The Korean Peninsula nuclear issue will continue to have an impact on Northeast Asia regional security order. More than three decades ago since North Korea started to develop its nuclear programme, security on the Korean Peninsula has drawn a lot of regional and international attention. The negotiation of the Peninsular nuclear issue over the past years has undergone numerous rounds of ups and downs. The general situation appears that this issue has become more complicated to manage with North Korea's nuclear capacity getting more advanced.
The most recent big breakthrough regarding the negotiation of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula occurred upon former U.S. President Trump's tenure, during which, the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea had held two summits, which happened in Singapore and Vietnam respectively. The warm discussion between the two leaders was cooled down a bit due to their disagreement on denuclearization procedure and verification of denuclearization, yet both leaders kept a good faith in further talks when they left the Vietnam summit in late February 2019. A few months later in June 2019, Trump and Kim had a brief meeting in the demilitarized zone which separates the two Koreas, and agreed to restart the negotiations. The brief meeting also made Trump the first U.S. sitting president to set foot on the North Korean soil.
Since the U.S. President Biden assumed office in January 2021, due to the complexity of the U.S. domestic political situation as well as the changing international environment including the repercussions generated by the COVID-19 pandemic to the world over the past three years, the Biden Administration generally has slowed down the pace of negotiations concerning the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, and roughly for about one year and half after taking office had taken small steps to approach North Korea. South Korea in the meantime under then President Moon Jae-in had continued to play a mediating role in managing to move the discussions forward.
The South Korean side ever revealed that South Korea and the U.S. had briefly agreed on a framework for ending the Korean War status. To South Korea's claim, the Biden government expressed that the U.S. side was not opposing the idea of signing an End of War declaration, yet the U.S. and South Korea disagreed on the order, timing, and conditions for ending the war. The Biden Administration also expressed its interest in engaging with North Korea toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula by following a "step-by-step" approach.1
Meanwhile, to respond to South Korea's proposition, the general consensual idea of North Korean officials by then was that before talking about ending the Korean War, it was very significant for the relevant parties to end the hostile policies and measures and double standards, and to make efforts to facilitate good conditions for ending the war.2
Following the South Korean leadership transition in May 2022, South Korea has so far been trying a different approach, in contrast to the one adopted by the former South Korean government, in dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue. In the meantime, the Biden Administration has called for recovering negotiations with North Korea, yet the U.S. policies and position toward the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue haven't made any substantial adjustment. In August 2022, the U.S. and South Korea resumed their joint military exercises. Since then, the situation on the Korean Peninsular has been getting intense. The most recently concluded joint air force drills conducted by the U.S. and South Korea before the U.S. midterm election, and in the meantime North Korea's response to that have quickly driven the tension on the Korean Peninsula to a new high.
Generally, the above background roughly reflected the current situation on the Korean Peninsula. Against this backdrop, this research aims to explore further of the relevance of the North Korean nuclear issue to Northeast Asia regional security order and beyond. To meet this general purpose, it tends to more precisely address the following questions: how the Peninsula nuclear issue has evolved and will continue to develop in the years ahead? What major factors have affected the Peninsula peace process? Whether there could be any new measures to move the discussions forward toward the settlement of the North Korean nuclear issue? How likely the development of the Peninsula nuclear issue will affect Northeast Asia regional order and beyond in the future?
In order to better understand how the North Korean nuclear issue has developed to the current stage, this piece will firstly give an overview of the development of this issue in different historical periods. In the meantime, it will tend to develop assessment and analysis on the evolving nature of the issue, alongside the U.S. leadership transitions over the past more than three decades. It would maintain that leadership transitions as well as the policies and approaches taken by the leaders of the main concerned parties having a close relevance to the region have caused a significant impact on the Korean Peninsula peace process. Besides that, the changing global security environment, along with the leadership transitions over the past years, has also been a key factor in affecting the progress of the Korean Peninsula nuclear negotiations. Then, this research will share some alternative measures on how to move up the Peninsula peace process to the next level. Finally, it will foresee in what possible ways the issue can be settled, and in the meantime could have an impact on Northeast Asia regional security order.
1. Management of the North Korean Nuclear Issue in Different Historical Era by the U.S. Government
1.1 Origin of North Korea's Nuclear Programme & the U.S. Handling of It under the Clinton Administration
The primary concern for North Korea to develop nuclear weapons is rooted in the fear of being attacked by the United States. The mentality of fear can be traced back to the Korean War. The U.S. then President Harry Truman ever took into account using atomic bomb in the war. According to Duyeon Kim, since the Korean War, "they (North Koreans) felt that they needed to develop a capability that would deter an American attack", and "the only way for them to survive and not get attacked would be to develop the most powerful weapon on earth, which would be the nuclear bomb." 3
The development of North Korea's nuclear facilities came into real in the early 1980s. As assisted by the former Soviet Union, North Korea started to build nuclear power plant by then. In the very early stage, North Korea claimed that building nuclear power plant was for a peaceful purpose. By bearing this objective in mind, then in 1985 North Korea joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the signatories of which were committed to promoting peaceful cooperation on nuclear energy as well as to curbing the dissemination of nuclear weapons and technology.4
After the Cold War, as guided by the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed between the
U.S. then President George H. W. Bush and the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the
U.S. removed nukes from South Korea in September 1991.5 A few months later in January 1992, North Korea and South Korea also reached a deal, in line with which, they agreed to "not test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons."6
The end of the Cold War created a favourable condition for the U.S. to get North Korea to denuclearize. The 1990s under the U.S. former President Clinton's tenure can be a most critical period for settling down the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula.
By the end of the Cold War, the U.S. had gained a great proportion of audiences across the globe. In the early 1990s, the U.S. global influence along with its growing soft and hard power had reached a new high. In contrast to the U.S. influence and status, the end of the Cold War apparently put North Korea in an even weaker position. Also, North Korea's nuclear facilities by then were in the early stage of development, and its nuclear capacity was limited. Therefore, the U.S. obviously had a bigger advantage in setting the agenda for negotiations and in driving the outcomes of negotiations.
Against the above backdrop, right after taking office, the Clinton Administration had managed to move the negotiations with North Korea upward by applying a reconcilable approach. Even though there were discrepancies taking place occasionally, the general situation appeared to be under the U.S. government control; and both parties, North Korea and the U.S., also seemed to be more cooperative in jointly working on the nuclear issue.
In June 1994, the former U.S. President Jimmy Carter paid a visit to North Korea, which made him the first former U.S. leadership to visit North Korea. This visit also created a condition for the U.S. and North Korea to agree on something more concrete based on their previous negotiations. Four months later in October 1994, the two countries signed a deal, namely the Agreed Framework, in compliance with which, North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear programme; in turn, the U.S. committed to lift sanctions, provide North Korea with aid and oil, as well as help North Korea build two light-water reactors for civilian use.7
To fulfil the commitments underlined in the 1994 Agreed Framework, in March 1995, the United States together with Japan and...
