Is China's fear of irredentism holding up Korean unification?

Among the pantheon of North Korea watchers, Selig Harrison is a laughable character. When he's not justifying acts of murder while playing the role of Pyongyang's mouthpiece, he's making proposals that the US unilaterally take South Korean territorial waters and hand them over to North Korea, a move that had me wondering if he was a paid shill for Kim Jong-il.

So naturally I assumed Mr Harrison's latest piece in the New York Times, "China's North Korea calculations," would be more chicanery*. But assumed just makes an ass out of you and your meds, so I figured I should at least give the guy a fair read; after all, I have found myself in agreement with Mr Harrison on at least one occasion. And as it turns out, this may be another one of those times:

Two standard explanations are generally offered to explain why China is reluctant to put pressure on North Korea, whether the issue is nuclear weapons, the sinking of a South Korean Navy vessel, or the shelling of Yeonpyeong [Yŏnpyŏngdo] Island: China’s fear of instability if North Korea implodes, with the resulting massive flow of refugees across its borders, and China’s appetite for North Korea’s vast reserves of iron ore, magnesite, copper and other minerals.

Both of these explanations are valid and important. But more basic geostrategic factors, as well as latent separatism among ethnic Koreans in China’s border region, are also behind its approach to the Korean peninsula.

Of course, the notion that ethnic Koreans in the eastern Kando region (salmon-colored in the map below) may seek to have their region rejoined with a unified Korea, or that Seoul itself might seek to regain that territory, is not a new idea. It pops up from time to time to time, and I myself have written about the prospect (here, and more recently here and here).

In fact, I have been suggesting for at least the past decade that China might be quietly concerned about such a prospect, to the point that they may have lowered the official number of ethnic Koreans in the region (it was reported as about one million in the early 1990s, but it may be as high as ten million). Mr Harrison explains in more detail what he sees as China's current concerns:

Another little-noted factor that has surfaced in my conversations in Beijing over the past four decades is the fear of nascent Korean nationalism among the 2.5 million Koreans who live in the three northeastern provinces of China contiguous with North Korea.

[PRC map of Korean-speaking areas]

What has made the political potential of its Korean minority worrisome to Beijing is the linkage between the Koreans of northeast China and cultural movements in South Korea such as the Damul Institute. China is aware that damul means “reclaim all,” and the founder of the Damul Institute, Ki Joon Kang, has written of the “Korean people’s fervent hopes to recover our lost land.”

In recent decades, the Damul Institute regularly took well-financed delegations consisting largely of South Korean businessmen on tours of northeast China designed to stimulate an awareness of the area as part of the Korean heritage and a good place for Korean investment. More than 100,000 people went on these tours after the establishment of diplomatic relations between Beijing and Seoul in 1992.

The vigor of the Damul movement, which in the 1990s claimed 50,000 members, led Chinese Prime Minister Li Peng to protest against its activities at a meeting in 1995 with visiting South Korean Prime Minister Lee Hong-koo. Damul spokesmen then became more circumspect, emphasizing cultural objectives and denying any irredentist goals.

Well, that certainly complicates things. Seoul officially makes no claim to the region, and Pyongyang has settled its border with Beijing, so ROK officials should make clear to their PRC counterparts that irredentism will be supported in no way whatsoever. Though freedom of speech (a concept which Beijing is not familiar and with which Seoul is only recently acquainted) precludes South Korean authorities from shutting down groups like the aforementioned Dhamul, officialdom should in no way be supporting them. Kando should not become Korea's Aztlán.

Of course, non-support of this irredentism is one of several assurances Seoul will have to hold its nose and make to Beijing in order to convince the Chinese to stand back when/if North Korea collapses and South Korea takes over. Among them, Washington and Seoul should already be giving hints that US forces will remain in a newly reunified Korea (the Pax Americana being the greatest source of peace and stability northeast Asia has had in a very long time) but that the Americans will not be stationed anywhere north of a certain point well to the south (e.g., Pyongyang, the current DMZ, or 38°N). While I'm loath to kowtow to China on Korea-related policy, it's merely a pragmatic realization that China wants its psychological buffer, and it would be a shame to prolong the agony of the people in North Korea when a simple solution presents itself. (And it goes without saying that no agreement between Washington and Beijing over Korea should come at Taiwan's or even Japan's expense, but that's another matter.)

A premise of my argument is that China alone has the ability to pull the plug on the current regime, or at least to turn out the lights for a while, and that we might be able to convince them to do so if (a) North Korea becomes such a danger and/or embarrassment for them that they see this as a favorable course of action, and (b) we make it worth their while. Again, this may mean more holding of one's nose.

