Is There Another Way Forward Over North Korea

BEIJING â€" Another nuclear test in North Korea. More United Nations-led sanctions. Increasing militarization in the Northeast Asia region, with South Korea planning to deploy cruise missiles capable of striking the north and North Korea threatening unspecified “second and third measures of greater intensity” against the United States as punishment for persistent American “hostility,” with Tuesday’s nuclear test just a first measure, North Korea said.

Is escalation the only way forward in Northeast Asia Could there, should there, must there be another way

In editorials and “View Points” articles by China’s state news agency, Xinhua, a different argument is being made to the West’s pressure and sanctions (though as my colleague Jane Perlez wrote, the debate in China about what to do about North Korea is increasingly shaded with different opinions and not everyone here, even policymakers, agrees what to do.)

The “root cause” of the crisis is not being addressed, runs this argument. North Korea has no sense of security in the region. And until that is addressed, nothing will improve.

Surrounded by hostility from South Korea and Japan, faced with a militarily superior U.S., North Korea is “desperate,” Xinhua says. “Disastrous fallout” could be the result, said an article in the Global Times newspaper, attributed to Xinhua, titled: “Time to address root causes of nuclear crisis on Korean Peninsula.”

“At a superficial level, it was Pyongyang that has repeatedly breached UN resolutions and used its nuclear program as a weapon to challenge the world community, which was considered to be unwise and regret! table,” the article said.

“In reality, the DPRK’s defiance was deeply rooted in its strong sense of insecurity after years of confrontation with South Korea, Japan and a militarily more superior United States.”

In another article, Xinhua anticipated more strong condemnation from the West, and tougher sanctions. But: “The struggle of hardness hitting hardness will undoubtedly escalate the situation on the Korean peninsula. It will make the problem more complicated and harder to solve,” it said.

The answer, then, would entail a change of direction from the West. But is such a position merely self-serving, to be expected from China, North Korea’s main ally, which wants the north as a buffer state between it and South Korea, where American troops are stationed

Perhaps. Yet here’s another voice, this one from a different direction, saying something quite similar.

“Are more sanctions really goig to make North Korea cry uncle” asked Spencer H. Kim in an opinion piece in The Korea Times in late December, before Tuesday’s nuclear test but at a time when the test had been widely expected.

“Look at a map; it has a long border with China. If China and North Korea want to tango, then we are powerless to turn off the music,” wrote Mr. Kim in “Sympathy for the devil ― how best to deal with NK.” The Korea Times identifies Mr. Kim as chairman of CBOL Corporation, a California aerospace company, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a non-resident fellow at Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.

“Let us ask some probing questions of ourselves and perhaps even look at history a bit from the other guy’s eyes,” wrote Mr. Kim.

Following South Korea’s engagement-based “Sunshine Policy” of the late 1990’s, in the early 2000’s things were impr! oving for! North Korea in terms of internationalization, Mr. Kim wrote. An October 2000 joint communique between North Korea and the White House even resolved to “fundamentally improve” relations and “formally end the Korean War by replacing the 1953 Armistice Agreement with permanent peace arrangements,” Mr. Kim wrote.

“In Pyongyang’s eyes, however, George Bush then slammed on the brakes, even naming North Korea part of an “Axis of Evil,” he wrote.

Security is a major issue. But don’t leave that in China’s hands, wrote Mr. Kim. “The North Koreans want lasting security but don’t want to have to learn how to speak fluent Chinese to get it.”

“Upon reflection, it is time to talk, and keep talking until the deal is done.”