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Mira Rapp-Hooper, the special assistant and senior director for East Asia and Oceania at the White House National Security Council, speaks to CSIS Korea Chair Victor Cha for a conversation on the Biden administration’s North Korea policy on March 4. (CSIS website)

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By Kim Yeon-chul, former minister of unification and current professor at Inje University

The Joe Biden administration’s pursuit of a stepwise approach to North Korean denuclearization is a welcome development.

The consideration of interim measures ahead of the ultimate denuclearization goal means that the time for diplomacy is at hand. It is great to hear the word “negotiation” after it had faded so much as to seem almost forgotten. And it is fortunate to hear the word “diplomacy,” which had vanished amid the military tensions.

But it is still not enough. There may be an internal debate going on in the US over the stepwise approach to denuclearization, but that alone is not enough to bring diplomacy about.

The argument that a step-by-step approach is not acceptable and that denuclearization must be achieved all at once is not negotiation — it is a weapon. Negotiation is about give and take. It is impossible to win concessions from the other side without offering something yourself.

Negotiation is not possible without consideration for the kinds of “reasonable security concerns” felt by relevant parties that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi talked about at the Munich Security Conference in February.

Obviously, negotiations can only start with some corresponding measures in response to denuclearization steps. Denuclearization talks are a matter of improving relations, which is not something that happens overnight.

There is also a great deal of distrust stemming from failures with the denuclearization talks over the past 30 years. Without question, there needs to be a process of building trust.

The first stage in denuclearization negotiations is a freeze. Arms reductions represent an intermediate stage.

The advantage of negotiations is that it is an opportunity to pause the advancements that North Korea has been making with its nuclear capabilities. Some critics have pointed out that North Korea did not halt its nuclear activities even during negotiations — but when we consider the rate of nuclear advancements it made when negotiations were suspended, there is no comparison.

A freeze is a stage that you have to pass through before switching from reverse to first gear. The intermediate stage is about reducing the number of nuclear weapons.

Obviously, threat reduction should be based on the principle of reciprocity. Reducing arms does not mean abandoning the ultimate goal of denuclearization. Arms reductions and denuclearization are not an either-or choice — they are part of a process.

The talk of a “stepwise approach” more or less goes without saying. When it comes to negotiations, this is just common sense.

If the Biden administration wishes to pursue diplomacy — to begin negotiations, in other words — it should start talking about side-by-side measures rather than step-by-step ones. It should present steps of corresponding measures to match the steps toward denuclearization.

With the Biden administration fighting two battles in Ukraine and the Middle East, it sensed a growing need to manage tensions on the Korean Peninsula. But threats clearly cannot be managed without a commitment to reducing them. The status quo is something you have to work to achieve, not something that arises out of neglect.

If the US shows a commitment to negotiations, China may also take action. In contrast with the past, Beijing is no longer playing the role of mediator between Pyongyang and Washington. In military terms, the Korean Peninsula may be the stage for a strategic competition between the US and China, but Beijing is likely to view its strategic rivalry with Washington as a more important consideration than North Korean denuclearization.

But both the US and China are seeking to slow the pace of that strategic competition. In terms of the Northeast Asian order, there is still room for the two sides to agree on North Korea’s denuclearization.

With the doorway to denuclearization talks poised to close forever, this may well be the last chance for Washington and Beijing to collaborate toward achieving a denuclearized North Korea.

Japan is also taking action. Some indication of the backchannel coordination that is taking place can be gleaned from the remarks coming from both North Korea and Japan on the possibility of a bilateral summit.

It remains to be seen whether a more public way forward can be found on the abductee issue, which has been setting North Korea-Japan relations back over the past 20 years. Even with the behind-the-scenes coordination, it is questionable whether the center-stage issue can be resolved — namely escaping from the mire of public hatred and distrust toward the North.

Nevertheless, the diplomatic activities by Tokyo and the response from Pyongyang represent a new state of negotiation. If the situation changes after the US presidential election, Japan could also end up playing a mediating role.

The question remains: Is it possible to have denuclearization negotiations without some relationship between South and North Korea? The answer is no.

The core element of corresponding measures for denuclearization is a peace regime, and the core element of that is the building of military trust. South and North Korea are the parties to that, and no others can take their place.

If inter-Korean relations continue in their current state, there can be no progress at all toward a peace regime, and obviously no progress with the stages of denuclearization.

Denuclearization negotiations are not something that can be addressed in terms of the bilateral relationship between North Korea and the US. The stature and role of the South Korean military as a party to military trust-building has shifted since 1994, when North Korea and US signed their Agreed Framework in Geneva.

All of the other countries neighboring the Korean Peninsula have begun taking diplomatic action. The current diplomatic objective is not to reduce threats but to manage them.

It is still difficult to see signs of a commitment to negotiation, and without that, the situation will be difficult to turn around. But diplomacy has the political power to make the impossible possible.
Where does South Korea stand right now with its diplomacy? If it merely pursues ideology without a sense of responsibility for managing the situation, it will end up isolated, posing an obstacle to denuclearization talks when the time for diplomacy comes around.

We should remember the humiliation suffered by Japan during the six-party talks in the early 2000s when it allowed itself to get bogged down by the abductee issue and gave up on diplomacy.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]