US-DPRK Bilateral Talks (1993-2002)
Fu Ying noted that prior to 2003, the North Korean issue was ad-
dressed exclusively by the US and the DPRK through bilateral nego-
tiations.
In 1993, under the administration of then-president Bill Clinton,
which adopted an approach in favour of negotiation, high-level talks
between North Korea and the US made some progress and the two
sides signed the Agreed Framework. Its main contents included North
Korea’s agreement to give up its two graphite-moderated nuclear reac-
tors that were under construction. The US agreed to lead an interna-
tional consortium to oversee and finance the construction of two light
water reactors and to provide 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil annually.
However, neither party demonstrated sufficient political will or the
ability to execute what was committed, with most of the content in
the Agreed Framework left hanging in the air. For example, both the
planned dismantling of the reactors and the construction of the light
water reactors by the US, Japan, and South Korea were consistently
delayed, and ultimately never carried out.
But generally speaking, Clinton managed the first North Korea
nuclear crisis quite successfully in his first term. During his second
term, he attempted to thoroughly resolve the nuclear issue by engag-
ing more closely with North Korea. The two sides even conducted
discussion on setting up liaison offices and then lifting the offices to
the level of diplomatic representatives at a later stage. However, as the
US entered presidential elections, the lame duck Clinton administra-
tion had no time to realise this vision. Several years later, Fu Ying her-
self discussed this with then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,
and there was an agreement that perhaps an important opportunity to
resolve the nuclear issue had unfortunately been missed.
After George W. Bush came into office in 2001, he reversed the
Clinton administration’s decision to increase contact, arguing that the
policy of engaging North Korea had helped the regime avoid collapse.
In January 2002, the US president listed North Korea, along with
Iran and Iraq, as one of the three states forming the “axis of evil.” Then
in October 2002, the US claimed they had discovered North Korea’s
secret nuclear programme, and deemed North Korea as having vio-
lated the US-DPRK Agreed Framework and announced the end of
bilateral talks.
In response, North Korea announced that it would restart the nu-
clear programme that they said had been frozen in accordance with
the Agreed Framework in December 2002. Then on January 10,
2003, North Korea announced its formal withdrawal from the NPT.
The problem with American rhetoric about North Korea during
this period is that it often confuses “denuclearisation” with “regime
collapse,” so much so that North Korea could not tell which one was
the main target. As a result, Pyongyang could only conclude that the
US was not serious about making an agreement in the first place.
China as a Mediator: Six-Party Talks (2003-2008)
As the US-DPRK Agreed Framework was not producing results,
the US sent then Secretary of State Colin Powell to China for help in
February 2003. Given that a denuclearised Korea was also in the in-
terest of China, the Chinese government, after careful consideration,
decided to accept the US request. It was only at this time that China
started to act as a mediator to facilitate the multilateral talks regarding
the issue, said Fu Ying in her article.
From April 2003 to October 2007, China hosted one round of
Three-Party Talks together with representatives from the US and
North Korea, and six rounds of Six-Party Talks adding representatives
from South Korea, Japan and Russia.
The Six-Party Talks produced three documents, including the Sep-
tember 19 Joint Statement (in 2005), the February 13 Joint Docu-
ment (in 2007), and the October 3 Joint Document (also in 2007)
laying an important political basis for peacefully resolving the Korean
nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiation. Regrettably, however,
these agreements were never implemented, as talks were disrupted
and broke down from time to time, resulting in spiralling tensions.
According to the October 3 Joint Document, North Korea agreed
to dismantle its nuclear reactors and to declare the suspension of all of
its nuclear programmes. In exchange, the US and Japan were to im-
prove their bilateral relationships with Pyongyang, as well as provide
various material assistance.
But as North Korea had completed 75 percent of its nuclear reac-
tor disablement by early 2008, it did not see corresponding measures
being taken by other parties. North Korea and the US later agreed
that North Korea would declare an end to its nuclear programme and
the US would remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors ofFormer Chinese vice-minister of foreign affairs Fu YingPhoto by sheng jiapeng