Font size: 
With the restored support of South Korea and that of Japan, the United States now can consider itself better positioned to drive its foreign policy in Northeast Asia as well as on the Korean peninsula. However, despite this brighter view, if the United States fails to base its foreign policy vision and schemes on a clear understanding of the realities and requirements for peace in the region, the U.S. political vision is doomed to failure.
Ruediger Frank, professor of East Asian political economy at the University of Vienna, has pointed out that after the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War in 1953, the increasing significance of Northeast Asia within the bipolar world order sustained peace in this area. The collapse of the socialist bloc, namely the withdrawal of one side of the power balance, created a power vacuum, however. Since then, the region has been in the process of reconstructing its power structures.
In these ongoing circumstances, the current six-party framework has carried the grave task of achieving denuclearization on the Korean peninsula, the goal that lies at the heart of peace in Northeast Asia. This framework has high potential for evolving into a multilateral security cooperation system that would continue promoting peace and stability in Northeast Asia even after the talks achieve a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.
There is no doubt that the development of the current framework into such a system substantially depends on the U.S. role. The United States, which has more valid political clout than any other country in terms of peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia, could pose the biggest obstacle to a new framework.
The main obstacle stems from the traditional policy approach the United States has taken in its relationship with East Asia. U.S. foreign policy in this region has been based on a hub-and-spoke concept, with the United States -- the hub -- positioned to wield its power through its bilateral relationships with Asian countries -- the spokes. Based on this platform, it is natural that the United States would have no incentive to support, or may respond negatively to, the emergence of a regional organization in this area. It is likely to prefer a framework in which it deems it can enjoy an upper hand.
Gerald Curtis, professor of political science at Columbia University in New York, has analyzed this in a report to the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry, a Japan-based research group. Curtis writes that the U.S. hub-and-spoke policy assumes that if a regional organization emerges in East Asia -- though Washington thinks the odds of this happening are low -- it could function unfavorably in terms of U.S. interests.
Curtis disagrees with this assumption, arguing that East Asian nations have a critical interest in a continued U.S. political, economic and security presence in the region. For instance, Japan considers its alliance with the United States as a balance against an increasingly powerful China. The Japan-U.S. alliance also provides China with a substantial security comfort zone, because the alliance weakens Japan's motivation to build up its own military forces.
Furthermore, Curtis claims that the hub-and-spoke approach is no longer effective as a strategy for pursuing U.S. interests in East Asia and that the United States should positively consider new multilateral approaches in promoting security discussions with East Asian countries. The six-party talks that include North Korea are a good example of such a model.
As shown in the agreement reached on Feb. 13 last year in the six-party talks, the reversal of the U.S. administration's stance -- from the usual hard line to engagement with North Korea -- helped the talks to achieve meaningful progress in denuclearization. U.S. President George W. Bush actually made the decision under pressure from the seriously worsening situations faced by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, the resulting progress has in effect lessened the security threat to the North American continent, with the United States paying a low price. This could mean that if a regional multilateral framework is given the opportunity to negotiate constructively, as it was designed to -- not unilaterally driven by the United States -- it could still contribute to U.S. strategic interests as well as those of the other stakeholders.
Members of the six-party talks share a common concern that this framework may be the last chance for achieving the current goal. This expectation has imposed on each member the collective pressure to protect this framework -- even with some degree of tolerance of Pyongyang's lapses and irregularities.
Now it seems that Washington is willing to respect the six-party framework. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on her way to Germany for talks on Iran's nuclear program on Jan. 22, reprimanded Jay Lefkowitz, Bush's special envoy on North Korean human rights, who recently argued that North Korea cannot be trusted to abandon its nuclear weapons.
She said of Lefkowitz, "He doesn't know what's going on in the six-party talks and he certainly has no say in the six-party talks." Her response was wise, clearing up possible confusion among the six-party members that the United States could change its stance toward North Korea over its failure to meet the Dec. 31 deadline for the disclosure of its nuclear programs.
The United States should continue this prudent approach in the current talks. Even after the six-party talks fulfill their goal, such an approach will be all the more necessary. The United States would be wise to undertakes to fill the power vacuum in Northeast Asia with a multilateral security cooperation system, as the political structure most conducive to U.S. strategic interests.
--
(Lee Jae Young is a freelance writer and citizen reporter for Ohmynews International. He has a master's degree from Cornell University Law School in Ithaca, New York. ©Copyright Lee Jae Young.)
