Watch Report No.34

Watch Report No.34   　October 29, 2021

If You Want to Delve into the DPRK’s Nuclear Crisis? This Book is A Must-Read.
　Book Review: North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons – A Mirror that Reflects the World, by Hiromichi       　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　   UMEBAYASHI, Kobunken, 2021

　            Hibiki YAMAGUCHI,VisitingResearcher,Nagasaki University Research
               Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition

This book offers the author’s comprehensive discussion on nuclear issues of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea). The author, Mr. Hiromichi Umebayashi, is known for his prolific work regarding the DPRK nuclear issues, including proposing and advocating for the establishment of a Northeast Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone. He also wields a mighty pen on this Watch Project “Citizen’s Watch for a Fair Implementation of Korean Peninsula Denuclearization Agreements”.

Before providing an overview of each chapter, let me highlight a few unique characteristics of this book.

First, this book provides a comprehensive look into the DPRK’s activity related to its nuclear program from the 1950s through today. Numerous books have been written on the DPRK, especially ones that stress the danger of its nuclear and missile programs. However, there have been few books that methodically organize information in chronological order as this book does. Furthermore, rather than offering a chronological discussion of encyclopedic information, the book delivers the author’s resolute perspective throughout, which makes the book exceptional.

Second, rather than solely focusing on the DPRK’s nuclear and missile programs, the book examines geopolitical conditions surrounding the DPRK, centering on the actions taken by the United States. Thus, the book rules out the theory that the DPRK’s nuclear and missile programs progressed in a linear and consecutive fashion. Instead, it calls attention to the zigzag path the programs have taken in the context of the US-DPRK relations.

Third, the author approaches the subject by drawing from his experiences as a participant of the social movements in Japan since 1960s and as a close supporter of the pro-democracy movements in the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea) as well as other people’s movements in Asia.

Let me reassure readers about these qualities characterizing this book and move onto chapter discussions.

The prologue is entitled “Calibrating Perspectives.”  According to the author, the conventional perspective of the DPRK’s nuclear issues is distorted in that it only focuses on the “threats” posed by the DPRK and fails to properly recognize the danger posed by nuclear weapons possessed by the large nuclear weapon states such as the US and Russia.

Mr. Umebayashi’s intention is not to exonerate the DPRK, but rather to duly acknowledge the context in which the DPRK’s nuclear armament has taken place. The context is that nuclear weapon states “insist that they need ultimate violence unleashed by nuclear weapons to ensure their national security” (Page 33).  And, that especially the US among them, deems the DPRK as its enemy and even attempts to overthrow the regime if it had the chance. Referring to the former US Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger’s statement, the author points out that the US nuclear deterrent is “used” every day, which is rather revelational to me. The book’s subtitle “A Mirror that Reflects the World” alludes to the reality that the DPRK is pursuing nuclear weapons in order to stand on a level-playing field with nuclear weapon states that “use” nuclear deterrence every day.

The author’s call for “calibrating perspectives” applies to Japan’s role in causing the DPRK’s nuclear development. That is to say, the DPRK launched its nuclear program against the backdrop of history in which “the 1945 liberation from Japan’s colonial rule was only replaced by the division of the Korean Peninsula into North and South Korea, followed by the breakout of the Korean War” (Page 21). This is why, using the prologue of this book, Mr. Umebayashi discusses in detail the 1948 Jeju Uprising which ostensibly has nothing to do with the DPRK nuclear issues. There is no doubt that Japan, which not only has failed to atone for its imperialist past with the DPRK but also clings to the US nuclear umbrella, is one of the root causes leading to the DPRK nuclear program.

Having introduced these “calibrated” perspectives, Chapters 1 to 5 chronologically follow the DPRK’s nuclear development.

Chapter 1 describes the early stages of the DPRK nuclear program (1950s–1992). The DPRK began its nuclear program in the late 1950s with help from the Soviet Union. The Soviets were reluctant to provide the DPRK with nuclear reactors to generate electricity, probably because the DPRK did not ratify the NPT (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) until 1985. During that time, the DPRK developed a graphite-moderated reactor without help from the Soviet Union. Mr. Umebayashi induces that the original purpose of developing the reactor was primarily to generate electricity (Page 44).

