Qui di seguito proponiamo due pezzi molto interessanti sulla crisi coreana, tutti e due da Project Syndicate. Entrambi spiegano con cura quali sono le radici del comportamento del regime di Pyongyang, che troppe volte, in Occidente e sopratutto in Italia, viene descritto come un gruppo di lunatici. La situazione è invece assai diversa. Come dicemmo già tempo fa è difficile valutare culture e società differenti sulla base dei nostri parametri. In Corea del Nord larga parte del consenso vero la famiglia Kim è il frutto di una tradizione culturale di lunga data ed ha dunque una reale base materiale - anche se molto difficile da valutare. E per quanto anacronistica, la dittatura di Pyongyang non è guidata da fanatismo o follia ma da un preciso calcolo strategico dettato dalle condizioni internazionali. Come spiegato da entrambi i commentatori qui sotto - uno dei quali è stato ministro degli esteri di Seul, quindi non certo tacciabile di simpatie verso il Nord - l'Occidente, e dunque soprattutto l'America, ma anche Corea del Sud e Giappone hanno gravi responsabilità nell'aver isolato la Corea del Nord, rendendola più aggressiva e pericolosa, e, non avendole riconosciuto nessun vero ruolo negli anni passati - pensando forse di poterla cancellare dalla mappa con un colpo di penna - si ritrovano ora con un partner inaffidabile. Per altro la storia dei cosiddetti rogue states - dall'Iraq alla Libia - non può che mettere in allarme la dirigenza nord-coreana che dunque vuol sedersi ad un tavolo di trattativa da una situazione di (relativo) potere, dato in questo caso dalle minacce militari. Un gioco pericoloso ma perfettamente razionale.
Non va dimenticato, per altro, che quello stesso regime è stato per anni tutt'altro che bellicoso e che comunque fino ad inizio anni 2000 si parlava di una possibile rappacificazione tra Nord e Sud con le due delegazioni che, all'Olimpiade di Sidney, sfilavano sotto la stessa bandiera. E che le tensioni sono iniziate successivamente, quando gli USA hanno chiuso la porta in faccia ad ogni dialogo. Infine, l'ultima escalation è avvenuta, non a caso, dopo la vittoria, sia in Giappone che in Corea del Sud, di due leader nazionalisti, e decisamente avversi al dialogo con Pyongyang. Insomma, se è vero che la Corea rischia di diventare un problema serio per il resto del mondo, è forse d'uopo che anche i governi occidentali si comincino a prendere delle responsabilità per contenere la crisi e riportare un po' di sereno sopra il 38° parallelo.
Realism on North Korea
di Yoon Young Kwan
da Project Syndicate
The world’s task in
addressing North Korea’s saber rattling is made no easier by the fact
that it confronts an impoverished and effectively defeated country. On
the contrary, it is in such circumstances that calm foresight is most
necessary.
The
genius of the Habsburg Empire’s Prince Klemens von Metternich in
framing a new international order after the Napoleonic Wars was that he
did not push a defeated France into a corner. Although Metternich sought
to deter any possible French resurgence, he restored France’s prewar
frontiers.
By
contrast, as Henry Kissinger has argued, the victors in World War I
could neither deter a defeated Germany nor provide it with incentives to
accept the Versailles Treaty. Instead, they imposed harsh terms, hoping
to weaken Germany permanently. We know how that plan ended.
John
F. Kennedy was in the Metternich mold. During the Cuban missile crisis,
he did not try to humiliate or win a total victory over the Soviet
Union. Rather, he put himself in Nikita Khrushchev’s shoes and agreed to
dismantle, secretly, American missiles in Turkey and Italy in exchange
for withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. Kennedy’s pragmatism
prevented World War III.
Sadly,
North Korea has not received such far-sighted statesmanship. Faced with
the North’s dangerous nuclear game, we should ask what would have
happened if, over the last 20 some years, the North Korea problem had
been approached with the sagacity of Metternich and Kennedy.
