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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
This is a revised version of a paper that was prepared for the Conference in Commemoration of the June 15 South-North Joint Declaration, Kim Dae Jung Peace Center Seoul, June 12, 2008.
A major purpose of this conference is to take stock of the June 2000 summit with the benefit of eight years of hindsight, also to examine the achievements of the October 2007 summit, and to assess where we are today in relations with North Korea. My perspective is obviously an American one, and I am deeply interested in where Korean affairs might go after the inauguration of a new American president only eight months from now. But I am afraid I sometimes overestimate American influence on Korean affairs. I think recent years have demonstrated that when Korean leaders want something badly enough, and stick to their policies and principles, they can directly or indirectly influence American leaders toward adopting similar policies. And so I want to make one major point that I will come back to in the end: Presidents Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun persisted with their engagement policy toward Pyongyang through five years of intense American pressure, criticism, and provocation, and ultimately were vindicated when the Bush administration turned 180 degrees and also adopted an engagement policy. Why this happened is still something of a mystery, but it certainly did happen.
[1] Link.
[2] Meredith Woo-Cumings in David I. Steinberg, ed., Korean Attitudes Toward the United States (M.E. Sharpe, 2005), pp. 62-63; Pew Global Attitudes Project.
[3] Pew, ibid.
[4] William Watts in Steinberg, pp. 268-72; also Pew, ibid.
[5] David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, “U.S. Concedes Uncertainty on Korean Uranium Effort,” New York Times (March 1, 2007), pp. A1, A10.
[6] Zbigniew Brzezinski is reported to have gotten into an argument with Brent Skowcroft at a Washington dinner party, after Brzezinski asserted that Bush was planning to strike Iran's nuclear facilities; after a lot of debate people were asked for a show of hands, and of the eighteen prominent people there—including former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto—only two supported Skowcroft's demurral. See Steven Clemons, “Why Bush Won't Attack Iran” (September 19, 2007).
[7] A very murky brouhaha developed over an Israeli air strike against Syria on September 6, 2007, targeting a possible plutonium reactor being built there, with Bolton and others claiming that the North was transferring nuclear materials of some kind to Syria, and others saying the Korean shipments were the usual missiles and parts that they have long traded to Damascus. See Mark Mazetti and Helene Cooper, “Israeli Nuclear Suspicions Linked to Raid in Syria,” New York Times (September 18, 2007), and The Nelson Report (Samuels International Associates, September 14, 2007), [email protected].
[8] Kim Dae Jung also gave a speech in Washington on September 17, 2007, reiterating his views on how a DPRK-US rapprochement would check and contain China.
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