hankyoreh

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signs the order to conduct the North’s fourth nuclear test

As described in our editorial on Jan. 7, the Hankyoreh is opposed to North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and to its possession of a nuclear arsenal, and we believe that the North’s fourth nuclear weapons test was a provocation that threatens peace.
But opposition is merely an opinion; it does not serve as an alternative or a solution. We must pave the way to realize the dream of a peaceful Korean peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons, as outlined in the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in 1992 and the Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks on Sep. 19, 2015.
We must start again – but where and how? Every conflict and strife in the world is a product of history. In every conflict and strife, there is another side. If we are to resolve conflict and strife, it is critical that we make an effort to review history from the point of view of the other side.
That is why the golden rule for negotiators from all times and places has been listening closely. Listening is the first step in finding mutual understanding, engaging in dialogue and negotiations, and reaching a solution.
As the first step of listening, the Hankyoreh has attempted to reconstruct the rationale behind North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s pursuit of the “parallel development” policy of strengthening the economy and building up a nuclear arsenal by putting ourselves in Kim’s shoes.
Since it is impossible to talk to the man himself, we have written this article based on written sources, including North Korean government documents, news reports (some about Kim’s speeches), and the records of past negotiations that sought to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue along with Pyongyang and Washington’s hostile relationship.
Some recurring themes are the US’s blockade of the North over the past 70 years, the North’s sense of being surrounded, Iraq and Libya, the stark gap in economic power and international prestige between North and South Korea, and Kim’s need for stability during the early phase of his rule.
This letter’s Korean version was originally published on Jan. 30, a few days before North Korea announced its plans to conduct a long-range rocket launch. The Hankyoreh has translated the letter in the hopes that it will give international readers a better understanding of the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

This is Kim Jong-un.

You know, First Secretary of the Korean Workers’ Party of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, First Chairman of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) National Defense Commission, and Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army. That Kim Jong-un, the guy that you like to call the third in a line of dictators.

You want to know why I’m here? Well, I guess I feel a little bad about scaring everyone so early in the New Year with that nuke test, but I also want you to look at the situation from my point of view, from the North Korean point of view.

I’m not very interested in gods or religions, but they do say that some ethical common ground can be found between the various values espoused by the world’s religions: peace in Islam, love in Christianity, mercy in Buddhism and benevolence in Confucianism.

In Christianity, you have the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Mencius said, “What you don’t want for yourself, don’t do to someone else.” Confucius spoke about the idea of shu, or reciprocity. Their words may have been different, but they were apparently all saying the same thing.

It may sound funny for me to be saying this, but you really ought to try looking at things from the perspective of a guy who had to take responsibility for the future of North Korea before even turning 30. Try looking at things from the perspective of North Korea, which has had to endure a devastating blockade from the US, the world’s strongest country, from the time it was founded nearly 70 years ago.

Jan. 3

Why else would we have apologized to Junichiro Koizumi?

To satisfy your curiosity, I guess I should explain why I gave the order to carry out a nuclear test on Jan. 6. But maybe it would be better to start by talking about why we’re going to so much trouble to increase our nuclear deterrent and become a nuclear power.

You should probably start by discarding your stereotype of North Korea being the kookiest country in the world. Stereotypes and hostility get in the way of mutual understanding, you see.

Just as you have to endure the challenges of your daily life, North Korea is struggling to survive in this cruel world. A desperate struggle for survival—that’s the key to understanding everything about me and the North.

Why don’t we start by brushing up on our history? The decisive factor that enabled South Korea to become a prosperous country and a respected member of the international community was when it normalized relations with China on Aug. 24, 1992, and the Soviet Union on Sep. 30, 1990. South Korea currently does more trade with China than it does with the US and Japan combined!

But let’s suppose that things turned out the opposite way. Let’s say that the US, your guardian and only ally, fell apart. Let’s say that the Soviet Union—the world’s only superpower in our scenario—has a stranglehold on South Korea. European countries like the UK, France, and Germany are all transitioning to socialism. Japan is scared and hurries to establish diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and North Korea—leaving South Korea all alone.