Of
course, North Korea is not early-nineteenth century France or the USSR
of 1962. In the eyes of Western (including Japanese) political leaders,
it has never amounted to more than a small, fringe country whose
economic failings made it appear to be poised perpetually on the edge of
self-destruction. For the most part, world leaders preferred not to be
bothered with North Korea, and so reacted in an ad hoc way
whenever it created a security problem. But now, following the North’s
recent nuclear tests, and given its improving ballistic-missile
capabilities, that approach is no longer tenable.
Perhaps
the best chance to address the problem at an earlier stage was
immediately after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. Back then, Kim
Il-sung – the North’s founder – faced economic collapse, diminution of
his conventional military forces, and diplomatic isolation. In
interviews with Asahi Shimbun and The Washington Times
in March and April 1992, Kim clearly expressed a wish to establish
diplomatic relations with the US. But US and South Korean leaders were
not ready to accommodate Kim’s overture. Their received ideas about
North Korea prevented them from recognizing a fast-changing political
reality.
Another
opportunity was missed later in the decade. If North Korea had
reciprocated in a timely manner following US envoy William Perry’s visit
to Pyongyang in May 1999, President Bill Clinton’s policy of engagement
with the North might have been upgraded to a push for normalization of
diplomatic relations. Instead, the North procrastinated, sending Vice
Marshall Jo Myong-rok to the US only in October 2000, near the end of
Clinton’s presidency. A few months later, newly elected President George
W. Bush reversed Clinton’s North Korea policy.
I
still recall the difficulty that I faced, as South Korea’s foreign
minister, in convincing Bush administration policymakers to negotiate
with North Korea instead of merely applying pressure and waiting for the
North to capitulate. Back then, North Korea was restarting its Yongbyon
nuclear facility and producing plutonium, thus strengthening its
bargaining position vis-à-vis the US. Precious time was squandered
before North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006. Though Bush shifted his
policy toward bilateral negotiations with the North a few months later,
the Kim regime had become much more obstinate.
Indeed,
North Korea’s behavior has since become even more volatile. Its sinking
of the South Korean corvette Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong
Island in 2010 were unprecedented, and raised inter-Korean tensions to
their highest level in decades. Today, following the North’s third
nuclear test, we seem to have entered the most precarious stage yet,
with the regime declaring that it will never surrender its nuclear
option. So, what should be done?
The
first option should be deterrence of further aggression through
diplomacy. But achieving diplomatic deterrence will depend on China’s
cooperation, and this requires that China’s vital national-security
interests be recognized. China fears not only the social and economic
consequences of a North Korean implosion, but also the strategic
consequences of reunification – in particular, that the US military,
through its alliance with South Korea, would gain access to territory on
its border.
A
mere statement by the US that it has no intention to press this
military advantage will not assuage China’s fears. Chinese leaders
recall that the US promised Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that
German reunification and democratic transition in Eastern Europe would
not mean eastward expansion of NATO. So a more concrete undertaking, one
that preserves South Korea’s bedrock security concerns, is needed. Only
after its security is assured will China free itself from complicity in
North Korean brinkmanship and be better able to control the North’s
behavior.
But
Chinese cooperation, though necessary, will not resolve the North Korea
problem on its own. A comprehensive approach must recognize the speed
of internal change, especially in the minds of ordinary North Koreans.
Simply put, North Koreans are not as isolated as they once were, and
have a growing appreciation of their impoverishment, owing primarily to
greater trade and closer connections with booming China.
This
internal change needs to be encouraged, because it will prove more
effective than external pressure in influencing the regime’s behavior.
But such encouragement must be undertaken in ways that do not incite the
North’s fears of being destroyed by indirect means. South Korean
President Park Geun-hye’s recent proposal to provide humanitarian
assistance despite the recent spike in tension, is a start in the right
direction.
The
lives of ordinary North Koreans matter as much as the security of North
Korea’s neighbors. A comprehensive approach is required – one that
focuses as much on the human dimension as on the security dimension. It
remains to be seen whether this approach requires more foresight and
courage than today’s political leaders in South Korea, the West, and
China can muster.
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