All these changes came around the same time that West Germany absorbed East Germany, ending a half century of separate
German nations. It appeared to many observers that comparatively wealthy South Korea was poised to absorb the increasingly poverty-stricken North. However, predictions such as these had been made previously without coming to pass. Not only did North Korea not collapse, it achieved one of its long-term policy objectives—to draw the United States to the negotiating table without South Korea.
North Korea was able to do this because U. S. satellite surveillance in the early 1990's indicated that it had the capacity to produce enough plutonium with its nuclear reactors to make at least one nuclear weapon. Moreover, North Korea threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It was a dangerous gamble, but the North Korean threat spurred the United States to agree to negotiate with it.
The United States wanted North Korea to agree not to produce nuclear weapons. It saw the prospect of a North Korea with nuclear weapons as a threat, not only to the security of Northeast Asia, but also to its global efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. U. S.-North Korean negotiations included American commitments to replace North Korea's old and dangerous nuclear reactors, to supply North Korea with fuel oil until new reactors were completed, and to set up liaison offices in both nation's capitals as a preparatory step to full diplomatic relations.
While many observers thought that North Korea got the best of the United States, it was clear that the North Koreans took the negotiations seriously. They even continued negotiating while their long-time president, Kim Il-sung, was dying in the summer of 1994. That fall in Geneva, the agreement was signed, averting the potential for renewed hostilities in Korea, this time possibly involving nuclear weapons.
While North Korea was clearly a winner in these negotiations, its ailing economy continued to spiral downward. Adding to its chronic problems of too much central planning and recent energy shortages came new problems in the form of natural disasters. In 1995, 1996, and 1997, floods and drought took a heavy toll on North Korea. For the first time, reports of starvation filtered out of the tightly sealed nation.
Many nations, including South Korea and the United States,
Sent food aid to North Korea. More was promised, but donor countries wanted assurances that the food would go to those most in need—children and the elderly—rather than the military. The United States and South Korea also offered greater quantities of food aid if North Korea would agree to enter into negotiations to transform the armistice of 1953 into a permanent peace treaty. In 1998 North Korea did agree to come to the conference table. Four-party talks—involving China, Russia, North Korea, and South Korea—began to forge a permanent treaty.
Meanwhile, South Korea remained wary of North Korea's ultimate intentions. Some strategists feared that if the North Korean economy continued to deteriorate, North Korea might commit a desperate act of invading the South. Fear of such an invasion was heightened by the fact that the South Korean capital, Seoul, is only thirty miles from the North Korean border. Moreover, North Korea had never renounced the use of force to reunify the country and had never shied away from using terrorism as a tactic.
Other observers noted that North Korean leadership had passed to Kim Jong-il, the son of the late president, who had been apparently responsible for some of North Korea's terrorist incidents in the past; they feared that Kim might launch an attack on South Korea to bolster his credibility as a leader, particularly among personnel in the army.
World History