China seems to have decided that Manchurianization of North Korea — reforming the North's economy while integrating it with China's northeastern provinces — is the best way to go, and they have started investing billions of dollars in the DPRK (this is almost criminally neglected by the Western press as they get their panties wet writing about Kim Jong-il's supposed rise to power). Simply put, China will not allow North Korea to absorbed by South Korea unless it has assurances that their investments will be protected.

And even then, I'm not so sure. That's because, more importantly, China's recent involvement in North Korea's economy may have also given it something it has long coveted: access to a seaport on the East Sea (aka Sea of Japan). Mr Harrison himself brings this up:

A more immediate factor in China’s strategic calculus is that it hopes to get access to the Sea of Japan for the first time by helping to develop a new North Korean port at Rajin.

China is also interested in keeping Russia and Japan from making inroads into the North.

I don't see China being so concerned that Russia (which is just north of Rajin) or Japan (just cross the sea) are getting involved in North Korea (given that Chinese-style reforms are their goal), as much as I think they just want that port. Access to the ocean near where China, North Korea, and Russia meet means Chinese ships have considerably less distance to travel on their way to North America. It gives an impetus to plans to develop exporting industries in Manchuria. And like Gollum grasping that dastardly ring even to the point of plunging into a pit of molten lava, they won't give up something so precious that they are so close to having. [UPDATE: It appears that North Korea will allow Chinese troops to be stationed in the DPRK for the first time since 1994, ostensibly to protect their new port facilities in Rajin.]

So why not give it to them? Yeah, this is one of those creative compacts that could solve everything, like Tokyo giving up all claims on Takeshima Tokto in exchange for Seoul's tacit approval of a 200-nm EEZ around the remote Okinotorishima: If Beijing supports a peaceful unification of the Korean Peninsula, Seoul agrees to give China a 99-year lease of a strip of land on the Tuman River, not so far inland that seagoing ships cannot reach it and with guaranteed access to the sea, that can be developed into a major port and a railway corridor to China's interior.

How's that for a grand bargain? Beijing just might go for it, given their familiarity with 99-year leases. Just make sure the handful of North Koreans who are displaced from their homes are very well compensated, Korea still has a border crossing with Russia for both rail and road, and China is not granted an EEZ in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) from this concession.

So in conclusion: The thing to do now is to entice China to stop supporting the Pyongyang regime and to make things easy for South Korea to absorb the North, by (a) assuring Beijing that US troops will not be on China's border, (b) a unified Korea will forego any irredentist attempts to assume territory now under PRC control, (c) China's investments in the former DPRK will be protected and honored by a future unified Korea, and (d) if China plays nice it will be rewarded with access to the East Sea (Sea of Japan).

And if that works, I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize more than President Obama did two years ago.

* I kid you not: Sarah Palin thought a chicanery was a place where they produced Chicanos. Okay, I'm kidding. 

Lie Another Day

Selig Harrison sounds so much like a "Juche apologist" that frequent One Free Korea commenter david woolley wonders aloud if SH is not a pseudonym for KJI:

Why is there no wikipedia entry for Selig Harrison? Is it because the no-vilification rules are unavoidable — or is he, in fact, a figment, a convenient name for an editorial actually penned by Kim Jong Il, much as Stalin wrote for Pravda under a pseudonym? Inquiring minds and all that.

While Mr Harrison is clearly some kind of nom, I don't think he's a nom de plume. If you follow this link to where I've skewered him in the past, you'll find a video of him on PBS's Newshour. There is a real person behind Dr Evil's advocate.

But hold the phone... Wasn't there a James Bond movie where the villain used extensive plastic surgery to change his appearance from Asian to a nordic European? (Indeed, it would appear the streets of Seoul and Tokyo are full of such villains.) And wasn't that villain a... wait for it... North Korean?!

Maybe Mr Woolley and I are onto something. But would this grand ruse require the kidnaping of a Kangnam-area plastic surgeon? No, not with the advent of the hyper-realistic SPFX masks, those that are so convincing that a Polish immigrant had bank employees certain that he was a Black man as he robbed them.

In fact, an "elder" mask was recently used by a Chinese immigrant to get into Canada to seek asylum (it's in the same link above). And that means we must ask the inevitable: Could Selig Harrison be a North Korean operative with good English skills using a specially made "old man mask" to more effectively spread pro-Pyongyang propaganda?

I don't know about you, but now I'm convinced there's no other explanation.

UPDATE:
I forgot, no mention of a James Bond movie is complete unless I include a picture of one of the hotties. And while thoughts of Halle Berry are always enough to warm me up at Christmastime, Die Another Day included one of my all-time favorite Bond girls from the same movie, Miranda Frost (played by Rosamund Pike).

