A significant policy implication from Type 2 is the need to create a motive and inducement for North Korea to follow through an internationally-binding agreement on a complete denuclearization after a nuclear freeze. Above all, it is of primary importance that a binding international organization/institution related to such a motive and inducement should be maintained.
The North Korean regime throughout history has continuously
64 Variables and Pathways of Changes in North Korea:
Focused on Different Combination of ‘Nuclear Issues’ and ‘Reform‧Opening’
moved back and forth between a reform-oriented strategy and anti-reformative mobilization campaign to address economic issues. Such patterns were created because of the political dilemma whereby a reform strategy was taken to overcome economic recession while at the same time concerns for insecurity caused by opening inevitably arose.2)
Therefore, for denuclearization to make progress, an engagement policy of neighboring powers and South Korea should remain in place so as not to cut short North Korea’s opening strategy. At the same time, a concern over a security guarantee should be resolved.
North Korea demands a security guarantee and the removal of obstacles for economic development as corresponding measures for a nuclear freeze (or dismantlement of nuclear facilities). However, an unlimited halt in ROK-U.S. joint military exercise and the lifting of economic sanctions and improvement of DPRK-U.S. relations are being discussed as realistic corresponding measures. If the North could actually feel the benefits of a nuclear freeze and economic development via reform policy, it could contribute to the prevention of a ‘reversal of denuclearization.’
To that end, it is crucial for neighboring countries, including South Korea, to maintain consistent cooperation and engagement to help North Korea implement the next step after a nuclear freeze.
The cooperation of neighbors on resolving energy issues is essential to invalidate North Korea’s claim for peaceful nuclear use and to secure a driving force to continue implementing an opening policy.
2) Choongkoo Lee, “The authorization processes and the intensification dynamics of the North Korean nuclear discourses in the party discourse of the Worker’s Party of Korea,” Ph.D. Theses, International Relations, Dept. of Political of Political Sciences and International Relations, Seoul National University, 2016, p. 333.
9. Policy Implications for Each Type 65 Therefore, it is necessary to establish a multilateral cooperation system to address North Korea’s energy issues.
The problem here is that it could take from at least a few years to as long as decades from the completion of nuclear freeze to entering a new negotiation phase for the next stage of denuclearization. What is essential is whether a coherent policy toward North Korea could be maintained during that period. Most of the neighboring countries in Northeast Asia, except for North Korea, will face a change of regime/administration and their respective policy on North Korea could also go through changes.
In addition, the suspicion that North Korea might still secretly be involved in nuclear activities that violate or go beyond the boundary of the existing agreements may create a condition not favorable to maintaining a coherent policy in other countries.
In that aspect, neighboring countries, including the ROK, should maintain a coherent North Korea policy and put forth diplomatic efforts to make sure that North Korea would not derail from a bilateral and multilateral cooperation system until the North reaches the final stage of denuclearization. Given the circumstances, the role of the ROK government would prove useful for a considerable amount of time.
Once sanctions are lifted and North Korea chooses an opening policy, it will enlarge a space of opportunity for pursuing a ‘New Economic Community on the Korean Peninsula’ or inter- Korean
‘peace economy’ that is currently being initiated by the ROK government. North Korea’s position, however, will be distinctively different after it strikes a nuclear deal with the U.S. Who takes the lead in inter-Korean relations could also be up for a change.
Besides, North Korea has a formidable partner, China.
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Focused on Different Combination of ‘Nuclear Issues’ and ‘Reform‧Opening’
In that regard, an unbalanced cooperation could play out in a way that South Korea gets to partially participate in what North Korea already designed. North Korea might no longer find the inter-Korean joint-making of a development map appealing, as it did in the Gaesong Industrial Complex and Mt. Geumgang Tourism under the Kim Jong Il era. Chances are that the inter-Korean exchange and cooperation, established and severed in the past, will not simply be resurrected but more likely to be conducted in a way that connects and expands to opened areas.
Agricultural exchange and cooperation had been active in the past from the perspective of humanitarianism‧developmentalism, most of which had been done in a way that transferred our advanced agricultural technology and provided modernized agricultural machines and equipment. However, if inter-Korean cooperation resumes in the future, North Korea will no longer desire the kind of agricultural exchange and cooperation that it did in the past. Instead, it is possible that the North could lay out proposals for investments in Sukcheon Agricultural Development Zone, Bukcheong Agricultural Development Zone, and Orang Agricultural Development Zone.
In the meantime, it is necessary to thoroughly brace for a change of ‘power balance’ between the South and North once the DPRK-U.S. nuclear deal is concluded and DPRK-U.S. relations subsequently improve, and economic growth in the North is materialized. In fact, a nuclear freeze or dismantlement of nuclear facilities does not mean dismantling nuclear weapons North Korea already possesses. We will still be under North Korea’s nuclear threat even though such measures would somewhat lower the intensity.
9. Policy Implications for Each Type 67 Moreover, a persuasive plan should be put in place on how to fill the security vacuum once North Korea demands the halt of the ROK-U.S. joint military drills as security guarantee measures and the U.S. accepts that demand. It is because this specific issue is not only an area of security but also domestically very volatile in nature and could well transpire into a South-South conflict that could divide society.