
Senator Hagel. Secretary Kelly, you may have noted this in
your statement, and I apologize. I walked in in the middle of
it. But staying on, to some extent, the theme of intelligence,
can you bring us up to date on what you know about the 8,000
nuclear rods? Were they reprocessed? Were they there when you
had been told they would be, or where did they go? Just give us
a status, as much as you can, in an open hearing.
Mr. Kelly. The answer, Senator Hagel, is we do not know
what has happened to the 8,017 fuel rods. We know from the
visitors in January that they are not in the pool in which they
once resided. It is possible that some or all of them have been
reprocessed into plutonium, but I do not think there is firm
information. After all, since the international monitors from
the IAEA left in the beginning of January 2003, we really have
not had the kind of firsthand information that is necessary for
something of that detail. There is probably more that you could
learn in a closed hearing filling in the details, but the fact
is it is quite possible that they have reprocessed all of that.
Senator Hagel. Are you concerned about not knowing?
Obviously, as much information as we can get is important, but
how much of a concern is that to you?
Mr. Kelly. Well, it is a concern that that matter has been
taken and that if they have been reprocessed, there would be
fissionable plutonium that could certainly be turned into a
significant number of nuclear weapons. That is very much our
concern and why we are determined to work on this problem, and
we are not going to give up on it.
Senator Hagel. Do we have any idea today what might be in
the North Korean inventory in the way of nuclear weapons?
Mr. Kelly. I believe the testimony has been that we are of
the opinion that there are one or two nuclear weapons. That was
based on plutonium that was obtained more than 12 years ago. I
am not aware of any assessment based on what may or may not
have been reprocessed recently.
Senator Hagel. Do you think then it is likely or not likely
that North Korea would possess more than two nuclear weapons if
the numbers that we were last aware of were a few years ago and
we are uncertain about 8,000 nuclear fuel rods and other
uncertainties?
Mr. Kelly. It is certainly possible, Senator Hagel, and if
it has not occurred, it certainly has not been for lack of
trying. It is obvious that North Korea is trying to generate
nuclear weapons in many ways and vigorously develop them.
Senator Hagel. Would you also give us your assessment of
the dynamic between the South and the North, the people, the
attitudes, the texture of that? I noted in your statement and
in response also to Chairman Lugar's question about the
Chinese. What about the South? How do they view this?
Mr. Kelly. South Korea views this in a very complex way and
one that is different from what it was 10 years ago because now
there is a multiplicity of contacts, literally scores if not
hundreds of contacts, including at least a couple times a year
meetings at the ministerial level. Two transportation corridors
have been opened north of Seoul and near the east coast. There
is a tourist arrangement, the development of the railroad link
north of Seoul, and the possibility of the Kaesong Industrial
Zone development.
That said, though, the Government of the Republic of Korea
has made clear, in so many words and in their actions as well,
that nuclear weapons on the part of North Korea is not to be
tolerated, that it is an intolerable development, and that it
will impede their relations. The ROK was very forthright and
strong about that in our meetings.
That said, South Korea has a vibrant economy. It has a
neighbor nearby whose instability and threats affect, for
example, financial ratings and the ability of some South Korean
companies to borrow money at the rates that they might wish to
do so. So it is not surprising that there often is a sense of
wishing that somebody would ``take care of these guys'' or a
wish that we could all just forget about them, but we cannot
and they cannot. After much discussion in its democracy, the
ROK always does the right thing in my experience.
Senator Hagel. Do you believe the current South Korean
Government is as committed to the United States' position on
North Korea as past South Koreans governments have been?
Mr. Kelly. It is absolutely committed to the complete,
verifiable, and irreversible end of the nuclear weapons
program, and it is an alliance that has developed very firmly.
We saw some of that today. The new Foreign Minister of the
Republic of Korea called on President Bush. President Bush has
had recent conversations with President Roh of South Korea, and
the relationship is in excellent shape.
The Republic of Korea has recently, through its national
assembly, committed to sending some 3,000 of its military
forces to Iraq to help stabilize that very important and
dangerous situation. This is an alliance that is working very
well.
Senator Hagel. So your answer is this administration in
South Korea today is just as committed and in just as much
alignment with U.S. policy toward North Korea as past South
Korean governments.
Mr. Kelly. Yes, sir. In fact, I would say it is possible
they may even be more committed than perhaps some South Korean
governments at some time have been.
Senator Hagel. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Hagel.
Mr. Secretary, when Sid Hecker came before our committee
following his visit with four other distinguished Americans,
including Keith Luse, who is in our hearing room today, he gave
a tutorial to the committee on this whole process. It was very
helpful to all of us. Even having listened to testimony for
many years, many of us found it very instructive to learn what
a rod is, and, if there are 8,000 of these, what happens when
you lift them all out of a reactor and begin stripping
plutonium, a very tedious process. People work very hard at
this, take the plutonium off, accumulate bits and pieces and
ounces and finally maybe pounds. Then we make a calculation of
how many pounds might conceivably make a crude weapon of some
sort in some form.
As Sid Hecker then pointed out to us, the envelope closed
when things got interesting in terms of his questioning. In
other words, the rods are out. The plutonium is being
extracted. You can make the calculations and do the math if in
fact all of this happens day by day, month by month. But at the
point where we can see what the residue is--is it in a blob
called a bomb or a weapon of some sort? That was out of sight.
And then, as he pointed out to us, there is the very
important aspect of the delivery mechanism. Even if you did
have a mass of this plutonium in some form that excited other
particles, there remains the question of how you ever get it to
some place. Although the North Koreans have demonstrated
extraordinary rocketry, missilery and so forth, and terrorized
the Japanese surrounding both sides of Japan on one occasion,
the fact is that the machining, the refinement of this process
to get to the type of warhead that might fit on one of these
situations is an extraordinary achievement.
We do not rule any of this out because a lot of information
was going on back and forth for 20 years, as we know with the
A.Q. Khan correspondence or missions or so forth. So it is not
necessary that each nation discover it all on their own. You
might leapfrog ahead to get bits and pieces of something that
is helpful.
On the other hand, it also illustrates the other side of
this. That is that the President's speech at the National
Defense University outlined the fact that for us the greatest
danger is probably proliferation. By this I mean the trade by
the North Koreans themselves, the bits and pieces of their
program, as opposed to the actual construction of a bomb in
some crude form or some crude delivery mechanism that may or
may not ever exist. The fact is that nations that are curious
about developing these things may find some stock and trade.
Our dilemma in the war against terrorism, as the President
was pointing out, is less one of a nation state that has a
return address, that has responsibility against which
deterrence might work, than that posed by subgroups unknown to
us or not very well known to us who may create trouble or a
horrible disaster. We have already had that inflicted upon us
on 9/11 by people who obviously are not a nation state and who
had been almost unknown to us. We initially lacked very good
after-the-fact intelligence of who they were and where they
came from.
It seems to me that the President's point likewise is the
one you have made today. It is an important one, this
proposition that it does not pay to build weapons of mass
destruction, and that if you are thinking about doing it,
forget it, because this is going to lead to bad results.
On the other hand, if you already have made the mistake,
even if you have been making it for years, as in the case of
Libya, there can be extraordinary outcomes in a fairly short
period of time. We had a hearing on Libya last week and someone
from the State Department came over and pointed out five
sanctions had been lifted that very day by the President of the
United States, including travel of Americans to the country and
liberation of a good number of business interests. All of this
came in a very, very short period of time following the
cooperation, following 55,000 pounds of nuclear material and/or
machines or plans to Oak Ridge, Tennessee from Libya, with more
still to come.
So you have made the point in all of these hearings.
Unhappily knowledge does not flow back and forth from the
leadership of North Korea to the rest of the world all that
readily. There would be no reason for the North Koreans to be
following breathlessly on newscasts night by night what was
happening in Libya. Yet the fact that you were able to sit down
with six countries and discuss these things for a few days and
few hours is in itself newsworthy, maybe for the North Koreans.
It might begin to implant an idea which, as you point out, may
not take hold instantly, particularly with a good number of
naysayers and those who are wedded to the thought that this is
North Korea, this program. Without it, there might not be a
regime; there might not be a future.
That will take dramatic diplomacy on our part, to be able
to sketch out a vision for tomorrow for the North Korean
leadership, but that is what you are about, and I admire that.
In fact, the process is continuing, as opposed to everybody
walking away in a huff. The world finds it encouraging. That is
why most of the accounts of the talks were optimistic.
Something is going to continue given the basis you already
have.
It appears to me that the general proposition of the
President on proliferation is a very important one. North Korea
is not the only case in point. As the A.Q. Khan story goes, and
we take a look at where all of this goes, we have different
types of negotiations in different places, but all with the
same thought that it is not useful ultimately if a nation-state
wants to develop its economy, its politics, its relationship
with us and with others to pursue this route. Perhaps South
Africa and Brazil, to name two, came to that conclusion some
time ago, and profitably so.
The other thing that I just wanted to comment on was that
you have a paragraph here that is tremendously important. You
suggest, for instance, that the ASEAN countries are not NATO,
that they are not a group of countries that can normally come
together in heavy lifting in diplomacy. One of the byproducts,
or maybe one of the good results of the conference of the six
that is going on, may be that you all are visiting with each
other. The fact is that there could be a much stronger
diplomatic initiative here with regard to a whole host of
problems that either are there in the area or might be down the
trail. That is highly encouraging. That would make it
worthwhile to continue these talks indefinitely, even if there
was some discouragement with North Korea.
As a veteran diplomat, you could perhaps amplify on that. I
would simply comment that I appreciated your putting that in
your testimony, in addition to an update on North Korea. That
is the future of multilateral diplomacy in Asia. Ties that have
been forged because of this very difficult problem. Do you have
any supplementary comment you would like to make on any of
that?
Mr. Kelly. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. The main comment
I think I would make on the future of the northeast Asia
security dialog, as exemplified by the six-party process, is I
was really struck last week that this is only the second go-
round and the way and the manner and the directness with which
these diplomatic and security interests were being exchanged by
all the parties and especially by Japan, by the Republic of
Korea, China, and Russia, and ourselves gives some promise. We
have never had anything remotely like this process.
But the focus now is on the nuclear weapons and the fear of
proliferation, and to use this multilateral process to
convince, if convincing is needed, the DPRK that we are not
demanding that they commit suicide. We are asking that they
take steps, make a choice that is more than ultimately--that
can be quite rapidly in their own interest.
The Chairman. Senator Hagel.
Senator Hagel. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Secretary Kelly, what do you know about North Korea's
support of terrorist groups now, al-Qaeda, other groups that we
are aware of?
Mr. Kelly. I am not aware of any links of the DPRK to al-
Qaeda or, for that matter, other terrorist organizations. There
is a bad history, of course, going back to the 1980s of blown-
up airliners, the bombing of the South Korean cabinet in 1983,
incursions that even went through into the 1990s in South
Korea. The abductions of Japanese, the abductions of South
Koreans are a problem. But there is not recent evidence, of
which I am aware, of terrorist acts being directly supported by
the DPRK. But this is another matter on which, if we can start
making some progress on nuclear weapons, that we would be
prepared to engage the North Koreans.
Senator Hagel. Thank you.
What is your assessment of the stability of Kim Jong-il's
government, his personal position in North Korea?
Mr. Kelly. I do not think I know, and I do not know that
there are any Americans that have a very good view of that
question. By the normal logic, the economy of a country, the
ability to feed itself, the ability to produce the goods that
it needs I think most would believe that North Korea would have
collapsed a long time ago. But it has not. It has a security
process that obviously works a lot better than the rest of it.
But it is very hard to judge what the pressures, the internal
pressures especially, may be on Mr. Kim Jong-il.
Senator Hagel. Do you believe that North Korea is now
facing or possibly could be facing a humanitarian crisis, food
crisis?