UPDATE 2:
Jack Pritchard, president of the Korea Economic Institute, has an article in the January 5 edition of the Korea Herald which also skewers Mr Harrison's proposal for the US to give South Korean territorial waters to North Korea.

Selig Harrison proposes giving North Korea a Sudetenland-by-the-Sea

Writing in the New York Times, Pyongyang apologist Selig Harrison (see him skewered here) proposes that all this mess in the Yellow Sea could be over if South Korea agrees is forced to move the border "slightly to the south":

The Obama administration would do well to consult with both Seoul and Pyongyang on where to best set the new boundary, get an agreement from both governments to abide by it, and put it on the map. South Korea should not be given a veto over the redrawing. And North Korea should be warned that any future provocations on its part like the shelling of Yeonpyeong will result in swift, appropriate retaliation by the joint forces of the United States and South Korea.

Oh, were it not finals week and I had time to give this a proper fisking (which would, believe it or not, be far longer than this already is). Instead, I'll just leave you with a few points why this is wrong, wrong, wrong:

• The notion that South Korea should not have veto power over an agreement that takes away a substantial part of its own waters is simply absurd, even if Seoul in 1953 was not a signatory to the Korean War Armistice.

• To even hint at changing the established spheres of control on either side of the de facto maritime border (i.e., the Northern Limit Line, or NLL) would simply be rewarding North Korea for murderously acting out repeatedly.

• The NLL is a proper border in that it follows the universally accepted principle of equidistance from populated land on the North Korean and South Korean sides, land North Korea has recognized as South Korea's. Like it or not, the Five Islands of the West Sea [서해 5도] that include Yŏnpyŏng-do [Yeonpyeong] generate substantial territorial waters and EEZ for South Korea. This is not some unfair outcome of the Korean War (which North Korea started) since the Ongjin Peninsula just north of them and under North Korean control was originally South Korean territory south of the 38° Parallel. Simply put, the NLL is where it a maritime border would be were these two countries not military and political rivals.

• Any change to the line of control would endanger South Korea's actual land territories (e.g., the Five Islands of the West Sea, and possibly islands closer to the mainland). Unlike Mr Harrison, I'm not optimistic that granting North Korea more fishing waters would be the end of this mess.

Mr Harrison continues to peddle the idea of a North Korea with which we can do business, when the last ten years has taught us that Pyongyang will bite, hit, or otherwise try to sever the hand that feeds it, the hand that threatens to slap it down, or the hand that is held up by the South Korean government as Seoul says "Talk to this."

About the only useful thing in his op-ed is the idea some North Koreans have fed him about what would happen if a peace treaty were successfully negotiated:

One possible mechanism to replace the armistice is the “trilateral peace regime” for the peninsula that has been proposed by North Korea’s principal military spokesman, Gen. Ri Chan-bok. Under the plan, the armed forces of the United States, North Korea and South Korea would set up a “mutual security assurance commission.” Its role would be to prevent incidents in the demilitarized zone that could threaten the peace and to develop arms-control and confidence-building arrangements on the peninsula. General Ri has said explicitly that the North would not object to the presence of American forces on the peninsula if the armistice and the United Nations Command were replaced.

I'm a big believer in the Pax Americana's past, present, and future ability to keep Northeast Asia conflict-free, so any proposal that sees the US going bye-bye from South Korea is to me a nonstarter. I have no doubt Mr Harrison has been told that North Korea would accept a US military presence in a post-Peace Treaty Korea, but I'm not so sure they really would simply let it be. After all, the US is one of North Korea's bogeyman around which it constructs a justification for the Songun [선군, Military First] Policy, its raison d'être. No doubt the "puppet of the imperialists" rhetoric would continue unabated.

In the meantime, although part of me wants to believe in his cherry-flavored analysis, but it's more likely the eternal optimist is simply a useful idiot or possibly on the take.

UPDATE:
Or possibly a North Korean operative.

UPDATE 2:
Jack Pritchard, president of the Korea Economic Institute, has an article in the January 5 edition of the Korea Herald which also skewers Mr Harrison's proposal.

Selig Harrison and I are on the same page; I'm scared.

Selig Harrison sees the anointing of Kim Jong-un as North Korea's future King Jong as a victory for reform in North Korea. Yes, you read that right.

From his op-ed piece in the Boston Globe:

Kim Jong-il's bold moves to strengthen his grip on the Workers Party, the Army, and the bureaucracy in North Korea mark an important victory for the advocates of economic reform and improved US ties in the Pyongyang regime. The Obama administration should quickly signal its readiness for a resumption of denuclearization negotiations, linked to the normalization of US-North Korean relations.