That’s exactly the situation North Korea was in. We were at a dead end.

When Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduard Shevardnadze visited North Korea between Sep. 2 and Sep. 4, 1990, to notify us that the Soviet Union was planning to establish diplomatic relations with South Korea, Kim Yong-nam, then North Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs (and current President of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly) responded as follows.

“If the Soviet Union establishes diplomatic relations with South Korea, it will render the alliance between North Korea and the Soviet Union obsolete. It will also make it impossible for us not to take measures to acquire certain weapons in regard to which we have hitherto relied on in our alliance.”

(Source: Minju Choson, the newspaper of the North Korean cabinet, Sep. 19, 1990)

Basically, my father was protesting that North Korea would have no choice but to provide its own nuclear deterrence if the Soviet Union’s nuclear umbrella disappeared.

And that’s not all. My grandfather, Kim Il-sung, never stopped trying to bring North Korea out of its isolation by normalizing relations with the US and Japan. Back then, Japan was trying to normalize relations with North Korea, too.

(Source: Joint Statement about Japan-North Korea relations by the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party and Japan’s Social Democratic Party, Sep. 28, 1990)

But then George Bush, Sr. threw a wrench into the works, exaggerating concerns about our nuclear program and bullying Japan into calling off its normalization of relations with the North. And despite the Special Declaration on July 7, 1988, when South Korea promised to help us establish diplomatic relations with the US and Japan, the South Korean administration of Roh Tae-woo blocked that from happening.

It turns out that their actions didn’t live up to their words. And that was where you went wrong. If the US and Japan had normalized relations with us then, would we really have tried to acquire nuclear weapons?

But that’s not the only time that you made a mistake. During the mid-1990s, we went through the “arduous march,” when countless numbers of North Koreans starved to death.

(Researchers estimate that about 300,000 people died of starvation during this period.)

You like to call my father, Kim Jong-il, a ruthless dictator, but this was heartbreaking for him. Back then, there was something we North Koreans would say to comfort each other: “Even if the going is tough, keep a smile on your face.”

Anyone who has visited the Keumgang Mountain resort will know this slogan – it’s hanging from the entrance to the hotel there. Even now, my eyes get misty when I see that slogan.

My father was busily trying to improve the external factors affecting North Korea. He held summit conferences with South Korean Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun in Jun. 2000 and Oct. 2007, and he met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on two occasions, in Sep. 2002 and in May 2004.

My father gave it all he had. Why else would he have apologized to Koizumi about the Japanese abduction issue? You say that North Korea always has ulterior motives and is pulling some trick or the other, but with those kind of blinkers on you’re never going to see the world as it is. Do you think that the people of North Korea ever dreamed that their supreme leader would make an apology? That’s how desperate he was.

So my father and Koizumi signed the North Korea-Japan Pyongyang Declaration on Sep. 17, 2002, in which they agreed to start negotiations to normalize diplomatic relations. But what do you think happened next?

This time, George W. Bush spoiled everything by claiming that we were running a program to enrich uranium. He even scrapped the Agreed Framework between the US and North Korea, which had been signed on Oct. 21, 1994 and had been working just fine for eight years.

Then the abduction issue gave Shinzo Abe an opportunity to provoke the Japanese right wing and trip up Koizumi. In short, George Bush, Sr., kept us from normalizing relations with Japan in 1990, and then George W. Bush did the same thing in 2002.

You may be thinking this is a far-fetched, self-serving argument, but it’s actually not. Just listen to the words of Arata Fujii, who was the head of the Northeast Asia division for Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs while Koizumi was Prime Minister:

“In Sep. 1990, when Shin Kanemaru was Deputy Prime Minister, US Secretary of State James Baker brought up the nuclear issue. In the end, we did find out that the US was right, but if so why didn’t they give us that information a little earlier? I got this feeling that the US got in the way whenever we tried to do something.”

(Source: Yoichi Funabashi, Kim Jong-il’s Last Provocation, p. 126)

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter

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