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20 décembre 2011
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- Doté récentes WordPress Messages Widget développement par YDUne rivalité Brillant: Victor Cha et David Kang
David Kang (à gauche) avec Victor Cha, en dehors de l'Institut d'études coréennes CU.
Dans une ère de politique partisane et de la surenchère, «faucon» Victor Cha et "colombe" David Kang-deux meilleurs experts en Corée-ont écrit leurs propres contre-récit.
par Julie Ha
photographies d'Eric Sueyoshi
Pourriez-vous un script d'une rivalité de plus parfait?
Victor D. Cha, coulé comme le faucon, les suspects en Corée du Nord veut être traitée comme un État nucléaire. Juxtaposé avec lui est David C. Kang, La Colombe, qui pense que le Nord va nucléaire parce que c'est l'insécurité sur une américaine préemptive menace. Entrez, droit de la scène, Cha, en faveur de la diplomatie coercitive par des négociations et des sanctions. Il brandit un bâton. De gauche stade, Kang, qui veut ouvrir la nation isolée au capitalisme et aux idées occidentales, conduit en faisant miroiter une carotte.
Analogies figuratives côté, Cha et Kang sont, en fait, des joueurs très positionné sur la scène du monde réel de la politique étrangère. Adversaires redoutables avec des opinions divergentes sur la façon dont les Etats-Unis devraient répondre à la Corée du Nord a pour ambition d'armes nucléaires, une question qui a tourmenté ce pays depuis deux décennies, chacun a assumé un rôle important dans la formation de la politique du gouvernement et de la recherche savante.
Un professeur de relations internationales à l'Université Georgetown, Cha autrefois servi comme conseiller clé sur la politique de la Corée du Nord au président d'alors George W. Bush. Kang, qui enseigne les relations internationales et des affaires à l'Université de Californie du Sud, a été consultant pour divers organismes gouvernementaux, depuis l'administration Clinton.
Surnommé par un chercheur principal comme «les meilleurs jeunes scientifiques qui étudient les politiques en Corée», les deux hommes ont émergé dans les dernières années que deux des principaux commentateurs de la nation sur les questions de politique publique en Corée. Lorsque la Corée du Sud blâmé une torpille nord-coréenne pour le naufrage de son navire Mars navale, tuant 46 marins, NPR invités Cha sur les ondes pour expliquer les motifs possibles. Lorsque les Nations Unies Conseil de sécurité est sorti avec une déclaration ambiguë qui ne condamnent pas tout à fait le naufrage, le New York Times a demandé Kang pour interpréter sa signification.
Pour jouer jusqu'à cette notion de rivalité, les savants se targuer tit-for-tat curriculum vitae. Chacun a publié trois livres et de jouer un rôle éminent en tant qu'ambassadeurs de bourses asiatiques, avec Kang diriger USC d'Etudes Institut coréen Cha et dirige le programme d'études asiatiques à Georgetown.
Les contemporains ont suivi des chemins parallèles, datant de leur patrimoine comme American fils nés des premières vagues d'immigrants-coréen. Ils étaient de retour-arrière boursiers Fulbright en Corée, où ils ont également étudié à l'institut de recherche même. En fait, il était alors une bourse Fulbright que Kang, un étudiant diplômé de Berkeley, d'abord eu vent de son université de Columbia à base homologue, qui avait quitté quelques semaines de son arrivée.
David Kang
"Donc je me présente au bureau Fulbright et l'institut de recherche, et d'autres Américains coréens sont comme, 'Victor Cha, Victor Cha, Victor Cha," décrit Kang, 45 ans, d'un ton ventilateur de se moquer. «Ils ont aimé le mec. Alors je le détestais avant que j'aie jamais rencontré. "
Cha, lui aussi, avait été informé de son collègue libéral avant leur première rencontre. «J'ai entendu il y avait ce jeune communiste formés", a plaisanté le 48-year-old.
La paire aurait même duel hawk-vs-colombe éditoriaux publiés par le New York Times en 2002 exactement un dimanche à part.
Mais, comme il s'avère, ce concours idéal n'est pas ce qu'il semble. Ces prétendus opposants défient la tendance en cette ère de la politique hyperpartisan et aller à l'encontre d'un monde académique qui voit souvent des savants tentent de outbuild l'autre empire. Il ya quinze ans, ils ont décidé d'écrire leur propre récit, et il va quelque chose comme ceci:
«Nos idées ne sont pas forcément d'accord", a déclaré Cha lors d'une interview conjointe avec Kang, «afin que nous débat."
»Et apprendre des choses les uns des autres", a ajouté Kang.
«Et aussi pousser les uns les autres», a déclaré Cha. "Vous regardez ces gens brillants dans leur domaine, et certains d'entre eux ne parle même pas de l'autre."
«C'est tellement autodestructrice», a déclaré Kang.
Après sa première réunion dans le milieu des années 1990, ils plutôt fait un pacte informel pour joindre leurs forces, et leur décision personnelle a donné d'importants avantages publics. En 2003, la paire co-écrit un livre très applaudi qui a eu une approche bipartisane de la question controversée de traiter avec une centrale nucléaire en Corée du Nord (avec une version mise à jour prévue) et, plus tôt cette année, a lancé un projet de recherche sur le long terme la réunification coréenne questions axées sur les décideurs politiques aidant.
Les deux collaborations parlent au désir des savants partagé pour recadrer la façon dont les décideurs et le grand public considère l'un des enjeux les plus importants de la politique étrangère de notre temps: la réalisation de la paix sur la péninsule coréenne. Il arrive aussi d'être une vision ambitieuse que peut-être contribué à cette rivalité apparente céder la place à une alliance brillante.
* * *
Kang a rappelé une conversation qu'il a eue avec son homologue conservateur autour d'un verre, après une conférence universitaire en 1995. Tous deux ont été professeurs assistants à l'époque. «Nous avons été« jeunes gens en colère "essayer de faire notre marque sur le monde», décrit Kang, dont le style d'animation de contrastes parler avec Cha manières douces comportement. »Et Victor dit:« Vous savez, le domaine est si grand, il ya tellement de choses à faire. On pourrait passer le reste de notre carrière en compétition les uns avec les autres, mais si nous coopérons, nous allons tous les deux être ainsi mieux lotis. "
Leurs concurrentes 2002 op-eds dans le New York Times, ironiquement, ont marqué leur première collaboration du public. Ils avaient conspiré pour les écrire en réponse aux événements des deux côtés de la DMZ qui ont été déclenchant des alarmes à Washington.
Cela Octobre, la Corée du Nord a révélé un programme secret d'armes nucléaires, incitant les Etats-Unis d'accuser Pyongyang de violer leurs 1994 un accord de non-prolifération. Pendant ce temps, l'alliance complexe et parfois ténue entre les Etats-Unis et la Corée du Sud se sentait fragile, comme les Sud-Coréens ont conduit des manifestations au cours de l'acquittement de deux soldats américains impliqués dans un accident de véhicule blindé qui a tué deux écolières coréennes.
Washington semblait le prendre comme un camouflet quand les électeurs du Sud qui a choisi le Décembre de gauche Roh Moo-hyun que leur prochain président sur un candidat considéré comme plus pro-américain.
Victor Cha
"Nous avons eu une vraie crise", a rappelé Cha, qui consulte toujours pour le gouvernement et agit comme conseiller au Centre DC-d'études stratégiques et internationales de réflexion. «David et moi en avons parlé, et j'ai eu un point de vue, qui était un peu plus conservateur, et il avait une autre vision, qui a été un peu plus libérale. Et nous avons dit, «Très bien, nous allons écrire l'éditorial sur elle." Nous étions jeunes universitaires simplement tremper nos pieds dans la présente. "
Kang cru du Nord, d'ici là, identifié comme un «axe du mal" membre par le président George W. Bush, avait véritables problèmes de sécurité que les Etats-Unis pourraient attaquer la nation isolée. Dans son éditorial, il a exhorté une politique profondément changé américain qui a fourni des garanties de sécurité pour les relations Nord et normalisé politique entre les deux nations, toujours techniquement en guerre. Il a également interprété la Corée du Sud manifeste anti-américanisme comme un signe d'anxiété que les Etats-Unis pourraient annuler les gains les deux Corées avait fait pendant une décennie de «Sunshine Policy» l'engagement.
Cha a rétorqué que la Corée du Nord jusqu'en respecté l'accord de non-prolifération, une politique d'isolement et de confinement était justifiée. Dans son éditorial, il a publié un peu d'amour difficile pour la Corée du Sud, qu'il croyait à tort de blâmer les politiques américaines, plutôt que la Corée du Nord "truculence,« pour que la menace de la guerre sur la péninsule.
En dépit de leurs désaccords, les savants aussi commisération sur le manque de débat public éclairé sur la question nucléaire. Les experts et les idéologues qui ont simplement rejeté le Nord et le dirigeant Kim Jong-il comme «mal» et «fou» avaient tendance à dominer le débat qui se joue sur de nouvelles stations de câble et des journaux op-ed pages. Kang a rappelé certains de la
camp de l'extrême droite ont même parlé de possibles frappes américaines chirurgicale dans le Nord. (En Mars 2003, les forces américaines en Irak allait descendre, un autre membre axe.)
Les spécialistes de Corée, il a vu que leur devoir de faire pression pour une compréhension nuancée de la véritable source du comportement de la Corée du Nord et pragmatique des stratégies américaines de traiter avec elle. Ils ont compris les enjeux étaient trop élevés pour en faire moins: Si la guerre éclate sur la péninsule, les coûts estimés seraient un million de victimes, y compris 52 000 blessés de l'armée américaine, et 1 billion de dollars en dommages matériels, selon l'évaluation une militaire américaine officielle.
À la lumière des enjeux tels, ils ont essayé de déplacer un débat constructif avant avec leur livre de 2003 nucléaire en Corée du Nord: Un débat sur les stratégies d'engagement, qui comme leurs éditoriaux, ont présenté leur at-il dit / il dit arguments dans les chapitres alternés.
"Nous avons pensé que ce serait une bonne idée de faire quelque chose ensemble là où vous avez deux personnes informées sur le sujet, qui ont des opinions différentes et pourrait encore avoir une discussion rationnelle à ce sujet", a déclaré Cha, «ne parle pas seulement ...»
«Parler devant l'autre," Kang fini.
Plus tard, Ashton Carter, ancien secrétaire adjoint à la Défense pour la sécurité internationale dans l'administration Clinton, appellent la Corée du Nord nucléaire "le traitement le plus réfléchi et analytique des stratégies pratiques pour faire face à la Corée du Nord qui existe en version imprimée." Copies de celui-ci pourrait être trouvée sur le plan prenant alors secrétaire d'Etat américain Colin Powell à la Corée et dans les mains de puis-conseiller en sécurité nationale Condoleezza Rice.
Charles «Jack» Pritchard, président de l'Institut coréen de l'économie et un émissaire américain spécial pour l'ancien négociations nord-coréen, a travaillé avec les deux Cha et Kang, qu'il appelait «top-notch." Il dit que leur livre était «rafraîchissante» dans ce les érudits débattent également écrit des chapitres partagé avec leurs points d'accord. Cha et Kang, considéré comme modérés dans leurs opinions, ont pris des directions opposées à la même conclusion-que, aussi répréhensibles que les actions de la Kim Jong-il le régime étaient, son comportement était compréhensible, même rationnelle, et donc, il y avait un chemin pour diplomatie. Ils couramment demandé à Washington de poursuivre une certaine forme d'engagement avec le Nord. Pour Kang, il pourrait ouvrir une voie progressive d'un changement de régime; pour Cha, l'engagement pourrait être utilisé pour tester si Kim Jong-il serait vraiment désarmer.
Les co-auteurs ont également convenu que le régime nord-coréen n'est pas durable et que la Corée réunifiée était inévitable. Compte tenu de cela, ils ont dit qu'il serait bénéfique pour les Etats-Unis à redéfinir son alliance avec la Corée du Sud en fonction de leurs principes partagés, et pas seulement leurs menaces communes.
Une tournée de promotion dans 13 villes leur a donné une chance de partager leurs vues avec un public diversifié, des suiveurs de la politique étrangère aux auditeurs de la radio parler.
"La chose la plus importante a été pour qu'il y ait deux personnes qui parlent à ce sujet dans un très rationnelle, instruite que le général [du public] pouvait comprendre», a déclaré Cha », de sorte qu'ils ne penseraient pas [la Corée du Nord] est juste un fou pays, période. "
* * *
Cha irait de l'écriture et l'enseignement sur la politique étrangère américaine à conseiller le président de la Maison-Blanche, trois ans, il passait à coucher avec un Blackberry sur sa poitrine. En tant que spécialiste d'Asie pour le Conseil de sécurité nationale de Bush entre 2004 et 2007, il a été responsable de la politique en Corée du Sud, Japon, Australie, Nouvelle-Zélande et les nations insulaires du Pacifique.
Il aurait une chance d'exploiter ses connaissances profondes sur la Corée quand il est devenu le négociateur adjoint aux pourparlers nucléaire nord-coréen, aidant alors le négociateur en chef, Christopher Hill. Bien que les faucons sont connus pour des moyens de pression, Cha est crédité de convaincre Bush de permettre à des entretiens bilatéraux avec le Nord comme un moyen de tester les intentions du régime, marquant un tournant majeur dans la politique de l'administration républicaine.
La fois d'auto-professé sa tour d'ivoire universitaire serait aussi prendre son premier voyage en Corée du Nord en avril 2007, de rejoindre le Nouveau-Mexique, Bill Richardson, gouverneur de négocier le retour des restes de militaires américains tués pendant la guerre de Corée. Après trois jours à Pyongyang, ils s'étaient rendus à la DMZ et ensuite pris un hélicoptère dans Séoul, sa silhouette pleine de gratte-ciel.
"J'avais vu le ciel de Séoul un million de fois, mais je me souviens à ce moment, j'ai vraiment senti», décrit le New York Cha-né, dont le défunt père a étudié les affaires à la Columbia et sa mère formés à l'école Juilliard. «Je pensais, ces Coréens du Sud et moi ne sommes pas génétiquement différents de ceux dans le Nord. Ce n'est pas comme les gens du Nord ne peuvent pas faire les mêmes choses, c'est juste la politique qui les ont empêchés de le faire.
"Et je savais toutes les stats, je peux réciter toutes les données démographiques sur lesquelles des enfants nord-coréens qui sont âgés de mes fils sont quelques kilos pouces de moins ou beaucoup plus légers que les Sud-Coréens. Mais que l'on expérience d'avoir simplement chassés de Pyongyang, passé ces domaines complètement stérile, puis d'afficher Séoul du ciel ... je me sentais à la fois la colère et la tristesse dans le même temps. "
* * *
Lorsque Kang dit des choses comme les Etats-Unis, et pas seulement la Corée du Nord, a échoué à respecter ses fin de la négociation dans le cadre de l'accord de 1994 nucléaire, en retard sur l'ouverture d'un promise réacteur à eau légère, par exemple, il note que pour certains, ça sonne comme "vous êtes des excuses pour défendre ou de la Corée du Nord."
