Thursday, December 22, 2011
Political instability worries U.S.
From The Hindu
Even as the reality of Democratic People's Republic of Korea
leader Kim Jong-il’s death sunk in, speculation in Washington centred on the
likely spike in uncertainty in the politics of that country and its potentially
reduced engagement with the world that this could engender in the medium term.
In the face of the murky succession question in the DPRK reaction
from the White House appeared to focus on the question of maintaining stability
in the region. This was underscored by a phone call between President Barack
Obama and President Lee Myung-bak of the Republic of Korea at midnight on Monday
following news of Mr. Kim’s passing.
In the conversation the U.S. President reaffirmed his country’s
“strong commitment to the stability of the Korean Peninsula and the security of
our close ally, the Republic of Korea,” the White House said in a statement,
adding that the two leaders would be staying closely in touch as the situation
developed.
Commenting on the all-important nuclear question Richard Bush,
Director of the Centre for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings
Institution said that “With Kim’s death the prospects for regional negotiations
on North Korea’s nuclear program and other issues in the near term are very
low.”
Mr. Bush noted that any successor regime would have to consolidate
itself before it would be prepared to engage the United States, South Korea, and
others. “While there had been movement towards such engagement... little can
happen now,” he added.
In comments to the BBC former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Christopher Hill, who led the delegation of the six-party nuclear talks on North
Korea, said that he thought that the North Korean military was “going to be less
inclined to do things with the international community [and] the Chinese are
going to try and get in there very early and try to figure it out.”
Suggesting that the “heir-apparent, Kim Jong-un, [was] truly not
ready [to be a] prime time player,” Mr. Hill said that that would imply that the
country’s military would have a lot to say and Jang Song-taek, the
brother-in-law of Kim Jong-il may have “a big role to play.”
Others however did not support the view that there was cause for
concern in terms of the role of China in the future of DPRK politics. Robert
Gallucci, President of the MacArthur Foundation and a specialist on the region’s
politics, said, “I do not think we need to be overly concerned about a too-close
relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang.”
He argued that the U.S. had gone to the Chinese many times since
the Clinton administration through the Bush administration and possibly in the
Obama administration too, “to get the Chinese to play a more active role in
encouraging the North to be open to more negotiations...”
Dr. Gallucci further noted that significant changes in U.S.
policies towards North Korea were unlikely. He said, “That there has been a
willingness to engage the North directly in talks and to provide food assistance
and other kinds of assistance and ultimately to improve the political
relationship provided we can get the performance we need from the North Koreans
that we need on their nuclear programme.” Dr. Gallucci said that such
performance would entail initially a freeze on and then ultimately the
dismantling of the programme.
Labels: death, Kim Jong-il, North Korea, political instability, U.S.
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