아시아의 분열을 깊게하는 한국의 위기 (뉴욕타임즈 지면기사)

자료출처 : 뉴욕 타임즈

미국 핵정부가 북한 핵문제 대책으로 '맞춤형 봉쇄' 정책을 마련키로 하자 뉴욕타임즈는 29일 봉쇄정책의 성패는 한반도 주변국들의 공조를 이끌어낼수 있는지에 달려 있다는 분석기사를 실었다.

뉴욕 타임즈는 "한국 중국 일본 러시아 등 한반도 주변국들은 각기 다른 이해관계를 갖고 자신들의 프리증으로 북핵 문제를 보고있다."며 미국이 원하는 공동전선 형성이 쉽지 않을 것을 내다봤다.

우선 북한에 핵 초기기술을 제공한 중국은 현재 이중 게임을 하고 있다. 북한의 ‘벼랑끝 정책’을 비난하면서도 북한과의 무역은 중단하지 않는다. 중국의 주된 관심은 북한 내부 사정이 더 악화돼 대규모 탈북사태가 빚어지지 않도록 하는 것이다.

일본은 ‘미군이 북한의 미사일로부터 일본을 지켜줄 것’이라는 확실한 보장을 갈망한다. 일본의 지도자들은 북한의 핵 보유로 동북아시아에서 미국의 방어망이 약해지면 일본 내 우파가 득세해 재무장을 요구할 것으로 전망하고 있다. 그렇게 되면 일본의 군비 증강을 두려워하는 다른 아시아 국가들과의 긴장이 고조될 것이다.

북한의 맹방이었던 러시아는 겉으로는 “미국이 북한에 대해 비우호적인 태도를 보여 사태를 초래했다”며 유감을 표명한다. 하지만 실제로는 이 문제에 대해 외면하고 싶은 것이 러시아의 본심이다. 중국과 마찬가지로 러시아도 북한의 핵 보유는 원치 않지만 극동에서 미국의 영향력이 더 커지는 것을 극도로 경계한다.

한국 정부는 북한의 갑작스러운 붕괴를 경계하고 있다. 그러나 조지 W 부시 미국 대통령은 북한을 벌주자고 하고 있다.

결국 ‘북핵 대응팀’을 꾸려가기 위해서는 이처럼 각자 다른 이해관계를 가진 서로 껄끄러운 관계인 선수들을 끌어모아야 한다. 백악관은 이를 ‘동맹 관리(alliance management)’라고 부르지만, 실제로는 ‘경쟁자 관리(rivals management)’라는 게 정확한 표현일 것이다.

동아시아 정세 전문가인 연세대 문정인 교수는 “북한은 자신이 한미 관계를 포함해 한반도 주변국들 사이에 커다란 분열을 만들 능력을 갖고 있음을 알고 있으며, 그것이 북한의 가장 큰 무기”라고 진단했다.

자세한 내용은 아래 원문을 참고하세요^^
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Asia's Splits Deepen Korea Crisis
By DAVID E. SANGER


RAWFORD, Tex. ?If centuries of brutal power struggles over the Korean Peninsula could be ignored, if Seoul could be protected, if Asia had a NATO, the crisis that has re-ignited in Korea would lend itself to a swift ?if temporary ?solution.

Yongbyon, the nuclear plant that North Korea began reactivating last week, might be the perfect place to execute the pre-emptive strike that the Bush administration has talked of as a last resort in protecting the world against weapons of mass destruction.


"All we would have to do is take out one building," a senior national security official said this month, referring to the nuclear reprocessing center where North Korea said it would begin converting a long-dormant stockpile of 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods into bomb-grade plutonium.

Yongbyon is remote, and the international inspectors who have lived there for eight years were just asked to pack their bags. So the perfect moment for a precision attack would be right now, before blowing the building to bits could spread nuclear material across the countryside.

But then the official added, "If it was only that easy." It isn't, and not just because of the 11,000 North Korean artillery tubes north of the demilitarized zone that could set all of Seoul afire.

The truly complicating factor is how Asia has worked for decades ?or, more precisely, how it hasn't worked.