«C'est un odieux régime hideux, que j'ai, comme tout le monde, aimeraient voir disparaître", a déclaré Kang. "Si la Corée du Nord a peur du capitalisme et de peur, si plusieurs de ses gens à apprendre sur le monde extérieur, plus faible que le régime obtienne, alors nous devrions les saturer avec le capitalisme. Nous devrions faire tout notre possible pour le commerce avec eux. Les Nord-Coréens en apprendre davantage sur le monde extérieur, et les revenus augmentent. Ce serait la meilleure, la transition la plus facile.
«J'ai toujours cru que si vous résolvez le problème de la Corée du Nord-économie, l'ouverture de la culture c'est une façon de faire des progrès sur la question nucléaire." La Californie du Nord-académiques élevés grandi histoires audition de son père physicien À propos ville natale de ce dernier en Chongju, dans ce qui est maintenant la Corée du Nord, à partir de laquelle sa famille a fui en 1947. «Un de mes plus grands rêves serait de prendre papa et voiture de Séoul pour voir sa maison", a déclaré Kang, dont la mère est blanche et a notamment étudié la langue coréenne et de l'histoire.
Bien qu'il a fait des séances d'information du département d'État, la CIA et la National Security Agency, l'ancien professeur de Dartmouth dit qu'il ne peut lui-même d'image qui travaillent directement pour le gouvernement, comme Cha fait. Kang a penché davantage vers les universités, et en fait, alors que ses pairs a travaillé à la Maison Blanche, Kang enseigné comme professeur de sciences politiques en visite à Stanford, a écrit un livre sur la Chine comme une puissance montante en Asie et a été élevé au rang de professeur titulaire à Dartmouth.
De retour à Georgetown en 2007, Cha a apparemment pris préavis.
«J'ai été seulement un professeur agrégé, j'ai été un livre derrière lui, et il avait un autre article publié dans une de ces grandes revues de science politique", a rappelé Cha, comme Kang a éclaté de rire.
«Ma femme dit:« Mais vous venez de travailler pendant trois ans à la Maison Blanche. " J'ai dit, 'Cela signifie que rien dans le milieu universitaire. "
L'ancien conseiller de Bush pourrait avoir continué à travailler exclusivement dans le monde politique, mais des réalisations académiques Kang aidé le pousser à nouveau s'engager pleinement dans le milieu universitaire.
"Je pense que je pousse [David] d'en faire plus dans le domaine des politiques publiques», a déclaré Cha, dont le troisième, même prolifique livre d'ailleurs été publié en 2009. «C'est une relation de collaboration, mais nous avons aussi pousser les uns les autres."
* * *
C'est aussi une relation qui fonctionne parfois sur la télépathie. Il ya deux ans, après Kim Jong-il a subi un accident vasculaire cérébral, la spéculation que le régime nord-coréen s'effondrerait abondaient. Sans coordination les uns avec les autres, Cha, dans un éditorial d'un journal coréen, et Kang, lors d'un forum à Washington DC, a soulevé la même préoccupation: Bien que les gouvernements, y compris les Etats-Unis et la Corée du Sud, ont préparé court terme des plans d'urgence militaire devrait l' l'effondrement du Nord, personne n'a été d'analyser à long terme des enjeux sociaux, économiques et politiques associés à l'intégration des deux pays très différents.
«Que [la réunification] qui se passera demain ou 50 ans à partir de maintenant, la réflexion sur ces questions est importante", a déclaré Kang. «Le lendemain, nous aurons à faire face à la migration interne: Est-ce que les Nord-Coréens 22000000 souhaitez déplacer vers la Chine et la Corée du Sud, ou resteront-ils [où ils sont]? Comment gérez-vous que, avec la santé publique [questions]? Si une «Corée du Nord» disparaît, ce qui arrive à ses traités? "
«Que faites-vous avec l'armée nord-coréenne?", A ajouté Cha, se référant à un million de personne armée.
Cette année, les chercheurs ont lancé le projet en Corée, une initiative de recherche axé sur l'examen de ces questions complexes. Plus de deux jours en août à l'USC, ils ont organisé une conférence privée, correspondant savants Corée avec des experts qui ont travaillé sur des questions telles que la justice transitionnelle en Afrique du Sud, la réforme des entreprises d'Etat en Chine, résoudre les tensions ethniques dans l'ex-Yougoslavie et après -guerre en Irak, pour voir quelles leçons peuvent être utiles pour la péninsule. Cha et dit Kang nombreuses personnes ont tendance à se concentrer sur le modèle de la réunification allemande, mais le cas de l'Irak après l'invasion américaine peut
être plus instructif.
"Une des leçons de l'Irak était que le manque de voix irakienne [à l'effort de reconstruction] a été une énorme erreur», dit Kang, référencement observations faites par un participant à la conférence impliqués dans les efforts de reconstruction en Irak. «Dans ce [la réunification] processus, vous devez avoir les voix en Corée du Nord, pas seulement les dirigeants, mais trouver au niveau du village, quels sont les besoins de la communauté.
"Nous savons par l'exemple d'après-guerre en Irak qu'aucune planification mène au chaos."
À la fin de ce qu'ils anticipent sera un projet de trois ans, financé dans sa première année par la Fondation de Corée, un organisme indépendant affilié au Ministère coréen des affaires étrangères, Cha et Kang prévoyez d'avoir un ensemble de problèmes et de documents couvrant des solutions sur un large éventail de questions de réunification et les tâches pour la Corée, les Etats-Unis et d'autres parties concernées dans la région.
Cha a déclaré que le gouvernement n'a pas le temps de faire ce genre de recherche, mais quand vient le temps, les décideurs devront les données pour aider à prendre des décisions éclairées. «Si [la réunification] arrive, ce sera le changement le plus important en Asie depuis la révolution en Chine", at-il dit. «Imaginez une péninsule sans tension, comment positive qui est."
* * *
L'approche de l'collaborateurs aux questions de politique étrangère controversée semble être la fixation d'un contre-tendance nouvelle à une époque de nouvelles stations séparées de câble pour la gauche politique et droit. Empruntant Playbook bipartisane nucléaire nord-coréen, deux autres chercheurs de présenter leurs vues duel en Inde, au Pakistan, et la bombe: Débattre de la stabilité nucléaire en Asie du Sud, publié plus tôt cette année.
Cha et Kang, en fait, sera reteaming sur une édition révisée de leur avant-gardiste livre, la mise à jour des événements depuis 2003, une période qui a vu la Corée du Nord procéder à son premier essai nucléaire, l'aggravation des tensions sur la péninsule et a décroché négociations nucléaires avec l' Etats-Unis Comme cette question a été d'aller sous presse, un nord-coréen ministre des Affaires étrangères a annoncé à l'Assemblée générale des Nations Unies que le régime des plans pour renforcer son arsenal nucléaire pour dissuader une menace américaine. Juste un jour plus tôt, lors d'une grande
convention politique à Pyongyang, le fils cadet de Kim Jong-il a été élu pour ses postes de leadership première dirigeante du Parti des travailleurs ». Le déménagement confirmé pour de nombreux observateurs en Corée du Nord que le chef malade ouvre un chemin pour la succession dynastique pour le fils de Kim Jong-eun.
Cha travaille également sur un livre distinct expliquant l'énigmatique Corée du Nord pour une audience générale, tandis que Kang derniers communiqués de son sur les relations internationales en Asie pré-19e siècle ce mois-marquage quatrième texte de chaque savant, et non pas qui est soit garder la trace.
Aussi stratégique que cette paire de partenariat a prouvé, une véritable amitié qu'il ancres. Ils correspondent presque quotidiennement et profiter d'une chimie qui les a souvent la finition de l'autre phrase et engagés dans nervurage mutuelle. Cha assisté au mariage de Kang et a rencontré la plupart de la famille élargie de ce dernier, mais il plaisanté, il ne laisse pas son collègue, qui a une fille, près de sa femme et ses deux fils.
John S. Park, un associé de recherche principal sur les questions de l'Asie à l'Institut Nord-Est des États-Unis de la Paix, a reconnu la relation comme inhabituel. "Vous regardez comment les choses sont assez partisane aujourd'hui, les gens ont tendance à se concentrer sur les moyens éventail de nier ou de rejeter l'autre des points de vue", a dit Park. «Mais [David et Victor] ont maintenu une amitié ainsi que d'une relation professionnelle. Ils peuvent être franc à propos de l'autre des points de vue et de le faire d'une manière constructive. "
Notant leurs "objectifs communs de la dénucléarisation pacifique et la réunification de la péninsule", a appelé leur dynamique »de la vieille école, dans le bon sens."
Mais ne vous attendez pas à ces collègues de la vieille école à partager le même domaine sportif. Cha appelé soccer, obsession personnelle de Kang, le plus ennuyeux à regarder.
"Neuf personnes courir courir après une balle blanche», a déclaré le ventilateur de Georgetown Hoyas de football sèchement.
"Onze", Kang corrigée de son collègue.
À juste titre, le professeur USC utilisé une analogie sportive pour caractériser sa relation avec Cha: «Nous sommes tous deux utilisés pour la concurrence vraiment, vraiment dur, puis le laisser sur le terrain."
En effet, peut-être ce que cette part paire est une rivalité, après tout. Mais la façon dont ce faucon et jouer colombe, il n'ya pas de perdants.Articles connexes
Sur cette photo 1997, les étudiants et les résidents planter du riz dans une galette de riz nouvellement reconstruit plus ravagé par les inondations des terres agricoles dans le village de sugu, Kujang County, à environ 90 minutes au nord de Pyongyang. Un habitant du quartier à la fois admis à la bouillie végétale manger tout en essayant de surmonter la pénurie alimentaire dans le pays. Crédit photo: Hyungwon Kang Le dilemme alimentaire Comment faim est la Corée du Nord, et comment l'aide alimentaire avec sursis devrait être? Corée du spécialiste David C. Kang donne un aperçu de l'embarras de l'aide alimentaire en Corée du Nord. Quelle est la gravité de la situation alimentaire en Corée du Nord? Il ya un débat considérable à quel point la situation est. Les Nations Unies Programme alimentaire mondial, ainsi que deux autres agences de l'ONU, ont publié une étude concluant que potentiellement 6 millions de Coréens du Nord, un quart de la population, ont besoin d'aide alimentaire d'urgence, citant un hiver rigoureux dans lequel certaines cultures ont diminué de 44 pour cent par rapport aux niveaux attendus. Mais alors même que le Programme alimentaire mondial a lancé un appel international pour l'aide, il ya ceux qui s'opposent à une telle aide pour une variété de raisons. Certains soutiennent que le comportement du régime nord-coréen doit changer avant toute aide est donnée, tandis que d'autres soutiennent la situation n'est pas si désespérée, citant des preuves que l'armée nord-coréenne a stocké jusqu'à 1 million de tonnes de riz, en grande partie éventuellement détournés de l'aide organisations. Et d'autres encore croient que le régime est tout simplement économiser jusqu'à sa nourriture pour l'année 2012, quand elle prévoit une grande fête pour le 100e anniversaire de naissance de Kim Il-Sung. Il ya, cependant, des preuves que les prix alimentaires sont en hausse en Corée du Nord et augmentent plus vite que les prix alimentaires mondiaux. Ce n'est pas seulement un signe que la demande dépasse l'offre, mais aussi que la situation en Corée du Nord n'est pas simplement un reflet des prix alimentaires mondiaux. C'est, bien que les élites du Nord-coréen et les militaires ont peu de chances de souffrir, certains citoyens ordinaires peuvent être confrontés à de graves pénuries. À la fin mai, les Etats-Unis a envoyé une équipe d'enquête à la Corée du Nord pour évaluer la situation, et le rapport de l'équipe se prépare en ce moment. Quel est le courant sud-coréen et la position du gouvernement américain sur la fourniture d'aide alimentaire? L'orientation globale du gouvernement américain a été l'un des «patience stratégique», qui signifie ignorer et contenant la Corée du Nord jusqu'à ce qu'elle fait d'abord des mesures concrètes pour redescendre à partir du comportement belliqueux de ces dernières années et de montrer les mesures destinées à freiner la programme d'armes nucléaires. Les Etats-Unis n'a pas non plus encore pris de décision sur la situation humanitaire. Approche de la Corée du Sud est généralement le même: le président Lee Myung-bak a éliminé la plupart des programmes économiques et l'aide au Nord jusqu'à ce qu'il s'excuse pour attaquer la Corée du Sud navire de guerre Cheonan et le bombardement de Yeonpyeong île l'année dernière. Dans cette approche globale, cependant, il ya une volonté de potentiellement fournir une aide humanitaire au Nord si la situation est désastreuse suffisant et si le Nord rencontre certaines conditions préalables. Sur cette photo 1995, les résidents attendent à un arrêt de bus de Pyongyang. Crédit photo: Hyungwon Kang nier la Corée du Nord conduisent l'aide alimentaire à l'agitation populaire contre le gouvernement? ...
It's been 60 years since the start of the Korean War, which left families and a nation painfully divided. While a great deal of time has since been devoted to crisis scenarios involving the heavily armed peninsula, isn't it time to plan for a longer-term reality: reunification? December 10, 1950. Thousands of Koreans fleeing Pyongyang brave the icy waters of the Taedong River. Photo by Bettmann Collection/CORBIS. By David C. Kang The tragedy of the Korean War is well known. My own family fled North Korea in 1947, leaving everything behind, from a village in which we had lived since the 16th century. No one has been back to our hometown since then. Our story is not unique: whether they fled the North or lived through the war, almost every Korean family has been affected over the years. The bitter, costly and bloody war between North and South Korea was an attempt to unify the peninsula by force. Sixty years later, the two sides remain locked in a bitter and tense relationship marked more by confrontation than by reconciliation. And the recent sinking of South Korean naval vessel Cheonan off the west coast of Korea on March 26 has only raised tensions. With evidence pointing to a North Korean torpedo as the cause (the North has flatly denied the charge), some may wonder whether it even makes sense to talk about the two countries coming together when they seem so poised to destroy each other. The truth is, unification is more likely to occur from a collapse of the North Korean ruling regime, rather than from a war or sudden invasion. …
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Op-Ed Contributor
China's Newest Province?
By VICTOR CHA
Publié: Décembre 19, 2011
Washington
Alex Nabaum
Nouvelles connexes
Héritier susceptibles de se concentrer sur la stabilité de Kim (Décembre 20, 2011)
Les temps Sujets: Kim Jong-il | Kim Jong-un | La Corée du Nord
Connexes dans l'avis
Editorial: La mort d'un dictateur (Décembre 20, 2011)
Op-Ed Contributor: Une chance pour les Nord-Coréens (Décembre 21, 2011)
Corée du Nord comme nous savons qu'il est plus. Qu'il s'agisse à part dans le prochaines semaines ou plus pendant plusieurs mois, le régime ne sera pas capable de tenir ensemble après la mort prématurée de son leader, Kim Jong-il. Comment l'Amérique répond - et, peut-être encore plus important, comment l'Amérique répond à la façon dont la Chine répond - déterminera si le déplace région vers une plus grande stabilité ou tombe dans un conflit.
