[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 11920-11922]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



    COPING WITH A CHANGING KOREAN PENINSULA: AVOIDING RIGIDITY AND 
                         IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise to begin a discussion of the 
tremendous strategic consequences which may flow from events now 
underway on the Korean Peninsula.
  As we debate spending on non-proliferation programs--including 
support for the Korean Energy Development Organization created by the 
1994 Agreed Framework, which was significantly reduced in the Foreign 
Operations Appropriations Bill just passed by the Senate--it is 
important to keep the big picture in mind. We need to remain flexible 
in the face of a changing world, avoiding the twin pitfalls of rigidity 
and what Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan refers to as ``irrational 
exuberance.''
  Our decisions today will help shape the strategic environment that 
our children and grandchildren will live with tomorrow.
  I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I think I have a good 
handle on some of the key questions, and I hope my colleagues will bear 
them in mind as we move forward.

[[Page 11921]]

  A decade after the end of the cold war, the American people are 
entitled to feel puzzled and dismayed by the continued hostile division 
of the Korean peninsula along the 38th Parallel. More than a million 
soldiers, including 37,000 Americans, thousands of artillery tubes, and 
hundreds of tanks, are clustered along a heavily-fortified border 155 
miles long. If ever a place were ill-named, it would be the so-called 
``Demilitarized Zone'' on the Korean Peninsula.
  Today, the two Koreas could not be more different.
  North of the DMZ, people live in unimaginable poverty and hardship. 
As many as 2 million North Korean have perished as a result of famine 
and disease over the past 4 years.
  The 22 million who have survived live under one of the most 
repressive and brutal regimes on the planet.
  Their leader, Kim Jong-il, was, until recently, a recluse. We didn't 
know much about him, although there were plenty of rumors. He was said 
to be mad, irrational, a playboy obsessed by Hollywood movies. He was 
the ``perfect rogue'' in charge of the world's most dangerous 
``rougue'' nation.
  South of the DMZ, 47 million Koreans live in a flourishing democracy, 
one of the most productive societies on the planet. They enjoy one of 
the highest living standards in Asia, or indeed, in the world. Their 
country is completing a remarkable transformation from authoritarian 
rule to full-throated democracy.
  They are a steadfast U.S. ally, and have shed blood and put their 
lives on the line alongside U.S. forces from Vietnam to the Middle 
East.
  South Korea's leader, President Kim Dae-jung, is a visionary and a 
man of peace. Long imprisoned for his support for democracy and 
rapprochement with North Korea, Kim had the courage to extend a hand of 
peace and friendship across that DMZ, and the peninsula may never be 
the same.
  Mr. President, the Korean Peninsula is hallowed ground.
  This is where Americans of the 2nd Infantry division struggled their 
way up Heartbreak Ridge in order to help secure a defensive line which 
has remained static for the past 50 yrs. It is a battlefield on which 
900,000 Chinese, 520,000 North Korean, 250,000 south Korean, and more 
than 33,000 American combatants lost their lives. It is ground on which 
as many as 3 million civilians--ten percent of the total population--
perished during three years of desperate fighting.
  The Korean Peninsula is also perilous ground.
  The North has not withdrawn any of its heavy artillery poised along 
the Demilitarized Zone. It has not yet ended all of its support for 
terrorist organizations. And, perhaps of greatest concern to the U.S., 
North Korea has not stopped its development or export of long-range 
ballistic missile technology. The North's missile development poses a 
threat not only to our allies South Korea and Japan, but to others in 
regions destabilized by North Korean arms merchants.
  In short, the North Korean threat remains today the most obvious 
strategic rationale for America's forward-deployed military forces in 
the Pacific Theater. Roughly 100,000 men and women of the armed forces 
safeguard U.S. interests in East Asia.
  The North Korean threat is also the most obvious strategic rationale 
for those who advocate the development and deployment of a limited 
National Missile Defense. As the expression went back in the early 
1980's, ``One A-bomb can ruin your whole day.''
  Mr. President, it is too soon to pop the champagne corks. Euphoria is 
not an emotion that lends itself to sound foreign policy-making. As 
President Kim Dae-jung himself has said, we must approach North Korea 
with a ``warm heart and a cool head.''
  Having said all of that, it would be the greatest folly for us not to 
consider the potential significance of what is happening on the Korean 
peninsula, not just for Northeast Asia, but for the future of United 
States strategic doctrine and our role in the Pacific.
  Mr. President, the world does not stand still. The ``plate-
tectonics'' of Northeast Asia are fluid. The realignments underway 
could have a profound impact on our force posture and role we will 
play, with out friends and allies, in helping to secure a peaceful and 
