2007년 북한은? 북핵문제는?
After the Bouffant of Pyongyang
It is time to plan for the unthinkable: the collapse of North Korea
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The headache that is a nuclear North Korea is about to get worse. After its first nuclear test in October 2006, the regime of Kim Jong Il was hit with UN-sponsored moves that tightened financial sanctions, banned imports of luxury goods (the Kim regime had been the biggest customer for Hennessy’s top cognac) and strengthened surveillance of North Korea’s dealings in weapons-related material.
This policy of “malign neglect” is also an admission of impotence, which Mr Kim will now attempt to exploit—for instance, by agreeing to return to talks about dismantling its nuclear capability. Even so, the humiliation that China will suffer from being unable to influence its neighbour will lead it to tear up a friendship treaty with North Korea that dates from after the Korean war half a century ago. International pressure will grow for China to block the regime’s funds in Chinese banks. But for fear of chaos along its north-eastern border, China will not lightly cut off all the supplies of food and oil on which this miserable country depends.
Japan’s hard line against North Korea—including a total ban on imports—will give its new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, authority at home. But in South Korea, figuring out how to deal with Mr Kim will discredit the final year in office of President Roh Moo-hyun. While cutting humanitarian aid to the North, Mr Roh will cling to the only fruits of ten years of “sunshine policy”: the Kaesong industrial zone and the Mount Kumgang tourist enclave. Both provide hard currency for Mr Kim.
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 With hostility abroad and doubts about loyalty at home, Mr Kim, who may not be healthy, will become increasingly unpredictable |
As for the United States, Mr Kim’s defiance buries President George Bush’s liberation theology, first articulated in his “axis of evil” speech in 2002. Military retaliation is out of the question: America cannot risk provoking the North to unleash its huge conventional forces against South Korea; besides, it does not even know where all of Mr Kim’s underground nuclear facilities are.
So the United States will grudgingly accept North Korea as a nuclear power. (After all, Mr Kim would never do anything so suicidal as actually threaten to use his new weapons, would he?) It will satisfy itself with the narrower goal of limiting North Korea’s ability to spread nuclear technology or other unconventional weapons. Here, policing North Korea’s proliferation will prove quite effective, confounding sceptics.
Yet those who argue that this will keep Mr Kim in his box will get a shock. Proliferation was never Mr Kim’s chief aim, which has been to reshape the environment on the Korean peninsula in a way that allows him and his family to survive. Acquiring nuclear capability was central to this aim. So, too, is putting the interests of the army above everything else—including the economy and North Korea’s brutalised people.
This is also Mr Kim’s weak point, however. In the coming year, financial sanctions will hit hard, denying him the funds to keep the regime sweet, the army in particular. After floods last summer, food shortages will spread even to parts of the army, and disaffected army units will for the first time join a growing number of refugees escaping into China. Reports will reach Mr Kim of local baronies flouting central rule.
With hostility abroad and doubts about loyalty at home, Mr Kim, who may not be healthy, will become increasingly unpredictable. Since the alternative to ruling North Korea is not a cosy retirement in Gstaad, the tyrant’s actions will become irrational, within his frame of reference. He could loose off missiles, or threaten nuclear war. He could put his special forces on a war footing. Such actions will alarm; but they will also hint at the fragility of Mr Kim’s position.
Regime collapse, in other words, becomes possible. Yet in even the least bloody scenario (Mr Kim seeks asylum in China and the army refuses to fight in his name), the challenge of stabilising the country will be immense, and fraught with tensions. Under UN auspices, American and South Korean forces would move in swiftly to secure the North’s vast arsenals of conventional and unconventional weapons against an unravelling chain of command, while also mounting a humanitarian effort to help a hungry and traumatised population. China would also want to pour troops across the border, seeking the creation of a buffer state friendly to its interests. once the North was stabilised, South Korea would lead the North’s hugely costly reconstruction.
That’s the rosy picture. There are many grimmer ones. In 2007 it will be high time for North Korea’s neighbours and America to start talking about them.
이코노미스트誌‘북핵’ 2007년 전망
“이제 상상할 수 없었던 일, 즉 북한의 붕괴에 대비하는 계획을 세워야 할 시점이다.”
영국 주간 이코노미스트는 매년 연말에 발행하는 ‘세계 전망’ 2007년판에서 내년 북핵 문제를 둘러싸고 각국이 겪게 될 상황을 제시하며 이같이 주장했다. 그 제목 또한 ‘평양의 양배추머리(김정일 국방위원장) 이후’였다.
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▽한국=북핵 문제는 노무현 대통령의 임기 마지막 1년을 불신으로 얼룩지게 만들 것이다. 노 대통령은 인도적 대북 지원을 줄이면서 햇볕정책 10년의 유일한 성과인 개성공단과 금강산 관광 사업에 매달릴 것이다.
▽미국=북한에 대한 군사적 보복은 생각할 수 없다. 북한이 남한을 보복 공격할 수 있는 데다 미국은 지하 핵시설의 위치도 모른다. 따라서 미국은 마지못해 북한을 핵보유국으로 인정하고 핵 기술이나 대량살상무기 확산을 억제하는 작은 목표에 만족할 것이다.
▽중국=북한에 영향력을 행사할 수 없다는 굴욕감으로 반세기 전 북한과 맺은 우호조약을 파기할 것이다. 중국 은행들의 북한 자금을 봉쇄하라는 국제적 압력에 직면하겠지만 국경에서 초래될 혼란(대규모 탈북 사태)이 우려돼 식량과 석유 공급을 끊지는 않을 것이다.
그렇다면 북한은 어떨까.
이코노미스트는 우선 “금융제재는 자금줄을 막음으로써 군부를 달래기 어렵게 만들 것”이라며 “식량난은 이제 군부에까지 퍼져 군인들이 중국행 난민대열에 합류하고 지방에서 반(反)김정일 세력이 나타날 것”이라고 예측했다.
이어지는 북한 붕괴 시나리오는 다음과 같다.
“내부의 충성심이 약화되는 상황에서 김정일은 점점 더 예측 불가능하게 될 것이다. 스위스의 크슈타트와 같은 휴양지로 도피할 수도 없기 때문에 그는 미사일을 발사하거나 핵전쟁을 일으키겠다고 위협할 수 있고 특수부대에 전시체제를 발령할 수도 있다.
이런 행동은 결국 김정일 정권의 취약성을 시사하는 것이다. 가장 덜 살벌한 시나리오, 즉 김 국방위원장은 중국의 은신처로 도피하고 군부는 전쟁을 거부하는 시나리오조차 붕괴 이후 북한을 안정시키는 일이 엄청난 과제가 될 것이다.
한국과 미국은 유엔의 지휘 아래 북한의 재래식 및 대량살상무기를 안전하게 확보하는 한편 기아에 처한 주민들에게 식량을 지원한다. 중국은 자국에 우호적인 완충국가(buffer state)를 만들기 위해 국경지역에 군대 투입을 원할 것이다.”
그러나 이코노미스트는 “이것은 낙관적인 시나리오이며 이보다 더욱 비관적인 상황이 전개될 수도 있다”고 지적했다.