Submission from Dr J E Hoare
I am J E Hoare. I received my PhD in Japanese
history at the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1971.
By then, I was a member of what is now Research Analysts of the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which I joined in 1969. For most
of the following 33 years in the Diplomatic Service, I worked
on matters relating to East Asia, apart from a spell between 1977-81,
when I worked on South and South East Asia. I served as HM Consul
and Head of Chancery in Seoul, Republic of Korea 1981-85, and
did a short spell there as Head of the Political Section in 1997,
HM Consul-General and Head of Chancery in Beijing, People's Republic
of China 1988-91, and I was Chargé d'Affaires and HM Consul-General
in Pyongyang, Democratic People's Republic of Korea 2001-02. I
spent a year at the International Institute for Strategic Studies
1992-93. Since I retired in January 2003, I have been engaged
in occasional teaching, broadcasting and writing about East Asia—mainly
but not exclusively about the DPRK. I have authored or edited
numerous books on the area, including several with my wife, Susan
Pares, who is also a former member of the Research Analysts, and
who served in the Beijing Embassy in 1975-76. We last visited
the ROK in 2003, and the DPRK and the PRC in 2004.
THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF BRITISH
DIPLOMACY IN
EAST ASIA
So all my adult life I have worked on East Asia
both professionally and as a hobby. My original work for my PhD
was on Japan in the nineteenth century. At that point and up until
the mid-1930s, Britain was still the main Western power in East
Asia, with extensive economic and security interests in China
and Japan, although not in Korea, which had always been something
of a backwater as far as Britain was concerned. Even in the 1930s,
however, Britain's position as the leading Western country in
East Asia was steadily giving way to the US, while Japan, with
Korea as a colony, was increasingly dominating the China. Post
World War II, Britain's influence waned. Japan and South Korea
were firmly in the US orbit. Although the absence of US diplomatic
relations with China until the 1970s, and the British presence
in Hong Kong, appeared to make Britain important in East Asia,
this was largely illusory. Britain never had more than a subordinate
role in Japan or Korea. Even in Hong Kong, British firms lost
ground to their US counterparts and agencies of the US government
ignored British rules about not using Hong Kong as a base for
operations against China. Well-qualified diplomats and active
British Council programmes could not compensate for the lack of
political or, relatively speaking, economic power. In Britain
itself, East Asia generally faded from view, except at times of
crisis such as the Korean War and the Cultural Revolution in China,
and from the 1970s onwards, the issue of prisoners of war of the
Japanese. Academic coverage was limited. Reasonable on China and
Japan, especially after the Scarborough and Hayter reports, it
was limited to one post on Korea at SOAS until the late 1980s.
In East Asia, Britain was seen as close to the
US politically, not very successful as a trading nation and not
very interested in Asia—the closure of university departments
of East Asian Studies and the decline of resident journalists
in recent years have tended to confirm this lack of interest.
There was—and often still is—a sentimental picture
of a country shrouded in Dickensian fog, populated by gentlemen
(ladies rarely featured) who maintained high standards of dress
and were always courteous; North Korean school and university
students were still repeating such views four years ago.
Efforts are of course were and are made to counter
these somewhat old-fashioned perspectives. British culture in
all its aspects is promoted by the FCO and the British Council,
as well as by enterprising entrepreneurs. Strenuous efforts are
made to promote Britain as a trading partner and as a source of
innovation and design.
At the same time, "British imperialism",
rapidly forgotten at home, was still remembered in Asia. Hong
Kong was one reminder, and the Chinese had not forgotten how Hong
Kong was acquired—as late as 1990 a young Chinese official
in Beijing, on whom I had called seeking support for a British
initiative on drugs, responded to my presentation "Ah yes,
Dr Hoare, the Chinese and the British have long had a special
relationship over drugs!", at which we both grinned. In the
1960s, South Korea's then president, Park Chung Hee, made speeches
in which he blamed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the British
for Japan's takeover of Korea. That alliance was remembered with
more affection in Japan but even there, the manner of its ending
in the early 1920s was remembered with distaste. Yet in Britain
I would be surprised if, outside of specialist circles, any of
these events are remembered at all.