Mr. Kelly. Yes, sir. The World Food Program has made that
very clear. They sent us two letters in December about the
developing food crisis. The reports out of the country are a
little bit mixed, but there is a structural food problem and
there has been that for years. And the ability of the
international community to make donations has been reduced a
bit. It is not possible for North Korea under any conditions to
grow the food it needs and its economy is obviously not well
enough to pay for it. So there have been serious cases of
starvation and many, many thousands, perhaps hundreds of
thousands of lives that have been lost to starvation in the
past, and we hope that that is not the case. The World Food
Program is working. Humanitarian efforts proceed but this is
not a good situation for at least some of the people of North
Korea.
Senator Hagel. You mentioned economic consequences in North
Korea's economy. Do you see any shifts, any changes in the
prospects for North Korea's economy?
Mr. Kelly. There have been some measures taken that may not
be easily reversible. There are these reports of some markets,
particularly in Pyongyang. There has been a shift from rather
than simply providing food and shelter at no cost to providing
some wages for people and then setting a price. This is so
basic that it is just beginning, and it is obvious that some
imbalances are occurring because whether you put it in Euros or
dollars, the inflation rates, to the extent they are measurable
at all, have risen very, very fast. So we have a situation I
think in which many North Koreans who have never had to carry
foreign money around in the past are having to do so now.
It appears that some people, particularly in the capital,
are doing a lot better. I have a feeling that this is not a
universal situation, but once again, Senator Hagel, information
is most sketchy and incomplete and you hear quite varying
anecdotes from people who visit.
Senator Hagel. What do we know about North Korea's role in
continuing to provide, prescribe weapons technology,
production, assistance to Iran, the past Iraqi regime under
Saddam Hussein, other nations? Chairman Lugar touched upon this
a bit in his remarks about Pakistan. Any enhancement of the
Pakistan issue as well. Are they still doing business on
missile technology? And anything that you could give us to
address that general area we would appreciate.
Mr. Kelly. In an open hearing, Senator, I think there is
probably not a lot that I can say in any authoritative way
about that. It is my understanding that there are no military
transactions of any kind going on now with Pakistan, but that
has certainly not always been the case.
Senator Hagel. As to Iran?
Mr. Kelly. Iran I am frankly not as up to date as I should
be, and frankly, sir, I do not know the line between sensitive
information and other information. There has been a military
supply relationship with the Iranians of some sort in the past,
and I am frankly not able to go beyond that, sir, but I will be
glad to provide you with a briefing either by myself or others.
Senator Hagel. Thank you, Secretary Kelly, and we will set
that up.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Well, thank you, Senator Hagel.
Secretary Kelly, we appreciate very much your testimony and
your thoughtful and well-informed answers to our questions. We
look forward to visiting with you again as you progress along
this trail, which we are hopeful will lead to success.
Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
The Chairman. Thank you for coming.
The Chair would like now to call to the witness table Mr.
Terence Taylor, president and executive officer, U.S. Office of
the International Institute for Strategic Studies; Mr. Victor
Cha, associate professor of Government, School of Foreign
Service, Georgetown University; Mr. Tom Malinowski, advocacy
director of Human Rights Watch. Gentlemen, we welcome you.
As I mentioned to Secretary Kelly, your full statements
will be made a part of the record. We would ask you to
summarize those so we could proceed to questions. Please take
the time you need to make your points, but if you could
summarize within a 7- to 10-minute period of time, that would
be helpful.
I will call upon you in the order that I announced your
presence, first of all, Mr. Taylor, then Dr. Cha, and then Mr.
Malinowski. Mr. Taylor, would you proceed.
STATEMENT OF TERENCE TAYLOR, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
U.S. OFFICE, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES
Mr. Taylor. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am most
grateful for the opportunity to appear before you.
I come at this subject as a former inspector in a number of
different countries in formal and informal inspection systems.
So the ideas I put forward are my personal views but they are
very much informed by the International Institute for Strategic
Studies' book that has been published on North Korea's weapons
programs, which has been provided to your staff. So some of the
data and technical detail is in this book, which you have.
Secretary Kelly I think accurately referred to the
political context and I would perhaps summarize it very briefly
that a successful and convincing disarmament process by a
country requires at least two important conditions. Firstly, of
course, the obvious one, a genuine leadership decision to
disarm, which of course, may be subject to certain conditions,
and also genuine and credible cooperation. Inspection has to be
two-sided. It is not one-sided. So the disarming country has to
comply with whatever compliance mechanism is being applied.
I think a genuine decision to disarm is credible and
convincing in itself, and I was very struck by the challenge
you put in your introductory remarks. You used the term
``absolute verification'' in your remarks. As a former
inspector, I find that very challenging.
But if there is an obvious decision to disarm, a kind of
verification system and the detail that you would need is
rather different than if you are engaged in a very elaborately
choreographed dance with a country that has not decided fully
to disarm. And we have witnessed that in the case of Iraq as a
classic example, and of course, over the past 20 years or so
with North Korea since it acceded to the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty in 1985. It took 7 years before they
accepted the safeguards agreement in that particular case.
If we were to look at South Africa, there was not an
elaborate verification system. The international community was
convinced. They ended their program and they gave up their
weapons. There were visits by individual countries and
governments. Some assurance was sought. The International
Atomic Energy Agency was involved, but it was not an elaborate
process. And you and Secretary Kelly referred to Libya and the
process that is going on there, without elaborate international
protocols. So I think it is well worth having that in the back
of our minds as we think about this issue.
Disarmament is obvious. You can see it. I think that is a
very important point. If it not obvious, there is usually a
problem.
I will just make a few remarks about what needs to be
verified, and I say convincingly verified, probably by a
combination of the International Atomic Energy Agency or
whatever mechanism might be set up--I am looking ahead as an
optimist--or some possible agreement.
First, in plutonium-related activities, obviously there
needs to be a precise accounting of the production of plutonium
prior to 1992. It requires an examination of records, analysis
of waste disposal sites, and so on, and other related
activities.
The claims about reprocessing the 8,000--and I now know
8,017--spent fuel rods will need to be verified. If the North
Korean claims are true, over time this could result in an
increase in the number of weapons that could be manufactured.
It is very hard to assess that, but it could be in the range of
two to five, if they really reprocessed all those rods over
time. I do not mean these weapons already exist, of course.
Given North Korea's record, confidence that a program will
not be restarted cannot be assured without removing from the
country all the spent fuel and separated plutonium. That has to
be part of the process, and this will require logistic support
being provided most appropriately by one or more of the
participants in the six-party talks.
The Yongbyon 5 megawatt reactor and related facilities--we
must not forget the related facilities that fabricate fuel--
would have to be decommissioned under international
supervision. The IAEA could take a leading role in that to make
sure it is done safely and effectively. This could be done
either by removal of the components or with destruction onsite,
and that may actually even be the safest way.
The construction work on the other reactors, although work
has stopped, the 50 megawatt reactor and the 200 megawatt power
stations, would have to end and an assessment made as to
whether critical components should be removed or destroyed.
Given the admissions--and we have heard more today from
Secretary Kelly about the uranium enrichment program. That has
to be part and parcel of the process. We have had admissions
and then denials of a clandestine uranium enrichment program,
and there is a distinct lack of information; I suspect not only
in the public domain but also in the government domain too.
The minimum steps required in this context, as I see it are
as follows. As Pakistan was the most likely source of supply
for the gas centrifuge design and components, a full disclosure
of the exchanges between North Korea and those in Pakistan and,
of course, Abdul Qadeer Khan and his colleagues and others in
Pakistan, is required from both countries. Given the transfer
of the technology and possibly equipment might have only taken
place in the late 1990s, the industrial effort required to
construct and operate a production plant, if you take account
of that, it is unlikely that North Korea is yet in a position
to produce weapons-grade HEU, highly enriched uranium.
Nevertheless, given that North Korea may well have most of the
materials in country, unchecked it could conceivably have a
capability to produce perhaps up to 75 kilograms of HEU per
year. That is enough for two or three simple implosion type
devices. The calculations for this you can find in our IISS
book.
There is less certainty that fissile material was exchanged
between North Korea and Pakistan, either HEU or plutonium. And
a judgment on this is only possible with full disclosure on the
nature of the exchanges. And the lead on this really has to
come from Pakistan.
If it is determined there is a uranium enrichment program
in North Korea, then the sites would have to be declared,
inspected, and dismantled. Confidence in this step could only
be reasonably assured by an agreement to allow whatever
inspection commission is set up to visit all suspect sites.
However, this would only work if North Korea volunteered
accurate information on the status and location of enrichment
facilities. We would not want this inspection commission to
play ``catch as catch can,'' recalling the words of Dr. Hans
Blix, when he was talking about the Iraqis, even in the late
stages of the inspections by the U.N. inspectors in Iraq.
As part of a verification process, one would have to deal
with the weapons and delivery means. It is not just a question
of the enriched uranium and the plutonium. As we have heard
earlier in this hearing, North Korea might have produced enough
plutonium to make at least two nuclear weapons. That is the
common assessment. And if reprocessing of spent fuel has,
indeed, taken place--we do not know for sure, of course, that
has happened--then if it got underway early, what we need to do
is to find a way of dealing with that particular aspect.
Probably the most promising aspects of a verification process
are those related to the production of fissile material.
Convincing evidence of the absence of operational nuclear
weapons has to be a necessary part, but proving a negative is
an extraordinary challenge. And it would be of particular
interest to know whether or not North Korea has the design for
a weapon to fit a missile warhead such as the No-dong. The
challenge here once again is proving a negative, and the
exchanges with Pakistan are particularly relevant in this
context.
Just a few points on the oversight of the disarmament
process. There are probably three models. One could be one like
the process taking place, or similar to the process taking
place, in Libya, with the United States taking the lead, with
assistance from the IAEA, and neighboring countries.
Another would be a U.N. inspection commission of some kind.
And a third would be an oversight body drawn from the five
countries most intimately concerned, the four neighbors of
North Korea and the United States, with the IAEA as an integral
part of the process, but a commission of some kind that is
overseeing it altogether. I think that one seems to me to be
the most appealing. It is difficult enough as it is to climb
this mountain ahead of them in the six-party talks without
setting up a commission, but I think there is little
alternative to this.
Also, perhaps a Libya model in the case of North Korea,
that is a more informal process, given the arraignment of the
forces, 17,000 artillery pieces within range of Seoul, the
capital of South Korea, for example--I think there has to be a
more formal process. There is no question about it. Perhaps
involving five of the six parties.
Sequencing, coordination of the benefits of cooperation are
the key to making it work. I have said little about that and I
will not say a lot about that. I think others might want to
speak about that. Appropriate responses in the form of security
assurances, normalization, diplomatic relations, economic
assistance, energy assistance and special measures might be
required. But given the poor track record on the part of North
Korea in fulfilling disarmament accords, it would seem
reasonable to require a disarmament process be front-loaded and
demonstrated through verification and dismantlement before
substantive rewards are given.
The trap for the United States and North Korea's neighbors
engaged in the six-party talks is to avoid being drawn into a
lengthy procedural process while, for example, a clandestine
uranium enrichment program continues, enabling enough fissile
material to be produced to equip a small arsenal. That is the
real danger that we face now, and that requires elaborate
choreographing to get around that particular difficulty.
It would be important, Mr. Chairman, for a verification
process to demonstrate early a genuine commitment to disarm. We
know disarmament when we see it. It is obvious. One way to
achieve this is to provide the opportunity for North Korea to
demonstrate its intentions through a concurrent process of
revelations on both plutonium and highly enriched uranium,
those two routes to nuclear weapons. And a key to progress in
this regard is full disclosure from Pakistan. That must not be
forgotten. As we found in dealing with Iraq, much of our
information came from other countries. We are dealing with a
network. So there are actions required outside the country
itself.
It is vital to know what technology was transferred. Did it
go beyond gas centrifuge technology and material to weapon and
missile warhead design? A very important question to be
answered. As things stand, it seems there is a good chance that
technology in both respects was transferred, in which case it
is not just a case of monitoring dismantlement, but also of
maintaining confidence that prohibited programs will not be
restarted, and this will require some form of planning for
continuous monitoring of compliance with any agreement.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Taylor follows:]
Prepared Statement of Terence Taylor
If there were an agreement with North Korea what kind of
verification would be required?
What is the significance of the links with Pakistan?
