This article is about the North Korea’s nuclear weapons issue. This is an issue that has last for a long time, and still it has not been solved yet. As a result of North Korea withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2003, the six-party talks have been set. Six countries participant in the meeting: the People's Republic of China; the Republic of Korea (South Korea); the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea); the United States of America; the Russian Federation; and Japan. There have been five rounds of talks with only little net progress, until North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear facilities in exchange for fuel aid and steps towards the normalization of relations with the United States and Japan in the third phase of the fifth round of talks.
So how are this issue and the current events related to globalization? It is quite obvious. One important point of globalization is that it creates increasing interdependence in many different areas, so as the political area. It means that one country’s decision is linked to the move of another. In this case, the North Korea-US relations play very important role.
The primary problem is that the current U.S. administration fundamentally doesn’t want an agreement with North Korea. The Bush administration considers the 1994 Agreed Framework to have been a flawed agreement. It doesn’t want to be saddled with a similar agreement, for if it did sign one, it would then be open to charges of "appeasing" Pyongyang. The Vice President has summed up the approach as: "We don’t negotiate with evil, we defeat evil." - John Feffer
The US is the most dominant power today and it is quite unhappy about North Korea. On the other hand, North Korea wants to get rid of the military threat from USA. In 1994, North Korea promised to freeze its nuclear program while the US promised to provide light water reactors to North Korea. However, both of them seemed not doing what they should do. Once again the issue came out and became even more serious. US applied a lot of political pressure on North Korea on its denuclearization, while the latter then unfreeze its nuclear program again.
As the article pointed out, “the basic problem is that people of both views simply haven't figured out what it is that the North really wants.” The fact is that although we have international organizations conducting international meetings, nations are still the most important roles in the political world. Yes, one country or an international organization can apply pressure on that nation in order to solve certain issue. However, the final decision is still made by the nation itself. In this case, the result of both US and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) applying a lot of pressure on North Korea was that it announced to quit the “Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty” and it had the right to develop nuclear weapons. So at the end, the only way we could solve this issue peacefully is through a “sustained talks in which ideas can be explored and solutions, at last, patiently developed”. And the main point is again the North Korea-US relations.
In the author’s point of view, the current six-party talks are “a microcosm of the strategic world it most fears”. Besides the US, the other three strategic foes seem also “apply pressure and (to Pyongyang's mind) insist on the North's permanent weakness”. North Korea certainly does not want to sign any treaties or agreements under so much pressure, and lets itself appearing weak. And it seems that North Korea is using its nuclear program as a chip for getting more international aids and become more initiative in its diplomacy with other nations.
Finally in my opinion, to achieve the denuclearization, it is important to consider the “strategic relationship with the US”, which North Korea mostly wanted. The final agreement should be signed base on trust between nations. All countries have their own stands as well as their own interests, but the only way we can solve this issue is to know what they want and find out the common will. The final result is then still base on the attitude of the two major nations involved – North Korea and USA. Applying too much international pressure might not be a good thing, and one important thing is to normalize the relations between these two nations.
