In the memorable words of Thucydides, “The strong do what they want and the weak bear what they must.”Historically, Korea has suffered invasions from the North and from the South. In the modern era, international organiza- tions—especially the United Nations—have softened the harshness of international relations with dialogue, coordination, and constraints. North Korea has demanded that the sovereign rights of nations be respected by the international community. Yet in modern times the reality of power politics still exists: some nations are more equal than others. When President George Bush spoke of a “new world order” in which the United States would be the only superpower, North Korea was incensed. The Juche principle calls for the democratization of the international order, consistent with the principle that all members of the international community have equal rights and privileges. In his 1994 New Year’s address, Kim Il Sung pledged,“The government of our Republic will work hard to abolish the old international political and economic orders of domination and subordination, establish new ones on the basis of equality, justice and fairness, and develop South-South [that is, third world] Cooperation on the principle of collective self-reliance.”51
Like many third world states, North Korea has demanded changes in the United Nations; specifically, expanding the Security Council to include more Asian nations (although the North Koreans bitterly oppose Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the council), eliminating the veto power of the permanent members, and shifting more power to the General Assembly.52In its relations
with the international community, North Korea’s most insistent demand has been noninterference in its domestic affairs and the removal of all troops and military bases from foreign countries—especially American troops in South Korea and Japan. But the Kim regime is not naive about its hopes for a dem- ocratic world order. The Kangsong Taeguk (militarily and economically strong nation) campaign seeks to guarantee North Korea’s place in the world order
by virtue of its strength, not relying on democratic principles. In support of the Kangsong Taeguk and “military-first” campaigns of Kim Jong Il in 1998 and 1999, the North Korean press has frequently stressed the importance of military power in the international arena, as in this passage from a Nodong
Sinmun article:
The U.S. doctrine of war is to commit military aggression on any coun- try weak in national power that goes against the grain with it and takes a stand against it. NATO military operations against Yugoslavia are moti- vated by the U.S. doctrine of war. A country weak in national power is conquered by the imperialists. . . . The dignity, sovereignty and peace of a nation are guaranteed by its own strong military power.53
While defending its own highly dubious record on human rights, North Korea criticizes the application of the Western conception of human rights values to other countries on three counts.First,from a traditional Marxist view- point, “The ‘human rights’ standard and mode of the West cannot be a ‘common standard’ of human rights of universal significance . . . because the ‘human rights’ advocated by Western countries is a camouflage to cover reac- tionary bourgeois politics with the veil of ‘democracy’ and only serves for a handful of privileged classes.”54A second criticism—one voiced by other Asian
nations—is that Western individualism threatens the “freedom from chaos” provided by strong social order. A third criticism is based on the sanctity of national sovereignty. “To arbitrarily assess the human rights in other coun- tries and impose one’s will on others is an infringement on their sovereignty and interference in their internal affairs.”
According to Juche,“The priority in the settlement of the human rights prob- lem should be set in conformity with the historical and cultural features of each region and country and the stages of their development.”55The forty-ninth
meeting of the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights in 1997 passed a res- olution calling on the DPRK to respect international human rights standards and submit a report on its implementation of these standards. North Korea’s response, reminiscent of its 1993 response to the IAEA’s call for nuclear inspec- tions, was to announce its withdrawal from the human rights convention:
[The resolution] is an unbearable violation of the DPRK’s dignity and rights to independence. . . . In this regard the DPRK government decided to withdraw from the “international convention.” . . . We have provided our people with genuine freedom and rights on a level far higher than the requirements of the “international convention.”56
The international community was nonplussed, since no nation had ever withdrawn from the convention, just as no nation had ever withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (one of Pyongyang’s favorite tactics is to flout diplomatic convention). Two years later the North Koreans announced that they were “ready to submit the second periodic report on the Interna- tional Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that we prepared in 1997,” presumably signaling a “return” to the convention.57
To what extent has North Korea’s foreign policy over the years been a prag- matic response to changing conditions in the international environment, and to what extent has policy been dictated by ideology? B.C. Koh, a long-time observer of North Korea, offered an answer to this question (in 1986) by say- ing,“On balance . . . ideology seems to go a long way toward explaining North Korean behavior. If the past is any guide, even pragmatically induced change in Pyongyang’s policy has a way of foundering on the rock of ideology. Sus- tained change, then, may require a mellowing of ideology and ‘deradicalization.’”58North Korea’s policies must somehow be reconciled with
Juche ideology. As Sang-Woo Rhee, another veteran student of North Korea points out,“When North Korea is confronted with a serious situation that dic- tates policy changes, it first reformulates its official ideology so that the policy change does not jeopardize ideological integrity.”59Partly because of the broad-
ness of Juche and partly because the only person who can interpret it is the leader, the ideology can be stretched to fit diverse situations. Rhee says, “The
Chuch’e scheme is . . . really a Gladstone bag for North Korea, flexible enough
to accommodate all that North Korea pursues without tarnishing the integrity of the official ideology.”60
How responsive North Korea is to the outside world, and how much its view is distorted is at the heart of the question of change and conser- vatism in North Korea. The argument here is that the Kim Il Sung-Kim Jong Il regime, in its domestic and foreign policies, is out of touch with reality. This theme is central also to Adrian Buzo’s view of North Korean foreign policy. “On many occasions the DPRK displayed a crude, preda- tory outlook on foreign relations, embracing support for international terrorism, bribery, petty forms of coercion, smuggling, and widespread abuse of diplomatic privileges including arms, drugs and currency deal- ing . . . a foreign policy which renders a country isolated and widely reviled cannot be either well-conceived or well-executed.”61 The “major part” of
Buzo’s answer to why the DPRK has pursued such a seemingly ruinous foreign policy is that the policy reflects “the extent to which Kim Il Sung lost touch with reality.”62
Since the United States began serious talks with North Korea in the early 1990s, North Korea’s negotiation tactics have received considerable attention. Michael J. Mazarr’s study of the background and negotiations relating to North Korea’s challenge to the Non-Proliferation Treaty illustrates the complexities involved in negotiating over such high-stakes issues.63Leon Sigal presents the
view that in the U.S.-North Korean nonproliferation negotiations, the Amer- icans were “remarkably doctrinaire” in their attitude toward North Korea, whereas the North Koreans responded pragmatically to Washington’s carrots and sticks.64The strengths of the “take-chargism” nature of North Korea’s
negotiating strategy, ultimately directed by one man—Kim Jong Il—are well illustrated in a study by Chuck Downs and James M. Lee of the DPRK’s nego- tiating strategy.65Scott Snyder argues that not only is there a method to North
Korea’s seemingly bizarre diplomacy, but the DPRK is gradually adopting a less provocative negotiating style.66Several good studies of North Korean nego-
tiating are also available in Korean.67Although opinions vary regarding how
pragmatic Pyongyang’s negotiating positions are and how much the North Koreans can be trusted, there seems to be a greater unanimity of views in regard to the actual experience of negotiating with them, an experience usually described as intense, protracted, and unpleasant.