POLITICAL CONTEXT
A successful and convincing disarmament process by a country
requires at least two important conditions. First, a genuine leadership
decision to disarm, which may be subject to certain conditions in a
staged process; secondly genuine and credible cooperation by the
disarming country with whatever compliance mechanism is being applied.
A genuine decision to disarm can be credible and convincing if these
conditions are met. One well-known example is South Africa when it
divested itself of its nuclear weapons in 1992. While it is too early
to make a definitive judgment it appears this may also be the case with
Libya. Once a government is convinced that the benefits of disarmament
outweigh the benefits of continuing, or at least retaining the
capability to develop, an illegal weapons programme, the verification
process becomes less challenging. North Korea is a state that has yet
to fulfill these two conditions as the record over nearly two decades
clearly shows. I make these points to make clear that with regard to
these difficult cases there is no standard inspection system, with
technical equipment and particular procedures that can assure the
international community that a disarmament process is genuinely
underway, that can be effective independently of the political context.
WHAT NEEDS TO BE VERIFIED?
At a minimum the following key elements need to be convincingly
verified by a combination of the IAEA and, probably most appropriately,
an international commission:
Plutonium related activities
There needs to be a precise accounting of the production of
plutonium prior to 1992. This will require examination of
records, analysis at waste disposal sites. And other related
activities. A task that the IAEA is well suited to conduct.
The claims about reprocessing the 8,000 spent fuel rods will
need to be verified. If the North Korean claims are true, over
time, this could result in an increase in the number of weapons
that could be manufactured; it is hard to estimate precisely
the number of additional weapons but it would be in the range
of two to five.
Given North Korea's record, confidence that a programme will
not be restarted cannot be assured without removing from the
country all spent fuel and separated plutonium. This would
require logistic support provided, most appropriately by one or
more of the participants in the six-party talks.
The Yongbyon 5 MW(e) reactor and related facilities to
fabricate fuel would have to be decommissioned under
international supervision with, most appropriately, the IAEA
taking the lead to ensure it is being done safely and
effectively. Removal or destruction on site of the components
would be essential.
Construction work on the 50 MW(e) and 200 MW(e) power
stations would have to end and an assessment made as to whether
critical components related to the construction of these
reactors should be removed from the country or destroyed.
URANIUM ENRICHMENT PROGRAMME
Given the admissions and then denials of the possession of a
clandestine uranium enrichment programme, and the lack of information,
this would be the most challenging aspect of any verification
activities. As experience in Iraq shows, if the nature of the regime
does not change, proving a negative by an inspection process is a near
impossible task.
The minimum steps required in this context are:
As Pakistan was the most likely source of supply for the gas
centrifuge design and components, a full disclosure of the
exchanges between North Korea and Abdul Qadeer Khan and his
colleagues and others in Pakistan is required from both
countries. Given that the transfer of the technology (and
possibly equipment) might have only taken place in the late
1990s, and the industrial effort required to construct and
operate a production plant, it is unlikely that North Korea is
yet in a position to produce weapons-grade HEU. Nevertheless,
given that North Korea may well have most of the materials in
country, unchecked it could conceivably have a capability to
produce perhaps up to 75 kgs of HEU per year (enough for two to
three simple implosion-type weapons) in about five to seven
years time.
There is less certainty that fissile material (perhaps
plutonium as well as HEU) was exchanged between Pakistan and
North Korea. A judgment on this is only possible with full
disclosure on the nature of the exchanges--the lead on this
should come from Pakistan.
If it is determined that there is a uranium enrichment
programme in North Korea then the sites would have to be
declared, inspected and dismantled. Confidence in this step
could only be reasonably assured by an agreement to allow
whatever inspection commission is set up to visit all suspect
sites. However, this would work only if North Korea volunteered
accurate information on the location and status and location of
the enrichment facilities.
WEAPONS AND DELIVERY MEANS
As is well known intelligence reports indicate that North Korea
might have produced enough plutonium to make at least two nuclear
weapons. If reprocessing of spent fuel rods has indeed taken place
there could in time be more. The North Koreans have at least once
claimed to have already made a nuclear weapon--later this had been
modified to being ``on the way to producing a nuclear deterrent.''
While the most promising aspects of a verification process getting
underway early are those related to the production of fissile material,
convincing evidence of the absence of operational nuclear weapons would
seem to be a necessary part of the process. Of particular interest
would be to know whether or not North Korea has the design for a weapon
to fit a missile warhead such as the No-dong. The challenge here, once
again, is that of proving a negative.
OVERSIGHT OF A VERIFICATION PROCESS
There are three possible models for oversight of the disarmament to
assure obligations are being met:
One could be an ad hoc process with the U.S. taking the lead
with assistance from the IAEA and neighbouring countries as
needed. This is more in line with the approach in Libya;
Another could be the setting up of a UN inspection
commission by a UN Security Council mandate;
A third is to set up an oversight body drawn from the five
countries most intimately concerned, that is to say those
involved in the six-party talks. It would be important to also
have the IAEA as an integral part of this process.
The last of these three options seems to be the most appealing as
the oversight of a disarmament process would have to be sequenced and
coordinated with other aspects of a comprehensive process. This is more
likely to be achieved, difficult enough as it is, within the forum of
the six-party talks than in the wider UN Security Council setting. In
any case it is probably wise to distance the UN Security Council from
the day to day compliance oversight in the event that a serious setback
in the process with broader international security consequences occurs.
Given the arraignment of forces (conventional and others) along the
border between North and South Korea and the nature of the regime in
the North, there is no prospect for an ad hoc process to succeed.
SEQUENCING AND COORDINATION WITH THE BENEFITS OF COOPERATION
I have said little about the sequencing and coordination of these
verification activities with appropriate responses in the form of
security assurances, normalisation of diplomatic relations and energy
and economic assistance. Given the poor track record on the part of
North Korea in fulfilling disarmament accords it would seem reasonable
to require that the disarmament process be front-loaded and
demonstrated through verification and dismantlement, before substantive
rewards are given. The trap for the U.S. and North Korea's neighbours
engaged in the six-party talks to avoid is to be drawn into a lengthy
procedural process while, for example, a clandestine uranium enrichment
process continues enabling enough fissile material to be produced to
equip a small arsenal of nuclear weapons.
It would be important for a verification process to demonstrate
early a genuine commitment to disarm. One way to achieve this is to
provide the opportunity for North Korea to demonstrate its intentions
through a concurrent process of revelations on both the plutonium and
HEU routes to nuclear weapons. A key to progress in this regard is full
disclosure from Pakistan. It is vital to know what technology was
transferred. Did it go beyond gas centrifuge technology and material to
weapon and missile warhead design? As things stand it seems that there
is a good chance that the technology in both respects was transferred.
In which case it is not just a case of monitoring dismantlement but
also of maintaining confidence that prohibited programmes will not be
restarted; this will require some form of continuous monitoring of
compliance with any agreement.
The Chairman. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Taylor. I am
aware that you must leave at 6 p.m. and perhaps that will be
true of all of us. I wanted to be reassuring that I know of
that. We appreciate the time that you have already devoted
prior to coming to the table. We appreciate your testimony.
Dr. Cha, would you proceed.
STATEMENT OF DR. VICTOR D. CHA, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF
GOVERNMENT, SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Dr. Cha. Well, thank you. Senator Lugar, thank you. It is a
pleasure to have the opportunity to testify again before your
committee.
I have been asked to speak on the status of North Korea's
economy and I am going to do that in three ways: very briefly,
overview what the economic reforms are, assess their meaning,
and then talk about how they relate to the security equation.
In terms of an overview of the North Korean economic
reforms, the July 2002 market liberalization reforms generally
have four parts to them. The first was a basic monetization of
the economy, which meant lifting price controls and allowing
supply and demand to determine prices. Second, the government
abandoned the artificially high value of the North Korean won,
depreciating the currency to try to induce foreign investment.
Third, the government decentralized economic decisionmaking,
including cutting government subsidies and allowing farmers'
markets to operate, transplanting managerial decisions to the
local industries. And then fourth, the government pressed
forward with the special administrative and industrial zones to
try to induce foreign investment.
There is no denying the significance of these July 2002
reforms. They represent the first attempt in the regime's
history at wide-scale economic change. They have tried to
encourage competition with these reforms, and visitors to North
Korea talk about a new spirit of entrepreneurship, albeit
limited.
But the fact that these reforms are significant does not,
however, make them successful. The obstacles to success are
many. First, one should not interpret these measures as the
equivalent of North Korea's religious conversion to capitalism.
Many of the reforms are situationally rather than
dispositionally motivated, and what I mean by that is they are
reforms that are coping mechanisms to deal with problems in the
economy immediately more than they are a longer-term decision
to convert to capitalism.
Second, the economic reforms will test the government's
ability to deal with these three problems have emerged as a
result of the reforms. That is high inflation, economic losers,
and urban poor. Low supply and low output have led to massive
increases in price and further devaluation of the currency.
Just by comparison, in 1979, China's initial price reforms
drove up the price of rice by 25 percent. In North Korea, it is
estimated now that the price of rice has gone up by at least
600 percent, if not more, and the North Korean currency has
depreciated exponentially.
Finally, there is fragmentary evidence that even in those
sectors of the labor force favored with the largest wage hikes,
these groups are still discontented. Defectors coming across
the Chinese border complain that the promise of higher wages
has not been kept with workers receiving only about 800 won and
then nothing after October 2003. So the upshot here is that
money illusion is quickly wearing off in North Korea, giving
way to a new class of urban poor and economic losers,
potentially numbering in the millions that could be difficult
to control.
Third, the ultimate success of these reforms rests on the
North's capacity to secure international food supplies, to
secure loans, and to obtain technical training in a variety of
different areas. As we all know very well, the likelihood of
the North Koreans getting any of this without a complete and
verifiable resolution of the North Korean nuclear problem--I
think the chances of that are very slim.
Let me just make three quick points in terms of linking
these economic issues to the security questions.
The first is this whole question of the extent to which
North Korea's economic reforms really are its ticket out of its
current problem. I mean, is this the way that they get out of
their current problem, their current box, if you will? And I
think the answer there is no, and my pessimism does not stem so
much from the flawed nature of the economic reforms, flawed as
they are, but from the larger political lessons that history
has taught us about closed regimes like North Korea that
attempt reform. And that is simply Kim Jong-il needs to open up
to survive, but in the process of opening up, he unleashes the
forces that lead to his demise. Can he hold things together as
he opens up? History's waste bin has been littered with former
dictators that have tried to do that and have not been
successful.
Second, do these economic reforms really mean that North
Korea has changed? Does it really mean that the North Korean
regime is seeking to turn over a new leaf? The reason I raise
this question is I think the common assumption is that they
look at the economic reforms that are taking place in North
Korea and they immediately assume that that means that the
North Korean security preferences have changed. While that
theoretically could be possible, there is no logical connection
between the economic reforms and the security intentions. In
other words, just because they are making economic reforms,
does not necessarily mean they want to trade all of their
nuclear weapons away for the economic goodies. In fact, it
could be the case that North Korea wants both. They want food,
fuel, and security as part of the economic reform plan, but in
the end, they also want to keep some of their capabilities. And
that goes along with North Korea's sort of ideology of rich
nation, strong army.
The final point I would like to make and one that has
already been made in different ways earlier is that the Libya
example is a very interesting example to look at in terms of
this, and I know that for many, when you raise this question,
they talk immediately about the differences between the North
Korean and the Libyan case. And granted, there are many
differences, but there are also a lot of similarities. In both
cases you are talking about countries with very hostile
relations with the United States. Both sought nuclear weapons
not for the purposes of trading them away, but for the purposes
of keeping them. Both suffered from international sanctions and
pariah status for years. Libya was a more active supporter of
terrorism more recently than North Korea, and the United States
actually attacked Libya, which it has not done with North
Korea.
So given these comparisons, arguably Libya's turnaround is
actually a harder case than North Korea's, and I think that is
something that we often do not think about. The fact that North
Korea may already have nuclear weapons--this is always the
argument that you hear about the differences between the two.