Efforts are of course were and are made to counter
these somewhat old-fashioned and mistaken perspectives. British
culture in all its aspects is promoted by the FCO and the British
Council, as well as by enterprising entrepreneurs. Strenuous efforts
are made to promote Britain as a trading partner and as a source
of innovation and design. World Service radio and television broadcasts
are beamed to East Asia, although the only vernacular broadcasts
are in Chinese. I do not think that I met one person, outside
the expatriate community, in South Korea who admitted listening
to the BBC, though things may have changed since the 1980s. The
impact was greater in China, probably because of the vernacular
broadcasts; few seemed to listen to the English-language broadcasts,
although there may have been a small audience among those who
studied abroad. In North Korea, only those with a very strict
need to know clearance could have official access to foreign broadcasts.
Several of the officials that I dealt with in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Trade clearly could
listen, but few seemed to choose the BBC. As one MFA vice minister
put it—despite the hostility between North Korea and the
US—"Voice of America has so much more about Korea".
In North Korea, British newspapers and journals, especially technical
papers, were willingly taken. We gave The Times to the
European Division of MFA, and The Guardian to the Association
for Friendship with Foreign Countries. The MFA asked us to send
the paper wrapped not because they should not be receiving it
but because if other officials saw it, they would take it for
their own use. We even gave the MFA Private Eye, but nobody
ever commented on that. In both Koreas, British films, videos
and DVDs could also be used to good effect. In North Korea, of
course, audiences were carefully chosen, but the effect was still
there.
The most successful of all ways of combating
old-fashioned views of Britain is scholarships and training in
the UK. Here one is always up against the greater financial power
of the US, and the fact that generally US institutions are better
known that British ones—Oxford and Cambridge excepted. There
was also in both South Korea and China a lingering negative effect
from the heavy increases in student fees in the early 1980s, an
effect which persisted despite scholarship schemes and other forms
of assistance. Nevertheless, schemes like the Chevening scholarships
have had a very strong impact.
Generally, Britain is now thought of as part
of the European Union. Some realise that in certain areas, EU
members act independently but others are confused by this. I think,
for example, that the North Koreans have been confused by the
strange mix of unity and diversity that has marked policy towards
the DPRK. Some countries, including Britain, established relations
in 2000 and others soon after, but Ireland not until 2003, and
France not yet—where is the Common Foreign and Security
Policy? Both Koreas thought that these diplomatic moves were the
sign of a policy developing policy on Korea independently of that
of the US, and both had been disappointed that this has not proved
the case as far as supporting the developing rapport between the
two on the Korean peninsula.
Japan and South Korea's contribution to international
security and peacekeeping
Japan's constitution has been regarded as inhibiting
any action that went beyond strict self-defence, and this was
used until very recently to justify not sending Japanese forces
overseas to protect international security and peacekeeping. While
some politicians have wished to see changes, arguing that the
1947 Constitution which contains Article 9 limiting Japanese forces
to self defence was imposed by the US and is inappropriate in
the contemporary world, there seems to be still a popular groundswell
of support for maintaining the constitution—in the words
of one mother at a proposal to send SDF forces abroad in the early
1990s, "My son did not join the Self-Defence Forces to get
killed". There is also considerable regional objection to
Japan becoming a "normal country", with regular armed
forces. However Japan has moved towards involvement in peace keeping
while trying to avoid combat involvement, resenting the assumption
that Japan would pay rather than fight. This trend will continue.
South Korea has sent forces overseas on several
occasions, including the Vietnam War—it was a common, if
inaccurate, comment that both President Chun Doo Hwan (1980-88)
and President Roh Tae Woo (1988-1993) had made most of their foreign
contacts down the barrels of guns in Vietnam. Such involvement
has had less to do to a commitment to internationalism than a
desire to keep in with US wishes and those increase the US commitment
to South Korea. Thus the immediate past president, Roh Moo Hyun,
has indicated that while he did not really want to send South
Korean forces to Iraq, he felt that he should do so because of
the ROK-US alliance. One argument against the overseas deployment
of ROK forces has been that they are needed because of the immediate
threat to posed by the DPRK. However, as relations between North
and South have improved, this argument in less and less prominent.
That said, in South Korea there remains among many people a sense
of obligation towards the United Nations because of the role that
the United Nations played in saving the country from defeat during
the Korean War. While the role of the US has perhaps been blurred
by the problems arising from the continued presence of US forces
in South Korea and the attendant problems, the broader UN role
has not been forgotten, and South Koreans were pleased when the
country finally entered the UN in 1992. This sense of obligation
towards the UN perhaps influences South Koreans positively towards
involvement in peacekeeping and related projects.
