Wine in a Box Posted by Derek Chollet

When Secretary of State Rice assumed office earlier this year, she pledged that the “time for diplomacy is now.”  Well, on North Korea, she has lived up to her rhetoric: after nearly three years of sitting on its hands or running around in circles, the U.S. finally approached the North Korea nuclear crisis in a serious way with a serious negotiator (and someone much admired here at DA), Chris Hill.

Yet considering the 6-party deal reached yesterday in Beijing, I think the bottom-line is clear: we got rolled.  I fear that this deal is the diplomatic equivalent of wine in a box: sweet and tasty at the moment (hey, I’m not a wine connoisseur) – in fact, my first reaction yesterday was “good deal” -- but not so great after a few hours.  Age is this thing’s enemy. 

To be sure, this latest round of talks was not a complete bust: it is significant that the five parties (U.S., China, Russia, Japan, South Korea) are relatively unified, and that with this deal, North Korea has signed on to some important principles, like a commitment to abandon its nuclear weapons programs.

But the problems are obvious.  Already the U.S. and North Koreans are fighting over the interpretation of what was agreed to, and the sequencing of who is supposed to do what when.  For example, in the core trade-off of North Korea dismantling its nuclear programs in exchange for the U.S. and its allies considering giving North Korea a light water reactor, the dispute remains about which comes first.  The deal says that the discussions about a light water reactor should come “at an appropriate time.”  To the U.S., this is somewhere long down the road; to the North Koreans, this is yesterday (it’s not clear to me where the Chinese are on this).  And as long as this dispute remains, the deal is going nowhere.

Also, as the U.S. negotiators admit, yesterday’s agreement says nothing about verifying any of the North Korean pledges, or exactly when North Korea agrees to cease its nuclear weapons development.

Finally, in reading the tick-tocks of the endgame in today’s papers, I was struck by how the U.S. seemed to cave to Chinese pressure not to be fingered as the bad guy.  As the last few lines of the New York Times account put it, as the talks “unfolded over the weekend, the Chinese increased pressure on the United States to sign - or take responsibility for a breakdown in the talks. ‘At one point they told us that we were totally isolated on this and that they would go to the press,’ and explain that the United States sank the accord, the senior administration official said.”  Great.  So China has the upper hand here.

Despite these problems, the general reaction to this deal in the center-left Washington policy world has been positive, with many correctly pointing out that this looks a lot like what the Clinton Administration left on the table for Bush in 2001 and lamenting the years of lost time.

Is this a step forward?  Sure.  Is this a solution?  Not even close.  As one Administration official put it to the Nelson Report, the essence of this deal is "progress as process, which is good in the absence of a better answer, but it all reads like a default position for us, there are so many details to close in, and this fills none of the gaps. I suppose they [the North Koreans] will not risk something stupid between now and the next talks, but that takes them on faith..."            

Comments

[JohnFH]

I can see why it is to OUR advantage just to keep the process going.

I'm not sure why it is to the dictator's advantage, unless he's buying time while he procures and deploys the ultimate weapon.

It certainly is not to the North Koreans' advantage that the totalitarian regime they suffer and die under continues along its destructive path.

The status quo here is totally unacceptable. But I'm actually fine with China giving us an aut-aut, so long as they keep the dictator's feet to the fire as well, and force the resolution of the still undecided issues.

[Dan Kervick]

I'm not sure I understand exactly how the US got "rolled". All the important issues of timing are yet to be resolved. In fact, it is the DPRK that seems to have been forced to take the more substantive step. North Korea was required to make a major unilateral commitment:

"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning at an early date to the treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT) and to IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards."

Even though the timing for abandoning the nuclear weapons program, and the "early date" for re-signing the NPT were left unspecified, it will be hard for the DPRK to step back in any way from these commitments without isolating itself further, and reinforcing its global perception as a dangerous rogue and pariah.

The major US commitment, on the other hand, is rolled into a general multilateral commitment:

"The other parties expressed their respect and agreed to discuss at an appropriate time the subject of the provision of light-water reactor to the DPRK."

This gives the US much more leverage to use deft diplomacy to maintain a consistent position among "the other parties" on what the appropriate time is. And so long as the US takes reasonable steps in the direction of implementation - making vague general plans for delivery, publicly mulling the details, working on getting the appropriate approvals and sagfeguards, it can hold off on actual delivery of a reactor until the North Koreans fully implement their commitments to rejoin the NPT.

The fact that China has some leverage over both parties in the negotiation is not itself a reason for saying that China has the "upper hand". In any negotiation of this sort, each of the participants will possess various kinds of leverage over the others. If they don't have any leverage, they don't belong there in the first place. That's precisely the reason for having multilateral talks of this sort, isn't it? The hope is that the various particpants will use the leverage they have to push others toward agreement.

Another way of putting it is that while China has some cards to play against the US, the US also has cards to play against China. China has much at stake. If the talks were to fail completely, the US could portray China as too weak to secure compliance from a small client, or too closely aligned with and solicitous toward a outlaw pariah state to play a responsible global role - thus putting the lie to China's pretensions to being a major force for the internationalism and a solid citizen in the world community. China's problem with North Korea is similar to the US problem with Israel.

More important than worries about Chinese leverage are concerns that the talks allow China to be seen as playing the role of mediator and honest broker between the United States and the DPRK. China wins diplomatically to the extent that it is seen as the moderate, sane and peacemaking party helping to mediate a dispute between two extreme and beligerent parties. The talks are supposed to be six-party talks. The US is weakened diplomatically, independently of the actual results of the talks, insofar as the talks are seen as a round of arbitration or negotiation between two parties, the US and the DPRK, with China serving as arbitrator or mediator.

The US must continue to work hard to align itself diplomatically with China, Russia, Japan and the ROK, and to be seen as part of a unified Asian-Pacific front to bring the DPRK into the fold as a more responsible member of the international community. To the extent the post-statement diplomatic wrangling becomes a discussion about the exact terms of a deal between the US and the DPRK, rather than a discussion about the terms of a deal between the DPRK and the "other parties", the US position is weakened. The US must continue to stress in its diplomacy the multilateral nature of the talks, and of the language of the statement.

It is good for the US, and the whole world, that China continues to emerge as a moderate and internationalist state, and that it seems determined to stake its global diplomatic position on maintaining this posture. But the US can do even better by depriving China of any opportunity to portray the US as a testy and imperious boss, with pretentions of overlordship - an angry giant that requires the intervention of a strong but calm China to sooth tempers. The US must continue to work instead to participate in fielding a multilateral team against the DPRK.

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The core trade-off of North Korea dismantling its nuclear programs in exchange for the U.S. and its allies considering giving North Korea a light water reactor, the dispute remains about which comes first.

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The US could portray China as too weak to secure compliance from a small client, or too closely aligned with and solicitous toward a outlaw pariah state to play a responsible global role. Thanks.

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