Décès de M. Kim ne pouvait pas tomber à un pire moment pour la Corée du Nord. Economiquement brisé, affamés et politiquement isolé, ce sombre royaume était au milieu des préparatifs au pouvoir remettre à son fils qui n'est pas encore 30 ans, le non testés Kim Jong-un. Le "grand successeur», comme il a été surnommé par les médias d'Etat, est entouré par des anciens qui ne sont pas moins malades que son père et un militaire qui irritait sa promotion au général quatre étoiles l'an dernier sans avoir purgé une journée dans la armée. Un tel système ne peut tout simplement pas tenir.
La transition arrive à un moment où les Etats-Unis ont essayé d'obtenir des négociations nucléaires sur les rails. Ces efforts ont maintenant été remplacée par une ruée sur les plans à perdre le contrôle des armes nucléaires, doit la chute du régime.
Et pourtant, Washington reste impuissante. Toute diffusion de la jeune Kim M. ou à d'autres concurrents possibles pourrait créer plus de problèmes lors de la transition, et serait certainement considéré comme une menace par la Chine. Depuis course Kim Jong-il en 2008, les Etats-Unis et la Corée du Sud ont travaillé sur des plans d'urgence pour faire face à une telle situation, mais ils ont tous pensé qu'ils auraient des années, sinon une décennie.
Le meilleur coup des alliés, alors, est d'attendre et voir ce que fait la Chine. Parmi Chine coeur de la politique étrangère des principes est le maintien d'une péninsule coréenne divisée, et si les déclarations de Pékin de préserver la continuité du leadership nord-coréen ne devrait pas nous surprendre. Depuis 2008, il s'est rapproché du régime, en défendant publiquement ses dirigeants et en investissant massivement dans les mines de minéraux sur la frontière chinoise-nord-coréenne.
Mais alors même que Pékin bâtons proche de son frère communiste, peu, il ya des débats intenses au sein de son leadership quant à savoir si le Nord est une responsabilité stratégique. C'était une chose de soutenir un régime hermétique mais stable sous Kim Jong-il, il sera plus difficile de souscrire à un leadership non testés. Pour Xi Jinping, qui devrait devenir président de la Chine au cours de la prochaine année, la première décision majeure de la politique étrangère sera de savoir si pour faire la Corée du Nord ou de l'adopter de manière efficace en tant que province.
Tout indique que Pékin va poursuivre le dernier cours, en grande partie à cause d'un biais chez son leadership pour soutenir le statu quo, plutôt que d'affronter des changements dramatiques. Et pourtant, "adopter" la Corée du Nord pourrait être dramatique en soi. La Chine peut aller all-in, à distribuer des invitations précoce et nouvelles mesures d'aide à la jeunesse M. Kim, les conditionnant sur des promesses de réforme économique.
Alors que certains observateurs espèrent que la mort de Kim Jong-il se libérer un changement de régime démocratique, la Chine travaillera fortement contre cette possibilité, surtout si ces efforts reçoivent le soutien de la Corée du Sud ou les États-Unis. Étant donné que Pékin a les yeux seulement à l'intérieur du Nord, Washington et Séoul ne pouvait guère en réponse.
Pourtant, même la Chine plans les mieux conçus peuvent se séparer. L'aide peut-être trop peu, trop tard, surtout étant donné les problèmes de la nouvelle direction devra faire face. Un canal clair d'un dialogue associant les Etats-Unis, la Chine et la Corée du Sud est maintenant plus nécessaire que jamais.
Et pourtant, un tel dialogue est complètement absent depuis un AVC Kim Jong-il. Pékin a dévié toutes les ouvertures officielles et non officielles de Washington d'avoir des discussions calmes sur l'instabilité potentielle de Corée du Nord. Avant, la Chine laisse ses craintes des intérêts occidentaux obtenir le meilleur de lui; un jugement plus sage chinois devrait conduire les autorités à ouvrir un tel canal maintenant. Les trois parties devraient ouvrir une conversation sur l'ensemble de nos craintes sur ce qui pourrait arriver dans un Nord s'effondre - nukes lâches, les flux de réfugiés, les attaques d'artillerie - et comment chacun réagirait.
Avec si peu connu sur le fonctionnement interne de ce royaume sombre, erreur de calcul de n'importe quel côté en réponse aux développements à l'intérieur du Nord est une possibilité très réelle étant donné les alertes de déclic des militaires sur la péninsule.
Rien de tout cela sera facile. Pour la Chine, l'incertitude entourant la Corée du Nord vient en toile de fond de M. Obama «pivot» de l'Asie et l'affirmation que la région est de l'Amérique nouvelle priorité stratégique. Cela a déjà créé des insécurités à Beijing qui fera un véritable dialogue avec les Etats-Unis encore plus difficile - et donc d'autant plus nécessaire.
Décès de M. Kim ne pouvait pas tomber à un pire moment pour la Corée du Nord. Economiquement brisé, affamés et politiquement isolé, ce sombre royaume était au milieu des préparatifs au pouvoir remettre à son fils qui n'est pas encore 30 ans, le non testés Kim Jong-un. Le "grand successeur», comme il a été surnommé par les médias d'Etat, est entouré par des anciens qui ne sont pas moins malades que son père et un militaire qui irritait sa promotion au général quatre étoiles l'an dernier sans avoir purgé une journée dans la armée. Un tel système ne peut tout simplement pas tenir.
La transition arrive à un moment où les Etats-Unis ont essayé d'obtenir des négociations nucléaires sur les rails. Ces efforts ont maintenant été remplacée par une ruée sur les plans à perdre le contrôle des armes nucléaires, doit la chute du régime.
Et pourtant, Washington reste impuissante. Toute diffusion de la jeune Kim M. ou à d'autres concurrents possibles pourrait créer plus de problèmes lors de la transition, et serait certainement considéré comme une menace par la Chine. Depuis course Kim Jong-il en 2008, les Etats-Unis et la Corée du Sud ont travaillé sur des plans d'urgence pour faire face à une telle situation, mais ils ont tous pensé qu'ils auraient des années, sinon une décennie.
Le meilleur coup des alliés, alors, est d'attendre et voir ce que fait la Chine. Parmi Chine coeur de la politique étrangère des principes est le maintien d'une péninsule coréenne divisée, et si les déclarations de Pékin de préserver la continuité du leadership nord-coréen ne devrait pas nous surprendre. Depuis 2008, il s'est rapproché du régime, en défendant publiquement ses dirigeants et en investissant massivement dans les mines de minéraux sur la frontière chinoise-nord-coréenne.
Mais alors même que Pékin bâtons proche de son frère communiste, peu, il ya des débats intenses au sein de son leadership quant à savoir si le Nord est une responsabilité stratégique. C'était une chose de soutenir un régime hermétique mais stable sous Kim Jong-il, il sera plus difficile de souscrire à un leadership non testés. Pour Xi Jinping, qui devrait devenir président de la Chine au cours de la prochaine année, la première décision majeure de la politique étrangère sera de savoir si pour faire la Corée du Nord ou de l'adopter de manière efficace en tant que province.
Tout indique que Pékin va poursuivre le dernier cours, en grande partie à cause d'un biais chez son leadership pour soutenir le statu quo, plutôt que d'affronter des changements dramatiques. Et pourtant, "adopter" la Corée du Nord pourrait être dramatique en soi. La Chine peut aller all-in, à distribuer des invitations précoce et nouvelles mesures d'aide à la jeunesse M. Kim, les conditionnant sur des promesses de réforme économique.
Alors que certains observateurs espèrent que la mort de Kim Jong-il se libérer un changement de régime démocratique, la Chine travaillera fortement contre cette possibilité, surtout si ces efforts reçoivent le soutien de la Corée du Sud ou les États-Unis. Étant donné que Pékin a les yeux seulement à l'intérieur du Nord, Washington et Séoul ne pouvait guère en réponse.
Pourtant, même la Chine plans les mieux conçus peuvent se séparer. L'aide peut-être trop peu, trop tard, surtout étant donné les problèmes de la nouvelle direction devra faire face. Un canal clair d'un dialogue associant les Etats-Unis, la Chine et la Corée du Sud est maintenant plus nécessaire que jamais.
Et pourtant, un tel dialogue est complètement absent depuis un AVC Kim Jong-il. Pékin a dévié toutes les ouvertures officielles et non officielles de Washington d'avoir des discussions calmes sur l'instabilité potentielle de Corée du Nord. Avant, la Chine laisse ses craintes des intérêts occidentaux obtenir le meilleur de lui; un jugement plus sage chinois devrait conduire les autorités à ouvrir un tel canal maintenant. Les trois parties devraient ouvrir une conversation sur l'ensemble de nos craintes sur ce qui pourrait arriver dans un Nord s'effondre - nukes lâches, les flux de réfugiés, les attaques d'artillerie - et comment chacun réagirait.
Avec si peu connu sur le fonctionnement interne de ce royaume sombre, erreur de calcul de n'importe quel côté en réponse aux développements à l'intérieur du Nord est une possibilité très réelle étant donné les alertes de déclic des militaires sur la péninsule.
Rien de tout cela sera facile. Pour la Chine, l'incertitude entourant la Corée du Nord vient en toile de fond de M. Obama «pivot» de l'Asie et l'affirmation que la région est de l'Amérique nouvelle priorité stratégique. Cela a déjà créé des insécurités à Beijing qui fera un véritable dialogue avec les Etats-Unis encore plus difficile - et donc d'autant plus nécessaire.
Victor Cha , professeur à Georgetown et auteur du livre à paraître «L'État Impossible: la Corée du Nord, le passé et l'avenir», a été directeur des affaires asiatiques à la Maison Blanche de 2004 à 2007.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on December 20, 2011, on page A33 of the New York edition with the headline: China's Newest Province?.
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Victor Cha
- Victor ChaSenior Adviser and Korea ChairProgrammes:Sujets:Regions:
- Victor Cha joined CSIS in May 2009 as a senior adviser and the inaugural holder of the Korea Chair. He is also a professor of government and director for Asian studies at Georgetown University. From 2004 to 2007, he served as director for Asian affairs at the White House on the National Security Council (NSC). At the NSC, he was responsible for Japan, the two Koreas, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Island nations. He also served as the US deputy head of delegation for the Six-Party Talks. He is a recipient of numerous academic awards, including a Fulbright scholarship (twice) and MacArthur Foundation fellowships. Dr. Cha also spent two years as a John M. Olin National Security Fellow at Harvard University and as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). In 1998, he was the Edward Teller National Security Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. In 2008, he was the William J. Perry Fellow, also at Stanford. He has acted as a consultant on East Asian security issues for different branches of the US government, and he received two Outstanding Service Commendations during his tenure at the White House.
His books include Alignment Despite Antagonism: US-Japan-Korea Security (Stanford, 1999); Nuclear North Korea (Columbia, 2003) with David Kang; and Beyond the Final Score: Politics of Sport in Asia (Columbia, 2009). His next books are Powerplay: Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia (Princeton) and North Korea: The Impossible State (Ecco). He is the coeditor of the new Contemporary Asia Series at Columbia University Press. He serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals and recently joined the Board of Advisors for the Center for a New American Security. Dr. Cha is also a frequent contributor and guest analyst for various media outlets, including Chosun Ilbo , Joongang Ilbo , CNN, National Public Radio, New York Times , Washington Post , Time , Newsweek , Asahi Shimbun , and Japan Times . Dr. Cha holds a BA, an MIA, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, as well as an MA Oxford University.
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- Doté récentes WordPress Messages Widget développement par YDA Brilliant Rivalry: Victor Cha and David Kang David Kang (left) with Victor Cha, outside USCs Korean Studies Institute.
In an age of partisan politics and one-upmanship, “hawk” Victor Cha and “dove” David Kang—two top Korea experts—have written their own counter-narrative.
by Julie Ha
photographs by Eric Sueyoshi
Could you script a more perfect rivalry?
Victor D. Cha, cast as The Hawk, suspects North Korea wants to be treated like a nuclear weapons state. Juxtaposed with him is David C. Kang, The Dove, who thinks the North is going nuclear because it's insecure over a US pre-emptive threat. Enter, stage right, Cha, in favor of coercive diplomacy through negotiations and sanctions. He brandishes a stick. From stage left, Kang, who wants to open the isolated nation to capitalism and Western ideas, leads by dangling a carrot.
Figurative analogies aside, Cha and Kang are, in fact, highly positioned players on the real-world foreign policy stage. Formidable opponents with divergent opinions on how the US should respond to North Korea's nuclear weapons ambition, an issue that has plagued this nation for two decades, each has assumed an important role in government policy formation and scholarly research.
An international relations professor at Georgetown University, Cha formerly served as a key advisor on North Korea policy to then-President George W. Bush. Kang, who teaches international relations and business at the University of Southern California, has consulted for various government agencies since the Clinton administration.
Dubbed by one senior scholar as “the best young political scientists who study Korea,” both men have emerged in the last several years as two of the nation's leading public policy commentators on Korea issues. When South Korea blamed a North Korean torpedo for the March sinking of its naval ship, killing 46 sailors, NPR invited Cha on-air to explain possible motives. When the United Nations Security Council came out with an ambiguous statement that didn't quite condemn the sinking, the New York Times asked Kang to interpret its meaning.
To play up this notion of a rivalry, the scholars boast tit-for-tat resumés. Each has published three books and play prominent roles as ambassadors in Asian scholarship, with Kang directing USC's Korean Studies Institute and Cha leading the Asian studies program at Georgetown.
The contemporaries have followed parallel paths, dating back to their heritage as American-born sons of early-wave Korean immigrants. They were back-to-back Fulbright scholars in Korea, where they also studied at the same research institute. In fact, it was while a Fulbright that Kang, a grad student from Berkeley, first got wind of his Columbia University-based counterpart, who had left within weeks of his arrival.
David Kang
“So I show up at the Fulbright office and the research institute, and other Korean Americans are like, 'Victor Cha, Victor Cha, Victor Cha,'” described Kang, 45, in a mock fan tone. “They loved the guy. So I hated him before I ever met him.”
Cha, too, had been apprised of his liberal colleague before their first encounter. “I heard there was this young communist being trained,” quipped the 48-year-old.
The pair would even have dueling hawk-vs.-dove op-eds published by the New York Times in 2002 exactly one Sunday apart.
But, as it turns out, this ideal contest is not what it seems. These would-be opponents are defying trend in this age of hyperpartisan politics and going against the grain in an academic world that often sees scholars trying to outbuild the other's empire. Fifteen years ago, they decided to write their own narrative, and it goes something like this:
“Our ideas don't necessarily agree,” said Cha during a joint interview with Kang, “so we debate.”
“And learn things from each other,” added Kang.
“And also push each other,” said Cha. “You look at these top people in their fields, and some of them don't even talk to each other.”