Relations between the two Koreas
I have already submitted a short paper that
appears in the March 2008 issue of Asian Affairs, the journal
of the Royal Society of Asian Affairs, in which I argue that,
despite the recent change of presidents in South Korea, the engagement
policy which is now some 10 years old will continue, although
the rhetoric may change. Despite the more strident claims of some
South Korean and international media as well as some in the academic
world, the policy has been a success. It has of course been unequal
in some ways; the South's economic contributions can be measured,
but some of what has come back is inevitably intangible. Yet South
Korea has gained over family contacts—still limited but
once non-existent; knows far more about the North now than it
ever did—books and other materials about North Korea, once
locked away, are now freely available—people visit the North,
and so on. The North is viewed far more realistically now than
it was in the 1980s. By insisting on keeping open some channels
to the North even after the missile and nuclear tests of 2006,
South Korea helped create a climate which allowed the Six Party
Talks to resume. The wish to engage the North is not a policy
alien to South Korean conservatives; it can be traced back to
Park Chung Hee and the 1972 Joint Communiqué. The new president
and his team can build on this, and have already given signs of
doing so.
The North has obviously gained by the supply
of food and other commodities, but the engagement policy has created
groups within North Korea who wish such benefits to continue—ie
there is now, I believe, though I cannot prove it, a pro-South
Korean constituency in the North, which will not willingly see
the benefits it receives thrown away. There will be a period of
watching and assessing the new South Korean government—and
also of course the US presidential election—but I expect
that contacts will continue somewhat below the parapet.
The North Korean nuclear programme
We are now reaping the harvest of wishful thinking
and a dogmatic approach which destroyed the 1994 US-North Korea
Agreed Framework and pushed North Korea into testing—probably
not very successfully—a nuclear device in 2006. North Korea
feels and is threatened by nuclear weapons, and believes that
the only way to counter that threat is to make it costly for any
attacker. The 1994 Agreement was not perfect—neither is
any agreement—but it provided a process whereby both US
and North Korean concerns could be addressed as well as meeting
North Korean needs for energy. The decision to abandon the agreement
awakened all North Korean fears about hostility and at the same
time allowed them the breathing space to work on the development
of a nuclear device. Attempts to get back to where we were in
2002 before the present crisis was created have been hampered
by the wish to bring in other issues such as human rights, conventional
forces, the Japanese abductees and allegations of counterfeiting
and money laundering; all matter but they have distracted from
what we are told is the main issue.
The decision by the US administration to engage
in direct talks with North Korea got the process of negotiations
moving again in 2007. However, the wish for a speedy settlement
and attempts to be as comprehensive as possible have hampered
the success of the negotiations. The unwillingness to settle for
less than total demands could well mean no settlement at all,
especially as the North Koreans may not be able to deliver what
is demanded. If they do not have—or no longer have—a
highly enriched uranium programme, how can they prove that they
do not? If the US administration is sure that no treaty guaranteeing
not to attack North Korea would get through Congress, what is
the value of presidential assurances that, as was shown in 2001,
can be torn up as soon as the next president is in office?
We may therefore have to live with the fact
that North Korea has some sort of nuclear device. This should
not lead to panic. Other countries have more sophisticated devices
which do not seem to have caused the same worry or the claims
that such a development is bound to lead to others following their
lead. Indeed, the US treatment of India after it acquired a nuclear
capability may have been a factor in the North Korean decision.
Whatever was tested in October 2006 was hardly a resounding success.
The North Korean may continue working on the project but they
are clearly not as advanced as sometimes claimed. They also lack
the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon except in their immediate
neighbourhood, where they already have plenty of conventional
military capability. The tests of a long range rocket carried
out in 1998 and 2006 appear to show a regression rather than an
advance.
If we are to continue to press for an end to
the North Korean nuclear programme, we must accept that North
Korea has genuine worries about the threat that it faces and about
the wish by some to oust the present regime. Imposing sanctions
is unlikely to have much effect on a country that does relatively
little international trade. The way to change North Korea is that
followed by South Korea in recent years—engage and continue
to engage even when it there are difficulties.
7 March 2008
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