The fact that North Korea may already have nuclear weapons I
think is immaterial to the comparison because, as you said
yourself, Senator, earlier on, the whole purpose of this
exercise is to get the North Koreans to understand that moving
in the direction of nuclear weapons does not make the regime
more secure. It makes the regime less secure. And that was a
compellent exercise that looks as though it has succeeded with
Libya, and I think that is our challenge with North Korea.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Cha follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Victor D. Cha
NORTH KOREA'S ECONOMIC REFORMS AND SECURITY INTENTIONS
Senator Lugar and distinguished committee members, I thank you for
the opportunity to testify again before your committee. I have been
asked to comment on the status of North Korea's economy. I do this not
as an economist but as a political scientist, and therefore may be ill-
equipped to answer specific microeconomic questions about the North's
reforms. Nevertheless, I hope I can offer some political judgments
about the likely success of these reforms. In particular, I will try to
shed light on complex relationship between these economic reforms and
the path toward a peaceful resolution of the nuclear weapons dispute
with Pyongyang. My brief remarks here summarize written testimony that
I respectfully request be submitted for the record.
Overview of North Korea's Economic Reforms
The July 2002 market liberalization reforms undertaken by North
Korea are generally associated with four measures. The first is a basic
monetization of the economy. The government abolished the coupon system
for food rations, relaxed price controls, thereby allowing supply and
demand to determine prices. In order to meet the rise in prices, the
government also hiked wage levels--for some sectors by as much as 20-
fold [110 won/month to 2000 won/month, and for other ``special'' wage
sectors by as much as 60-fold (government officials, soldiers, miners,
farmers)]. Small-scale markets have sprouted up all over North Korea
and the public distribution system has broken down.
Second, the government abandoned the artificially high value of the
North Korean won, depreciating their currency from 2.2 won to $1 US to
150 won to $1 US. This measure was aimed at inducing foreign investment
and providing export incentives for domestic Firms. The ``unofficial''
value of the currency has depreciated further since the reforms some
estimate 700 won or even lower).
Third, the government decentralized economic decisions. Measures
entailed cutting government subsidies, allowing farmers markets to
operate, and transplanting managerial decisions for industry and
agriculture from the central government into the hands of local
productions units. Enterprises have to cover their own costs. Managers
have to meet hard budget constraints.
Fourth, the government pressed forward with special administrative
and industrial zones to induce foreign investment. The Sinuiju Special
Administrative District is a proposal for an open economic zone for
foreign businesses designed to exist completely outside DPRK regular
legal strictures. The Kaesong Industrial District is another project
designed in particular to attract small and medium-sized South Korean
businesses, and the Kumgang Mountain site provides hard currency from
tourism. All three projects sought to avoid the mistakes and failures
of the first Rajin-Sonbong project attempted by the North in 1991,
although these projects are still hampered by the lack of adequate
infrastructure among other problems.
Significance
There is no denying the significance of the July 2002 reforms. They
represent the first attempt in the regime's history at widescale
economic change. In addition, while DPRK propaganda still maintains
anti-capitalist rhetoric and spurns market economic principles (unlike
the cases of China and Vietnam), the regime now admits flaws in the
socialist style economy as the source of the problem rather than
blaming its economic woes on outside actors.
. . . the socialist economic management method is still
immature and not perfect. . . . If we stick to this hackneyed
and outdated method, which is not applicable to the realities
of today, then we will be unable to develop our economy.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Editorial Comment, Rodong Shinmun, November 21, 2001.
By decentralizing decisions, and separating the local economy from
the central economy, local governments and counties can set their own
production levels and prices, which encourages competition. State-owned
enterprises have incentives now to meet government production targets
and then sell surplus on the open market for profit.\2\ Visitors to
North Korea note a new, albeit limited, spirit of entrepreneurship.
Caritas and other international relief organizations report makeshift
small-scale markets with kiosks selling drinks, cigarettes, and cookies
as the public distribution system has basically broken down.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Marcus Noland, ``West-Bound Tram Leaving the Station: Pyongyang
on the Reform Track'' October 14-15, 2002 http://www.iie.com/
publications/papers/noland1002.htm accessed February 25, 2004.
\3\ ``NK Embarks on Initial Phase of Market Economy,'' Korea Update
Vol. 14, No. 10 (September 30, 2003).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dangers
The fact that these reforms are significant does not, however, make
them successful. The obstacles to success are many; allow me to
delineate three of the more prominent ones. First, one should not
interpret the July 2002 measures as the equivalent of North Korea's
religious ``conversion'' to capitalism. Neither the language nor the
nature of these initial reforms appear to have the same conviction of
those seen in China or Vietnam. Moreover, many of the reforms arguably
are situationally--rather than dispositionally-motivated--i.e., they
constituted coping mechanisms to deal with immediate problems rather
than a wholesale, prescient shift in economic ideology. Pyongyang
authorized monetization of the economy and authorization of farmers
markets to buy and sell goods, for example, largely because the public
distribution system had broken down. Similarly, local managers were
given more leeway not because the central government ``trusted'' their
entrepreneurial capabilities, but because plunging outputs and high
absentee rates for workers required some drastic measures.
Second, the economic reforms will test the government's ability to
deal with the triple horns of inflation, economic losers, and urban
poor created by the monetization of the economy. Low supply and low
output have led to massive increases in prices and further devaluation
of the won. By comparison, in 1979 China's initial price reforms drove
up the price of rice by 25 percent. In North Korea, the price has gone
up by at least 600 percent, and the won has depreciated from 150 won
(to $1 US) to at least 700 won.\4\ The reforms probably enabled Kim
Jong-il to gain control of the economy by hurting those black marketers
who held large amounts of won before the currency devaluation, but
fixed income workers have been badly hit by the rise in prices. In
addition, there are many workers being laid off by companies forced to
cut costs. Finally, there is fragmentary evidence that even those
sectors of the labor force favored with the largest wage hikes (6000
won) are discontented. Defectors coming across the Chinese border
complain that the promise of higher wages has not been kept, with
workers receiving only 800 won and then nothing after October 2003.\5\
The upshot is that ``money illusion'' is quickly wearing off in North
Korea, giving way to a new class of urban poor, potentially numbering
in the millions that could be difficult to control.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Oh Seung-yul, ``Changes in the North Korean Economy: New
Policies and Limitations,'' in Korea's Economy 2003, Korea Economic
Institute, Washington DC, 2003, pp. 74-76; Transition Newsletter World
Bank at www.worldbank.org/transitionnewsletter/janfebmar03/pgs1-6htm
accessed February 25, 2004. For more extreme estimates as high as
50,000 won to $1 US, see Asia Times October 22, 2003 (Jamie Miyazaki,
``Adam Smith Comes to North Korea'') http://www.atimes.com/atimes/
Korea/EJ22Dg01.html accessed February 25, 2004.
\5\ Transition Newsletter World Bank at www.worldbank.org/
transitionnewsletter/janfebmar03/pgs1-6htm accessed Feb. 25, 2004.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Third, the ultimate success of the reforms rests on the North's
capacity 1) to secure international food supplies until the reforms
start to increase agricultural output domestically; 2) to secure loans
to finance shortages in cash-flow for managerial enterprises; and 3) to
obtain technical training in accounting, fiscal policy, finance and
other requisite skills.\6\ The North's ability to secure this magnitude
of help will depend on a satisfactory resolution of the nuclear crisis
(the relationship between the economic reforms and North Korea
intentions on the nuclear program is discussed below). In the interim,
however, Pyongyang has been able to muddle through with the help of aid
from China and South Korea. North Korea needs to meet the upward
pressure on prices created by the reforms with either increased
production (not feasible yet) or increased imports. The growth in North
Korean imports over the past two years has largely been financed by aid
inflows from Seoul and Beijing. As Nicholas Eberstadt argues, Chinese
aid goes beyond what is publicly reported, with the best indicator
probably being the trade deficit between the two countries: ``The
DPRK's seemingly permanent merchandise trade deficit with China
actually constitutes a broader and perhaps more accurate measure of
Beijing's true aid levels for Pyongyang (insofar as neither party seems
to think the sums accumulated in that imbalance will ever be corrected
or repaid).'' \7\ In addition to Chinese aid, the North has received
easily over $1 billion in aid from South Korea, over 1 million tons of
food from Japan, and over $1 billion in aid from the United States
since the mid-1990s. Indeed, these aid ``revenues'' have probably
constituted the most successful part of its economy today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Ruediger Frank, ``North Korea: Gigantic Change and a Gigantic
Chance Nautilus Policy Forum Online, May 9, 2003 http://
www.nautilus.org/fora/security/0331--Frank.html accessed February 25,
2004.
\7\ Nicholas Eberstadt, ``North Korea's Survival Game,'' unpub.
paper, presented at the AEI-Chosun Ilbo meeting, February 12-13, 2004,
Washington, DC.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps the most interesting discussions about North Korea's
economic reforms are the political questions and judgments they
instigate rather than the success of the reforms themselves.
Rich Nation, Strong Army?
First, do these economic reforms constitute North Korea's primary
path out of its current decrepit state? In other words, do the nature
of these reforms--on a grander scale--promise the Kim Jong-Il regime
its stated goal of ``kangsong taeguk'' or rich nation/strong army? I
answer this question not as an economist but as a political scientist
when I say that I do not believe such a goal is achievable. My
pessimism stems not so much from the flawed nature of the reforms
(flawed as they are), but from the larger political lessons that
history has taught us about closed regimes that attempt such reforms.
Kim Jong-Il, like many totalitarian leaders before him, faces a
fundamental and almost inescapable reform dilemma--he needs to open up
to survive, but in the process of opening up, he unleashes the forces
that lead to the regime's demise. Resisting the system in North Korea
today is virtually impossible because the society is so closed. The
masses are preoccupied with basic subsistence. And the elite seek only
to ensure their relative share of the sparse gains that could be had
from the system rather than contemplating a change of it. Any opening
begins to generate a spiral of expectations and inexorable forces for
change--the overturning of systems like North Korea occur not when
things are at their absolute worst, but when they begin to get better.
Arguably, the first step in this direction was taken with the July
2002 price reforms. These reforms have affected a much wider swath of
society (in terms of inflation, currency value, etc.) than a closed off
special economic zone. Hence, what is good economically for North Korea
may be bad for the Kim Jong-il regime. Could the DPRK leader hold
things together as he seeks economic reform? History's wastebin is
littered with other similarly-intentioned dictators.
Time on Whose Side?
Another question raised by the DPRK's economic reforms--in
combination with international relief aid--is whether they suffice in
providing the regime enough resources to continue muddling through. The
public policy debate on North Korea implicitly refers to this as the
``time is on whose side?'' question. Some believe time is on the side
of the United States and allies as it can simply wait out the DPRK
regime, applying constrictive measures like the proliferation security
initiative, thereby slowly allowing the regime to collapse of its own
weight. Indeed, some estimates put the DPRK's revenues from missile
sales and illicit activities at nearly one-tenth their former value as
a result of PSI measures. Others believe time is on the side of the
North Koreans as Pyongyang feels no pressure (diplomatic or otherwise)
to stop building their nuclear weapons programs while they continue to
subsist on international goodwill and contributions to their ``aid-
based economy.'' Proponents of the former view implicitly believe that
the U.S. objective is regime change. Proponents of the latter view
believe the North Korean objective is to become the newest nuclear
weapons state.
The answer to this question, in my opinion, is somewhere between
these two extremes and is entirely dependent on tactics (rather than
the goals of the U.S. and DPRK). Whose side time is on depends not on
the success of Pyongyang's economic reforms but on the unreported aid
that continues to flow from South Korea and China to the North. North
Korea can continue to muddle through in the face of international donor
fatigue, the complete cessation of humanitarian aid from Japan, and
other aid sources as long as Seoul and Beijing continue to aid North
Korea. Reliable numbers on South Korea's unreported aid are difficult
to come by. Since 1995, the ROK Unification Ministry estimates that
$2.4 billion in aid has been provided to North Korea by Japan, the
U.S., South Korea, the EU, and the UN (food, fertilizer, medicine, and
fuel oil). But one suspects that there is another story behind the
official statistics. As one long-time international aid worker very
familiar with North Korea put it figuratively, ``North Korea has its
own `911' number--access to state-of-the-art health care, agricultural
support, and aid . . . and that number rings in Seoul.'' \8\ In the
case of China, it has been reported that Beijing provides some $470
million in aid annually to North Korea, amounting to 70-90 percent of
fuel imports and 30 percent of grain imports.\9\ China has reportedly
increased shipments of corn and wheat in early 2003; and last fall
during the visit of Wu Bangguo reportedly offered $50 million in aid.
