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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
On May 20, South Korea's defense ministry made public a short statement on the “international” investigation into the sinking of the South Korean warship, the Cheonan, on March 26, which left 46 sailors dead. U.S. South Korean officials, along with major western news organizations, have been describing this statement as a “report,” but since a) the authors of the document describe it as a “statement,” b) the document's contents consist of several pages of description of physical evidence (visual aid supplements relating to the evidence are not included in the document but have been made available separately by South Korea's defense ministry) along with unverifiable assertions and conclusions, and c) only the 5-page document rather than a rumored 400-page version has been made public, “statement” seems a more accurate description than “report” and will be used in this article.
1 The Hankyoreh reported on May 29 a Chinese proposal to activate the UN Armistice Commission, formed in accordance with the 1953 Korean War armistice, to investigate the Cheonan incident. If the proposal is accepted, an investigative team comprised of North Korea, South Korea, the US and China would be formed. The Hankyoreh's report has apparently been unconfirmed. However, the North Korean KCNA news service reported [http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm] on May 22 that North Korea issued a similar proposal for an armistice commission inquiry after South Korea turned down Pyongyang's request to accept the dispatch of a North Korean investigative team. In the end, South Korea rejected both North Korean proposals.
2 An even more accurate description might be that the 5-page JIG statement is the product of an investigative process jointly directed by South Korea and the United States.
Yonhap reported on May 15 that Lee Yongjoon, South Korea's deputy foreign minister, was in Washington D.C. for meetings with U.S. officials. Lee, in Yonhap's description, “said South Korea and the United States are in sync over ways to deal with the Cheonan incident, although he added, ‘Details will be released after the outcome of the probe (into the sinking) is announced.‘”
A later paragraph in the same Yonhap story is more suggestive of high-level government coordination: “Emerging from a meeting here with Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and Wallace Gregson, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, Lee said, ‘There were no different opinions on the issue of the Cheonan, and we've agreed on all issues.‘”
Important to note is that these meetings took place in Washington five or six days before the JIG investigative findings were released.
3 South Korea held regional elections on June 2. South Korea's media generally portrayed the results as a surprising loss for Lee Myung-bak's Grand National Party.
4 However, more than two weeks since the 5-page statement was issued, the 400-page report has not been released. Nor has there been any indication of whether, or when, the full report will be released.
5 In fact, the Obama administration's April 2010 Nuclear Posture Review can readily be interpreted to mean that even if North Korea surrendered its nuclear weapons and fully accepted the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, it could still be targeted for U.S. nuclear attack (i.e., denied a “negative security assurance” or NSA from the U.S.) if it failed to meet “nuclear non-proliferation obligations” that remain unexplained in the NPR. One White House official, Gary Samore, coordinator for arms control and WMD, proliferation and terrorism, has stated those obligations could be expansive, ad hoc and unilateral. Speaking before the Carnegie Endowment on April 22, 2010, Samore said: “The point I'm making is that there are the clause in the NSA that says incompliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations is intended to be a broad clause and we'll interpret that – when the time comes, we'll interpret that in accordance with what we judge to be a meaningful standard.” Even if North Korea complies with the NPT, the model for what can still happen is Iran, the target of a relentless US-led international campaign to weaken the country through sanctions, using as pretext unproven allegations of a growing nuclear weapons potential hidden somewhere inside Iran's NPT-compliant and UN-monitored civilian nuclear program.
6 For example, Yonhap reported on June 9 that South Korea's military has completed installation of propaganda loudspeakers in “11 frontline areas” along the border with North Korea. The move is “part of the government's punitive measures against North Korea for sinking” the Cheonan.
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