hankyoreh

By Ryu Jae-hoon, Senior Staff Writer　

Amid the firestorm following the disclosure of U.S. diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, the information about North Korea is drawing the most attention.

On the web sites of the New York Times in the United States and the Guardian in the U.K., the focus was on a “North Korean collapse” and “North Korea-China relations” on Monday, the day after the documents’ release. The New York Times, which noted that the content of the cables was contradictory and their predictions were sometimes off base, called North Korea the “Black Hole of Asia.” Quoting a Chinese official’s recent statement that North Korea’s uranium enrichment was “only in its initial phases,” the newspaper commented that neither the United States nor even North Korean ally China knew the precise situation with the enrichment facilities.

Regarding South Korean government officials’ predictions of a North Korean collapse following Kim Jong-il’s death, the newspaper noted that similar predictions were made at the time of Kim Il-sung’s death in 1994 and commented that North Korean collapse scenarios “may be rooted more in hope than in any real strategy.”

The newspaper said intelligence on North Korea was “long on educated guesses and short on facts.”

The cables revealed that senior officials with the South Korean Foreign Ministry, convinced that the economically collapsed North Korean regime would break down politically within two to three years of Kim Jong-il’s death, engaged in close discussions with the United States on a plan for unification by absorption. This assessment appears to have influenced Seoul’s hardline North Korea policy since the Lee Myung-bak administration took office.

WikiLeaks also revealed that a number of senior North Korean officials working overseas had recently defected to South Korea.

During a Jan. 11 meeting with U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues Robert King, then-Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said that a number of high-ranking North Korean officials working overseas had recently defected to South Korea, although he did not give a number. He hinted that South Korean and U.S. intelligence agencies were questioning these officials in late 2009 in order to obtain intelligence.

Regarding plans for allaying Chinese objections to an absorption of North Korea by South Korea, Deputy Foreign Minister Chun Young-woo communicated plans to calm Chinese concerns about the continued existence of large commercial opportunities and the exporting of labor by Chinese companies on a unified Korean Peninsula. The New York Times reported that South Korea, in an effort to placate China, a powerful ally of North Korea, was “already planning to assure Chinese companies that they would have ample commercial opportunities in the mineral-rich northern part of the peninsula” in the event of a South Korea-led unification.

Contrary to accounts from Seoul, the cables revealed a U.S. government request to South Korea for $100 million per year for five years to support the Afghan Army.

The cables also showed Chinese officials frequently expressing discontent about their difficulties in dealing with Pyongyang. In an Apr. 30 cable, Dan Piccuta, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, reported then-Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister He Yafei as saying North Korea was acting like a “spoiled child.” While the U.S. President and Secretary of State used similar wording to criticize North Korea, in this case China was also using it to describe North Korea’s deliberately militant stance in expectation of bilateral negotiations with the United States.

He also made remarks indicating that China felt obliged to deal with North Korea, saying, “We may not like them...[but] they are our neighbor.”

Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo was also quoted as saying jokingly that he “did not dare” to apply direct pressure on Kim Jong-il.

The cables also indicated that Kim Yong-il, the Korean Workers’ Party international department head, expressed a sense of betrayal at China and Russia’s participation in U.N. sanctions against North Korea while speaking to an official with the Mongolian foreign ministry in August 2009. Kim also reportedly said that North Korea could not participate in the six-party talks because of a “one against five” framework in which all members besides North Korea were working together.

The United States was seen showing great interest in the health of Kim Jong-il and the succession of the North Korean leadership. Opinions among experts were divided as to whether Kim Jong-un would inherit power without difficulty or whether he would fail to secure the support of North Korea’s elite groups due to his lack of leadership abilities. However, they agreed that Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law, National Defense Commission Vice Chairman Jang Song-thaek, would likely emerge as a powerful rival to Kim Jong-un in assuming North Korea’s leadership.

Unification Minister Hyun In-taek predicted that Kim Jong-il would likely be dead by 2015 and that preparations would be hastened for the succession of Kim Jong-un, his third son, to the North Korean leadership. But Dai, who had recently visited North Korea as a special envoy for Chinese President Hu Jintao, said that while Kim Jong-il had lost weight compared to three years before, he was in good health and had a “sharp mind.”

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