With all the new bluster over North Korea admitting to having The Bomb comes this question; Why does N Korea insist on one-on-one talks with the US and why does the US repeatedly refuse them in favor or the 6-way SE-Asian talks?
What does the US have to loose and N Korea have to gain by bilateral talks between the two? It seems quite clear that they have a bone to pick with the US, are the states trying to diffuse that through a coalition of the willing?
If two-party talks fail, each side can blame the other. If one party in a six party talk walks away, and the other five stay, the one who walks looks wrong. North Korea can “save face” by doing this against the US alone, but would have to turn their back on their one ally, China, in the multi-party talks.
There’s also the fact that the North Korean government is not recognized by the US, and holding bilateral talks would be seen by some as a kind of recognition.
In what way is North Korea not recognized?
The same way that the Taliban is not recognized. The US recognizes the South Korean government as the legitimate government of all of Korea. North Korea does not have an embassy in the US, nor do we have an embassy there. Remember that the Korean War ended with a ceasefire, not a peace treaty.
Don’t forget that North Korea is also broke: for all that they seem to have read Orwell’s 1984 as a “how to” manual, they have everything to gain economically and nothing to lose politically {at least in the short term} by getting some kind of relationship going with the US - they just have a kooky kind of way of going about it: “Hey! Over here! I gotta GUN! Wanna go out with me?” Conversely, the US just doesn’t have that much to gain from dealing with them, given that with the ChiComs converted to capitalism, Asia is currently fairly stable politically - and, of course, Uncle Sam, particularly in his current incarnation, doesn’t take kindly to diplomacy by veiled threat. They should just send flowers.
What North Korea really doesn’t want is to have China in on the talks, because China is the only country that can seriously hurt North Korea without war.
In two-way talks, North Korea is really in the driver’s seat, because the U.S. can really do nothing but threaten war, which isn’t a realistic threat. So it boils down to North Korea issuing threats, and the U.S. deciding on the price it’s willing to pay. Basically, this is nothing more than blackmail.
But with China in the picture, it’s not so simple for North Korea, because if they bluster too hard China can just say, “Fine - we’ll boycott your goods, stop giving you aid, and stop the flow of Chinese goods into your country.”
China has leverage over North Korea. The U.S. does not. That’s why North Korea is working so hard to avoid having to negotiate with China, and why the Bush administration is so adament that China be involved. The Bush administration is correct.
While I generally agree with your reasoning on why the US wants China involved, the utter lack of progress in resolving the issue over the last years doesn’t support your claim that the Bush administration is is following the “correct” approach. Perhaps you could amplify in a GD thread?
I meant that the Bush administration was correct only in the sense that they are demanding that China be part of the negotiations. That doesn’t mean their overall strategy has been correct or that no mistakes have been made. But that’s an issue for Great Debates.
Another reason is that N. Korean propaganda insists that they are the only legitimate government of all of Korea, and that S. Korea is nothing but a US puppet (right; we wish). So from the N. Korean propaganda view, there’s nothing to negotiate with Seoul; the US is the only real authority in the south.
Can you produce any cite to back that up? I work in foreign policy, and I have never, ever heard that we refuse to recognize North Korea. The State Department even lists North Korea as an independent state. Note that Taiwan is but a footnote in that list. Diplomatic relations and diplomatic recognition are not the same thing.
From what I have gathered, the reason North Korea wants bilateral negotiations so badly with the US is not because of China and what they might do – let’s get real, China barely has a foreign policy other than opposing anything that could be “interference in internal affairs” – but because of the status of one-on-one negotiations with the world’s superpower. It appears that the Bush Administration is content to use this as a bargaining chip, in addition to the point Sam Stone made about the US wanting to keep China involved.
The US has, in fact, held one-on-one talks with North Korea in the past, but I am not sure if those talks only occured in the Clinton Administration. There are well publicized talks between (IIRC) Robert Gallucci and the DPRK UN delegation in various coffee shops in Manhattan in 1993 or thereabouts, and Secretary Albright made a trip to Pyongyang in 2000. There were even plans for Clinton to visit North Korea shortly before his leaving office. These talks, however, were always carefully carried out in consultation with our allies in the region.
