창작과 비평

 

Like many observers, Paik emphasizes that North Korea's antiquated electricity transmission grid cannot handle the 2000 megawatts of electricity to be produced by the two nuclear reactors. The cost of constructing a new countrywide grid would surpass $2 billion, he estimates, substantially more than building a network of 250-megawatt gas-fired power stations, along the pipeline route, linked to small local transmission grids. Each of these power stations and its local grid would cost about $165 million, he calculates, based on the 2002 price of gas-fired turbines made by Korea Heavy Industries in the South. To cover the most populous parts of North Korea with eight power stations, the cost would be $1.32 billion, but all of them would not have to be constructed at once.

 

At their own initiative and at their own expense, two leading European engineering firms, Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) of Switzerland and Siemens of Germany have both conducted extensive studies in North Korea of its existing electricity distribution system and of its future energy needs. Even though North Korea is virtually destitute at present, their reasoning is that the security interests of the United States, Japan and South Korea will sooner or later lead to multilateral aid to ease North Korea's energy problem as part of a broader rapprochement, whether through a new countrywide grid linked to the two KEDO reactors or through gas-fired power stations with local grids fueled by a Sakhalin pipeline?or through a combination of both.

 

In economic terms, there is no need to make an either-or choice between pipeline gas and nuclear power. Both will be needed to meet the growing economic needs of North Korea, South Korea and a unified Korea. In political terms, however, the issue confronting South Korea and the United States is how to head off a North Korean nuclear weapons program. In my view, the best way to do so is to replace the Agreed Framework with a new agreement that combines pipeline gas with a scaled-down nuclear power program in return for an inspection regime fully adequate to verify that the nuclear weapons effort has ended.

 

North Korea and South Korea alike would strongly oppose a revision of the 1994 accord in which both nuclear reactors would be abandoned in favor of pipeline gas. But it would serve the interests of both to reduce the KEDO commitment to one reactor, instead of two, if that would keep the nuclear agreement on track.

 

In order to make such a compromise attractive to the United States, Pyongyang would have to reaffirm its commitment to the existing provisions of the Agreed Framework, under which it must dismantle its frozen nuclear facilities, designed to produce plutonium, coincident with the completion of the reactor project. In addition, North Korea would have to accept new provisions that would end its effort to acquire enriched uranium under adequate inspection safeguards, and would have to go beyond existing provisions that require International Atomic Energy Agency inspections to determine how much fissile material had been accumulated before 1994. The Bush Administration wants these inspections to begin immediately, much sooner than the Agreed Framework requires. North Korea would accept such accelerated inspections, in my view, if the schedule of inspections is linked to progress in the construction of the reactor. In return, the United States would drop its opposition to an Exxon-Mobil gas pipeline through North Korea; encourage multilateral assistance for gas-fired power stations, transmission grids and fertilizer factories along the pipeline route, and support interim KEDO energy aid to the North pending completion of the reactor and the pipeline.

 

For the Bush Administration, inducing North Korea to accept one reactor instead of two, together with strengthened nuclear inspections, could be presented in the United States as a political victory, partially vindicating Republican charges that Clinton gave North Korea too much in the 1994 accord, on terms that were not tough enough.

 

For Pyongyang, getting at least one of the reactors up and running is a political imperative if only because the Agreed Framework bore the personal imprint of the late President Kim Il Sung and of his son Kim Jong Il, now North Korea's leader. Equally important, since Japan and South Korea both have large civilian nuclear programs, North Korea regards nuclear power as a technological status symbol. Like Tokyo and Seoul, Pyongyang wants nuclear power in its energy mix to reduce dependence on petroleum. Still another factor is that North Korea has a force of 7,500 nuclear technicians, many of them trained in Russia, who have been in a state of limbo since the 1994 accord and are awaiting new jobs when the KEDO nuclear complex at Kumho is completed.

 

In the case of South Korea, support for the KEDO program comes in part from vested interests with a stake in contracts to build the reactors. In addition to the $800 million that the South has already spent on the reactors by the end of 2002, South Korean companies had lined up contracts totaling another $2.3 billion for the construction work ahead. As a State Department official observed, "the bribes have already been paid." Still, half a loaf would be better than none, and the money spent by the South has gone, so far, only to the infrastructure at the site and to the first reactor.

 

South Korea likes the KEDO project because it is confident that the reactors will someday belong to a unified Korea. By contrast, Japan made its $1 billion commitment to KEDO grudgingly and has dragged its feet in meeting its obligations. In Japanese eyes, North Korea cannot be trusted to observe nuclear safety standards, and Tokyo fears another Chernobyl in Japan's backyard. Since Tokyo has already spent $400 million on the project, it is reluctant to see it scrapped entirely, but like Seoul, might accept a compromise limiting the project to one reactor.

 

The government-controlled Japan Petroleum Exploration Company (JAPEX) is Exxon-Mobil's principal partner in Sakhalin I, with a 30 percent stake. Therefore, if Prime Minister Koizumi's September 16, 2002, summit meeting with Kim Jong Il leads to a normalization of Japanese relations with Pyongyang, Japan might well support a pipeline from Sakhalin I through North Korea to the South as part of its rapprochement with Pyongyang.

 

Renegotiating the Agreed Framework is the key to improved South-North relations in 2003. At the same time, however, Seoul should press Washington to address North Korean security concerns by concluding a non-aggression agreement as a stopgap measure until a bilateral US-North Korean peace agreement can be concluded, formally ending the Korean War and replacing the 1953 Armistice. Such a US-North Korean agreement is the necessary precondition for a separate South-North agreement, unrelated to the Armistice, in which the South would formally acknowledge that the war is over--- half a century after Syngman Rhee refused to sign the Armistice and agreed to abide by it only when the United States bought him off with economic and military aid to the South that has now surpassed $20 billion, not to mention what has since become an open-ended U.S. military presence.

 

The most significant aspect of Kang's October 4 peace overture to the United States was that he did not demand a withdrawal of U.S. forces. All that he requested was a U.S. pledge not to stage a first strike against North Korea, including a nuclear first strike. If the United States refuses to give such a pledge, North Korean generals will understandably insist on developing a nuclear deterrent, and the responsibility for continued tension in the Korean peninsula will clearly rest with the Bush Administration and its supporters in Seoul.