Japanese media reported that the aid was nominally for a glassworks
plant, but Pyongyang could spend the aid at their discretion.\10\ China
has also increased trade in 2003 with NK by nearly 40 percent according
to the Korean International Trade Association. North Korean fuel
imports from China rose 53.2 percent to $187 million reflecting the end
of U.S. shipments of HFO. If these aid inflows were to cease or
constrict in any way, North Korea would feel significantly more
pressure in the status quo than they do now despite the activities of
the PSI.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Off-the-record comments by international relief worker.
\9\ Pan, Philip P. ``China Treads Carefully Around North Korea,''
Washington Post, January 10, 2003, p. A14.
\10\ Chambers, ``Managing a Truculent Ally: China and North Korea,
2003,'' unpub. Manuscript, Fairbank Institute, Harvard University,
February 23, 2004; ``China's Top Legislator Meets DPRK premier,''
Beijing Xinhua, October 30, 2003; ``China to Provide Grant-in-aid to
DPRK,'' Pyongyang KCNA, October 30, 2003; International Herald Tribune,
Jan. 12, 2004.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Economic Intentions, Security Preferences?
The economic reforms, regardless of their ultimate success, are
significant for the political debate over North Korea. Many argue that
the unprecedented and far-reaching nature of the reforms demonstrate
North Korean intentions to seek integration into the international
community, to receiving engagement by the U.S. and allies, and to trade
their nuclear programs for help from the outside world. The danger of
fixating on the economic reforms, however, is that we may be
attributing much more to North Korean security preferences than exist
in fact. There is no logical link between DPRK desires to reform on the
economic front and a change in their security intentions. To seek
economic reforms and pursue a ramping up of national power through
nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles is not only plausible, but also
fully consistent with the concept of ``rich nation, strong army.'' This
is not to deny that there could be economic arguments for pursuing WMD
programs to augment/replace their conventional military. But the point
is that the DPRK could divorce its economic intentions from its
security preferences. Economic reform does not necessarily mean they
are equally interested in trading away their nuclear weapons--a common
and mistaken assumption made by many analyses of the economic reforms.
Pyongyang could, in fact, want to have its cake and eat it.
The Stakes for North Korea and the ``Libya model''
Perhaps the most important lesson of studying North Korea's
economic reforms is the simple and most parsimonious one--the stakes
are not only high, but the survival of the regime hinges on their
success. In this sense, the stakes for North Korea in terms of
potential gains are arguably even higher than those experienced by
Libya. Libyan leader Gaddafi's announcement to allow unconditional
international inspections and disarmament of the country's nuclear
programs in return for the promise of international support has
elicited many observations of how different the North Korea and North
African cases are. Gaddafi's ear was had by a group of open-minded
reformists (including his son). Secret negotiations through the
British--and outside any interagency process--took place for years
before an agreement. And as North Koreans are fond of saying, Libya did
not yet have nuclear weapons when it agreed to dismantlement.
Despite these differences, there are a number of striking
similarities between the two cases. Both countries had very hostile
relations with the United States. Both initially sought nuclear
weapons, not for the purpose of trading them away, but for the purpose
of keeping them. Both suffered from international sanctions and pariah
status for years. Moreover, Libya was an active supporter of terrorism
more recently than North Korea. And the United States actually attacked
Libya, followed by a period of UN sanctions, neither of which have
occurred yet in the North Korea case. Given these comparisons, arguably
Libya's turnaround was a harder case than that of North Korea. The fact
that North Korea may already have nuclear weapons (i.e., compared with
Libya's potential capabilities) is immaterial to the comparison. As
noted, both countries pursue WMD for the purpose of keeping them
initially. It was only after a period of compellent sanctions that
Tripoli made the critical calculation that moving in the direction of
nuclear weapons made the regime less, not more secure. This is the same
compellent challenge I believe we face with North Korea.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Dr. Cha.
Mr. Malinowski.
STATEMENT OF TOM MALINOWSKI, WASHINGTON ADVOCACY DIRECTOR,
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Mr. Malinowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Hagel.
Thank you for inviting me and for keeping the human rights side
of this as part of the picture throughout your examination of
North Korea.
My job here is to argue that there are really two reasons
why we ought to be losing sleep over this country: first of
all, the nuclear issue which threatens our security, but also
political repression so complete that it should seriously
challenge our conscience. Some day when this country does open
up, I predict we are going to be truly horrified by what we see
and find there, and we are going to ask ourselves whether we
could have, whether we should have said or done more today to
address those issues.
Now, it is a closed society. Human rights groups cannot go
there. There is a lot that we do not know, just as there is a
lot that we do not know about the nuclear issue and everything
else. But as people began to come out of North Korea during the
famine, we did gain witnesses who could speak to their
experiences, and now there is a great deal we do know.
We know, of course, that this is a government in North
Korea that attempts to control every aspect of people's lives,
including their private lives. There is no free press, no civil
society, no freedom to worship even privately.
We know that the government divides all North Korean
citizens into three classes, core, wavering, and hostile, upon
which everything from your access to food, medicine, education,
employment depends, and that these classifications pass on from
generation to generation.
We know that people who run afoul of this system are
punished severely, often in the system that you mentioned,
Chairman Lugar, of penal labor colonies that are reminiscent of
the Soviet gulag, where it has been estimated that up to
200,000 prisoners are now held, worked, tortured, starved often
to death.
We also know, of course, that the North Korean Government
has sought to isolate its people completely from the outside
world, indeed, from all knowledge of the outside world. Reading
foreign publications or listening to foreign broadcasts is a
crime. Leaving the country is also a crime.
Now, most repressive regimes that we are familiar with try
to deny their people the right to demand an alternative way of
life. The North Korean Government has attempted to deny people
the ability to even imagine an alternative way of life.
And what is particularly unique about this country is that
people have endured this system of total control for over 50
years, which means that the vast majority of North Koreans do
not even remember living in a different kind of country. There
is no precedent for this. This is not East Germany. This is not
China. This is not Vietnam. It is a country that we need to use
the word ``Orwellian'' to describe because we really have to
turn to literature to find the vocabulary to describe the
situation.
Now, there has been some change over the last decade,
brought about in part by this famine as people started escaping
north to China, bringing their stories with them.
Unfortunately, in China the migrants have also faced terrible
abuses, including the risk of being forced back to North Korea
where they are detained, interrogated, and punished by their
government for the crime of having left.
Now, the question we all face is what can we do, if
anything, from the outside about these horrors, and in facing
that question, the first conclusion I come to is that further
isolation of North Korea is not going to help. Now, it is
tempting to hope that squeezing this country further might
bring about some kind of destabilization or collapse, but for
that to happen, someone inside the country is going to have to
act, and unfortunately there is political opposition in North
Korea, no civil society from which an opposition could emerge,
and little awareness of the very idea that opposition is even
possible.
As for hunger, well, no totalitarian government has ever
been brought down by a famine. In fact, these kinds of
governments often use hunger to keep their people docile and
dependent on the state. So it works the other way around.
The state of war between North Korea and the United States
also does not help because it enables the government to keep
mobilizing people to work for the state and to mobilize this
sense of hatred of the outside world.
So the bottom line for me is this. The North Korean
Government has imposed this isolation on itself. It is a
deliberate defense mechanism against a political awakening by
its people. It has turned North Korea, in effect, into a cage,
but a cage in which there are a few tiny holes in which
virtually everyone in the country is desperately trying to peer
through. And our human rights agenda, I think, has got to be to
widen those holes as much as possible, at least to begin with
so that more light can shine through.
Now, how do we do that? Information is key. There are
proposals to expand foreign broadcasting to North Korea, which
ought to be pursued as people begin to bring radios in
clandestinely. We should seek every chance to get humanitarian
organizations, human rights organizations into the country and,
of course, to press the North Koreans to give them better
access and freedom of movement. That kind of contact could help
create among North Koreans at least the consciousness that a
different existence is possible, and it could also help expose
the horrors that they face more to the outside world, which
would place, in turn, more pressure on the government to stop
denying them and to start gradually doing something about them.
Now, obviously, North Koreans are going to try to control,
manipulate all of these contacts. So I do not think we can
simply pursue engagement entirely on North Korea's terms. And
then the question is, how do we set the right terms and should
setting the right terms be part of the current dialog with
North Korea on the security issue? That is the key challenge.
Now, I am not going to argue that human rights issues by
themselves should stand in the way of a nonproliferation
agreement because obviously even from just a human rights
perspective, that is an imperative, to prevent the use or
spread of a nuclear weapon. But if we are going to be talking
about an agreement that begins to provide the North Koreans
with significant economic benefits, particularly significant
outside foreign investments, then I believe the human rights
issues and humanitarian issues do need to be placed on the
table, even if the demands are modest, greater access by U.N.
human rights experts, greater transparency in humanitarian
distribution, for example. I think the North Korean Government
does need to understand now that these are important
international concerns.
We can also, of course, approach North Korea's neighbors,
the Chinese, to stop pushing refugees back, the South Koreans
to be a little bit less silent about these problems, and to
also coordinate with the EU nations which have their own dialog
with North Korea that could be usefully employed.
I think, in conclusion, I would just say that figuring out
how to deal with this regime is obviously a strategic
imperative. It is also a moral imperative of the highest order,
and I would say that the two are linked in ways that we ought
to remember. I think it is the lesson that we learned from
having dealt with the Soviet Union during the cold war, that it
is possible, in fact, it is sometimes imperative, to deal with
regimes like this on arms control for the sake of our security,
even as they continue to repress their people. It is possible
to manage insecurity in this way, but we do not banish
insecurity that way. As we learned in those days, we did not
eliminate the underlying security problems in Europe until
there was change on the other side of the Iron Curtain, and I
believe in the long run, the same will be true in Korea and
that ought to be one of our goals.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Malinowski follows:]
Prepared Statement of Tom Malinowski
Thank you Mr. Chairman for giving me the opportunity to testify
today, and for ensuring that North Korea's appalling human rights
record remains part of the picture as we consider the way forward with
Pyongyang.
All of us here agree that North Korea is a country over which we
should be losing sleep. I would argue that there are two reasons for
that, not merely one--certainly the nuclear program, which threatens
our security, but also political repression so complete that it should
seriously disturb our conscience. Some day, when North Korea does open
up, and we see with our own eyes the conditions we can now only glean
from refugee accounts, we will be horrified. And I predict we will ask
ourselves whether we should have said and done more today, just as
people wonder whether they should have said and done more to defend the
victims of persecution when Stalin ruled the Soviet Union or during the
Cultural Revolution in China. North Korea is to our time what those
experiments in negative utopia were to their time.
I should stress that we do not have perfect knowledge of what is
going on in North Korea, no matter what the issue, including human
rights. North Korea is so closed that human rights organizations cannot
go there and conduct the thorough, well documented and corroborated
research that we do in most other countries around the world.
But since the North Korean famine in the 1990's when thousands of
North Koreans began fleeing their country to China, with a few managing
to make it to South Korea, we have been able to gather increasingly
reliable accounts from people who have experienced North Korean
repression first hand. My organization, Human Rights Watch, issued a
report two years ago on the plight of North Korean asylum seekers in
China, a report that also included many refugee accounts of conditions
inside North Korea. Last year, the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in
North Korea issued a report, also based on refugee accounts, exposing
North Korea's extensive system of prison camps. The stories gathered
from North Koreans who have escaped do not yet allow us to paint a
complete and comprehensive picture of life inside their country. But
they are largely credible and consistent. There is a great deal we do
now know.