Chapter 2, entitled “A Short Spring,” examines the period between 1993 and 2003 while focusing on the 1994 crisis. In early 1992, the safeguards agreement between the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and the DPRK had entered into force. Around the same time, the Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula had been issued. However, because the international community ignored the latter and solely focused on stopping the DPRK’s nuclear program through the IAEA, the DPRK made its first announcement to withdraw from the NPT (March 1993). The US seriously considered a military strike against the DPRK, but former President Carter’s visit to the DPRK led to a breakthrough in the crisis and subsequently to the US-DPRK Agreed Framework (October 1994) followed by the establishment of the KEDO (Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization) (March 1995). This historical development may be well-known, and thus I will leave out the details.

The important thing to note here is Mr. Umebayashi’s conclusion that at this point, the DPRK was not planning to arm itself with nuclear weapons and that the DPRK adopted a diplomatic strategy to maintain and allude to the possibility for its future nuclear weapons development. It was done for the strategic goal of establishing a normal US-DPRK relationship in order to remove the US threats of hostility” (Page 61).

Despite some setbacks such as the 1998 Taepodong launch by the DPRK, the KEDO gradually began producing results, only to be reversed by the Bush Administration that came into office in 2001. Chapter 3, entitled “The US Neo-Con Politics and the Six-Party Talks,” tackles the period between 2001 and 2008. The hawks in the US government declared Clinton’s Agreed Framework as a “failure” and denounced the DPRK as one of the “axis of evil” countries, leading to the DPRK’s second announcement in January 2003 to withdraw from the NPT.

Afterwards, unlike what the US did in Iraq, the US avoided a violent regime change in the DPRK and moved on to the Six-Party Talks. This is also commonly known, and thus I will refrain from mentioning the details. The book masterfully organizes the information: the circumstances leading up to the 2005 Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of the Six-Party Talks, the US hawks’ backlash that pushed for the economic sanctions against the DPRK, the DPRK’s first nuclear test in 2006, and despite those twists and turns, the international efforts to maintain the Six-Party Talks framework and thereby keep the negotiation on track for the DPRK’s denuclearization.

Chapter 4, entitled “Parallel Development Policy and War Deterrent,” surveys the period between 2009 and 2017, preceded by the DPRK’s successful nuclear test. During this period, the DPRK conducted its second to sixth (and last, at this point) nuclear tests.

No progress was made in US-DPRK talks during the first term of the Obama administration, which began in 2009. Mr. Umebayashi summarizes the reasons in the following three points (Page 129).
(1) The Obama administration’s condescending message, positioning the US as being a superior power, lacked consideration for the DPRK’s sensitive pride.
(2) The international community, notably by the United Nation Security Council, rejected the DPRK’s space program to launch artificial satellites.
(3) For the first time in a decade, anti-communist, conservative administrations emerged in the ROK (Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations).

In March 2013, the DPRK launched the “byungjin (or pyongjin) policy”, a parallel development policy to improve its economy and nuclear deterrent. In response, the Obama administration in its second term adopted an approach called “strategic patience” (although President Obama did not use such term), a more reserved approach to its negotiation with the DPRK.

In 2017, in the first year of his administration, President Trump used such words as “fire and fury” and threatened to “totally destroy” the DPRK, provoking a fierce reaction from the DPRK. This event requires no further explanation.