“It's so self-defeating,” said Kang.
After first meeting in the mid-1990s, they instead made an informal pact to join forces, and their personal decision has yielded important public benefits. In 2003 the pair co-authored a highly lauded book that took a bipartisan approach to the contentious topic of dealing with a nuclear North Korea (with an updated version planned) and, earlier this year, launched a research project on long-term Korean reunification issues geared toward aiding policymakers.
Both collaborations speak to the scholars' shared desire to reframe the way decision makers and the general public consider one of the most important foreign policy issues of our time: achieving peace on the Korean peninsula. It also happens to be an ambitious vision that perhaps helped this seeming rivalry give way to a brilliant alliance.
* * *
Kang recalled a conversation he had with his conservative counterpart over drinks after an academic conference in 1995. Both were assistant professors at the time. “We were 'angry young men' trying to make our mark on the world,” described Kang, whose animated style of speaking contrasts with Cha's mild-mannered demeanor. “And Victor says, 'You know, the field is so big, there's so much that needs to be done. We could spend the rest of our careers competing with each other, but if we cooperate, we'll both be way better off.'”
Their competing 2002 op-eds in the New York Times, ironically, marked their first public collaboration. They had conspired to write them in response to events from both sides of the DMZ that were sounding alarms in Washington.
That October, North Korea revealed a secret nuclear weapons program, prompting the US to accuse Pyongyang of violating their 1994 nonproliferation agreement. Meanwhile, the complex and sometimes tenuous alliance between the United States and South Korea felt quite fragile, as South Koreans led protests over the acquittal of two American soldiers involved in an armored vehicle accident that killed two Korean schoolgirls.
Washington seemed to take it as a snub when the South's voters that December chose the left-leaning Roh Moo-hyun as their next president over a candidate considered more pro-American.
Victor Cha
“We had a real crisis,” recalled Cha, who still consults for the government and serves as an advisor at the DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “David and I were talking about it, and I had one view, which was a little bit more conservative, and he had another view, which was a little bit more liberal. And we said, 'All right, let's write op-eds on it.' We were young academics just dipping our feet into this.”
Kang believed the North, by then identified as an “axis of evil” member by President George W. Bush, had genuine security concerns that the US might attack the isolated nation. In his op-ed, he urged a deeply changed American policy that provided security guarantees to the North and normalized political relations between the two nations, still technically at war. He also interpreted South Korea's apparent anti-Americanism as a sign of anxiety that the US might undo the gains both Koreas had made during a decade of “sunshine policy” engagement.
Cha countered that until North Korea complied with the nonproliferation agreement, a policy of isolation and containment was justified. In his editorial, he issued some tough love for South Korea, who he thought was wrongly blaming American policies, rather than North Korea's “truculence,” for the threat of war on the peninsula.
Despite their disagreements, the scholars also commiserated about the lack of informed public discourse on the nuclear issue. Pundits and ideologues who merely dismissed the North and leader Kim Jong-il as “evil” and “insane” tended to dominate the debate playing out on cable news stations and newspaper op-ed pages. Kang recalled some from the
far right camp even talked about possible US surgical strikes in the North. (In March 2003, US forces would descend on Iraq, another axis member.)
The Korea specialists saw it as their duty to push for a nuanced understanding of the true sources of North Korea's behavior and pragmatic US strategies to deal with it. They understood the stakes were too high to do anything less: Should war break out on the peninsula, the estimated costs would be one million casualties, including 52,000 US military casualties, and $1 trillion in material damage, according to one US military official's assessment.
In light of such stakes, they tried to move a constructive debate forward with their 2003 book Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies, which like their op-eds, presented their he said/he said arguments in alternating chapters.
“We thought it would be a good idea to do something together where you have two people informed on the topic, who have different views and still could have a rational discussion about it,” said Cha, “not just talking…”
“Talking past each other,” Kang finished.
Later, Ashton Carter, former assistant secretary of defense for international security in the Clinton administration, would call Nuclear North Korea “the most thoughtful and analytical treatment of practical strategies for dealing with North Korea that exists in print.” Copies of it could be found on the plane taking then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to Korea and in the hands of then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
Charles “Jack” Pritchard, president of the Korea Economic Institute and a former US special envoy for North Korean negotiations, has worked with both Cha and Kang, whom he called “top-notch.” He said their book was “refreshing” in that the debating scholars also wrote shared chapters with their points of agreement. Cha and Kang, considered moderates in their views, took opposite directions to the same conclusion—that, as reprehensible as the actions of the Kim Jong-il regime were, its behavior was comprehensible, even rational, and therefore, there was a path for diplomacy. They commonly urged Washington to pursue some form of engagement with the North. For Kang, it could pave a gradual path to regime change; for Cha, engagement could be used to test whether Kim Jong-il would truly disarm.
The co-authors also agreed that the North Korean regime is not sustainable and that a unified Korea was inevitable. Given this, they said it would be beneficial for the US to redefine its alliance with South Korea based on their shared principles, and not just their common threats.
A 13-city book tour gave them a chance to share their views with a diverse audience, from foreign policy followers to listeners of talk radio.
“The most important thing was for there to be two people talking about this in a very rational, educated way that the general [public] could understand,” said Cha, “so they wouldn't think [North Korea] is just a crazy country, period.”
* * *
Cha would go from writing and teaching about US foreign policy to advising the president from the White House—three years he would spend sleeping with a Blackberry on his chest. As an Asian specialist for Bush's National Security Council between 2004 and 2007, he was responsible for policy to South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Island nations.
He would have a chance to harness his deep knowledge about Korea when he became the deputy negotiator at the North Korea nuclear talks,assisting then-chief negotiator Christopher Hill. Although hawks are known for pressure tactics, Cha is credited with convincing Bush to allow bilateral talks with the North as a way to test the regime's intentions, marking a major shift in the Republican administration's policy.
The once self-professed ivory tower academic would also take his first trip to North Korea in April of 2007, joining New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to negotiate the return of the remains of US servicemen killed during the Korean War. After three days in Pyongyang, they drove to the DMZ and then took a helicopter into Seoul, its skyline replete with high-rises.
“I'd seen the Seoul skyline a million times, but I remember at that point, I really felt it,” described the New York-born Cha, whose late father studied business at Columbia and mother trained at Juilliard. “I thought, these Koreans in the South and I are not genetically any different from those in the North. It's not like people in the North can't do the same things; it's just politics that have prevented them from doing it.
“And I knew all the stats—I can recite all the demographic data on why North Korean children who are my sons' ages are a few inches shorter or many pounds lighter than South Koreans. But that one experience of having just driven from Pyongyang, past these completely barren fields, and then to view Seoul from the sky … I felt both anger and sadness at the same time.”
* * *
When Kang says things like the United States, not just North Korea, failed to uphold its end of the bargain as part of the 1994 nuclear accord, falling behind on opening a promised light-water reactor, for example, he notes that to some, it sounds like “you're apologizing for or defending North Korea.”
“It's a heinous, hideous regime, which I, like anyone, would like to see disappear,” said Kang. “If North Korea is afraid of capitalism and afraid if more of its people learn about the outside world, the weaker the regime gets, then we should saturate them with capitalism. We should be doing everything we can to trade with them. North Koreans learn about the outside world, and incomes rise. That would be the best, most easy transition.
“I've always believed that if you solve the North Korea problem—the economics, the openness of the culture—that's a way to make progress on the nuclear issue.” The Northern California-reared academic grew up hearing stories from his physicist father about the latter's hometown in Chongju, in what is now North Korea, from which his family fled in 1947. “One of my biggest dreams would be to take Dad and drive from Seoul up to see his home,” said Kang, whose mother is white and notably has studied Korean language and history.
Although he's done briefings for the State Department, CIA and National Security Agency, the former Dartmouth professor says he cannot picture himself working directly for the government, as Cha did. Kang has leaned more toward academia, and in fact, while his peer was working for the White House, Kang taught as a visiting political science professor at Stanford, wrote a book about China as a rising power in East Asia and was elevated to full professor at Dartmouth.
Upon returning to Georgetown in 2007, Cha apparently took notice.
“I was only an associate professor, I was a book behind him, and he had another article published in one of these top political science journals,” recalled Cha, as Kang erupted into laughter.
“My wife said, 'But you just worked for three years in the White House.' I said, 'That means nothing in academia.'”
The former Bush advisor could have continued working solely in the policy world, but Kang's scholarly accomplishments helped nudge him to re-engage fully in academia.
“I think I push [David] to do more in the public policy realm,” said Cha, whose third, even-scoring book incidentally was published in 2009. “It's a collaborative relationship, but we also push each other.”
* * *
It's also a relationship that sometimes operates on telepathy. About two years ago, after Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke, speculation that the North Korean regime would collapse abounded. Without coordinating with each other, Cha, in an editorial for a Korean newspaper, and Kang, at a forum in DC, raised the same concern: Although governments, including the US and South Korea, have prepared short-term military contingency plans should the North collapse, no one was analyzing long-term social, economic and political issues associated with the integration of two vastly different countries.
“Whether [reunification] happens tomorrow or 50 years from now, thinking about these issues is important,” said Kang. “The day after, we'll have to deal with internal migration: Will 22 million North Koreans want to move to China and South Korea, or will they stay [where they are]? How do you deal with that, with public health [issues]? If a 'North Korea' disappears, what happens to its treaties?”
“What do you do with the North Korean military?” added Cha, referring to its one million-person army.
This year, the scholars launched The Korea Project, a research initiative focused on examining these complex issues. Over two days in August at USC, they hosted a private conference, matching Korea scholars with experts who have worked on such issues as transitional justice in South Africa, reform of state-owned enterprises in China, resolving ethnic tensions in the former Yugoslavia and post-war reconstruction in Iraq, to see what lessons might be useful for the peninsula. Cha and Kang said many people tend to focus on the German reunification model, but the case of Iraq after the US invasion may
be more instructive.
“One of the lessons from Iraq was that the lack of Iraqi voices [in the rebuilding effort] was a huge mistake,” Kang said, referencing comments made by a conference attendee involved in Iraq reconstruction efforts. “In this [reunification] process, you need to have North Korean voices, not just leaders, but finding out at the village level, what does the community need.
“We know from the post-war Iraq example that no planning leads to chaos.”
By the end of what they anticipate will be a three-year project, funded in its first year by the Korea Foundation, an independent organization affiliated with the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cha and Kang plan to have a set of papers covering problems and solutions on a wide set of reunification issues and tasks for Korea, the United States and other concerned parties in the region.
Cha said the government doesn't have the time to do this kind of research, though when the time comes, policymakers will need the data to help make sound decisions. “If [reunification] happens, it will be the most important change in Asia since the revolution in China,” he said. “Imagine a peninsula with no tension, how positive that is.”
* * *
The collaborators' approach to contentious foreign policy issues appears to be setting a new countertrend in an age of separate cable news stations for the political left and right. Borrowing from Nuclear North Korea's bipartisan playbook, two other scholars present their dueling views in India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia, released earlier this year.
Cha and Kang, in fact, will be reteaming on a revised edition of their trend-setting book, updating events since 2003—a period that has seen North Korea conduct its first nuclear test, heightened tensions on the peninsula and stalled nuclear talks with the US As this issue was going to press, a North Korean foreign minister announced to the United Nations General Assembly that the regime plans to bolster its nuclear arsenal to deter a US threat. Just a day earlier, at a major
political convention in Pyongyang, the youngest son of Kim Jong-il was elected to his first leadership posts in the ruling Workers' Party. The move confirmed for many North Korea watchers that the ailing leader is paving a path for dynastic succession for son Kim Jong-eun.
Cha is also working on a separate book explaining the enigmatic North Korea for a general audience, while Kang releases his latest about international relations in Asia pre-19th century this month—marking each scholar's fourth text, not that either is keeping track.
As strategic as this pair's partnership has proven, a genuine friendship anchors it. They correspond almost daily and enjoy a chemistry that has them often finishing the other's sentence and engaged in mutual ribbing. Cha attended Kang's wedding and has met most of the latter's extended family, though he joked he doesn't let his colleague, who has one daughter, near his own wife and two sons.
John S. Park, a senior research associate on Northeast Asia issues at the United States Institute of Peace, recognized the relationship as unusual. “You look at how things are quite partisan today—people tend to focus on broad ways of negating or dismissing the other's viewpoints,” Park said. “But [David and Victor] have maintained a friendship as well as a professional relationship. They can be frank about each other's viewpoints and do so in a constructive manner.”
Noting their “shared goals of peaceful denuclearization and reunification of the peninsula,” he called their dynamic “old-school, in a good way.”
But don't expect these old-school colleagues to share the same sports field. Cha called soccer, Kang's personal obsession, the most boring to watch.
“Nine people running around chasing a white ball,” said the Georgetown Hoyas football fan dryly.
“Eleven,” Kang corrected his colleague.
Fittingly, the USC professor used a sports analogy to characterize his relationship with Cha: “We're both used to competing really, really hard and then leaving it on the field.”
Indeed, perhaps what this pair shares is a rivalry, after all. But the way this hawk and dove play, there are no losers.Articles connexes
In this 1997 photo, students and residents plant rice in a newly rebuilt rice patty over flood-ravaged farmland in Sugu village, Kujang County, about 90 minutes north of Pyongyang. One local resident at the time admitted to eating plant porridge while trying to overcome the country's food shortage. Photo credit: Hyungwon Kang The Food Dilemma How hungry is North Korea, and how conditional should food aid be? Korea specialist David C. Kang provides an overview of the North Korean food aid quandary. How bad is the food situation in North Korea? There is considerable debate about just how bad the situation is. The United Nations' World Food Program, along with two other UN agencies, have released a study concluding that potentially 6 million North Koreans, a quarter of the population, need urgent food aid, citing a harsh winter in which some crops were down 44 percent from expected levels. But even as the World Food Program has launched an international appeal for aid, there are those who oppose such assistance for a variety of reasons. Some argue that the North Korean regime's behavior should change before any aid is given, while others contend the situation is not so dire, citing evidence that the North Korean military has stockpiled up to 1 million tons of rice, much of it possibly diverted from aid organizations. And still others believe that the regime is simply saving up its food for 2012, when it plans a major celebration for the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-Sung's birth. There is, however, evidence that food prices are rising in North Korea and are rising faster than world food prices. This is not only a sign that demand is outstripping supply, but also that the situation in North Korea is not simply a reflection of global food prices. That is, although North Korean elites and the military are unlikely to suffer, some ordinary citizens may be facing severe shortages. In late May, the US sent a fact-finding team to North Korea to assess the situation, and the team's report is being prepared at this time. What is the current South Korean and US government stance on providing food aid? The overall stance of the US government has been one of “strategic patience,” which means ignoring and containing North Korea until it first makes concrete steps to back down from the belligerent behavior of the past few years and to show measures intended to rein in the nuclear weapons program. The US has also not yet made any decision about the humanitarian situation. South Korea's approach is generally the same: President Lee Myung-bak has eliminated most economic and aid programs to the North until it apologizes for attacking South Korean naval vessel Cheonan and shelling Yeonpyeong Island last year. Within this overall approach, however, there is a willingness to potentially provide humanitarian aid to the North if the situation is dire enough and if the North meets certain preconditions. In this 1995 photo, residents wait at a Pyongyang bus stop. Photo credit: Hyungwon Kang Will denying North Korea food aid lead to popular unrest against the government? …It's been 60 years since the start of the Korean War, which left families and a nation painfully divided. While a great deal of time has since been devoted to crisis scenarios involving the heavily armed peninsula, isn't it time to plan for a longer-term reality: reunification? December 10, 1950. Thousands of Koreans fleeing Pyongyang brave the icy waters of the Taedong River. Photo by Bettmann Collection/CORBIS. By David C. Kang The tragedy of the Korean War is well known. My own family fled North Korea in 1947, leaving everything behind, from a village in which we had lived since the 16th century. No one has been back to our hometown since then. Our story is not unique: whether they fled the North or lived through the war, almost every Korean family has been affected over the years. The bitter, costly and bloody war between North and South Korea was an attempt to unify the peninsula by force. Sixty years later, the two sides remain locked in a bitter and tense relationship marked more by confrontation than by reconciliation. And the recent sinking of South Korean naval vessel Cheonan off the west coast of Korea on March 26 has only raised tensions. With evidence pointing to a North Korean torpedo as the cause (the North has flatly denied the charge), some may wonder whether it even makes sense to talk about the two countries coming together when they seem so poised to destroy each other. The truth is, unification is more likely to occur from a collapse of the North Korean ruling regime, rather than from a war or sudden invasion. …2 Responses- 2[...] NK experts David Kang and Victor Cha have a brilliant rivalry. [...]