We know that North Korean government seeks to control virtually
every aspect of its people's political, economic and private lives. All
citizens are required to demonstrate loyalty to the government and its
ruling ideology; no criticism of any kind is permitted. There is no
free press and no civil society. There is no freedom of religion--even
private, independent worship is prohibited. No organizations of any
kind are allowed to exist independent of the state.
We know that the government divides all North Koreans into three
classes ``core,'' ``wavering'' and ``hostile,'' depending on their
loyalty to the state and social background. Those belonging to the
``core'' class get preferential access to food, medicine, education and
employment; those at the bottom of this class system suffer permanent
discrimination and the most intense persecution, a fate that is passed
from generation to generation.
We know that those who run afoul of the state are punished
severely, often in a system of penal labor colonies that are
reminiscent of the old Soviet Gulag. It has been estimated that up to
200,000 political prisoners toil in these prison camps in North Korea.
They are often tortured, starved, and forced to perform slave labor in
mining, logging and farming enterprises. For many, imprisonment is a
death sentence.
Those sentenced to such camps include not only people accused of
crimes but their parents, children, siblings or other relatives.
Likewise, people may be punished or blacklisted in North Korea not just
for their own political opinions or actions but for the imputed
opinions or actions of relatives, even long-dead ancestors. People
whose parents or grandparents were suspected of collaborating with the
Japanese during Japan's occupation of Korea or those who went south
during the Korean War, for example, are often assigned to the worst
schools, jobs and localities, and sometimes wind up in labor camps.
We also know that the North Korean government has sought to isolate
its people completely from the outside world, indeed from all knowledge
of the outside world. All televisions and radios are fixed so they can
transmit only state channels. Reading foreign publications or listening
to foreign broadcasts--or tampering with TV's or radios for this
purpose--is a crime. Leaving the country is also a crime.
Most repressive governments deny people the right to demand an
alternative way of life. The North Korean government has attempted to
deny people the ability even to imagine an alternative way of life. It
has attempted to create a society in which everything that is not
required of its citizens is forbidden to them; a society in which
freedom of choice does not exist, even in day to day life. Many people
have described this as ``Orwellian.'' And it is telling that only in
literature can we find the vocabulary to describe what we know of North
Korean society. It is a society like no other in the world today. And
one of its most historically unique, and troubling, features is that
the people of North Korea have endured this system of total control and
isolation for over 50 years--for multiple generations--which means that
the vast majority of North Koreans have no memory of living in a
different kind of country.
The greatest change North Korea has experienced in the last decade
was brought about by the famine that began in the 1990's--for the first
time, large numbers of North Koreans began fleeing the country. Tens of
thousands of North Koreans now live in hiding in China (the estimates
range from 10,000 to 300,000), mainly in the province of Jilin, mixed
among Chinese citizens of Korean ethnicity. To reach China they have
defied their government's criminal prohibition on illegal exit and
China's rigorous border controls. They are inaccessible except to a
handful of intrepid journalists and activists, and barely acknowledged
by China, which maintains a policy of immediate expulsion to maintain
good relations with North Korea and to deter further migration.
Once in China, these migrants face a range of abuses, from
extortion to rape to forced prostitution and trafficking to torture in
prison. They are unable to call on the Chinese government for
protection. China is a party to the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of
Refugees and its 1967 Protocol (the Refugee Convention), which forbids
states to push back migrants ``to the frontiers of territories where
[their] life or freedom would be threatened on account of . . . race,
religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or
political opinion.'' But China refuses to protect North Koreans,
regardless of their reason for leaving, and regardless of the
likelihood they will be persecuted on return.
In fact, even if they did not leave for political reasons, North
Koreans who are forced back to their country face a high likelihood of
persecution, if only because the act of leaving North Korea made them
criminals in the eyes of their government. North Korean authorities
detain and interrogate returned migrants about their activities and
experiences in China. Many are imprisoned for up to several months in a
string of detention facilities along North Korea's border with China.
Those suspected of more serious offenses, including repeated border
crossings, contact while in China with South Koreans or foreign
missionaries or aid workers or journalists, as well as marriage,
pregnancy or other evidence of a sexual liaison while in China, are
subject to greater punishment, including being sent to a labor camp
and, in some cases, reportedly, execution. There are also reports that
women who were pregnant when they were returned to North Korea have
been subjected to forced abortions, or had their babies killed
immediately after birth.
As we learn of these horrors, Mr. Chairman, the question we face is
what can be done about them from the outside?
We can begin by approaching North Korea's neighbors. China should
be pressed to stop forcibly returning North Korean migrants to their
country, to grant all North Korean migrants an indefinite humanitarian
status that would protect them from harassment, extortion and
exploitation, and to give the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees a
presence on the North Korean border and a role in screening asylum
seekers. These issues should be part of any discussions the United
States conducts with China on North Korea. South Korea should also be
challenged to be less silent about the plight of North Koreans. At the
very least, South Korea should support the resolution on North Korea
that the U.N. Human Rights Commission will be considering in the next
few weeks, instead of remaining completely on the sidelines as it did
last year.
But the most difficult challenge lies in deciding whether more
direct efforts can be made to ease repression inside North Korea
itself.
In facing this challenge, the first conclusion I come to is that
further isolation of North Korea will not help.
Some may hold out hope that squeezing North Korea will destabilize
its government or even bring it down, leading inevitably to a better,
freer life for its people. But it is hard to see how such a strategy
would actually work. Just who will act inside North Korea to bring such
change about, and how? There is no political opposition in North Korea,
no civil society from which an opposition could emerge, and little
awareness of the very idea that opposition is possible. As for hunger--
it might lead North Koreans to despair, even to anger, but history
teaches that it rarely drives people to revolt. The North Korean
government has presided securely over many periods of economic
distress. Its leadership and elite supporters have been well taken care
of. Its failed economic policies are not necessarily a threat to its
political control; after all, their primary purpose has been to help
maintain political control.
The formal state of war that has existed between North Korea and
the United States and its allies also has arguably helped the
government maintain its grip. It has enabled the government to stoke
fear and even hatred of the outside world among its people, to distract
them from their daily sacrifices, to mobilize them for labor and
service to the state. Once again, all we have to do is to dig up our
old copies of Orwell's 1984 to see how this phenomenon works.
The bottom line is this: North Korea's isolation has been self-
imposed. It is a deliberate defense mechanism against a political
awakening among the North Korean people and against political change.
Those who seek change should therefore work to ease that isolation, on
the right terms. Our human rights agenda for North Korea should begin
with bringing this nation out of solitary confinement. It should be to
shed the light of day on its people so that a better day can come.
We should be working to increase the amount of information
trickling into North Korea from the outside world. As more North
Koreans obtain radios clandestinely, more foreign broadcasting, as
Senator Brownback has proposed, will be essential. We also should be
seeking every opportunity to get humanitarian and human rights
organizations into North Korea, including representatives from the U.N.
High Commissioner for Human Rights, and pressing the North Korean
government at every turn to give them greater access and freedom of
movement.
In short, the more outsiders we can get into North Korea, whether
aid workers, human rights monitors, journalists or diplomats, and the
more we can get for them the ability to move around the country, to see
beyond what the government wants them to see in the Potemkin capital of
Pyongyang, the better.
Such contact could help break through the wall of isolation and
disinformation the North Korean government has built between its people
and the world. It could help to create among North Koreans a
consciousness that a different existence is possible. This is the
essential first step if there is to be any internal pressure for change
in the country.
Already, there are some very limited possibilities of change in
North Korea that can be directly attributed to the limited contacts
that now exist with the outside world. Many residents in border towns
are aware of the reality of life outside North Korea either because
they have been to China or because they have watched Chinese TV despite
the risk of arrest and imprisonment. A relatively small number of North
Koreans also have been increasingly exposed to visitors--mostly
tourists from South Korea--in two resort areas where they are allowed
to sell food and interact with the tourists. Although they are
loyalists hand-picked by the state, one cannot ignore the ``word-of-
mouth'' effect their interaction with South Koreans could have.
More contacts could also help expose to the world the horrors North
Koreans endure. I believe that this kind of exposure would at least
place some pressure on the North Korean government to ease its
repression. The concerns of the outside world may not be paramount for
North Korea's leadership. But the government does seem to care,
somewhat about its reputation--enough to deny that labor camps and
torture and deprivation exist, enough to put on elaborate shows for
visiting foreigners to convince them its people are happy, well fed,
and free. As more outsiders have access to North Korea, and as North
Koreans have more access to them, it will be harder for the North
Korean government to deny reality. Instead, it may feel increasingly
compelled to alter it.
At the same time, we should not assume that diplomatic dialogue and
economic engagement with the North will by itself produce the kind of
contact with the world that encourages greater respect for human
rights. The North Korean government will of course do everything it can
to prevent foreigners from interacting with ordinary people and to
manipulate what they see and hear. It will seek to ensure that foreign
investors deal only with the state and try to retain an iron grip over
the lives of workers in enterprises foreigners invest in. It will try
to keep information and ideas out even as money and aid flow in.
Engagement and interaction with the outside world should not,
therefore, be pursued on North Korea's terms alone.
How can we ensure that the terms of engagement with North Korea at
least favor change? Should we press human rights and humanitarian
issues as part of the current U.S. dialogue with the North Korean
leadership, even as the nuclear issue remains unresolved?
I am not going to argue that these issues should stand in the way
of a non-proliferation agreement with North Korea. The use of a nuclear
weapon by North Korea or by a terrorist group that obtains such a
weapon from Pyongyang would be a horrific tragedy. Preventing it is
also a paramount human rights imperative.
But if we are talking about an agreement that transforms the North
Korean government's relationship with the international community, an
agreement that provides it with significant economic benefits, an
agreement that opens the door to significant foreign investment in
North Korea, then human rights and humanitarian issues should be on the
table. Even if the demands are modest--greater access to North Korea by
U.N. human rights experts, for example, or greater transparency in
humanitarian aid distribution--the North Korean government needs to
understand now that these are important international concerns.
Outsiders who go to North Korea as it opens will also carry an
extraordinary set of responsibilities, and should not assume that their
mere presence in the country is enough to encourage change. Aid workers
will have to struggle hard to fulfill their humanitarian obligations
while reporting to the world what they see, and, to the best of their
ability, preventing aid from being stolen or manipulated to serve the
North Korean elite. Foreign investors who do business with North Korean
state enterprises will have to avoid becoming complicit in horrific
practices like slave labor. Indeed, I believe that that governments and
the private sector should work together to develop a specific code of
conduct for companies that plan to do business in North Korea, one that
addresses the challenges responsible investors will face there as in no
other place in the world.
In sum, we should do everything we can now to ease the suffering of
the North Korean people, because that is the right thing to do, and
because we will want to have something to say to future generations who
ask of us ``what did you do when you learned of the horrors North
Koreans endure?'' But addressing the human rights tragedy in North
Korea is more than a moral imperative--it is, ultimately, part of the
larger challenge of building a more secure Korean Peninsula.
We just need to remember the lessons of dealing with the Soviet
Union during the Cold War. We learned then that in the short run, it is
possible and often necessary to strike agreements with repressive
governments that diminish the threat of nuclear war. We learned that it
is possible to manage insecurity through arms control. But we could not
banish insecurity in this way. The underlying tensions that might have
led to war between the Soviet Union and the West did not disappear
until people behind the Iron Curtain won their freedom and their basic
human rights. I believe the same will be true in Korea. I believe that
is one of the paramount goals we should be working for, right now, for
the sake of the North Korean people, and the security of all people.
The Chairman. Thank you very much for your testimony. Let
me just say that I appreciate your mentioning, Mr. Malinowski,
that our hearing was constructed to hear from Secretary Kelly
about developments on the current negotiations for which he is
a point man for our country, along with his associates. We also
wished to try to think through, if Mr. Kelly is successful, or
the six powers to be more accurate are successful, how we
physically go about the disarmament process. What kind of an
economy is there now? What sort of economic ramifications will
there be? Obviously we also care about the status of human
rights of the people, and how this might progress.