Chapter 5, entitled “Hope and Expectations,” deals with the circumstances thereafter through today. In May 2017, the President Moon Jae-in administration came into office. In early 2018, the DPRK ended its “byungjin” policy. (The author explains that the DPRK moved to the “economy first policy,” the term he came up with by taking a cue from Kim Jong-il‘s “military first policy”). This fateful turn of events for the North-South relations led to the April 2018 Panmunjom Declaration by the leaders of North and South Korea and the June 2018 Joint Statement of President Trump and Chairman Kim at the Singapore Summit. Although the Joint Statement didn’t include concrete steps for implementation, it envisioned the following two critical goals upon which the leaders of the US and DPRK agreed: “establishment of new US-DPRK relations” and “building a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.” Mr. Umebayashi rates the Statement highly, as it provides a fundamental basis for future US-DPRK negotiations. However, the Trump administration’s preoccupation to secure a “big deal” with the DPRK created a high hurdle that caused the negotiations to stumble. As the author notes in the book’s Afterword, the Biden administration has not put out any definitive policy towards the DPRK, and it is not clear where the US-DPRK relations are headed.

Chapter 6, entitled “Present Technical Status of the DPRK Nuclear and Missile Programs,” is the last chapter of this book. It organizes from a technical point of view the current status of the nuclear weapons and missiles that are either in possession of the DPRK or in development.

Lastly, let me share the questions with which this book left for me as well as my expectations for Mr. Umebayashi’s future work.

First, what could be the reason why the negotiations with the DPRK advanced during Republican administrations (Bush and Trump) and stalled during the Democratic administration (Obama) with the exception of the Clinton administration? One might expect that the Obama administration would prioritize diplomacy more than the Republican administrations. Although the book vividly illustrates the battles among the US government waged by the neo-cons who tried to crush the negotiations with the DPRK, why did the Bush administration keep the negotiations on track, centering on the Six-Party Talks? In contrast, why did the Obama administration, in its second term, take the approach of “strategic patience” and express little interest in negotiating with the DPRK? By then, it was a fait accompli that the DPRK’s nuclear and missile programs had made significant progress, but would this lapse of time be a reason attributable to Obama’s lack of interest in DPRK nuclear issues? Furthermore, how did Trump’s verbal hostility towards the DPRK in his early presidency quickly evolve into the US-DPRK summits?

Of course, demanding that a 300-page book address all these questions is asking for the impossible. What I would like to emphasize here is that this book, which masterfully presents a diachronic overview of the DPRK nuclear crisis, allows readers to deduce many such questions that can be explored in later studies.

Second, the book rarely touches upon what the Japanese government has actually done to resolve the DPRK nuclear crisis despite the fact that the book stresses the importance of acknowledging Japan’s role in the crisis. It is not Mr. Umebayashi’s fault, however. Rather, it perhaps reflects the reality that the Japanese government has not established its own foreign policy separate from that of the US when it comes to the DPRK nuclear problem. At the same time, the fact that Japan has shown little interest in negotiating with the DPRK, as signified by the Abe administration’s pursuit to keep the pressures on the DPRK, may mean that Japan is actually taking its own course of action separate from the US foreign policy that at times prioritizes practicality. Then, this book (for being a Japanese book), could have shed light on this fact. If Japan’s diplomacy is “missing in action,” the reason for that is worth exploring.

Third, I wonder how generations much younger than Mr. Umebayashi would understand this book. The leitmotif brought by Mr. Umebayashi, as I mentioned earlier, is easy to understand for the generations that have lived through the 1960s and 70s Japanese social movements. On the contrary, the generations that have formed their knowledge of the DPRK in 21st century Japan are indoctrinated to the core with the simplistic framing in which “the evil North Korea plays the international community.” In addition, with the decline in the ratio of the Koreans among the foreign residents in Japan, there is also a decline in the opportunities for the Japanese to face the old and new issues associated with Japan’s relationship with the Korean Peninsula. Therefore, it may be that I should say this book has its invaluable mission to guide these young generations to look into the DPRK nuclear issues from perspectives different from the mainstream ones.

Again, this book inspires readers to deduce questions for further studies. For this reason, among others, the book is a must-read for those who would like to dive into the depth of the DPRK nuclear crisis. The book is the first in the series entitled, The Deep Layers of Mr. Hiromichi Umebayashi’s Work. I look forward to the future publications from the series.
(The title of this Watch Report text is by the Citizens Watch editors)