- 1[...] NK experts David Kang and Victor Cha have a brilliant rivalry. [...]
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Victor Cha
Professeur
DS Song-KF Endowed Chair in Goverment and Asian Studies and Director of Asian StudiesFOREIGN SERVICE, SCHOOL OFTéléphone
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Dr. Cha returned to Georgetown in the fall 2007 after public service leave from the University since 2004, serving as a Director for Asian Affairs at the White House, National Security Council. At the NSC, he was responsible for Japan, the two Koreas, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Island nations. Dr. Cha also served as the US Deputy Head of Delegation for the Six Party Talks. Professor Cha holds the DS Song Chair in Asia and a joint appointment with the School of Foreign Service core faculty and the Department of Government. He is a recipient of numerous academic awards including the Fulbright Scholarship (twice) and MacArthur Foundation Fellowships. Professor Cha also spent two years as a John M. Olin National Security fellow at Harvard University and as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). In 1998, he was the Edward Teller National Security Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford. In 2008, he was the William J. Perry Fellow, also at Stanford. Dr. Cha is the award-winning author of Alignment Despite Antagonism: The US-Korea-Japan Security Triangle (Stanford Univ. Press, 1999) (winner of the 2000 Ohira book prize), and co-author of Nuclear North Korea (Columbia Univ. Press, 2001). He has published articles on international relations and East Asia in International Security, Foreign Affairs, Survival, Political Science Quarterly, International Studies Quarterly, Orbis, Armed Forces and Society, Journal of Peace Research, Security Dialogue, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Asian Survey, Journal of East Asian Studies, Asian Perspective, and Japanese Journal of Political Science. He has acted as a consultant on East Asian security issues for different branches of the US government, and is a frequent contributor and guest analyst for various media including CNN, National Public Radio, New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, Asahi Shimbun, Japan Times, Choson Ilbo, and Joongang Ilbo. Dr. Cha received two Outstanding Service commendations during his tenure at the White House. Recent publications include “Winning Asia: An Untold American Foreign Policy Success” in the November/December 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs; and “Beijing's Olympic-Sized Catch 22″ in the Summer 2008 issue of the Washington Quarterly. Dr. Cha's new book is “Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia” (Columbia University Press, 2009). He is Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown and Senior Adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is the co-editor of the new Contemporary Asia Series at Columbia University Press. He serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals and recently joined the Board of Advisors for the Center for a New American Security.Éducation
- Ph.D. (1994) Columbia University, Political Science
- MIA (1988) Columbia University, International Affairs
- MA (Honours) (1986) University of Oxford (UK), Philosophy, Politics, Econ
- BA (1983) Columbia University, Economics
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- Korean (speak, read, write)
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- Featuring Recent Posts Wordpress Widget development by YDA Brilliant Rivalry: Victor Cha and David Kang
David Kang (left) with Victor Cha, outside USCs Korean Studies Institute.
In an age of partisan politics and one-upmanship, “hawk” Victor Cha and “dove” David Kang—two top Korea experts—have written their own counter-narrative.
by Julie Ha
photographs by Eric Sueyoshi
Could you script a more perfect rivalry?
Victor D. Cha, cast as The Hawk, suspects North Korea wants to be treated like a nuclear weapons state. Juxtaposed with him is David C. Kang, The Dove, who thinks the North is going nuclear because it’s insecure over a U.S. pre-emptive threat. Enter, stage right, Cha, in favor of coercive diplomacy through negotiations and sanctions. He brandishes a stick. From stage left, Kang, who wants to open the isolated nation to capitalism and Western ideas, leads by dangling a carrot.
Figurative analogies aside, Cha and Kang are, in fact, highly positioned players on the real-world foreign policy stage. Formidable opponents with divergent opinions on how the U.S. should respond to North Korea’s nuclear weapons ambition, an issue that has plagued this nation for two decades, each has assumed an important role in government policy formation and scholarly research.
An international relations professor at Georgetown University, Cha formerly served as a key advisor on North Korea policy to then-President George W. Bush. Kang, who teaches international relations and business at the University of Southern California, has consulted for various government agencies since the Clinton administration.
Dubbed by one senior scholar as “the best young political scientists who study Korea,” both men have emerged in the last several years as two of the nation’s leading public policy commentators on Korea issues. When South Korea blamed a North Korean torpedo for the March sinking of its naval ship, killing 46 sailors, NPR invited Cha on-air to explain possible motives. When the United Nations Security Council came out with an ambiguous statement that didn’t quite condemn the sinking, the New York Times asked Kang to interpret its meaning.
To play up this notion of a rivalry, the scholars boast tit-for-tat resumés. Each has published three books and play prominent roles as ambassadors in Asian scholarship, with Kang directing USC’s Korean Studies Institute and Cha leading the Asian studies program at Georgetown.
The contemporaries have followed parallel paths, dating back to their heritage as American-born sons of early-wave Korean immigrants. They were back-to-back Fulbright scholars in Korea, where they also studied at the same research institute. In fact, it was while a Fulbright that Kang, a grad student from Berkeley, first got wind of his Columbia University-based counterpart, who had left within weeks of his arrival.
David Kang
“So I show up at the Fulbright office and the research institute, and other Korean Americans are like, ‘Victor Cha, Victor Cha, Victor Cha,’” described Kang, 45, in a mock fan tone. “They loved the guy. So I hated him before I ever met him.”
Cha, too, had been apprised of his liberal colleague before their first encounter. “I heard there was this young communist being trained,” quipped the 48-year-old.
The pair would even have dueling hawk-vs.-dove op-eds published by the New York Times in 2002 exactly one Sunday apart.
But, as it turns out, this ideal contest is not what it seems. These would-be opponents are defying trend in this age of hyperpartisan politics and going against the grain in an academic world that often sees scholars trying to outbuild the other’s empire. Fifteen years ago, they decided to write their own narrative, and it goes something like this:
“Our ideas don’t necessarily agree,” said Cha during a joint interview with Kang, “so we debate.”
“And learn things from each other,” added Kang.
“And also push each other,” said Cha. “You look at these top people in their fields, and some of them don’t even talk to each other.”
“It’s so self-defeating,” said Kang.
After first meeting in the mid-1990s, they instead made an informal pact to join forces, and their personal decision has yielded important public benefits. In 2003 the pair co-authored a highly lauded book that took a bipartisan approach to the contentious topic of dealing with a nuclear North Korea (with an updated version planned) and, earlier this year, launched a research project on long-term Korean reunification issues geared toward aiding policymakers.
Both collaborations speak to the scholars’ shared desire to reframe the way decision makers and the general public consider one of the most important foreign policy issues of our time: achieving peace on the Korean peninsula. It also happens to be an ambitious vision that perhaps helped this seeming rivalry give way to a brilliant alliance.
* * *
Kang recalled a conversation he had with his conservative counterpart over drinks after an academic conference in 1995. Both were assistant professors at the time. “We were ‘angry young men’ trying to make our mark on the world,” described Kang, whose animated style of speaking contrasts with Cha’s mild-mannered demeanor. “And Victor says, ‘You know, the field is so big, there’s so much that needs to be done. We could spend the rest of our careers competing with each other, but if we cooperate, we’ll both be way better off.’”
Their competing 2002 op-eds in the New York Times, ironically, marked their first public collaboration. They had conspired to write them in response to events from both sides of the DMZ that were sounding alarms in Washington.
That October, North Korea revealed a secret nuclear weapons program, prompting the U.S. to accuse Pyongyang of violating their 1994 nonproliferation agreement. Meanwhile, the complex and sometimes tenuous alliance between the United States and South Korea felt quite fragile, as South Koreans led protests over the acquittal of two American soldiers involved in an armored vehicle accident that killed two Korean schoolgirls.
Washington seemed to take it as a snub when the South’s voters that December chose the left-leaning Roh Moo-hyun as their next president over a candidate considered more pro-American.
Victor Cha
“We had a real crisis,” recalled Cha, who still consults for the government and serves as an advisor at the D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “David and I were talking about it, and I had one view, which was a little bit more conservative, and he had another view, which was a little bit more liberal. And we said, ‘All right, let’s write op-eds on it.’ We were young academics just dipping our feet into this.”
Kang believed the North, by then identified as an “axis of evil” member by President George W. Bush, had genuine security concerns that the U.S. might attack the isolated nation. In his op-ed, he urged a deeply changed American policy that provided security guarantees to the North and normalized political relations between the two nations, still technically at war. He also interpreted South Korea’s apparent anti-Americanism as a sign of anxiety that the U.S. might undo the gains both Koreas had made during a decade of “sunshine policy” engagement.
Cha countered that until North Korea complied with the nonproliferation agreement, a policy of isolation and containment was justified. In his editorial, he issued some tough love for South Korea, who he thought was wrongly blaming American policies, rather than North Korea’s “truculence,” for the threat of war on the peninsula.
Despite their disagreements, the scholars also commiserated about the lack of informed public discourse on the nuclear issue. Pundits and ideologues who merely dismissed the North and leader Kim Jong-il as “evil” and “insane” tended to dominate the debate playing out on cable news stations and newspaper op-ed pages. Kang recalled some from the
far right camp even talked about possible U.S. surgical strikes in the North. (In March 2003, U.S. forces would descend on Iraq, another axis member.)
The Korea specialists saw it as their duty to push for a nuanced understanding of the true sources of North Korea’s behavior and pragmatic U.S. strategies to deal with it. They understood the stakes were too high to do anything less: Should war break out on the peninsula, the estimated costs would be one million casualties, including 52,000 U.S. military casualties, and $1 trillion in material damage, according to one U.S. military official’s assessment.
In light of such stakes, they tried to move a constructive debate forward with their 2003 book Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies, which like their op-eds, presented their he said/he said arguments in alternating chapters.
“We thought it would be a good idea to do something together where you have two people informed on the topic, who have different views and still could have a rational discussion about it,” said Cha, “not just talking…”
“Talking past each other,” Kang finished.
Later, Ashton Carter, former assistant secretary of defense for international security in the Clinton administration, would call Nuclear North Korea “the most thoughtful and analytical treatment of practical strategies for dealing with North Korea that exists in print.” Copies of it could be found on the plane taking then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to Korea and in the hands of then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
Charles “Jack” Pritchard, president of the Korea Economic Institute and a former U.S. special envoy for North Korean negotiations, has worked with both Cha and Kang, whom he called “top-notch.” He said their book was “refreshing” in that the debating scholars also wrote shared chapters with their points of agreement. Cha and Kang, considered moderates in their views, took opposite directions to the same conclusion—that, as reprehensible as the actions of the Kim Jong-il regime were, its behavior was comprehensible, even rational, and therefore, there was a path for diplomacy. They commonly urged Washington to pursue some form of engagement with the North. For Kang, it could pave a gradual path to regime change; for Cha, engagement could be used to test whether Kim Jong-il would truly disarm.
The co-authors also agreed that the North Korean regime is not sustainable and that a unified Korea was inevitable. Given this, they said it would be beneficial for the U.S. to redefine its alliance with South Korea based on their shared principles, and not just their common threats.
A 13-city book tour gave them a chance to share their views with a diverse audience, from foreign policy followers to listeners of talk radio.
“The most important thing was for there to be two people talking about this in a very rational, educated way that the general [public] could understand,” said Cha, “so they wouldn’t think [North Korea] is just a crazy country, period.”
* * *
Cha would go from writing and teaching about U.S. foreign policy to advising the president from the White House—three years he would spend sleeping with a Blackberry on his chest. As an Asian specialist for Bush’s National Security Council between 2004 and 2007, he was responsible for policy to South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Island nations.
He would have a chance to harness his deep knowledge about Korea when he became the deputy negotiator at the North Korea nuclear talks,assisting then-chief negotiator Christopher Hill. Although hawks are known for pressure tactics, Cha is credited with convincing Bush to allow bilateral talks with the North as a way to test the regime’s intentions, marking a major shift in the Republican administration’s policy.
The once self-professed ivory tower academic would also take his first trip to North Korea in April of 2007, joining New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to negotiate the return of the remains of U.S. servicemen killed during the Korean War. After three days in Pyongyang, they drove to the DMZ and then took a helicopter into Seoul, its skyline replete with high-rises.
“I’d seen the Seoul skyline a million times, but I remember at that point, I really felt it,” described the New York-born Cha, whose late father studied business at Columbia and mother trained at Juilliard. “I thought, these Koreans in the South and I are not genetically any different from those in the North. It’s not like people in the North can’t do the same things; it’s just politics that have prevented them from doing it.
“And I knew all the stats—I can recite all the demographic data on why North Korean children who are my sons’ ages are a few inches shorter or many pounds lighter than South Koreans. But that one experience of having just driven from Pyongyang, past these completely barren fields, and then to view Seoul from the sky … I felt both anger and sadness at the same time.”
* * *
When Kang says things like the United States, not just North Korea, failed to uphold its end of the bargain as part of the 1994 nuclear accord, falling behind on opening a promised light-water reactor, for example, he notes that to some, it sounds like “you’re apologizing for or defending North Korea.”
“It’s a heinous, hideous regime, which I, like anyone, would like to see disappear,” said Kang. “If North Korea is afraid of capitalism and afraid if more of its people learn about the outside world, the weaker the regime gets, then we should saturate them with capitalism. We should be doing everything we can to trade with them. North Koreans learn about the outside world, and incomes rise. That would be the best, most easy transition.