There are a good number of people from whom we have heard
during these hearings on North Korea over the course of the
last couple of years who obviously have one theme to stress
that is greater than another. For instance, to pick up your
first point, should we have done more? Should we let our
consciences be our guide? Many would say yes. As a matter of
fact, one way of doing that is to strike North Korea and remove
the regime and get on with it. In other words, why are you
waiting? Here are people who are suffering.
Before we get very far down that trail, South Koreans and
others who are in South Korea, 30,000 American soldiers,
100,000 missionaries, business people, and so forth, say well,
what about us? We are in harm's way even while you are busy
liberating North Koreans.
I have made, not to be provocative, suggestions in hearings
in which Mr. Kelly has been involved, that we might adopt as a
conscious procedure one of encouraging refugees to come to the
United States from North Korea. Now, we have visited, I am
sure, through diplomatic channels with the Chinese, but they
are very reticent to allow the first North Korean to come
across the border. As a matter of fact, perhaps until these
current negotiations, some of their policies have been guided
by the need to maintain this regime, however odious it might
be, if in fact the problem could be contained within the
borders of North Korea, as opposed to spreading to China. The
South Koreans have often felt the same way, despite futuristic
thoughts of a united peninsula.
My suggestion did not really go anywhere. Not a whole lot
of refugees have been accepted. Not a whole lot have been
encouraged, even though it does at least begin to open up for
some of us a different kind of conversation with people who
might come out, who might have something to say, or maybe even
still have some communication, difficult as that may be, with
their kinfolk in the country.
I am encouraged by what we heard today. As opposed to the
previous round of negotiations or the bilaterals that have
preceded, there does seem to be much more of a common
understanding that the nuclear program must go. We need much
more conversation among the parties, as Secretary Kelly
mentioned and as I commended. Diplomacy may be starting up in
that part of the world more seriously, with people talking to
each other.
Our own relations with the Chinese have improved
materially, I would argue, during this period of time, because
we are visiting about North Korea. We have had some reason for
a good number of Americans to be talking seriously about
strategic issues, about issues of war and peace and
negotiations. That probably has been healthy for us, as well as
maybe for others.
It has been reassuring to the South Koreans that diplomacy
has proceeded this far, as opposed to there being fears that
somehow or other a military strike might come unexpectedly for
them and despite their strenuous objections, so that they might
thereby be forced to come into this.
I have never been clear about the role of the Russians in
all of this. I want to learn more about that, maybe in future
briefings.
It appears to me that what Dr. Cha has to say about the
economy is interesting, but also disquieting. Namely, there are
reforms going on here, but as he points out, they are unlikely
to be tremendously successful. If, in fact, the regime did
pursue these reforms with a great deal more vigor and
sophistication, it might be the end of the regime. You keep
getting back again to the nuclear business, and the longevity
of the regime, and how all this is interrelated.
As Mr. Kelly says, we are going to have talks with some of
the parties. We are going to be in touch all the time during
this period of time for a formal attempt to come together, as
the six powers, again in June. What should be the agenda for
what we have to say to the Chinese or to the Japanese or to the
South Koreans or to the Russians?
In other words, given the status that Mr. Kelly describes
of where we are now, how do we put into play each of the
objectives that you have discussed, in addition to ones that he
has? What should we concentrate on? How do we communicate this
to the American people? What should be communicated to us, and
therefore, to the world, so that there will be some
understanding of what we are about here? This is a unique
negotiation.
The Iranian business is very different from that, although
that still is in a situation of diplomacy. Very clearly we are
not making much headway with Syria, but we might. From time to
time we had hearings about that. Likewise, as regards the
Indian-Pakistani situation, we are developing relations there.
That is interrelated with what you are talking about here
today.
Given just the six powers situation, as it has developed,
what advice and counsel would any of you have? Mr. Taylor, do
you have some thoughts about that?
Mr. Taylor. Well, I will concentrate on the disarmament
side. I think, Senator, that what I would be looking for, if I
was part of this process and I would be persuading the other
parties in the talks, is that there ought to be a requirement
for an early demonstration of a commitment to a disarmament
process. That would have to come soon within a specified
timeframe, and perhaps ideally to avoid a staged process, one
after the other, being protracted over many years, two things
that are concurrent.
My suggestion in the final part of my remarks was something
on the plutonium side, perhaps allowing the IAEA access to be
able to assess and be given sufficient information to assess
the past production of plutonium before 1992; on the other
hand, at the same time, to be given information on the highly
enriched uranium. That would be a challenge for North Korea,
but I think the circumstances demand a challenge.
And if North Korea was to respond in a positive way, I
think that would be a very important signal. You have alluded
and others have to the behavior of Libya. Their actions
demonstrated an early commitment. That is what we should try to
achieve with North Korea.
I think North Korea is more of a challenge. I disagree a
little bit with Professor Cha on that. I think it is nearly 1.5
million personnel under arms, the 17,000 artillery pieces--it
is the conventional capabilities arraigned alongside of the
border which makes it, I think, dramatically different to the
case in Libya. So it is more difficult to handle.
But that is what I would recommend.
The Chairman. Well, what about the 17,000 pieces? For
instance, the IAEA was in North Korea, so they have had some
experience with that. Your advice to the negotiators might then
be to, once again, suggest that these people return, and that
they are sort of an international validation of what has gone
on historically.
Meanwhile, what do we do with regard to the 17,000
artillery pieces that are still menacing South Korea in the
process?
Mr. Taylor. Well, in a comprehensive agreement--and clearly
there has to be a package--it would have to include confidence
building measures in relation to the deployment of conventional
forces, which are deployed predominantly toward the
Demilitarized Zone. So the North Korean concentration of that
nearly 1.5 million troops and the artillery and so on is very
close to the border. So as part of a package, there ought to be
an agreement at some point for some demonstration of
withdrawal, of movement, and so on. But that is very, very hard
to do. My recommendation, with some reluctance, will be to have
two elements related to the nuclear program.
The Chairman. So you have some sequence of this.
Mr. Taylor. There would have to be some sequence, but be
careful not to be drawn into a 25-phase process that takes 10
years.
The Chairman. Dr. Cha, what would you advise our
negotiators?
Dr. Cha. Well, a couple of observations, the first with
regard to Secretary Kelly's testimony. The same paragraph that
you picked up on struck me as well, which was the point about
multilateralism in Asia. I think in particular, as someone who
looks at this in scholarly circles, one of the big challenges
in Asian multilateralism is that you could never set up these
institutions in advance to deal with problems. I mean, the
institutions would arise as a result of problems. I think you
saw that with the U.S.-Japan-Korea coordination in 1994 over
the North Korean nuclear problem, and we are seeing another
version of it today.
I would agree with Secretary Kelly that there is the
potential for something like this growing into a larger
multilateral institution in Asia. An issue-based
multilateralism is what we have seen in Asia.
In terms of how to talk to each of these parties as we run
up to June or working levels before that, I think with regard
to Japan, the message is basically that they need to stay the
course. They have been very strong in terms of where they feel
the North Koreans need to be on this problem and that they
should basically stay the course and continue to pass this
legislation that would enable them to put pressure on the
regime if they needed to do so.
For South Korea, there has to be a willingness to show that
there is a red line with regard to where this sunshine policy
or engagement policy is with North Korea. If they do not state
where that red line is, the North Koreans will be able to
continue to muddle through for as long as they would like. The
key context here is that the July 2002 economic reforms have
really put pressure on the entire country, and they have been
able to muddle through largely because of aid they have been
receiving from China and South Korea.
With regard to China, as you stated, the Chinese are
opposed to the idea of pressing on refugees or pressing North
Korea overall because they are worried about regime
instability. I think the main thing we have to remember there
is there are costs that come with possibly destabilizing a
regime. There are also costs that come with keeping hands off
and allowing North Korea to become a full-fledged nuclear
weapons state. And I would argue that those costs, since I am
mandated to speak from the economic perspective today, are
economic. They are not just security-wise because, again as
Secretary Kelly said, it is going to have an effect on the
entire region, financial ratings, investment confidence, if
North Korea becomes a nuclear weapons state.
Finally, for North Korea, again, it is the commitment to
dismantlement that is absolutely key and acknowledging that
there is this second program. To not acknowledge the second
program is frankly ridiculous. It is like allowing a robber to
sell back to you stuff he stole from your house without even
admitting that he stole it. It is ludicrous.
With regard to the Libya model, I do not think North Korea
is an easy case, not at all. I am just trying to make the point
that there is a tendency to immediately discount the
possibility of moving along the lines of a Libya model because
everybody starts from the premise that the two cases are so, so
different. My only point was to acknowledge those differences
but also say there are a lot of similarities there. So we
should not write off the Libya model right away.
The Chairman. Just from an economic standpoint, Mr.
Malinowski has made the point that if in fact millions of North
Koreans are starving, are extremely poor and continue to be,
this might not be of consequence to a regime that was thinking
of its own longevity. To what extent is some degree of economic
success important to the regime? In other words, if you
discount, say, four-fifths of the population as inconsequential
in this, whether they live or die, what has to happen in this
world for at least enough economic sustenance to occur that the
regime, with its military force and whatever other trappings it
has to stay there, can continue?
Dr. Cha. I think the regime is able to continue as it is
continuing now because it has been receiving help from the
outside world.
I think the interesting dilemma that is posed by the
question you raise, Mr. Chairman, is that it really is a
double-edge sword for North Korea because, on the one hand, it
is absolutely true that regimes will not collapse as a result
of famine. You are right. Hunger is used as a weapon. But at
the same time, the regime needs to reform, needs to bring in
some economic goodies to make side payments to the military, to
sort of keep cohesion of the regime, but anything that moves
beyond simply getting cash in hand from the outside that they
can then distribute, anything that moves in the direction of
real economic reform then creates the spiral of expectations,
which, as we know, historically revolutions do not occur when
things are at their absolute worse; they occur when things are
at their worst and they start to get better.
So I think in many ways, this is the dilemma that the North
Korean regime faces. It needs to reform and it needs help, but
that process of getting help is a very delicate walk for them,
and it could mean regime stability or regime coherence in the
short term, but in the longer-term, it could mean collapse.
The Chairman. The irony of all this was illustrated for me.
I had a meeting with 10 of the ASEAN Ambassadors last week to
visit and catch up on things that they were most interested in.
What is a common theme of most, if not all, is that China is
importing from each of them huge amounts of raw materials and
valuable metals and minerals and whatever they have. Sort of
the great sucking sound that Ross Perot used to talk about
really is happening as all this goes in. So they are developing
very large balance of trade surpluses vis-a-vis the Chinese. Of
course, in our politics we are always visiting the other side
of this issue, as are some European countries, of huge deficits
as all this is processed in China, or much of it at least, and
exported in various ways.
It is an unusual relationship. The dynamism of the Chinese
economy, a huge movement of people from the rural areas to the
cities, the loans, imprudent or not, of a banking system that
may be headed toward a bubble, all of this is creating enormous
economic excitement in the region. Here next door is North
Korea, in which obviously that kind of excitement is not
occurring. It is not really clear right away, I suppose,
whether it would. It is not clear how the Chinese become
engaged in this in a different way, rather than continuing with
the exclusion that is keeping everybody in North Korea and
providing these resources to the regime.
Even though the Chinese may have changed their minds about
the vigor with which they want to pursue the nuclear weapons,
there is no evidence yet that they have changed their minds
about the support of the country. As you are suggesting, that
gives some sustenance to this regime, maybe to the exclusion of
most of the people, but at least it keeps those folks alive.
Trying to move on all of these tracks simultaneously, of
course, is very important. That is what our hearing is designed
to try to illustrate. I think this will require much more
dialog with the Chinese.
In any event, Mr. Malinowski, having heard all of this,
please give us your counsel now on what the negotiators ought
to be talking about.
Mr. Malinowski. Sure. For my part, I would begin with
China, obviously, and I think we have to stress the refugee
issue, as difficult as it is for China to hear from us about
that, as much as they fear a massive exodus of North Korea
across that border. Sending people back to labor camps is a
pretty bad thing, and it is a total violation of China's
obligations under the Refugee Convention and we cannot ignore
that. We have to keep raising that with the Chinese to persuade
them not to do that, to engage with the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees, and also to persuade the U.N. to be a little bit
more aggressive in pressing the Chinese on that.