In the decade since the cold war ended, Asia has largely failed at the task Europe has fairly well mastered ?defusing many of its geopolitical land mines. Even as China and Russia have embraced their own forms of Western-style capitalism, any talk of creating a common security structure has remained just talk. The major capitals ?Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul ?have never overcome the centuries of distrust, competition for dominance and open conflict that sucked the United States into three Asian wars in the 20th century.

Now, President Bush's doctrine that America can no longer tolerate rogue states with weapons of mass destruction has run into that reality. He cannot pick up the phone and call the Asian NATO; it does not exist. Many Asians question whether the United States should remain keeper of the peace, while admitting there is no current alternative.

So this weekend, as he settles into his ranch here to rally the world against Iraq, Mr. Bush must now simultaneously rally Asia's disputatious players in a cause in which each has a very different set of interests. It has fallen to him because none of the countries within easy reach of the North's missiles has taken the lead. His national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, delicately calls the process "alliance management." A more accurate term might be "rivals management."

"The way to understand Northeast Asia today is as a Pandora's box," said Moon Chung In, a political science professor who moves among Korea, Japan and the United States. "North Korea can go bad easily, but the North Koreans know they have the capability to create huge divisions between the United States and South Korea, and with Russia and China and Japan. And in some ways, that is their greatest weapon."

Kim Jong Il, the North's reclusive and odd leader, understands this reality and is playing it skillfully.

So China, which provided much of the early technology that got North Korea into the nuclear business to begin with, now plays a double game: It condemns the North's brinkmanship, but there is no evidence it is cutting off trade. China's main interest, it seems, is in keeping desperate North Koreans from flooding across its long border.

Japan, weakened economically and diplomatically, desperately seeks guarantees that the American military will protect it from Korean missiles. Japanese politicians know that if the American shield is in doubt, the country's right wing will call for a stronger military, and the rest of Asia will fear that Japan is preparing its own nuclear deterrent.

The Russians, once the North's arms and technology dealer, now want to pretend they never heard of the place, even as they tweak the United States for, in their eyes, failing to live up to agreements to provide North Korea with energy aid and for acting antagonistically toward the North.

From the perspective of American hawks, South Korea has all but encouraged the North to flout disarmament demands by continuing to build rail and trade links to North Korea, as protesters demand the removal of the 37,000 American troops who remain in South Korea.

In short, each of North Korea's neighbors sees the crisis through its own prism. "It is, in one sense, a great opportunity for the U.S., Japan, China, with the tacit consent of the Russians, to put concerted pressure on a state that is in the last stages of desperation," Lee Hong Koo, a former South Korean prime minister, said recently in Seoul. "But will we take advantage of it? I don't know if we are ready."


Han S. Park, a professor at the University of Georgia who left South Korea nearly four decades ago, also wonders if the Bush administration is ready. "Nothing in the first two years of Mr. Bush's presidency has forced him to confront just how divided Asia remains to this day," he said. "But now that we have let North Korea go too far, now that they have their weapons and no one has much leverage over the North Koreans anymore, it's about to become obvious."

In public, all the players insist they are on the same page, calling for a peaceful settlement and stability on the peninsula. But that is not a strategy for disarming a regime that probably already has two nuclear weapons, and might, if unchecked, produce five or six more in the next six to 12 months.

Just as every country's interests differ, so do their strategies.

In South Korea, the fear is not so much of a nuclear North as of a collapsing one. The essence of President Kim Dae Jung's "sunshine policy" was to delay that day by investing in the North and reducing suspicions. Now the incoming president, Roh Moo Hyun, has vowed to let even more sunshine in ?at the very moment that President Bush seeks to punish the North.

The Chinese and the Russians don't want a nuclear North Korea. But they also don't want to run the risk that America will end up even more powerful in the region. So they resist following its lead.

The Japanese, as always, want Washington to solve the problem, but not too forcefully.

Like many members of the South Korean elite, Professor Moon admits to conflicted feelings.

"I'm a supporter of the sunshine policy, of engagement," he says. "But I can't tolerate weapons of mass destruction, because if North Korea has the bomb, Japan will have it, and South Korea has to have it."

And as the United States knows from the cold war, as soon as any state has a nuclear arsenal, pre-emption is not an option.