He arrives at this conclusion through a route that I myself laid out (hence the "same page" remark in the title): Beijing wants to see Chinese-style economic reforms in North Korea and they likely gave the green light to Dynastic Transfer 2.0 (i.e., the rise of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong-un) only with such an understanding.

I'm not so sure I agree with Mr Harrison about Kim Jong-il's willingness to carry out reforms at China's behest (even if in 2002 it appeared he was trying to implement reforms himself, in Shinŭiju):

If Kim Jong-il should suffer another stroke and is incapacitated or dies, North Korea might well face a crippling power struggle between newly emboldened reformers and the old guard. But for the remainder of his rule, he has greatly strengthened his ability to carry out the reform and denuclearization agenda that China has been pushing him to pursue.

It seems Mr Harrison is suggesting Kim Jong-il really wants to carry out reforms, which may be true, but something held him back, like the old guard. However, when Beijing nixed the idea of an SAR at its doorstep in Shinŭiju, North Korea seemed to go in the direction of tighter economic control, not looser. Color me unconvinced.

I'm also not sure I share Mr Harrison's optimism that Kim Jong-il's brother-in-law Jang Songtaek, the presumed regent to Kim Jong-un while he learns how to hang people with rope, is a great behind-the-scenes reformer and not someone who is just bent on holding on to power:

While little is known about the views of Kim Jong-un, who is only 27, there is no doubt about the reformist credentials of Chang Song Taek, Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law, who will be the highest-ranking of four assistant vice chairmen of the Defense Commission as well as chairman of the Administrative Bureau, which runs the Workers Party.

Chang’s attempt to organize a reformist youth league in the Workers Party triggered an Old Guard backlash. He was in disfavor until the 1996 famine gave Kim Jong-il an excuse for winking at the eruption of private farm markets that soon began trading in consumer goods, smuggled from China and South Korea. Chang became the moving force behind the subsequent expansion of both an increasingly overt market economy and of a loosening of economic controls over small enterprises.

Indeed, I've found some of Mr Harrison's thoughts on North Korea to be downright fantastical, but oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if he were right?

But then again, that would mean engaging North Korea just as Plan B seems to be off the ground. And therein lies the dilemma: How should the Obama administration (or a future Palin or Clinton administration) react to Kim Jong-un assuming power in a post-KJI North Korea? Should we hope that the guy might be someone with compassion that we can work with? Can we hope that maybe his older brother Kim Jongnam is advising him that the DPRK should not longer be a murderous regime?

Just how much stick and how much carrot?

UPDATE (October 20, 2010):
Joshua at One Free Korea gives his must-read take on Selig Harrison's op-ed piece.

The Boston Globe indicated that this was Kim Jong-un.
Whiskey, tango, foxtrot?!

Selig Harrison peddles his wariness on PBS's "Newshour" (and Balbina Hwang slaps him down, ever so politely)

My iPod listenings during my daily five-km jog consist of NPR's 7 a.m. newscast, the New York Times Front Page podcast, and then the various segments from PBS's "Newshour," in order of interest. The latter, I've often said, is one of the best programs in America for getting a full-spectrum, objective look at important domestic and international issues.

Yesterday, "Newshour" addressed President Lee's announcement that South Korea will shut down all trade with North Korea (except Kaesŏng), with a discussion between guests Selig Harrison on the left and Balbina Hwang on planet Earth (preceded by this news story).

They started off with Mr Harrison, the contempt for whom by the likes of people like Joshua Stanton I can clearly understand. Mr Harrison is almost Bruce Cumings-like in his ability to downplay the North's transgressions while highlighting to the point of distortion every conceivable and imagined transgression by the South.

Indeed, when it comes to North Korea, both are so far to the left you can't see them because of the curvature of the Earth. I dare say I half suspect that Mr Harrison is on the take from the chinboistas, if he is not an actual fifth columnist himself (and if we're ever both in Seoul at the same time, sue me for defamation, mutherfu¢ker!). [Edit: my, that wasn't very professional of me.]

He started out by essentially blaming South Korea for North Korea's murder of nearly four dozen sailors. In response to host Judy Woodruff's question about whether President Lee's response was appropriate:

No, I don't think so. I think that the problem is that South Korea abrogated agreements that were made -- an agreement that was made between North Korea and South Korea in June 2000, when the former president, Kim Dae-jung, went and had a summit with Kim Jong Il, and they made an agreement that the two countries would coexist and that South Korea's -- what North Korea considered South Korea's past objective of trying to bring about the collapse and the absorption of North Korea by the South would end with a new period that has been called the sunshine policy of Kim Dae-jung.