Again, it is an important humanitarian concern, but as you
mentioned, it is more than that because this movement of people
across the border has been profoundly important in a political
sense, both in bringing to light conditions inside North Korea,
and as they move back, particularly if they can move back on
their own and not to a labor camp, they bring with them word of
mouth knowledge of the outside world, and that is profoundly
important in the North Korean context.
In terms of negotiations directly with North Korea, there I
think at the appropriate time we need to focus in particular on
the access issues. I would start modest since I think our goal
has got to be to pry this country open as much as possible. To
look at the problems that humanitarian groups have had in doing
their work inside the country, not being able to hire Korean
speakers, not being able to travel freely, to examine where the
aid is going and who is getting it, trying to get people with
more of a human rights focus into the country from the U.N.
which is a bit less threatening potentially. I would focus on
those issues at the appropriate moment in the dialog with the
North Koreans.
Others have proposed more ambitious ideas, for example, the
notion of a Helsinki type agreement modeled on the Helsinki
Accords with the former Soviet Union perhaps in exchange for
security guarantees. That may be a bridge too far. On the other
hand, we have seen that sometimes it is possible to get
Communist regimes to make entirely insincere commitments on
human rights and that then those insincere commitments can be
used in the long run to try to press for change. And I think we
do need to be thinking along those creative lines and at least
testing these ideas as the dialog moves forward.
The Chairman. Now, with your experience in human rights
leadership, are we missing any techniques of having more
information arrive in North Korea? We always describe this, I
am sure correctly, as a very closed society, as a regime that
works very hard to maintain no information that might upset the
situation. Yet, here we live in a world in which, obviously,
this is a strange exception. All kinds of authoritarian
regimes, maybe even some that verge on totalitarianism, do not
necessarily have internet service and antennae on top of the
roofs, but on the other hand, it is extraordinary how
information spreads in this world. We talk frequently about how
small it is.
Why is North Korea immune from the information revolution
or any part of it?
Mr. Malinowski. Well, one of the points I suggested in my
testimony, in terms of what makes them unique, is that they
have been at this for 50 years. If you think about the worst
years of Stalin's terror, we are talking about maybe 15 years.
The Chairman. There is no frame of reference, in other
words, no memory.
Mr. Malinowski. Yes. It is three generations. Think of what
you can do in three generations if you run a successful
totalitarian model and you can shut down a country and
literally cut people off. No other government has been able to
do this I think in historical memory. So it is a unique
situation.
How can we break through it? I do not believe in air-
dropping radios, for example. I think we have to be a little
bit careful, keeping in mind that North Koreans can be killed
and are, in fact, executed for listening to information from
the outside world. But I think we can be increasing foreign
broadcasting, as North Koreans on their own decide to take the
risk of bringing in means of receiving that information.
And I think we need to be looking at all the little ways of
getting people in there, even if their fundamental task may not
be to spread information. The fact that you have a humanitarian
worker going into the countryside is a means of spreading
information indirectly. Having a diplomatic mission there, for
example--I would not be against normalization. I am a little
more concerned about the investment and the economic aid than I
am about normalization because I think having a U.S. diplomatic
mission in Pyongyang would actually be helpful for this point
of view. I would try to start modestly with all of these little
things that exist everywhere else in the world but do not exist
in North Korea.
The Chairman. Mr. Kelly did today mention normalization. It
is down the list after you sort of work through an arduous
agenda, but at least that is contemplated as a possibility.
Mr. Malinowski. I am not sure if I would make it the final
carrot.
The Chairman. You would move it up.
Mr. Malinowski. I am more concerned about, for example,
large amounts of foreign investment, particularly if you have,
say, South Korean or Chinese companies going in as partners
with the North Korean Government in a situation where there is
even the prospect of slave labor being used. I think that is
more dangerous from the point of view of caring about the human
rights of the North Korean people as against diplomatic
recognition, which I think gives them only symbolic benefits
while actually helping us open the place up.
The Chairman. At the risk this afternoon of a blatant
advertisement of the Nunn-Lugar program, which has already
occurred, but will reoccur now in this question, what happened
when we finally did come to grips with people in Russia who
were constructive about the situation is that they did not have
very much money. In fact, they had no money for this type of
disarmament that both sides felt was in their benefit. They had
very large deficits in terms of technical resources, of people
who could physically dismantle things, organize things. They
had many people that were very brilliant in various ways but
not necessarily in moving down the hill.
After the IAEA comes in, let us say hypothetically, and
they inventory what all is there, quite apart from the history,
and get into that so that we have a feeling, root and branch,
that we know where it all is, there will come the moment of
truth as to who does what. Physically, who moves something? In
the case of Libya, for example, quickly we came to the
conclusion the United States could fly an airplane into Libya
and load it up. Oak Ridge, Tennessee was receptive to taking it
all. Now, that does not always work. And sometimes negotiations
with Governors of our States or with Russians who are not
necessarily wanting to be in the place where all this reposes
require at least some more diplomacy. It may be too optimistic
to think down the trail to the point at which we actually come
to the hardware.
What are your suggestions? Should we try to fashion some
multilateral removal process, in which we all verify what
happens at the same time? If so, should we divvy up the rent as
to who does what and who pays for it, who sends people in? Mr.
Taylor, you have thought about these things, I know. Do you
have any suggestions?
Mr. Taylor. I think the process that offers the best
promise, as I mentioned in my remarks, is the six-party
process, so that the five other parties, other than North
Korea, should be involved in what I would describe as a front-
loaded disarmament process, which brings quick rewards, because
time is not on our side. For example, if we do not understand
and stop the HEU program, we know that in a few years there
will be a significant nuclear arsenal. Then we are into a
different strategic dimension if we end up in 5, 6, 7 years
time with a North Korea with----
The Chairman. Is it reasonable that five parties all decide
that they are on the same page with regard to this immediate
work?
Mr. Taylor. I appreciate the difficulties. But I was very
struck by Secretary Kelly's explanation of the process and very
encouraged by the process, and he was indicating that, if not
exactly on the same sheet of music, they were very much
together on the importance of demonstrable disarmament early.
And I think that is what one needs to go for.
As I was suggesting, not just one thing, a thing not to go
for is an elaborate, long process, but multi activities going
on at the same time to give North Korea the opportunity to
demonstrate it has taken the key decision such as we have seen
in Libya and that is obviously demonstrated. I think equipment
leaving the country--I think, Mr. Chairman, you mentioned
that--I think that is one of the important stages in
dismantling the 5 megawatt reactor and the fuel rods and so on
and having them taken away. That is a very good early step that
could be taken. It is visible. It is demonstrable. There is no
doubt about it. It has to be that kind of step I think fairly
early on.
The Chairman. While we are all talking, that is, among the
five at least, is it conceivable that parallel programs could
be conjured up by these negotiators? As they think toward the
next round, who loans money to the regime and who provides
food? In other words, who provides humanitarian input to
relieve the suffering at the same time that there is at least
some visible means of there being a change in the economy?
After all, we would still have the same regime there even after
we have dismantled and carted out all of this, but the regime
may be interested in what the parallel programs are. There is
some evidence that they certainly are.
The question you have raised is, is there hope that somehow
they simply work out a situation in which they finally retain a
portion of whatever was in the arms, but they also get the
loans, and they get a certain amount of humanitarian work that
does not really inform the public or stir things up any more? I
am curious as to how far any of this may move because this is
the purpose of our hearing today. We are here to examine the
parallels and the simultaneous action. How do these things
happen for the relief and the progress of the people, in
addition to the safety of the world, with the nuclear arms?
Dr. Cha, do you have a comment?
Dr. Cha. I would agree with the point about early and
immediate moves by the North Koreans. Their proposal of a
freeze on one program and not admitting to the other was
basically the same sheet of music that we have seen in the
past, and that is certainly not the direction I think in which
the United States wants to go in this. So there really need to
be immediate and unprecedented steps by the North Koreans that
we have not seen before to get any sense of confidence that
they really are committed to dismantlement. Once we get those
sorts of steps accomplished, this is where the multilateral
process really is an asset because you can coordinate among the
parties what sort of things each party will provide to North
Korea in return.
The Chairman. Mr. Malinowski, do you have any final thought
about all this?
Mr. Malinowski. Well, not much to add to what my colleagues
here have said. To the extent we are thinking about this in
multilateral terms, I think that is also important on the human
rights and humanitarian side.
The Chairman. At least you have a group. Even they do not
act simultaneously, but they are still together for a variety
of reasons.
Mr. Malinowski. I think they are related substantively in
the long run. The question is the sequencing and at what point
do our negotiators begin to raise these issues. I think raise
them now, and then at what point do you actually establish
linkages to things that the North Koreans want? And I think
there is a point down the road where that comes as well.
Another sort of big question I have is to what extent do
the North Koreans really care about what we think about these
horrors and their reputation. My sense is that to some extent
they must, otherwise why would they deny that the labor camps
exist and why would they take foreigners, as you well know, on
these sort of Potemkin Village shows to prove that their people
are happy and well-fed and free if they did not, to some
extent, want people to believe these things? I think, again, to
the extent that we begin to pull back the curtain, I think it
is going to be harder and harder for them to protect their
reputation through pure denial, and they will be more
encouraged to try to protect their reputation by beginning to
take at least small steps forward.
The Chairman. Hard-nosed as they may be, still with people
dying and total depravation, there clearly is a sense of guilt
and responsibility.
Mr. Malinowski. They do not want us to know this. There
must be something to that.
The Chairman. Well, I thank all three of you very much for
your excellent testimony, and for your thoughtful answers to
our questions. With this, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 6:02 p.m., the committee adjourned, to
reconvene subject to the call of the Chair.]
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Additional Statement Submitted for the Record
Prepared Statement of Senator Russell D. Feingold
I thank Chairman Lugar and Senator Biden for holding this important
hearing, and I thank Assistant Secretary Kelly and all of the private
witnesses for being here today.
Last week, another round of six-party talks came to a close in
Beijing. According to press reports, the Chinese Foreign Minister
closed the session by noting that ``the road is long and bumpy. But
time is on the side of peace.''
I would like to believe this sentiment, but I am not so sure. Time
does not appear to be on our side here. As time passes, North Korea has
increasing opportunities to develop its nuclear weapons program, and
potentially to provide nuclear know-how or technology to others. Yet,
as time passes, it is not at all clear that the U.S. gains any
particular negotiating leverage.
North Korea's nuclear defiance is an urgent national security
issue. But for well over a year, it has not been clear whether or not
the administration has a plan to get from where we are today to where
we want to be.
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Responses to Additional Questions for the Record
Responses of Hon. James A. Kelly to Additional Questions for the Record
Submitted by Senator Russell D. Feingold
Question 1. Are you confident that North Korea cannot transfer
nuclear capacity or know-how to other actors while we wait for the next
round of talks? On what do you base this confidence?
Answer. North Korea's proliferation activities are of deep concern.
By strengthening export control systems worldwide and implementing
initiatives such as the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), we aim
to stem not only North Korean but worldwide proliferation activities.
We have made very clear to North Korea that transfer of nuclear
capacity or know-how would be a most serious matter. We are using the
multilateral diplomacy of the six-party talks to underline that message
and to offer North Korea the prospect of enjoying the benefits of being
a member in good standing of the international community by completely,
verifiably, and irreversibly dismantling its nuclear weapons programs.
Question 2. Some press reports suggest that the parties to the
talks may meet in working groups before the next formal session. What
would these working groups be working on? Is this a notional idea or a
firm plan? What, specifically, do we hope to accomplish within these
groups?
Answer. The parties to the talks agreed to the establishment of a
working group or groups, and further agreed that terms of reference
would be discussed among the parties through diplomatic channels. Those
diplomatic exchanges are now beginning. In general terms, we would
expect the working group or groups to carry out instructions from the
plenary and to develop, in a more detailed manner, understandings
reached at plenary sessions, in order to achieve our long-term goal of
the complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of the DPRK's
nuclear programs.