| SIS’s Hunsberger Lecture focuses on Korean peninsula BY MIKE UNGER
Photo by Jeff Watts
Princeton professor Gilbert Rozman delivered the SIS Hunsberger Lecture. |
For the last half of the twentieth century, conflict was a mainstay of life on the Korean peninsula. Now, in the infancy of the new millennium, a new threat has emerged, one that could lead either to a peaceful new regional order or to global crisis. Gilbert Rozman, the Musgrave Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, has been studying the countries in the region for years. For the past decade he has followed North Korea’s quest for nuclear weapons and the world community’s attempt, through negotiation, to prevent proliferation. Last week at the School of International Service’s ninth annual Warren S. Hunsberger Lecture, Rozman shared his opinions on the matter during a talk entitled “Looking beyond the Korean Nuclear Crisis: How the Major Powers View the Korean Peninsula.” The Hunsberger Lecture was established to honor the founding director of AU’s Center for Asian Studies. “I take this as a challenge to say something interesting about what I think is now the most important issue in northeast Asia,” Rozman told the crowd at the SIS Lounge. “Today many see North Korea as immoral, irrational. That simplifies your problems of diplomacy when you treat your antagonist in this fashion. On the other hand, there’s a tendency to see the U.S. as inflexible, ideological. With that kind of dichotomy, there tends not to be an adequate debate.” For the past three and a half years, China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United States have been trying to bring about a peaceful solution to the crisis through multilateral talks. “North Korea is a country that has been extremely insecure, constantly looking to avoid dependency,” Rozman said. “North Korea made it clear in discussions with the Soviet Union as far back as 1990 that they were going nuclear. There was no mystery as to how they would protect the regime.” Self-sustainment is the top priority of North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Il, in this high stakes game of chicken, Rozman said. A poor country that endured a vast famine, North Korea views its nuclear program as one of its only bargaining chips. Other countries in the region have their own concerns. China fears an influx of refugees if North Korea crumbles into chaos. South Korea still harbors hopes of reunification with the North under the right circumstances, while Japan is aiming to remain a regional power. The United States fears, among other things, that North Korea’s nuclear weapons could one day fall into the hands of terrorists. None of these countries want to see nuclear weapons in the hands of Kim Jong Il. “What Japan wants is leverage over the Korean peninsula,” Rozman said. “It doesn’t want a Korea that partners with China.” On the verge of abandoning the six-party talks last September, the United States reluctantly agreed to a Chinese plan to continue them. “China’s biggest fear is that the U.S. says ‘You solve this,’” Rozman said. “Sixty percent of North Korea’s trade is coming from China. China’s looking for regional integration.” Rozman concluded by looking to the future. “Where we’re heading from here is hard to say,” he said. “I think the most likely outcome between now and the end of the Bush administration is stalemate. North Korea builds more nuclear weapons. No real solution. The Bush administration would not be prepared for anything North Korea wants. “North Korea is mainly interested in regime survival, and they’ve calculated that if they open the economy without resolving the security issue they will collapse. In order to achieve those goals I think they find it essential to normalize relations with the U.S. For the U.S. to do so is a challenge to our morals and idealism. The real question is, what are our priorities?” |
