UN warns food aid to N Korea is drying up

January 4, 2003 3:44 PM

UN warns food aid to N Korea is drying up 7 million North Koreans face starvation. You are the American president. What do you suggest be done? (note: America was the biggest supplier of food till recently.) Do you tell them No food till you give up nukes or do you feed them what you can and try to negotiate? Or do you sit back and say: not my problem.
posted by Postroad (24 comments total)

As I understand, doesn't all that food go to the army and not the starving people anyway?
posted by mckayc at 3:56 PM on January 4, 2003

S.K and Japan will just pick up the slack anyway.
posted by delmoi at 5:15 PM on January 4, 2003

Let them eat South Korean kim chee.
posted by ParisParamus at 5:23 PM on January 4, 2003

Here in Japan, newspaper editorials and TV exposees have generally stopped qualifying their statements with "reports indicate..." and "it appears...", and are simply stating as empirical fact that the North Korean government is starving its people by selling off much of its food aid to other countries, and using the proceeds to purchase weaponry. Another common rumor treated as fact is that the starving masses have resorted to cannibalism to stay alive.

True or not, I remain fascinated that the U.S. considers Iraq a greater threat to U.S. interests and allies than North Korea [not a thread-derail attempt, just a humble sidebar opinion].
posted by Bixby23 at 5:25 PM on January 4, 2003

Since South Korea and even China are doing pretty well on their own, thank you, I think we should leave them be. If their country worked properly then no-one would be starving in the first place. It's not as if bad weather or war have caused the famine, just bad policy.

If they want help bringing in a proper government and system of order, sure, let's help.. but do we really want to prop up a communist state with a dead leader? I think not!
posted by wackybrit at 5:41 PM on January 4, 2003

Nightline just did two heartbreaking episodes on a North Korean familly living illegally in China. The US and the UN should at least try to help North Korean refugees reach Mongolia, but that would require pressuring China to meet its UN treaty obligations on refugees, and that isn't going to happen.

I'm beginning to like Krauthammer's idea, though I doubt the Japanese would go for it.
posted by homunculus at 6:05 PM on January 4, 2003

S.K and Japan will just pick up the slack anyway.
The top news story in Japan in 2002 was the return of Japanese abductees from N. Korea (The World Cup only came in second in year-end polls), and the unwillingness of NK to honestly account for the dead abductees or allow the families of returnees out. Japan is not thinking about increasing food aid. Bixby is right about horror stories in the Japanese press, but some of them are told by NK's who have escaped.
Interesting Washington Post link by Homunculus. A high-ranking Japanese gov't official and a minor party leader caused a ruckus last spring just by suggesting that Japan consider the pros and cons of going nuclear. That's a tough sell in Japan.
posted by planetkyoto at 7:13 PM on January 4, 2003

not my problem.
posted by WLW at 7:22 PM on January 4, 2003

Starving North Koreans = downer
War with Iraq = sexy
posted by RylandDotNet at 7:43 PM on January 4, 2003

It's a tough sell throughout the entire Far East, to be honest. China fears few things more than a nuclear Japan, and a nuclear North Korea is not on that list. Most of the region still remembers Japan's actions during World War Two with something between bitter recrimination and outright hatred.

I recall being in Mainland China and Hong Kong during 1999, when North Korea first tested the No Dong missile, and got into a few naval skirmishes with the Japanese coast guard. The China Daily News (the english language government-run paper) spent most of the time talking about how this was the first time since World War Two that Japan's navy had engaged in combat with a foreign power. That North Korea was testing long-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads wasn't even a major issue compared to the Japanese navy's actions.

Most of the region will take a nuclear Japan as well as America took a nuclear Cuba in 1962.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 8:03 PM on January 4, 2003

Bixby...I'd say that the US considers North Korea to be a bigger threat. It's just that military pressure (whether used or simply threatened) is more effective to solve the problem in Iraq, whereas North Korea's proximity to their enemies and possible possession of Nukes forces a fully diplomatic solution. Basically, the US doesn't want Iraq to turn into North Korea ten years down the road.

As for what to do with Korea, here's what I would do as President: Fail to recognize the current North Korean government (I don't think we have diplomatic connections anyway). Declare that we will pick up the entire food bill, as long as the food is distributed by an international organization and not by the NK Government. Insist on re-offering contingent aid to the NK Government, similar to the way we paid off Egypt to get them to return relations with Israel to a relatively normal state.

We're the good guys, we avoid harming the innocent people, we don't prop up a government and we avoid escalation.
posted by Kevs at 8:18 PM on January 4, 2003

Pseudo - but isn't that the point? - I think Krauthammer's idea is that the very fear of a Nuclear Japan might be enough (if a credible threat) to Peel away North Korea's most significant ally, China, and so reduce it's resistance to negotiation. But this is just an uninformed opinion, as I am fairly ignorant of the overall regional realities.
posted by troutfishing at 8:23 PM on January 4, 2003

Trout> To be honest, it's more likely to unite the rest of the region against Japan and the US than divide them up. Even relatively pro-US regimes like Indonesia, Taiwan and South Korea will quickly band together with North Korea, China and Vietnam to contain the Japanese if they go nuclear. If anything North Korea's customer base would explode (pardon the poor pun), as all the minor players in the region would scramble for nuclear armaments.