stable East Asian environment for our children and grandchildren.
  With the emergency of Kim Jong-il from what he jokingly admitted was 
a ``hermit's'' existence in North Korea, we are beginning to see the 
rewards of patient diplomacy backed by strong deterrence. If 
implemented, the agreement reached in Pyongyang--especially provisions 
for family reunion visits, economic cooperation and eventual peaceful 
unification--promises to reduce tensions in this former war zone and 
enhance economic, cultural, environmental, and humanitarian cooperation 
on the peninsula.
  In five year's time, we might be evaluating a new North Korean 
missile threat. Alternatively, we might be marveling at the creation of 
a genuine demilitarized zone linking, rather than separating, North and 
South.
  North Korea appears to have made a strategic decision that reforming 
its moribund economy and normalizing relations with its neighbors are 
the keys to the survival of the regime.
  This decision was not made at the summit. It has its origins in the 
collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the 
success of China's economic reforms. Absent Soviet subsidies and 
military, North Korea has become a desperately poor country, unable 
even to feed itself. It has begun to seek accommodation, even on tough 
issues involving national security.
  Just yesterday, in response to President Clinton's decision to lift 
some economic sanctions on the North, the North Koreans agreed to 
extend the missile launch moratorium it has observed over the past 
year.
  The North also agreed to engage in a new round of talks next week 
with the Administration. These talks will take time, but they could 
ultimately lead to a decision by North Korea to forego future missile 
exports and curtail its development of long range missiles.
  What would be the consequences of a world in which North Korea no 
longer posed a significant threat to its neighbors? Where would our 
interests lie?
  It's hard to answer the first question without first engaging in 
thorough deliberations not only with our allies South Korea and Japan, 
but also with others with a stake in preserving peace and stability in 
northeast Asia, most notably China and Russia. I believe those 
deliberations should begin now. We should not wait for events to 
dictate an answer to us, as occurred in the Philippines when we 
suddenly found ourselves without bases on which we had staked much of 
our future in Southeast Asia.
  It's a little bit easier to answer the second question. I believe our 
enduring interests are clear.
  First and foremost, will be our desire to preserve peace and 
stability. There are regional tensions beyond the division of the 
peninsula.
  Japan and South Korea have unresolved territorial disputes and a 
historical legacy of war and mistrust. The Perry Initiative has helped 
forge a remarkable trilateral spirit of cooperation, and we should seek 
to ensure that spirit lives on even after the threat of a second Korean 
War is laid to rest.
  Japan and Russia have much the same difficulties as do Japan and 
South Korea, and we should do our part to help them to resolve their 
differences peacefully.
  Second, we must pursue non-proliferation. The danger of nuclear 
proliferation will not evaporate just because North and South Korea are 
reconciled. U.S. strategic doctrine--especially our decision on whether 
to proceed with the development and deployment of a National Missile 
Defense--will have a huge impact on whether Japan goes nuclear, which 
would immediately trigger a Korean response, and whether China builds 
more ICBMs or decides to MIRV a future generation of missiles.
  The North Korean threat is literally and figuratively a ``moving 
target.'' We should make sure that our aim is true, and that we do not 
inadvertently cause more problems than we solve in our haste to address 
it.

[[Page 11922]]

  Third, we will want to foster respect for international norms in the 
areas of human rights and the environment. This will be particularly 
important in our relationship with China.
  Fourth, we will continue to seek economic openness, including 
securing sea lanes of communication. A decision looms before the Senate 
on whether to extend permanent normal Trade Relations to China.
  I support PNTR for China, in part because I believe it is an 
essential ingredient of an overall strategy which secures a place for 
us in more prosperous and economically integrated East Asia.
  For all of these objectives, maintenance of robust U.S. military 
capabilities, forward deployed in the region, will be essential, 
although the composition of those forces is likely to change as their 
roles and missions evolve. Our forward-deployed forces and the 
maintenance of strong strategic airlift capabilities at home enable us 
to respond swiftly and effectively to regional contingencies, 
humanitarian disasters, and political instability which might impact 
our vital interests.
  Mr. President, as I said at the outset, I think we may be witnessing 
something extraordinary underway in Northeast Asia. We don't know 
exactly how it is all going to play out. But we had best begin now to 
discuss the potential implications. The decisions we make today will 
shape the strategic environment and the tools we have to advance our 
interests in East Asia tomorrow.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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