Devil is in the details

By John Burton

When Presidents Moon Jae-in and Joe Biden hold their summit meeting in Washington later this week, it should provide more clarity on the new U.S. administration's policy toward North Korea.

The conclusions produced by the policy review on North Korea by the Biden administration and released earlier this month remain maddeningly vague, although this vagueness is due to the fact that U.S. officials do not want to reveal their negotiating hand.

Officials said that they sought to strike a balance between President Donald Trump's top-down engagement diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and President Barack Obama's arm's-length "strategic patience" strategy.

Instead, they want to pursue "a phased agreement" based on a "calibrated, practical" approach that should lead to North Korea's full denuclearization. But the steering of a middle course between the Trump and Obama policies leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and the devil will be in the details. It also smacks of similar policies of diplomacy and deterrence that were pursued unsuccessfully by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

How soon, for example, will Washington try to resume negotiations with Pyongyang, which have been stalled for the last two years, following the collapse of the Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi? The Biden administration earlier said that North Korea has ignored an initial overture, but that may have been due to the fact that Pyongyang was waiting for the completion of the policy review. There have been reports that North Korea has now responded positively to the possibility of further talks.

Moreover, the North Korea issue appears to be low on the Biden foreign policy agenda, with the administration's long-term focus being on China and short-term focus being on the current hostilities between Israel and Hamas. Biden has yet to appoint a special envoy on North Korea or even a new U.S. ambassador to Seoul. In the meantime, how will the Biden administration respond if North Korea decides to test U.S. resolve by testing a long-range missile?

Another potential sticking point is the Biden administration's intention to pay more attention to human rights issues in talks with Pyongyang, which were ignored during the Trump administration. North Korea views this issue as interference in its internal affairs and has strongly resisted any pressure to address it by boycotting talks with the U.S.

Washington must also reconcile the differing views on North Korea of its two closest Asian allies, Korea and Japan. Tokyo continues to pursue a hawkish policy in contrast to Moon's emphasis on an inter-Korean detente. Trilateral cooperation is needed if the U.S. is to negotiate effectively with North Korea.

These potential stumbling blocks will help shape the Biden strategy. How far, for example, is Washington willing to go in offering security guarantees in return for North Korea's denuclearization? Moon wants Washington to offer a formal declaration ending the Korean War as a first step to easing North Korea's security concerns. In addition, Biden may need to reaffirm the 2018 Singapore Agreement reached between Trump and Kim that promised North Korea's denuclearization in return for U.S. security guarantees and diplomatic recognition.

How will Biden deal with North Korean demands for reducing or ending sanctions? The promise of a "phased" approach suggests that Washington might ease sanctions in response to Pyongyang gradually reducing its nuclear arsenal. But similar proposals in the past have collapsed due to disagreements on the exact sequence of reciprocal actions by both sides.

The Biden administration could build trust with North Korea in the short term by offering increased humanitarian assistance via supplying COVID-19 vaccines as well as removing bureaucratic obstacles that hamper the import of medical equipment into the country by American NGOs.

Such gestures might convince Pyongyang that the Biden administration is serious about changing their relationship. The U.S. could also offer sanctions exemptions that would allow Moon to move forward on inter-Korean economic projects.

The challenge that Biden faces is that he must deal with a North Korea that has become disillusioned after its experience with the Trump administration, which had seemingly offered concessions that it then failed to grant.

If Biden wants to get negotiations back on track, he must find creative solutions. He should try to establish some type of direct communications with Kim in addition to a return to traditional working-level negotiations. That approach will be helped if Biden reaffirms the Singapore Declaration, which will assure Kim that there is consistency in U.S. policy toward North Korea.

If there is any cause for optimism about the fact that progress can be made, it is that the policy review suggests the U.S. is stepping back from a maximalist position toward North Korea by not demanding an immediate and complete denuclearization, and is willing to negotiate interim arms control agreements instead.

John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.