UncleBill, you might note that North Korea has no problem walking out on Six Party talks. Before last week’s announcement of their withdrawal from them, they have regularly postponed, stalled, and undermined the talks in every way possible.
Actually, it’s called diplomacy. Nobody ever said that the business was all striped pants and cucumber sandwiches. 
As the theory goes, going toe to toe against the world’s only superpower elevates North Korea’s David-vs-Goliath international stature, Kim’s reputation for balsiness, and gives North Korea a sharply defined external enemy. Totalitarian regimes need sharply defined enemies for their survival, as they make the politico-military elite happy, impart sanity to insanity, and keep in check the starving/oppressed masses. The US fills this role handily.
I might be wrong, but I thought that under the Clinton administrtion the US did have two party talks and reached an agreement on the development of nuclear weapons - which the North Koreans blatantly ignored. Another thing to keep in mind - does anyone think that the North Koreans are ruled by someone with a reasonable, rational mind? Have you seen his hair cut?
Another thing is money. North Korea will tell the U.S. about its nuclear capability, and the conversation will go something like this:
U.S.: Hey, you’re not allowed to have that stuff! We strongly suggest (demand!) that you dismantle your weapons production centers, and clean up any radioactive contamination.
North Korea: No problem. But we don’t have the funds to do it.
U.S.: Hmmm. Then we’ll see to it that you get the money and expertise necessary to do the job.
And then the U.S. and Europe pump billions of dollars into North Korea to dismantle their weapons production centers and clean up the environment. Pretty slick, huh?
That’s roughly the deal worked out in 94. NK, also has little native ability to generate power, so we threw in a couple light water reactors to help them with that; course we never properly funded the construction. Ticked them off a bit, and here we are.
I heard a report that said there is a reason that China has an interest in resolving this matter. Japan is very concerned about N. Korea having an atomic bomb and are threatening to develop one for themselves. This is something that China does not want to happen.
As to what China can do: they can turn off the electricity to N. Korea.
The story on that’s kind of murky. Does Japan want the bomb, or does the US want them to have it?:
On the one hand, it’s a threat to China, on the other, it’s the US alienating the Japanese.
Japan is currently making a bit of a fuss about the subsidy they pay to keep US troops based there:
Of course we’re sure we can get them to keep up the subsidy, but there’s obviously a bit of friction in our relations.
No doubt, China has noticed that friction (as well as US friction with Russia and South Korea), and is taking it into account when deciding how hard to push North Korea. Is it really to China’s advantage to crush the people’s republic, and let America off the hook at this time, or does tying up American assets in a continuing standoff make more sense? Last I checked, China favors the creation of a multipolar world.
You are right, poor choice of words on my part. I intended to say that if the talks break down completely, becoming an utter failure. Walking away is a negotiating tactic, not the end of the world.
I do like the idea of China turning off the lights, though.
Regardless of the correctness of the approach, Bush percieves NK as being essentially a paper tiger with real claws. That is, NK appears to be dangerous physically, at least in terms of the destruction it could cause by going ballistic. However, NK isn’t actually as crazy as it appears. The elite are used to getting their way, KJI2 especially, but they aren’t really insane - they just want to use insanity as a cover for more money.
Bush doesn’t want any resolution to the issue. A quick resolution would favor NK, since they don’t have anything they’re really (or can be trusted to) give up. On the other hand, delay, preferably while engaged in very long diplomacy, means that the whole affair weakens the NK elite’s bargaining position and shows that we’re not simply ignoring the whole thing.
Bush, therefore, gnores things when NK tries to demand things from us wildly, while offering them a small ray of light when they ease off. I’m not saying its neccessarily the best way, because I’m not precient, but it does seem to have had some effect. They still occaissionally make wild pronouncements of doom DOOM! but the leadership seems confused and meeker. And it lets them know we don’t consider them as important as they seem to think they are themselves.