INTERNATIONAL REPORT: “North Korea Razes Nuclear Tower, but Intent Is Less Apparent: Hints of shifting ties between reformers and conservatives,” by Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times, 28 June 2008, p. A5.
Glass-half-empty says Pyongyang destroyed a nuke tower it no longer needs. Glass-half-full says reform-minded civilian leaders may be getting somewhere with the hard-line military leaders.
Tell me this doesn’t sound familiar vis-à-vis Iran (from a South Korean expert on North Korea):
North Korea wanted the United States to come to the negotiating table, and since the United States did not want to come voluntarily, North Korea used the nuclear card.
Pyongyang knows it needs to modernize, but can’t stand the idea of being dictated to by either South Korea or the U.S., but they need the peace to feel confident enough to go the China reform route, and until they get it, the situation seems somewhat frozen. Meanwhile, Beijing is pressing Pyongyang in a passive-aggressive manner: denying bits and pieces of economic support so as to push the internal dialogue along.
Can this work out? I would love to see it. Because anything that got North Korea calm enough to reform economically would lead to its slow-motion demise, which is how South Korea prefers to see it unfold.
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