I'm not sure if you've read The Clash of Civilisations by Samuel Huntington, but he makes an important point in there about this sort of situation. Specifically, most of South East Asia (or at least the people in charge of South East Asia) sees themselves as part of "Greater China" - they have strong cultural ties to China, espouse Confucian/Buddhist values, and are willing to work together against threats to the region. Japan though, is _not_ seen as part of "Greater China", and is considered as foreign as the United States, but with an even worse track record of imperialism in the area.

I think Krauthammer overlooks this problem, to be honest. A much better solution would be a ABM defense system of some sort over the Pacific region. Japan wants one, America and the Bush government seem hell-bent on building one anyway. Having it in place would neutralise not only North Korea, but would discourage China from nuclear adventures in the area as well (one of the more scary things about China's nuclear policy is that it's party dogma, set down by Mao himself, that they could _win_ a nuclear war). And finally, an American administrated ABM defense system stands much less chance of provoking a Sino-Nipponese war.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 9:43 PM on January 4, 2003

The best solution would be not to give North Korea any good reasons for nuking us. After all, you don't see Iraq getting pissed off at South Africa, Australia, Canada, or Finland, do you?
posted by wackybrit at 9:57 PM on January 4, 2003

Wacky> North Korea doesn't want to use its nuclear weapons on the United States - it wants to use them on Japan (if anyone - mostly it wants nuclear weapons so that the US will give it money and food to not build nuclear weapons). And unfortunately, it wants to use it on them for events that happened about sixty years ago, which are hardly within our power to prevent.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 10:24 PM on January 4, 2003

After all, you don't see Iraq getting pissed off at Finland, do you?

That's because they are fools and don't see the truth about evil, evil Finland. They're the real evildoers, darn it!
posted by homunculus at 11:41 PM on January 4, 2003

Having it in place would neutralise not only North Korea, but would discourage China from nuclear adventures in the area as well (one of the more scary things about China's nuclear policy is that it's party dogma, set down by Mao himself, that they could _win_ a nuclear war).

Yes, those perfect reliable ABMs that always hit their incoming warheads will protect us all.
posted by y2karl at 1:08 AM on January 5, 2003

We're the good guys, we avoid harming the innocent people

Yikes. I had to read that a few times just to make sure I was reading it correctly.
posted by futureproof at 3:36 AM on January 5, 2003

Here in Japan, newspaper editorials and TV exposees have generally stopped qualifying their statements with "reports indicate..." and "it appears...", and are simply stating as empirical fact that the North Korean government is starving its people by selling off much of its food aid to other countries, and using the proceeds to purchase weaponry.

Perhaps that's not treated as rumor by the media anymore becuase there's been verification? I (literally) don't know.

But if it's true, what the heck would the UN have anybody do, short of regime change? If the government is starving its own people to buy weapons with food aid (which I get visions of street gangs giving away their food stamps for guns, or Iraq) then how do you help the starving short of removing the evil regime that's doing that?
posted by swerdloff at 6:11 AM on January 5, 2003

then how do you help the starving short of removing the evil regime that's doing that?

You let them starve, horrible as that is, until the army turns their guns inward instead of outward. If you remove an 'evil regime' unilaterally, you'd better have something better, and credible to the citizens, to replace it with, which we didn't have for the people of Iran ('53), Guatemala ('54), Lebanon ('57), Zaire ('61), Chile ('73), Cuba (various)...
posted by planetkyoto at 8:26 AM on January 5, 2003

You let them starve, horrible as that is, until the army turns their guns inward instead of outward.

There is an alternative for those North Koreans who escape into China. As described in one of the articles I linked above, China is ignoring their obligations under the UN treaty on refugees in favor of their treaty with North Korea. If the UN, the US, South Korea and Japan really cared about these poor people they would all put as much pressure as possible on China to at least turn a blind to the refugess while private relief networks help them reach Mongolia, where they can find sanctuary. This could help a lot of people escape famine and death.
posted by homunculus at 9:49 AM on January 5, 2003

China is ignoring their obligations under the UN treaty on refugees in favor of their treaty with North Korea

China doesn't really care. The refugees are a bother to a tanked-out population. China is in the billions already, what could they care about more starving humans to deal with? They allowed North Koreans to be dragged back to NK with (literally) chains in their noses to an inevitable interminable torture and, only if lucky: death. The actual atrocities are unthinkable for those who are unlucky enough to live.

South Korea wants to appease and accomodate (read: "throw money at") a regime at which Stalin might shudder.
posted by hama7 at 3:50 AM on January 6, 2003

not my problem either.
posted by eas98 at 6:14 AM on January 6, 2003

U.S., in a Shift, Is Willing to Talk With North Korea About A-Arms
posted by y2karl at 10:36 PM on January 7, 2003