“I’ve always believed that if you solve the North Korea problem—the economics, the openness of the culture—that’s a way to make progress on the nuclear issue.” The Northern California-reared academic grew up hearing stories from his physicist father about the latter’s hometown in Chongju, in what is now North Korea, from which his family fled in 1947. “One of my biggest dreams would be to take Dad and drive from Seoul up to see his home,” said Kang, whose mother is white and notably has studied Korean language and history.
Although he’s done briefings for the State Department, CIA and National Security Agency, the former Dartmouth professor says he cannot picture himself working directly for the government, as Cha did. Kang has leaned more toward academia, and in fact, while his peer was working for the White House, Kang taught as a visiting political science professor at Stanford, wrote a book about China as a rising power in East Asia and was elevated to full professor at Dartmouth.
Upon returning to Georgetown in 2007, Cha apparently took notice.
“I was only an associate professor, I was a book behind him, and he had another article published in one of these top political science journals,” recalled Cha, as Kang erupted into laughter.
“My wife said, ‘But you just worked for three years in the White House.’ I said, ‘That means nothing in academia.’”
The former Bush advisor could have continued working solely in the policy world, but Kang’s scholarly accomplishments helped nudge him to re-engage fully in academia.
“I think I push [David] to do more in the public policy realm,” said Cha, whose third, even-scoring book incidentally was published in 2009. “It’s a collaborative relationship, but we also push each other.”
* * *
It’s also a relationship that sometimes operates on telepathy. About two years ago, after Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke, speculation that the North Korean regime would collapse abounded. Without coordinating with each other, Cha, in an editorial for a Korean newspaper, and Kang, at a forum in D.C., raised the same concern: Although governments, including the U.S. and South Korea, have prepared short-term military contingency plans should the North collapse, no one was analyzing long-term social, economic and political issues associated with the integration of two vastly different countries.
“Whether [reunification] happens tomorrow or 50 years from now, thinking about these issues is important,” said Kang. “The day after, we’ll have to deal with internal migration: Will 22 million North Koreans want to move to China and South Korea, or will they stay [where they are]? How do you deal with that, with public health [issues]? If a ‘North Korea’ disappears, what happens to its treaties?”
“What do you do with the North Korean military?” added Cha, referring to its one million-person army.
This year, the scholars launched The Korea Project, a research initiative focused on examining these complex issues. Over two days in August at USC, they hosted a private conference, matching Korea scholars with experts who have worked on such issues as transitional justice in South Africa, reform of state-owned enterprises in China, resolving ethnic tensions in the former Yugoslavia and post-war reconstruction in Iraq, to see what lessons might be useful for the peninsula. Cha and Kang said many people tend to focus on the German reunification model, but the case of Iraq after the U.S. invasion may
be more instructive.
“One of the lessons from Iraq was that the lack of Iraqi voices [in the rebuilding effort] was a huge mistake,” Kang said, referencing comments made by a conference attendee involved in Iraq reconstruction efforts. “In this [reunification] process, you need to have North Korean voices, not just leaders, but finding out at the village level, what does the community need.
“We know from the post-war Iraq example that no planning leads to chaos.”
By the end of what they anticipate will be a three-year project, funded in its first year by the Korea Foundation, an independent organization affiliated with the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cha and Kang plan to have a set of papers covering problems and solutions on a wide set of reunification issues and tasks for Korea, the United States and other concerned parties in the region.
Cha said the government doesn’t have the time to do this kind of research, though when the time comes, policymakers will need the data to help make sound decisions. “If [reunification] happens, it will be the most important change in Asia since the revolution in China,” he said. “Imagine a peninsula with no tension, how positive that is.”
* * *
The collaborators’ approach to contentious foreign policy issues appears to be setting a new countertrend in an age of separate cable news stations for the political left and right. Borrowing from Nuclear North Korea’s bipartisan playbook, two other scholars present their dueling views in India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia, released earlier this year.
Cha and Kang, in fact, will be reteaming on a revised edition of their trend-setting book, updating events since 2003—a period that has seen North Korea conduct its first nuclear test, heightened tensions on the peninsula and stalled nuclear talks with the U.S. As this issue was going to press, a North Korean foreign minister announced to the United Nations General Assembly that the regime plans to bolster its nuclear arsenal to deter a U.S. threat. Just a day earlier, at a major
political convention in Pyongyang, the youngest son of Kim Jong-il was elected to his first leadership posts in the ruling Workers’ Party. The move confirmed for many North Korea watchers that the ailing leader is paving a path for dynastic succession for son Kim Jong-eun.
Cha is also working on a separate book explaining the enigmatic North Korea for a general audience, while Kang releases his latest about international relations in Asia pre-19th century this month—marking each scholar’s fourth text, not that either is keeping track.
As strategic as this pair’s partnership has proven, a genuine friendship anchors it. They correspond almost daily and enjoy a chemistry that has them often finishing the other’s sentence and engaged in mutual ribbing. Cha attended Kang’s wedding and has met most of the latter’s extended family, though he joked he doesn’t let his colleague, who has one daughter, near his own wife and two sons.
John S. Park, a senior research associate on Northeast Asia issues at the United States Institute of Peace, recognized the relationship as unusual. “You look at how things are quite partisan today—people tend to focus on broad ways of negating or dismissing the other’s viewpoints,” Park said. “But [David and Victor] have maintained a friendship as well as a professional relationship. They can be frank about each other’s viewpoints and do so in a constructive manner.”
Noting their “shared goals of peaceful denuclearization and reunification of the peninsula,” he called their dynamic “old-school, in a good way.”
But don’t expect these old-school colleagues to share the same sports field. Cha called soccer, Kang’s personal obsession, the most boring to watch.
“Nine people running around chasing a white ball,” said the Georgetown Hoyas football fan dryly.
“Eleven,” Kang corrected his colleague.
Fittingly, the USC professor used a sports analogy to characterize his relationship with Cha: “We’re both used to competing really, really hard and then leaving it on the field.”
Indeed, perhaps what this pair shares is a rivalry, after all. But the way this hawk and dove play, there are no losers.Related Articles
In this 1997 photo, students and residents plant rice in a newly rebuilt rice patty over flood-ravaged farmland in Sugu village, Kujang County, about 90 minutes north of Pyongyang. One local resident at the time admitted to eating plant porridge while trying to overcome the country’s food shortage. Photo credit: Hyungwon Kang The Food Dilemma How hungry is North Korea, and how conditional should food aid be? Korea specialist David C. Kang provides an overview of the North Korean food aid quandary. How bad is the food situation in North Korea? There is considerable debate about just how bad the situation is. The United Nations’ World Food Program, along with two other U.N. agencies, have released a study concluding that potentially 6 million North Koreans, a quarter of the population, need urgent food aid, citing a harsh winter in which some crops were down 44 percent from expected levels. But even as the World Food Program has launched an international appeal for aid, there are those who oppose such assistance for a variety of reasons. Some argue that the North Korean regime’s behavior should change before any aid is given, while others contend the situation is not so dire, citing evidence that the North Korean military has stockpiled up to 1 million tons of rice, much of it possibly diverted from aid organizations. And still others believe that the regime is simply saving up its food for 2012, when it plans a major celebration for the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-Sung’s birth. There is, however, evidence that food prices are rising in North Korea and are rising faster than world food prices. This is not only a sign that demand is outstripping supply, but also that the situation in North Korea is not simply a reflection of global food prices. That is, although North Korean elites and the military are unlikely to suffer, some ordinary citizens may be facing severe shortages. In late May, the U.S. sent a fact-finding team to North Korea to assess the situation, and the team’s report is being prepared at this time. What is the current South Korean and U.S. government stance on providing food aid? The overall stance of the U.S. government has been one of “strategic patience,” which means ignoring and containing North Korea until it first makes concrete steps to back down from the belligerent behavior of the past few years and to show measures intended to rein in the nuclear weapons program. The U.S. has also not yet made any decision about the humanitarian situation. South Korea’s approach is generally the same: President Lee Myung-bak has eliminated most economic and aid programs to the North until it apologizes for attacking South Korean naval vessel Cheonan and shelling Yeonpyeong Island last year. Within this overall approach, however, there is a willingness to potentially provide humanitarian aid to the North if the situation is dire enough and if the North meets certain preconditions. In this 1995 photo, residents wait at a Pyongyang bus stop. Photo credit: Hyungwon Kang Will denying North Korea food aid lead to popular unrest against the government? …It’s been 60 years since the start of the Korean War, which left families and a nation painfully divided. While a great deal of time has since been devoted to crisis scenarios involving the heavily armed peninsula, isn’t it time to plan for a longer-term reality: reunification? December 10, 1950. Thousands of Koreans fleeing Pyongyang brave the icy waters of the Taedong River. Photo by Bettmann Collection/CORBIS. By David C. Kang The tragedy of the Korean War is well known. My own family fled North Korea in 1947, leaving everything behind, from a village in which we had lived since the 16th century. No one has been back to our hometown since then. Our story is not unique: whether they fled the North or lived through the war, almost every Korean family has been affected over the years. The bitter, costly and bloody war between North and South Korea was an attempt to unify the peninsula by force. Sixty years later, the two sides remain locked in a bitter and tense relationship marked more by confrontation than by reconciliation. And the recent sinking of South Korean naval vessel Cheonan off the west coast of Korea on March 26 has only raised tensions. With evidence pointing to a North Korean torpedo as the cause (the North has flatly denied the charge), some may wonder whether it even makes sense to talk about the two countries coming together when they seem so poised to destroy each other. The truth is, unification is more likely to occur from a collapse of the North Korean ruling regime, rather than from a war or sudden invasion. … 3 Responses- 3I have had a good fortune in being friends with Koreans, Oops, South-Koreans. It was in my school days, Oops, college days. University of Illinois.
Sid Harth says:
Flash Back:
My room mate was a (Christian) Korean. He was smart dude. He was senior to me in the graduate school but not senior in age. We enjoyed our days and nights, arguing, debating and few times quarreling on subjects as mundane as babes in skimpy (Bikini) swim suits lounging, guess where?, right in front of our windows. Not necessarily, in summer time either.
You see, this dude, was not only intelligent, IQ over 155, a real, genuine, brainy kid. That was his curse. Actually, he was a classical, tiny, puny, thin as a ramrod and too geeky to describe. Slanted eyes did not help his personality either.
Thru him, I met several foreign Exchange students. One was actually, a professor of (Higher, mathematics, having taught a major university, Seoul National University.
Unfortunately, for me, he did not know a single word in (American) English and I did the same in Korean. He wanted me to teach him Buddhism and I wanted to learn from him some (Higher) mathematics. We communicated, mostly, by hand and body gestures and established a status where we transcended (verbal communications.
I hope, Victor D. Cha, cast as The Hawk, suspects North Korea wants to be treated like a nuclear weapons state. Juxtaposed with him is David C. Kang, The Dove, who thinks the North is going nuclear because it’s insecure over a U.S. pre-emptive threat. Enter, stage right, Cha, in favor of coercive diplomacy through negotiations and sanctions. He brandishes a stick. From stage left, Kang, who wants to open the isolated nation to capitalism and Western ideas, leads by dangling a carrot, find peace in meditation more than (verbal) fist fighting.
…and I am Sid Harth@arabuhuru.org
- 2[...] NK experts David Kang and Victor Cha have a brilliant rivalry. [...]
- 1[...] NK experts David Kang and Victor Cha have a brilliant rivalry. [...]
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Op-Ed Contributor
China’s Newest Province?
By VICTOR CHA
Published: December 19, 2011
Washington
Alex Nabaum
Related News
Kim’s Heir Likely to Focus on Stability (December 20, 2011)
Times Topics: Kim Jong-il | Kim Jong-un | North Korea
Related in Opinion
Editorial: Death of a Dictator (December 20, 2011)
Op-Ed Contributor: A Chance for North Koreans (December 21, 2011)
NORTH KOREA as we know it is over. Whether it comes apart in the next few weeks or over several months, the regime will not be able to hold together after the untimely death of its leader, Kim Jong-il. How America responds — and, perhaps even more important, how America responds to how China responds — will determine whether the region moves toward greater stability or falls into conflict.
Mr. Kim’s death could not have come at a worse time for North Korea. Economically broken, starving and politically isolated, this dark kingdom was in the midst of preparations to hand power over to his not-yet-30-year-old son, the untested Kim Jong-un. The “great successor,” as he has been dubbed by the state media, is surrounded by elders who are no less sick than his father and a military that chafed at his promotion to four-star general last year without having served a day in the army. Such a system simply cannot hold.
The transition comes at a time when the United States has been trying to get nuclear negotiations back on track. Those efforts have now been replaced by a scramble for plans to control loose nuclear weapons, should the regime collapse.
And yet Washington remains powerless. Any outreach to the young Mr. Kim or to other possible competitors could create more problems during the transition, and would certainly be viewed as threatening by China. Since Kim Jong-il’s stroke in 2008, the United States and South Korea have been working on contingency plans to deal with just such a situation, but they all thought they would have years, if not a decade.
The allies’ best move, then, is to wait and see what China does. Among China’s core foreign-policy principles is the maintenance of a divided Korean Peninsula, and so Beijing’s statements about preserving continuity of North Korea’s leadership should come as no surprise. Since 2008 it has drawn closer to the regime, publicly defending its leaders and investing heavily in the mineral mines on the Chinese-North Korean border.
But even as Beijing sticks close to its little Communist brother, there are intense debates within its leadership about whether the North is a strategic liability. It was one thing to back a hermetic but stable regime under Kim Jong-il; it will be harder to underwrite an untested leadership. For Xi Jinping, expected to become China’s president over the next year, the first major foreign policy decision will be whether to shed North Korea or effectively adopt it as a province.
All indications are that Beijing will pursue the latter course, in no small part because of a bias among its leadership to support the status quo, rather than to confront dramatic change. And yet “adopting” North Korea could be dramatic in itself. China may go all in, doling out early invitations and new assistance packages to the young Mr. Kim, conditioning them on promises of economic reform.
While some observers hope that Kim Jong-il’s death will unleash democratic regime change, China will work strongly against that possibility, especially if such efforts receive support from South Korea or the United States. Given that Beijing has the only eyes inside the North, Washington and Seoul could do little in response.
Yet even China’s best-laid plans may come apart. The assistance may be too little, too late, especially given the problems the new leadership will face. A clear channel of dialogue involving the United States, China and South Korea is needed now more than ever.
And yet such a dialogue is completely absent since Kim Jong-il’s stroke. Beijing has deflected every official and unofficial overture from Washington to have quiet discussions on potential North Korean instability. Before, China let its fears of Western interests get the better of it; wiser Chinese judgment should lead authorities to open such a channel now. The three sides should open with a conversation on all our fears about what could happen in a collapsing North — loose nukes, refugee flows, artillery attacks — and how each would respond.
With so little known about the inner workings of this dark kingdom, miscalculation by any side in response to developments inside the North is a very real possibility given the hair-trigger alerts of the militaries on the peninsula.
