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March 6, 2007

Six-Party Talks Briefing with Christopher Hill

After the February 13 announcement that an agreement had been struck at the Six-Party Talks in Beijing, the American public was eager to know its details and what it meant for the larger diplomatic process. At an early March briefing co-presented by the Japan Society and The Korea Society, America’s lead negotiator at the talks, Ambassador Christopher Hill obliged the public by laying out the deal’s details and his thoughts on the prospects for further progress.

After an introduction by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Hill explained that the February 13 agreement was only a set of initial actions. Repeatedly emphasizing that this agreement represented only the very beginning of the denuclearization process, he described its terms: as a first step, the United States had agreed to supply 50,000 tons of fuel oil to the DPRK and set up a number of working groups in which to discuss issues such as the freeze on North Korean funds at Banco Delta Asia and normalizing U.S.–DPRK ties. The DPRK committed to shutting and sealing its reactor at Yongbyon within 60 days of these steps having been taken, in effect stopping any production of new plutonium. Once Yongbyon was verifiably closed, the U.S. would deliver another 950,000 tons of fuel oil to the DPRK.

Implementation of the deal is well underway and the working groups are having their first meetings. If these initial steps are successful, Hill continued, he’s hopeful that the parties will be able to deal with larger and more complicated questions, such as dealing with the plutonium that the DPRK has already produced and obtaining a full accounting of its highly enriched uranium program.

Hill fielded questions from the audience on implementation, verification and the ultimate conclusion of the Six-Party Talks process. Kristof asked whether, given the history of fruitless agreements between the U.S. and DPRK, a fair degree of skepticism about the current deal is warranted.

“Skepticism is healthy,” Hill replied, recounting criticism the February 13 deals has received from both Left and Right. “But this is the first time that [the U.S.] has gotten all the players together…the mechanism we’ve got in place now is the right one.”


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February 22, 2007

Models for Economic Cooperation with North Korea:
Inside Kumgang and Kaesong

Developing economic contacts between the United States and DPRK is a hot topic in America’s regional diplomacy. Viable models for such cooperation—in fields from tourism to light manufacturing—already exist in ROK–DPRK joint projects. Walter Keats, founder and president of Asia Pacific Travel, Ltd. has the pictures to prove it.

Breaking down the common perception of North Korea’s economy as a stagnant and monolithic socialist façade, Keats told his audience that the DPRK has been experimenting with economic reforms for more than a decade. Most of the early efforts—which usually entailed creating special economic zones (SEZs) along the Chinese model—have faltered on poor planning and inexperience. Since 1998, however, North Korea has been working with South Korean corporations to develop two special zones, at Mount Kumgang and Kaesong, and the results have been encouraging.

Facilitated by the South Korean government as part of its Sunshine Policy, the Hyundai Asan corporation has set up a tourist resort at Mount Kumgang in the North. Though over a million South Koreans have visited since the resort opened, Keats is one of only a handful of Americans to make the trip. Cycling through digital photos of modern hotels, hiking trails, timeshare bungalows and restaurants, Keats described an Epcot-like tourist experience.

The North Korean employees are reticent with the South Korean guests, he explained, and avoid all non-professional contact. All employees are carefully vetted by the North’s political administrators and no employees receive their paychecks directly: their wages are paid to the North Korean government. Similar conditions, Keats explained, were imposed on the employees of China’s first SEZs. Eventually, through careful engagement, a more liberal regime developed. Pointing out numerous photos of North Koreans interacting with affluent, tolerant South Korean guests, Keats said he believes the steady contact with outsiders is quietly changing their worldview.

Keats also displayed photos from his trip to the Kaesong industrial complex: a special zone in the North where companies from the South can set up manufacturing centers. Though only in the first phase of its development, Kaesong already has 14 factories and employs 10,000 North Korean workers. Far from being the Dickensenian labor camp that North Korea’s critics contend, Keats pointed out images of tidy, modern factory floors and healthy, engaged workers. Kaesong and the patient engagement that led to its creation, he believes, can be repeated by American companies and begin to ease hostilities between the U.S. and DPRK.

January 17, 2007, VOICES Program

Drawing from his recently published translations of Pak's poetry, Enough to Say It's Far: Selected Poems of Pak Chaesam, McCann described Pak as a singular figure in Korean literature: a poet who stood resolutely outside the artistic mainstream of his time, but who in retrospect seems to embody the transitions that took place in Korean poetry from the 1970s into the ‘80s.

Born in the 1930s, Pak reached the pinnacle of his career on Seoul's literary scene during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Park Chung Hee's repressive rule, and popular discontent with it, made for a highly politicized arts scene. Nearly all the notable poetry of the time, McCann explained, was engaged with current events and thick with polemical attitude. But not Pak's. His work reflects a rich, almost secluded, inner life; a preference for natural imagery and a fascination with other worlds. In his aloofness from contemporary politics, Pak resembles Emily Dickenson who, during the turbulence of America's Civil War, explored the universe of experience within a single room.

"[Pak] was a poet who explored the liminal worlds, the spaces between," McCann explained. In "Enough to Say It's Far," Pak attempts a metaphorical understanding of the distance between himself, his feelings of love, and the object of his love, through reference to the distance between the earth and the stars.

While the topics he addressed were deeply figurative and amorphous, the language Pak used to address them is exceptionally precise and illuminating. "In some ways," McCann added, "[reading Pak Chaesam] is like looking at an MRI of the Korean language."

As the 1970s marched on, Korean literature-and music, and filmmaking-drifted away from its earlier, stridently political content, towards the more varied contemplation that Pak wrote about. Pak continued to write and McCann met with him, though briefly, several times over the years. During the mid-1990s, McCann called Pak, who was in poor health, and suggested they get together. Alluding, perhaps, to the other worlds that so fascinated him, Pak replied simply "next time" and died shortly thereafter.

The program concluded with readings of a dozen of Pak's best poems, including "Brightness," "Place," and "As for Love."