Speaker
Questions Bush on North Korean Foreign Policy
by Scott Ewart
On
Monday, journalist Don Oberdorfer spoke to the Oberlin community
about the politics of the Korean peninsula focusing on the United
States relationship with North Korea, which has beome strained
under the Bush administration. Oberdorfer is a former correspondent
for The Washington Post in East Asia who now teaches at Johns Hopkins
Universitys Nietze School of Advanced International Studies.
North Korea, a country of 22 million people, has suffered widespread
famine and a totalitarian government with a long human rights abuse
record.
After giving a brief history of the region, Oberdorfer explained
that Bushs abandonment of diplomatic relations will only hinder
democratic progress in North Korea. Nobody trusts Kim Jong
Il, but its not the kind of thing you say if you want to get
negotiations going. Oberdorfer said. Citing lack of trust,
Bush limited relations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, which
had improved under the Clinton administration.
Obderdorfer speculated that President Bushs reasons for disregarding
North Korea and describing the country as part of an axis
of evil stem from the administrations desire to take
military action against Iraq. According to Oberdorfer, leaders feel
hesitant to single out the Iraqi government in public criticism,
and as a result the president criticized other military regimes
in his state of the union address.
Oberdorfer emphasized that the United States was unlikely to take
military action against the country. However, he cautioned the audience
that anything could happen in the region, which he said has a history
of surprising observers. Oberdorfer explained that, after the collapse
of the Soviet Union and Chinas drift toward capitalism, North
Korea has become increasingly isolated. South Korea, which was divided
from North Korea at the end of the Second World War, has been trying
to forge a better relationship with its neighbor to the North, though
to do so it needs the support of its close trade partner the United
States.
A lot of people in South Korea see their destiny as somehow
being able to unify the peninsula again, so they dont like
anything the U.S. might do to prevent that, Oberdorfer said.
Though China has encouraged North Korea to open their economy to
more foreign trade, the country has been suspicious of South Korea,
which it sees as a puppet of the United States, Oberdorfer explained.
The best thing that would happen is something to get the negotiations
going again, Oberdorfer said. Although few people expect the
dictatorship in North Korea to lose power in the near future, the
best hope for improving the living conditions of North Koreans is
closer diplomatic relations with other nations.
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