Six Party Talks

DPRK – The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) desires “Reward for Action” in its negotiations with the U.S. on nuclear non-proliferation. It seeks the lifting of sanctions and blockade of its territory as well as substantial energy subsidies and no doubt other benefits directly from the U.S. if it is to halt its nuclear program (DPRK). It has persistently pursued bilateral negotiations with the U.S. and it seems fairly obvious its objective in this regard is twofold, first that the U.S. provide significant aid to the DPRK, second to demonstrate to the world that the DPRK is worth something. Kim Jong-il seems to carry an inferiority complex and feels that bilateral talks with the U.S. would be an admission on its part that the DPRK is of some degree of worth.

ROK – The Republic Of Korea (ROK) has carried a softer line approach to the DPRK in its desires for a nuclear free Korean Peninsula. The reason for the ROk’s softer line approach is likely that it shares a common border and common ethnic background with the north. It has made significant concessions including to offer 2 gigawatts of power to the DPRK in direct exchange for the north dismantling its nuclear program (Hayes).

PRC – The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is interested in its own security more than it is concerned with whether or not the DPRK obtains nuclear weapons. The DPRK creates a buffer zone between the democratic ROC (and hence the United States) and itself. That buffer zone is therefore critical to the PRC’s sense of domestic isolation from the democratic powers of the world. As a result, the PRC will sustain the DPRK as long as the DPRK doesn’t cross the PRC, and the PRC will permit a DPRK nuclear program as long as the DPRK continues to do the PRC’s bidding. The PRC would also be dramatically and detrimentally affected by another war on the Korean peninsula. It therefore would prefer to insure peace between the Koreas and if that means permitting a nuclear armed DPRK, then so be it (Horowitz).

Russian Federation – The Russian Federation is nearly as concerned with a second war on the Korean Peninsula as is the PRC. Such a war would be detrimental to all of East Asia. The acquisition of nuclear weapons by the DPRK is a significant security concern to Russia as well and Russia has stated its intention to prevent said acquisition due to these security implications. Despite the security implications to the Russian Federation, it has strongly emphasized its rejection of any forcible measures to either prevent the DPRK’s acquisition of nuclear weapons or for regime change. It stresses the necessity for a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear problem. Ultimately, Russia would like the DPRK to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty from which it absconded in 2002 (Toloraya).

Japan – Japan’s primary objective in the context of the six-party talks is to insure a stable East Asia/Asia Pacific region. Although this is the case, Japan has some critical reasons to maintain the status quo in the region. Japan clearly sees the DPRK as a significant security threat and it is the existence of this threat that Japan can fully justify its own defensive military buildup. Japan also appreciates the focus the DPRK takes from the PRC. Without the constant vigilance of the PRC being drawn toward the DPRK, China and Japan could easily develop into adversarial neighbors. The drawn out process of negotiation with all the attention being focused on the DPRK is a benefit to Japan that allows it to pursue its own ends without much interference from China (Okano).

United States – The United States has several objectives in its participation in the six-party talks. Its first and primary objective is the nuclear disarmament of the DPRK and a nuclear free Korean Peninsula. This clear objective is really the central reason the United States is even involved in the six-party talks. The second is that any concessions must be one hundred percent verifiable, otherwise the DPRK will continue on the same course it has always been on in bluffing during negotiations, then proceeding to do whatever it wants regardless of the outcome of the most recent round of negotiations. The United States would also like to insist on continued negotiations with the six-party platform once the issue of DPRK nuclear development has been resolved (Spring). It is doubtful however that any American analyst would be willing to put their money on the DPRK doing anything it says it will do.

One of the main problems in negotiations among the six parties seems to be a misunderstanding and an imbalance surrounding geographic issues between those parties with near term interests at stake and those with more long term interests in the process. For example, it seems that the PRC and the ROK have different near term objectives than does the United States. The two aforementioned states are geographically bound to the DPRK and as a result must be more concerned with the DPRK issue in its entirety, that is, economically, politically, demographically, militarily, etc. Their concerns over the DPRK must necessarily consider the whole of the problem rather than simply the possible emergent threats posed by exclusively military issues, whereas the United States, in consequence of its distant geographic location, has only distant direct threats to its domestic security to be concerned about. The United States has allies in the region in the ROK and Japan, and more distantly Australia and New Zealand, but there is little in the way of direct threats in the near future to America’s homeland that it has need to be concerned about. Instability in the DPRK, however, be it the result of economic pressure, military discord, or innumerable other issues, directly affect those states which geographically border the DPRK (Yun, 12).

The problem has been discussed extensively in the past, but the United States also has a problem with playing the bully. As the world’s sole superpower, it appears easy for the United States to shove smaller states around in order to insure favorable circumstances for itself and its allies. In some ways, the United States may have lost an edge diplomatically because it has relied so heavily on “hard power” to solve its problems. In his article The Logic of Positive Engagement, Miroslav Nincic discusses the pros and cons of overuse of “the stick” at the expense of “the carrot” (Nincic). Like a bull in a china shop, the United States has a tendency to barge into a sensitive situation with very bellicose assumptions that its will should be done simply as a result of its comprehensive might. While, “the carrot” approach may be significantly lacking on its own merits, the United States could take some lessons from the old fable of the sun, the wind, and the man in the coat. The wind boasted to the sun of the ease with which he could remove the man’s coat. The wind blew, and blew, and blew, and all he succeeded in doing was encouraging the man to wrap ever tighter his coat around himself. When the wind had exhausted himself and admitted defeat, the sun came out and of course by the warmth of his glow, the man voluntarily removed his coat. Although “the carrot” approach may not be the answer in the case of the DPRK, especially given the results of past experience, it may be in the interests of the United States and its allies if the United States was to take a step back and allow the ROK and Japan to do the bulk of the negotiating, with the backing of the United States.


“DPRK Foreign Ministry Spokesman on Six-Party Talks.” Pyongyang, June 28, 2004. http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~caplabtb/dprk/SPT0406.htm.

Hayes, Peter, et al. “South Korea’s Power Play at the Six-Party Talks.” Nautilus.org, July 21, 2005. http://www.nautilus.org/napsnet/sr/2005/0560ROK_Energy_Aid.pdf (accessed March 31, 2010).

Horowitz, Shale and Min Ye. “China’s Grand Strategy and the Six-Party Talks.” University of Wisconsin, September 2006. http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/5/3/3/8/pages153388/p153388-1.php (accessed April 5, 2010).

Nincic, Miroslav. “The Logic of Positive Engagement: Dealing with Renegade Regimes.” International Studies Perspectives, 2006.

Okano-Heijmans, Maaike. “Japan as Spoiler in the Six-Party Talks: Single-Issue Politics and Economic Diplomacy towards North Korea.” Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, October 21, 2008. http://www.japanfocus.org/-Maaike-Okano_Heijmans/2929 (accessed April 5, 2010).

Spring, Baker and Balbina Hwang. “U.S. Strategy For the Six-Party Talks.” The Heritage Foundation, July 22, 2005. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2005/07/US-Strategy-For-the-Six-Party-Talks (accessed April 5, 2010).

Toloraya, Georgy. “The Six Party Talks: A Russian Perspective.” Asian Perspective, Vol. 32, No. 4, 2008. http://www.asianperspective.org/articles/v32n4-d.pdf (accessed April 5, 2010).

Yun, Philip W. and Gi-Wook Shin. “North Korea: 2005 and Beyond.” The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, 2006. http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/21024/1_Introduction_NK2005_FI.pdf (accessed March 31, 2010).