None of this will be easy. For China, the uncertainty surrounding North Korea comes against the backdrop of Mr. Obama’s “pivot” to Asia and assertion that the region is America’s new strategic priority. This has already created insecurities in Beijing that will make genuine dialogue with the United States even more challenging — and thus all the more necessary.
Mr. Kim’s death could not have come at a worse time for North Korea. Economically broken, starving and politically isolated, this dark kingdom was in the midst of preparations to hand power over to his not-yet-30-year-old son, the untested Kim Jong-un. The “great successor,” as he has been dubbed by the state media, is surrounded by elders who are no less sick than his father and a military that chafed at his promotion to four-star general last year without having served a day in the army. Such a system simply cannot hold.
The transition comes at a time when the United States has been trying to get nuclear negotiations back on track. Those efforts have now been replaced by a scramble for plans to control loose nuclear weapons, should the regime collapse.
And yet Washington remains powerless. Any outreach to the young Mr. Kim or to other possible competitors could create more problems during the transition, and would certainly be viewed as threatening by China. Since Kim Jong-il’s stroke in 2008, the United States and South Korea have been working on contingency plans to deal with just such a situation, but they all thought they would have years, if not a decade.
The allies’ best move, then, is to wait and see what China does. Among China’s core foreign-policy principles is the maintenance of a divided Korean Peninsula, and so Beijing’s statements about preserving continuity of North Korea’s leadership should come as no surprise. Since 2008 it has drawn closer to the regime, publicly defending its leaders and investing heavily in the mineral mines on the Chinese-North Korean border.
But even as Beijing sticks close to its little Communist brother, there are intense debates within its leadership about whether the North is a strategic liability. It was one thing to back a hermetic but stable regime under Kim Jong-il; it will be harder to underwrite an untested leadership. For Xi Jinping, expected to become China’s president over the next year, the first major foreign policy decision will be whether to shed North Korea or effectively adopt it as a province.
All indications are that Beijing will pursue the latter course, in no small part because of a bias among its leadership to support the status quo, rather than to confront dramatic change. And yet “adopting” North Korea could be dramatic in itself. China may go all in, doling out early invitations and new assistance packages to the young Mr. Kim, conditioning them on promises of economic reform.
While some observers hope that Kim Jong-il’s death will unleash democratic regime change, China will work strongly against that possibility, especially if such efforts receive support from South Korea or the United States. Given that Beijing has the only eyes inside the North, Washington and Seoul could do little in response.
Yet even China’s best-laid plans may come apart. The assistance may be too little, too late, especially given the problems the new leadership will face. A clear channel of dialogue involving the United States, China and South Korea is needed now more than ever.
And yet such a dialogue is completely absent since Kim Jong-il’s stroke. Beijing has deflected every official and unofficial overture from Washington to have quiet discussions on potential North Korean instability. Before, China let its fears of Western interests get the better of it; wiser Chinese judgment should lead authorities to open such a channel now. The three sides should open with a conversation on all our fears about what could happen in a collapsing North — loose nukes, refugee flows, artillery attacks — and how each would respond.
With so little known about the inner workings of this dark kingdom, miscalculation by any side in response to developments inside the North is a very real possibility given the hair-trigger alerts of the militaries on the peninsula.
None of this will be easy. For China, the uncertainty surrounding North Korea comes against the backdrop of Mr. Obama’s “pivot” to Asia and assertion that the region is America’s new strategic priority. This has already created insecurities in Beijing that will make genuine dialogue with the United States even more challenging — and thus all the more necessary.
Victor Cha, a professor at Georgetown and author of the forthcoming book “The Impossible State: North Korea, Past, and Future,” was director of Asian affairs at the White House from 2004 to 2007.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on December 20, 2011, on page A33 of the New York edition with the headline: China’s Newest Province?.
27 articles in the past month
Victor Cha
Victor Cha
Senior Adviser and Korea ChairPrograms:Topics:Regions:
- Victor Cha joined CSIS in May 2009 as a senior adviser and the inaugural holder of the Korea Chair. He is also a professor of government and director for Asian studies at Georgetown University. From 2004 to 2007, he served as director for Asian affairs at the White House on the National Security Council (NSC). At the NSC, he was responsible for Japan, the two Koreas, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Island nations. He also served as the U.S. deputy head of delegation for the Six-Party Talks. He is a recipient of numerous academic awards, including a Fulbright scholarship (twice) and MacArthur Foundation fellowships. Dr. Cha also spent two years as a John M. Olin National Security Fellow at Harvard University and as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). In 1998, he was the Edward Teller National Security Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. In 2008, he was the William J. Perry Fellow, also at Stanford. He has acted as a consultant on East Asian security issues for different branches of the U.S. government, and he received two Outstanding Service Commendations during his tenure at the White House.
His books include Alignment Despite Antagonism: US-Japan-Korea Security (Stanford, 1999); Nuclear North Korea (Columbia, 2003) with David Kang; and Beyond the Final Score: Politics of Sport in Asia (Columbia, 2009). His next books are Powerplay: Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia (Princeton) and North Korea: The Impossible State (Ecco). He is the coeditor of the new Contemporary Asia Series at Columbia University Press. He serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals and recently joined the Board of Advisors for the Center for a New American Security. Dr. Cha is also a frequent contributor and guest analyst for various media outlets, including Chosun Ilbo, Joongang Ilbo, CNN, National Public Radio, New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, Asahi Shimbun, and Japan Times. Dr. Cha holds a B.A., an M.I.A., and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, as well as an M.A. Oxford University.
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David Kang (left) with Victor Cha, outside USCs Korean Studies Institute.
In an age of partisan politics and one-upmanship, “hawk” Victor Cha and “dove” David Kang—two top Korea experts—have written their own counter-narrative.
by Julie Ha
photographs by Eric Sueyoshi
Could you script a more perfect rivalry?
Victor D. Cha, cast as The Hawk, suspects North Korea wants to be treated like a nuclear weapons state. Juxtaposed with him is David C. Kang, The Dove, who thinks the North is going nuclear because it’s insecure over a U.S. pre-emptive threat. Enter, stage right, Cha, in favor of coercive diplomacy through negotiations and sanctions. He brandishes a stick. From stage left, Kang, who wants to open the isolated nation to capitalism and Western ideas, leads by dangling a carrot.
Figurative analogies aside, Cha and Kang are, in fact, highly positioned players on the real-world foreign policy stage. Formidable opponents with divergent opinions on how the U.S. should respond to North Korea’s nuclear weapons ambition, an issue that has plagued this nation for two decades, each has assumed an important role in government policy formation and scholarly research.
An international relations professor at Georgetown University, Cha formerly served as a key advisor on North Korea policy to then-President George W. Bush. Kang, who teaches international relations and business at the University of Southern California, has consulted for various government agencies since the Clinton administration.
Dubbed by one senior scholar as “the best young political scientists who study Korea,” both men have emerged in the last several years as two of the nation’s leading public policy commentators on Korea issues. When South Korea blamed a North Korean torpedo for the March sinking of its naval ship, killing 46 sailors, NPR invited Cha on-air to explain possible motives. When the United Nations Security Council came out with an ambiguous statement that didn’t quite condemn the sinking, the New York Times asked Kang to interpret its meaning.
To play up this notion of a rivalry, the scholars boast tit-for-tat resumés. Each has published three books and play prominent roles as ambassadors in Asian scholarship, with Kang directing USC’s Korean Studies Institute and Cha leading the Asian studies program at Georgetown.
The contemporaries have followed parallel paths, dating back to their heritage as American-born sons of early-wave Korean immigrants. They were back-to-back Fulbright scholars in Korea, where they also studied at the same research institute. In fact, it was while a Fulbright that Kang, a grad student from Berkeley, first got wind of his Columbia University-based counterpart, who had left within weeks of his arrival.
David Kang
“So I show up at the Fulbright office and the research institute, and other Korean Americans are like, ‘Victor Cha, Victor Cha, Victor Cha,’” described Kang, 45, in a mock fan tone. “They loved the guy. So I hated him before I ever met him.”
Cha, too, had been apprised of his liberal colleague before their first encounter. “I heard there was this young communist being trained,” quipped the 48-year-old.
The pair would even have dueling hawk-vs.-dove op-eds published by the New York Times in 2002 exactly one Sunday apart.
But, as it turns out, this ideal contest is not what it seems. These would-be opponents are defying trend in this age of hyperpartisan politics and going against the grain in an academic world that often sees scholars trying to outbuild the other’s empire. Fifteen years ago, they decided to write their own narrative, and it goes something like this:
“Our ideas don’t necessarily agree,” said Cha during a joint interview with Kang, “so we debate.”
“And learn things from each other,” added Kang.
“And also push each other,” said Cha. “You look at these top people in their fields, and some of them don’t even talk to each other.”
“It’s so self-defeating,” said Kang.
After first meeting in the mid-1990s, they instead made an informal pact to join forces, and their personal decision has yielded important public benefits. In 2003 the pair co-authored a highly lauded book that took a bipartisan approach to the contentious topic of dealing with a nuclear North Korea (with an updated version planned) and, earlier this year, launched a research project on long-term Korean reunification issues geared toward aiding policymakers.
Both collaborations speak to the scholars’ shared desire to reframe the way decision makers and the general public consider one of the most important foreign policy issues of our time: achieving peace on the Korean peninsula. It also happens to be an ambitious vision that perhaps helped this seeming rivalry give way to a brilliant alliance.
* * *
Kang recalled a conversation he had with his conservative counterpart over drinks after an academic conference in 1995. Both were assistant professors at the time. “We were ‘angry young men’ trying to make our mark on the world,” described Kang, whose animated style of speaking contrasts with Cha’s mild-mannered demeanor. “And Victor says, ‘You know, the field is so big, there’s so much that needs to be done. We could spend the rest of our careers competing with each other, but if we cooperate, we’ll both be way better off.’”
Their competing 2002 op-eds in the New York Times, ironically, marked their first public collaboration. They had conspired to write them in response to events from both sides of the DMZ that were sounding alarms in Washington.
That October, North Korea revealed a secret nuclear weapons program, prompting the U.S. to accuse Pyongyang of violating their 1994 nonproliferation agreement. Meanwhile, the complex and sometimes tenuous alliance between the United States and South Korea felt quite fragile, as South Koreans led protests over the acquittal of two American soldiers involved in an armored vehicle accident that killed two Korean schoolgirls.
Washington seemed to take it as a snub when the South’s voters that December chose the left-leaning Roh Moo-hyun as their next president over a candidate considered more pro-American.
Victor Cha
“We had a real crisis,” recalled Cha, who still consults for the government and serves as an advisor at the D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “David and I were talking about it, and I had one view, which was a little bit more conservative, and he had another view, which was a little bit more liberal. And we said, ‘All right, let’s write op-eds on it.’ We were young academics just dipping our feet into this.”
Kang believed the North, by then identified as an “axis of evil” member by President George W. Bush, had genuine security concerns that the U.S. might attack the isolated nation. In his op-ed, he urged a deeply changed American policy that provided security guarantees to the North and normalized political relations between the two nations, still technically at war. He also interpreted South Korea’s apparent anti-Americanism as a sign of anxiety that the U.S. might undo the gains both Koreas had made during a decade of “sunshine policy” engagement.
Cha countered that until North Korea complied with the nonproliferation agreement, a policy of isolation and containment was justified. In his editorial, he issued some tough love for South Korea, who he thought was wrongly blaming American policies, rather than North Korea’s “truculence,” for the threat of war on the peninsula.
Despite their disagreements, the scholars also commiserated about the lack of informed public discourse on the nuclear issue. Pundits and ideologues who merely dismissed the North and leader Kim Jong-il as “evil” and “insane” tended to dominate the debate playing out on cable news stations and newspaper op-ed pages. Kang recalled some from the
far right camp even talked about possible U.S. surgical strikes in the North. (In March 2003, U.S. forces would descend on Iraq, another axis member.)
The Korea specialists saw it as their duty to push for a nuanced understanding of the true sources of North Korea’s behavior and pragmatic U.S. strategies to deal with it. They understood the stakes were too high to do anything less: Should war break out on the peninsula, the estimated costs would be one million casualties, including 52,000 U.S. military casualties, and $1 trillion in material damage, according to one U.S. military official’s assessment.
In light of such stakes, they tried to move a constructive debate forward with their 2003 book Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies, which like their op-eds, presented their he said/he said arguments in alternating chapters.
“We thought it would be a good idea to do something together where you have two people informed on the topic, who have different views and still could have a rational discussion about it,” said Cha, “not just talking…”
“Talking past each other,” Kang finished.
Later, Ashton Carter, former assistant secretary of defense for international security in the Clinton administration, would call Nuclear North Korea “the most thoughtful and analytical treatment of practical strategies for dealing with North Korea that exists in print.” Copies of it could be found on the plane taking then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to Korea and in the hands of then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
Charles “Jack” Pritchard, president of the Korea Economic Institute and a former U.S. special envoy for North Korean negotiations, has worked with both Cha and Kang, whom he called “top-notch.” He said their book was “refreshing” in that the debating scholars also wrote shared chapters with their points of agreement. Cha and Kang, considered moderates in their views, took opposite directions to the same conclusion—that, as reprehensible as the actions of the Kim Jong-il regime were, its behavior was comprehensible, even rational, and therefore, there was a path for diplomacy. They commonly urged Washington to pursue some form of engagement with the North. For Kang, it could pave a gradual path to regime change; for Cha, engagement could be used to test whether Kim Jong-il would truly disarm.
The co-authors also agreed that the North Korean regime is not sustainable and that a unified Korea was inevitable. Given this, they said it would be beneficial for the U.S. to redefine its alliance with South Korea based on their shared principles, and not just their common threats.
A 13-city book tour gave them a chance to share their views with a diverse audience, from foreign policy followers to listeners of talk radio.
“The most important thing was for there to be two people talking about this in a very rational, educated way that the general [public] could understand,” said Cha, “so they wouldn’t think [North Korea] is just a crazy country, period.”
* * *
Cha would go from writing and teaching about U.S. foreign policy to advising the president from the White House—three years he would spend sleeping with a Blackberry on his chest. As an Asian specialist for Bush’s National Security Council between 2004 and 2007, he was responsible for policy to South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Island nations.
He would have a chance to harness his deep knowledge about Korea when he became the deputy negotiator at the North Korea nuclear talks,assisting then-chief negotiator Christopher Hill. Although hawks are known for pressure tactics, Cha is credited with convincing Bush to allow bilateral talks with the North as a way to test the regime’s intentions, marking a major shift in the Republican administration’s policy.
The once self-professed ivory tower academic would also take his first trip to North Korea in April of 2007, joining New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to negotiate the return of the remains of U.S. servicemen killed during the Korean War. After three days in Pyongyang, they drove to the DMZ and then took a helicopter into Seoul, its skyline replete with high-rises.
