NK Solution: Bilateral or Team Effort?

Via Brad DeLong

One of the clearest points of disagreement between President Bush and Senator Kerry in the debate last night was their views on how best to work toward eliminating North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The President argued that bilateral talks were a mistake, that by expanding the dialog to include China, South Korea, Russia, and Japan, we're in a better position to pressure North Korea. Kerry disagreed, insisting that he felt a bilateral approach will be more effective.

As Fred Kaplan points out, however, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan agree with Kerry on this one:

Kerry called for opening bilateral talks with North Korea to solve the problem.

President Bush said such talks would be a "big mistake." If we sat down one-on-one, he said, North Korea would walk out of the six-power talks, which also involve Japan, South Korea, Russia, and China. Bilaterals will accomplish nothing. Kerry replied that just because Bush says they'll accomplish nothing doesn't mean they will.

Point for Kerry. But it would have been a more solid point had Kerry noted that all the other participants in those six-power talks want the United States to have bilateral talks with North Korea.

Comments

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

Well sure, and you might want to mention that North Korea wants bi-lateral talks too. All the other parties want bi-lateral talks so they don't have to deal with the mess that is North Korea. That doesn't make it good diplomacy for the US.

North Korea also wants bi-lateral talks so that it doesn't have to deal with anyone else. That doesn't make it good diplomacy for the US.

There is something humourous however about Bush backing multi-lateral solutions on North Korea while Kerry advocates a unilateral solution.

Kerry apparently advocates multilateral action but unilateral diplomacy. Incoherent. How do you get multilateral action when you are doing the diplomacy by yourself?

Bush advocates multilateral diplomacy and unilateral action. Only marginally more coherent. It is at least plausible that you could negotiate with North Korea from a multilateral position, and when it breaks down you could act unilaterally. It probably won't actually work, but it at least isn't illogical.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

Whoops, I spoke too soon. As far as I can tell Kaplan is just wrong. According to the famously right-wing BBC :

"I'm quite confident that the six-part framework is a framework in which this matter will be dealt with for the foreseeable future, because it serves the interests of all parties," Mr Powell said.

He said that North Korea's neighbours in particular had "an even greater equity in seeing a denuclearised peninsula than does the United States".

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, standing at his side, said the "entire international community" agreed that the six-nation approach was the best way to deal with the problem.

I formally apologize for suggesting that China might be shirking its duty.

[crionna]

Were I China I might see multi-lateral talks as an oppportunity to trade off my support for NK (by way of forcing them to back down) for SK and Japan's assurance that they will not develop nuclear weapons capabilities thereby assuring that only they and an outside player (the US, who already has nuclear capability) are so armed in the region.

I'm almost to the point where I believe a nuclear Japan will be the only thing that forces China to use whatever power it has over NK. In that case, sure, bi-lateral talks are fine, right up until the Japanese test a nuke. Then it'll be China looking for multi-lateral talks to avoid "misunderstandings" in the region.

[praktike]

I don't think it's a question of bi- vs. multi- so much as not being willing to pay NK's price. At the end of the day, we have to essentially pay them not to build nuclear weapons, and the Bush administration is hoping it can scare or starve them into not building nuclear weapons.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

I think we would be willing to pay their price for them to not build nuclear weapons. The problem is that Bush doesn't want to pay their price for them to merely SAY they are not building nuclear weapons.

[Gromit]

There is something humourous however about Bush backing multi-lateral solutions on North Korea while Kerry advocates a unilateral solution.

How do you get from bilateral to unilateral, Sebastian? The words have entirely different meanings.