Now, what happened was when -- when became Lee Myung-Bak became the president, he repudiated this agreement. ... came into office and repudiated what had been done by his two predecessors, which had created the peaceful situation, where there was no military tension at all for eight years.

Fortunately, Ms Hwang called him out on this, including a mention of the deadly 2002 incident in the Yellow Sea that occurred two years after the 2000 Kim-Kim summit:

First of all, it is not true that there was absolutely no military provocations in the eight years of the sunshine policy. It's actually 10 years. In 2002, there was a very distressing naval incident in which I believe 12 South Korean sailors were killed and maimed.

Okay, back to the abrogation. During my jog I kept thinking "proportionate response, proportionate response": Even if everything Mr Harrison said about President Lee reneging on Sunshine Policy is valid, does that justify or invite such a brazen act of murder?

Such denial and distortions are not new for Mr Harrison, who seems to have swallowed hook, line, and sinker of the idea that South Korea's conservatives are forcing Kim Jong-il behave badly. "Context," he tells us, must be understood in order to grasp the meaning of this murder:

What I am saying is, you have to look at this in the context of what has been going on before. It's not -- this is not something that just came out of the blue. This is the climax of two years of a completely different policy on the part of South Korea, which has really spooked North Korea.

Ms Hwang goes on to set the record straight, calling President Lee's announcement "absolutely the correct response" (a notable point since vocal North Korea opponents like Joshua Stanton were not too terribly impressed by President Lee's announcement). She also reminded viewers that the conservative president did not actually repudiate Sunshine Policy and has been "very careful about not doing so."

Moreover, she also underscored that "it's very clear who has instigated this" — in the face of Mr Harrison's suggestion that North Korea might not actually be behind the attack —  calling it "a surprise attack" and "a violation of the armistice agreement."

She also made an intriguing point about why President Lee might not have called out Kim Jong-il by name as being responsible:

What is very interesting about President Lee Myung-Bak's statement here is that he is actually giving the North Koreans a face-saving way out, actually providing a way to de-escalate.

What he didn't do was declare that this was the personal responsibility of the dear leader, Kim Jong Il. What he said was, the North Korean regime should find those responsible and punish them. That actually allows the regime then to scapegoat or to actually pinpoint exactly who was responsible and does provide a way out.

Mr Harrison insisted again on obfuscating Pyongyang's responsibility for this murderous attack:

I don't think that this can be solved through North-South diplomacy, except in one important area, which is the negotiations on the sea boundary in the Yellow Sea, which is disputed, and which was involved in the episode that you referred to before and is involved in this episode.

And, you know, the U.N. ordained a certain boundary between North and South Korea in the Yellow Sea after the Korean [War], which North Korea never accepted. So, you need diplomacy on the sea boundary between North and South Korea. You need the return to the six-party talks, where this whole issue could be brought up, but where denuclearization should also be brought up.

The dispute over the Northern Limit Line (NLL, that disputed maritime border), was only peripherally involved in the sinking of the Chonan, since it was sunk in waters off an island both Pyongyang and Seoul recognize as South Korea's, what would be undisputed waters (Ms Hwang makes that point as well).

At any rate, with nearly four dozen killed, we are beyond merely "bringing it up" as one of several topics to discuss yet again, although Ms Hwang and Mr Harrison both agree that this should be handled diplomatically.

I often recommend "Newshour" for the way it deftly presents the two main sides of an issue, giving a fair listen to both, but one must be prepared to hear some galling stuff from the side you don't agree with. Like when Mr Harrison shines the shadow of doubt on the Chonan investigation's conclusions:

SELIG HARRISON: Secretary Clinton used the word precarious. It is dangerous, because I don't know whether North Korea did this. I wouldn't be surprised if they did it, because of — I think that they...

JUDY WOODRUFF: You don't know whether North Korea...

SELIG HARRISON: I don't feel that we have had this evidence laid out, that it hasn't been — it is, after all, evidence that a South Korean investigation produced.

BALBINA HWANG: It — no, it was actually an international effort.

SELIG HARRISON: They brought in international people, but this wasn't conducted by an international — and I'm not saying that they didn't do it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All right.

All right, indeed. Unless you are going to make a "Gulf of Tonkin" or "Remember the Maine" sort of claim, stop it with the insidious "we don't know if they really did it" insinuations.

In the end, I wish Ms Woodruff had gone with Ms Hwang first so that her airtime wouldn't be wasted mopping up after Mr Harrison's mess.

There's a bit more to the interview, so even though I ended up including more of it in this fisking than I'd intended (and I really didn't mean to do a fisking), go give it a listen.