“I’d seen the Seoul skyline a million times, but I remember at that point, I really felt it,” described the New York-born Cha, whose late father studied business at Columbia and mother trained at Juilliard. “I thought, these Koreans in the South and I are not genetically any different from those in the North. It’s not like people in the North can’t do the same things; it’s just politics that have prevented them from doing it.
“And I knew all the stats—I can recite all the demographic data on why North Korean children who are my sons’ ages are a few inches shorter or many pounds lighter than South Koreans. But that one experience of having just driven from Pyongyang, past these completely barren fields, and then to view Seoul from the sky … I felt both anger and sadness at the same time.”
* * *
When Kang says things like the United States, not just North Korea, failed to uphold its end of the bargain as part of the 1994 nuclear accord, falling behind on opening a promised light-water reactor, for example, he notes that to some, it sounds like “you’re apologizing for or defending North Korea.”
“It’s a heinous, hideous regime, which I, like anyone, would like to see disappear,” said Kang. “If North Korea is afraid of capitalism and afraid if more of its people learn about the outside world, the weaker the regime gets, then we should saturate them with capitalism. We should be doing everything we can to trade with them. North Koreans learn about the outside world, and incomes rise. That would be the best, most easy transition.
“I’ve always believed that if you solve the North Korea problem—the economics, the openness of the culture—that’s a way to make progress on the nuclear issue.” The Northern California-reared academic grew up hearing stories from his physicist father about the latter’s hometown in Chongju, in what is now North Korea, from which his family fled in 1947. “One of my biggest dreams would be to take Dad and drive from Seoul up to see his home,” said Kang, whose mother is white and notably has studied Korean language and history.
Although he’s done briefings for the State Department, CIA and National Security Agency, the former Dartmouth professor says he cannot picture himself working directly for the government, as Cha did. Kang has leaned more toward academia, and in fact, while his peer was working for the White House, Kang taught as a visiting political science professor at Stanford, wrote a book about China as a rising power in East Asia and was elevated to full professor at Dartmouth.
Upon returning to Georgetown in 2007, Cha apparently took notice.
“I was only an associate professor, I was a book behind him, and he had another article published in one of these top political science journals,” recalled Cha, as Kang erupted into laughter.
“My wife said, ‘But you just worked for three years in the White House.’ I said, ‘That means nothing in academia.’”
The former Bush advisor could have continued working solely in the policy world, but Kang’s scholarly accomplishments helped nudge him to re-engage fully in academia.
“I think I push [David] to do more in the public policy realm,” said Cha, whose third, even-scoring book incidentally was published in 2009. “It’s a collaborative relationship, but we also push each other.”
* * *
It’s also a relationship that sometimes operates on telepathy. About two years ago, after Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke, speculation that the North Korean regime would collapse abounded. Without coordinating with each other, Cha, in an editorial for a Korean newspaper, and Kang, at a forum in D.C., raised the same concern: Although governments, including the U.S. and South Korea, have prepared short-term military contingency plans should the North collapse, no one was analyzing long-term social, economic and political issues associated with the integration of two vastly different countries.
“Whether [reunification] happens tomorrow or 50 years from now, thinking about these issues is important,” said Kang. “The day after, we’ll have to deal with internal migration: Will 22 million North Koreans want to move to China and South Korea, or will they stay [where they are]? How do you deal with that, with public health [issues]? If a ‘North Korea’ disappears, what happens to its treaties?”
“What do you do with the North Korean military?” added Cha, referring to its one million-person army.
This year, the scholars launched The Korea Project, a research initiative focused on examining these complex issues. Over two days in August at USC, they hosted a private conference, matching Korea scholars with experts who have worked on such issues as transitional justice in South Africa, reform of state-owned enterprises in China, resolving ethnic tensions in the former Yugoslavia and post-war reconstruction in Iraq, to see what lessons might be useful for the peninsula. Cha and Kang said many people tend to focus on the German reunification model, but the case of Iraq after the U.S. invasion may
be more instructive.
“One of the lessons from Iraq was that the lack of Iraqi voices [in the rebuilding effort] was a huge mistake,” Kang said, referencing comments made by a conference attendee involved in Iraq reconstruction efforts. “In this [reunification] process, you need to have North Korean voices, not just leaders, but finding out at the village level, what does the community need.
“We know from the post-war Iraq example that no planning leads to chaos.”
By the end of what they anticipate will be a three-year project, funded in its first year by the Korea Foundation, an independent organization affiliated with the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cha and Kang plan to have a set of papers covering problems and solutions on a wide set of reunification issues and tasks for Korea, the United States and other concerned parties in the region.
Cha said the government doesn’t have the time to do this kind of research, though when the time comes, policymakers will need the data to help make sound decisions. “If [reunification] happens, it will be the most important change in Asia since the revolution in China,” he said. “Imagine a peninsula with no tension, how positive that is.”
* * *
The collaborators’ approach to contentious foreign policy issues appears to be setting a new countertrend in an age of separate cable news stations for the political left and right. Borrowing from Nuclear North Korea’s bipartisan playbook, two other scholars present their dueling views in India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia, released earlier this year.
Cha and Kang, in fact, will be reteaming on a revised edition of their trend-setting book, updating events since 2003—a period that has seen North Korea conduct its first nuclear test, heightened tensions on the peninsula and stalled nuclear talks with the U.S. As this issue was going to press, a North Korean foreign minister announced to the United Nations General Assembly that the regime plans to bolster its nuclear arsenal to deter a U.S. threat. Just a day earlier, at a major
political convention in Pyongyang, the youngest son of Kim Jong-il was elected to his first leadership posts in the ruling Workers’ Party. The move confirmed for many North Korea watchers that the ailing leader is paving a path for dynastic succession for son Kim Jong-eun.
Cha is also working on a separate book explaining the enigmatic North Korea for a general audience, while Kang releases his latest about international relations in Asia pre-19th century this month—marking each scholar’s fourth text, not that either is keeping track.
As strategic as this pair’s partnership has proven, a genuine friendship anchors it. They correspond almost daily and enjoy a chemistry that has them often finishing the other’s sentence and engaged in mutual ribbing. Cha attended Kang’s wedding and has met most of the latter’s extended family, though he joked he doesn’t let his colleague, who has one daughter, near his own wife and two sons.
John S. Park, a senior research associate on Northeast Asia issues at the United States Institute of Peace, recognized the relationship as unusual. “You look at how things are quite partisan today—people tend to focus on broad ways of negating or dismissing the other’s viewpoints,” Park said. “But [David and Victor] have maintained a friendship as well as a professional relationship. They can be frank about each other’s viewpoints and do so in a constructive manner.”
Noting their “shared goals of peaceful denuclearization and reunification of the peninsula,” he called their dynamic “old-school, in a good way.”
But don’t expect these old-school colleagues to share the same sports field. Cha called soccer, Kang’s personal obsession, the most boring to watch.
“Nine people running around chasing a white ball,” said the Georgetown Hoyas football fan dryly.
“Eleven,” Kang corrected his colleague.
Fittingly, the USC professor used a sports analogy to characterize his relationship with Cha: “We’re both used to competing really, really hard and then leaving it on the field.”
Indeed, perhaps what this pair shares is a rivalry, after all. But the way this hawk and dove play, there are no losers.Related Articles
In this 1997 photo, students and residents plant rice in a newly rebuilt rice patty over flood-ravaged farmland in Sugu village, Kujang County, about 90 minutes north of Pyongyang. One local resident at the time admitted to eating plant porridge while trying to overcome the country’s food shortage. Photo credit: Hyungwon Kang The Food Dilemma How hungry is North Korea, and how conditional should food aid be? Korea specialist David C. Kang provides an overview of the North Korean food aid quandary. How bad is the food situation in North Korea? There is considerable debate about just how bad the situation is. The United Nations’ World Food Program, along with two other U.N. agencies, have released a study concluding that potentially 6 million North Koreans, a quarter of the population, need urgent food aid, citing a harsh winter in which some crops were down 44 percent from expected levels. But even as the World Food Program has launched an international appeal for aid, there are those who oppose such assistance for a variety of reasons. Some argue that the North Korean regime’s behavior should change before any aid is given, while others contend the situation is not so dire, citing evidence that the North Korean military has stockpiled up to 1 million tons of rice, much of it possibly diverted from aid organizations. And still others believe that the regime is simply saving up its food for 2012, when it plans a major celebration for the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-Sung’s birth. There is, however, evidence that food prices are rising in North Korea and are rising faster than world food prices. This is not only a sign that demand is outstripping supply, but also that the situation in North Korea is not simply a reflection of global food prices. That is, although North Korean elites and the military are unlikely to suffer, some ordinary citizens may be facing severe shortages. In late May, the U.S. sent a fact-finding team to North Korea to assess the situation, and the team’s report is being prepared at this time. What is the current South Korean and U.S. government stance on providing food aid? The overall stance of the U.S. government has been one of “strategic patience,” which means ignoring and containing North Korea until it first makes concrete steps to back down from the belligerent behavior of the past few years and to show measures intended to rein in the nuclear weapons program. The U.S. has also not yet made any decision about the humanitarian situation. South Korea’s approach is generally the same: President Lee Myung-bak has eliminated most economic and aid programs to the North until it apologizes for attacking South Korean naval vessel Cheonan and shelling Yeonpyeong Island last year. Within this overall approach, however, there is a willingness to potentially provide humanitarian aid to the North if the situation is dire enough and if the North meets certain preconditions. In this 1995 photo, residents wait at a Pyongyang bus stop. Photo credit: Hyungwon Kang Will denying North Korea food aid lead to popular unrest against the government? …It’s been 60 years since the start of the Korean War, which left families and a nation painfully divided. While a great deal of time has since been devoted to crisis scenarios involving the heavily armed peninsula, isn’t it time to plan for a longer-term reality: reunification? December 10, 1950. Thousands of Koreans fleeing Pyongyang brave the icy waters of the Taedong River. Photo by Bettmann Collection/CORBIS. By David C. Kang The tragedy of the Korean War is well known. My own family fled North Korea in 1947, leaving everything behind, from a village in which we had lived since the 16th century. No one has been back to our hometown since then. Our story is not unique: whether they fled the North or lived through the war, almost every Korean family has been affected over the years. The bitter, costly and bloody war between North and South Korea was an attempt to unify the peninsula by force. Sixty years later, the two sides remain locked in a bitter and tense relationship marked more by confrontation than by reconciliation. And the recent sinking of South Korean naval vessel Cheonan off the west coast of Korea on March 26 has only raised tensions. With evidence pointing to a North Korean torpedo as the cause (the North has flatly denied the charge), some may wonder whether it even makes sense to talk about the two countries coming together when they seem so poised to destroy each other. The truth is, unification is more likely to occur from a collapse of the North Korean ruling regime, rather than from a war or sudden invasion. … 2 Responses- 2[...] NK experts David Kang and Victor Cha have a brilliant rivalry. [...]
- 1[...] NK experts David Kang and Victor Cha have a brilliant rivalry. [...]
© 2011 KoreAm Journal
All rights reserved Victor Cha
Professor
D.S. Song-KF Endowed Chair in Goverment and Asian Studies and Director of Asian StudiesFOREIGN SERVICE, SCHOOL OFPhone
202-687-2978Fax
202-687-5858Email
Location
510 ICCBio
Dr. Cha returned to Georgetown in the fall 2007 after public service leave from the University since 2004, serving as a Director for Asian Affairs at the White House, National Security Council. At the NSC, he was responsible for Japan, the two Koreas, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Island nations. Dr. Cha also served as the U.S. Deputy Head of Delegation for the Six Party Talks. Professor Cha holds the D.S. Song Chair in Asia and a joint appointment with the School of Foreign Service core faculty and the Department of Government. He is a recipient of numerous academic awards including the Fulbright Scholarship (twice) and MacArthur Foundation Fellowships. Professor Cha also spent two years as a John M. Olin National Security fellow at Harvard University and as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). In 1998, he was the Edward Teller National Security Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford. In 2008, he was the William J. Perry Fellow, also at Stanford. Dr. Cha is the award-winning author of Alignment Despite Antagonism: The US-Korea-Japan Security Triangle (Stanford Univ. Press, 1999) (winner of the 2000 Ohira book prize), and co-author of Nuclear North Korea (Columbia Univ. Press, 2001). He has published articles on international relations and East Asia in International Security, Foreign Affairs, Survival, Political Science Quarterly, International Studies Quarterly, Orbis, Armed Forces and Society, Journal of Peace Research, Security Dialogue, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Asian Survey, Journal of East Asian Studies, Asian Perspective, and Japanese Journal of Political Science. He has acted as a consultant on East Asian security issues for different branches of the U.S. government, and is a frequent contributor and guest analyst for various media including CNN, National Public Radio, New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, Asahi Shimbun, Japan Times, Choson Ilbo, and Joongang Ilbo. Dr. Cha received two Outstanding Service commendations during his tenure at the White House. Recent publications include "Winning Asia: An Untold American Foreign Policy Success" in the November/December 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs; and "Beijing's Olympic-Sized Catch 22" in the Summer 2008 issue of the Washington Quarterly. Dr. Cha's new book is "Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia" (Columbia University Press, 2009). He is Director of Asian Studies at Georgetown and Senior Adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is the co-editor of the new Contemporary Asia Series at Columbia University Press. He serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals and recently joined the Board of Advisors for the Center for a New American Security.Education
- Ph.D. (1994) Columbia University, Political Science
- MIA (1988) Columbia University, International Affairs
- M.A. (Honours) (1986) University of Oxford (UK), Philosophy, Politics, Econ
- B.A. (1983) Columbia University, Economics
Languages
- Korean (speak, read, write)
Flash Back:
My room mate was a (Christian) Korean. He was smart dude. He was senior to me in the graduate school but not senior in age. We enjoyed our days and nights, arguing, debating and few times quarreling on subjects as mundane as babes in skimpy (Bikini) swim suits lounging, guess where?, right in front of our windows. Not necessarily, in summer time either.
You see, this dude, was not only intelligent, IQ over 155, a real, genuine, brainy kid. That was his curse. Actually, he was a classical, tiny, puny, thin as a ramrod and too geeky to describe. Slanted eyes did not help his personality either.
Thru him, I met several foreign Exchange students. One was actually, a professor of (Higher, mathematics, having taught a major university, Seoul National University.
Unfortunately, for me, he did not know a single word in (American) English and I did the same in Korean. He wanted me to teach him Buddhism and I wanted to learn from him some (Higher) mathematics. We communicated, mostly, by hand and body gestures and established a status where we transcended (verbal communications.
I hope, Victor D. Cha, cast as The Hawk, suspects North Korea wants to be treated like a nuclear weapons state. Juxtaposed with him is David C. Kang, The Dove, who thinks the North is going nuclear because it's insecure over a US pre-emptive threat. Enter, stage right, Cha, in favor of coercive diplomacy through negotiations and sanctions. He brandishes a stick. From stage left, Kang, who wants to open the isolated nation to capitalism and Western ideas, leads by dangling a carrot, find peace in meditation more than (verbal) fist fighting.
…and I am Sid Harth@arabuhuru.org