North Korea–Russia relations
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| Russia | North Korea |
Russia-North Korea relations are determined by Russia’s serious and legitimate strategic interests in Korea. The fundamental goal of the preservation of peace and stability on the Korean peninsula defines Russia’s policy toward Korea, and by extension its position on any settlement of the North Korean nuclear crisis. Russia stands firmly behind a peaceful resolution of the crisis, achieved through diplomacy and negotiation.
Russia has sunk considerable amounts of capital into numerous large-scale, long-term international infrastructure projects involving the Korean peninsula, such as oil and gas pipelines and Trans-Korean and Trans-Siberian railroads junctions. These projects are of crucial importance to the economic revitalization of the Russian Far East, and in the case of a new Korean War, these projects—and Russian economic interests—would be severely damaged.
Based on access to unique information, a long history of interaction, and many contacts within North Korea, Russia has concluded that the widespread belief in Kim Jong Il’s impending collapse, particularly prevalent among certain circles in the West, is a miscalculation, and that in the short- to mid-term regime change in Pyongyang may only be achieved by a major foreign military intervention. Therefore, observers in Moscow are confident that pressure and blanket economic sanctions intended to bring about regime change will not result in North Korean political transformation or the erosion of domestic support for Kim, but rather will only increase tensions and the probability of a military confrontation.
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[edit] History
[edit] Russian Empire
Russia has a long history of interaction with the Korean peninsula. Russia and both Koreas celebrated two prominent dates in 2004: the 140th anniversary of the beginning of Korean resettlement in Russia; and the 120th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral relations between the Russian empire and Korea under the Joseon Dynasty. Despite the celebrations, Russia’s relationship with the peninsula has been defined largely by turmoil. It is instructive to recount some of the major historical milestones in the relationship: the catastrophic Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) caused by rival imperialist ambitions, particularly in Korea.
[edit] Soviet Union
The flight of Korean refugees in the Far East and their tragic relocation forced by Stalin in 1937; the break-up of Korea and the post-World War II clashes leading to the Korean War; the standoff between the DPRK and the ROK during the Cold War; and Pyongyang’s adventurous behavior resulting in heated conflicts that more than once placed the peninsula on the brink of a large-scale conflict with the potential involvement of the U.S. or USSR (such as the 1968 “USS Pueblo” crisis). Due to geography and politics, Russia developed ties with the Korean liberation movement against the Japanese colonial regime in Korea. Primorski Krai became base for Korean refugees and anti-Japanese guerilla fighters beginning in the 1910s. In fact, a guerilla unit led by Kim Il Sung found sanctuary in primorye after being defeated by the Japanese regular army in 1940. Later on, Kim Il Sung remained with a special Soviet Army unit located in the Khabarovsk area until 1945. During that period, he received military and administrative education and the rank of captain in the Soviet Army. An important fact is that his son—the present “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il— was born in 1942 in the village of Viatskoe located in the Khabarovsk Krai and initially received the Russian name “Yura.” These circumstances, among others (including the fact that Stalin personally selected Kim Il Sung as a possible future leader of Korea) predetermined the special ties between the USSR and North Korean leadership.
During Cold War crises, therefore, the DPRK could count on Moscow’s support, regardless of the condition of official relations. For instance, although China’s role during the Korean War (1950-1953) is well-recognized, little is publicly known about the support the DPRK received from the Russian military, which was officially a non-participant. Soviet pilots contributed to the air defense of North Korea, including the defense of the strategically vital Yalu River bridges. The pilots were from elite Soviet air units, many having served in World War II. However, there were far fewer Russian pilots and crews than those in the armada of American air forces. In addition to their numerical disadvantage, Soviet pilots were in a tactically unfavorable position. They were based in territory neighboring the Chinese border, were ordered not to cross the 38th parallel under any circumstances, and to carry out operations only above territory held by North Korean and Chinese forces (in order to prevent capture).These self-imposed limits, combined withfuel shortages, drastically decreased the potential tactical impact of Soviet forces. Nevertheless, these pilots shot down 1,300 American aircraft in combat over North Korea, including about 200 U.S. B-29 “Flying Fortress” bombers. Russian losses consisted of 135 pilots and more than 300 airplanes.
[edit] 1953-1956
After the war the Soviet-North Korean relations went up and down as North Korea tried to be independent from both Soviet Union and China. In the immediate post-war period, relations improved much and North Korea became a stalinist state. The two countries developed cultural economic and scientific cooperation. Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans were educated in the USSR.
[edit] 1956-1966
By 1963, the inhabitants of the huge Soviet Embassy compound in downtown Pyongyang felt were under siege. All their communications with Koreans were supervised, and most North Koreans who had expressed some sympathy with Moscow had disappeared without a trace. Soviet aid nearly stopped, and most Soviet advisors left the North. On quite a few occasions, the official media of North Korea and Soviet Russia exchanged broadsides of sharply worded critical statements.
[edit] 1966-1971
But then things changed, dramatically and irreversibly. The anti-Soviet pro-Maoist block, clearly in the making in the early 1960s, felt apart in 1966-67 due to the Cultural Revolution. Around the same time, in late 1966, the internal propaganda of North Korea began to criticize “dogmatism” and “superpower chauvinism,” clearly associated with China. Relations reached their nadir in late 1968.
[edit] 1985-1991
Nevertheless, in the late Gorbachev period, the Soviet Union’s traditional role as the primary trading partner to the DPRK began to erode. This was due in part to president Gorbachev’s controversial decision in the late 1980s to convert trade with all communist block, including the DPRK, to a hard currency basis. This decision painfully affected everyone involved, including the USSR and turned out to be one of the first steps toward the North Korean economic crisis of the mid-1990s.
[edit] Russian Federation
After the dissolution of the USSR, Russia under President Boris Yeltsin, North Korea was seen in official Moscow circles almost as a “persona non grata.” During this period, Russia was seeking legitimacy and membership in the various clubs of the major democratic powers. Russian policy toward the Korean peninsula was similarly one-sided and featured unilateral rapprochement with the Republic of Korea and maximum estrangement from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Russian foreign policy during this period officially focused on the country’s “inevitable removal from the DPRK,” and Russia’s relations with North Korea were effectively frozen. The new liberal elite decided that maintaining ties with a “totalitarian regime” did not meet Russia’s democratic ideals. For example, Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev stressed in 1996 that Russia was ready to sell armaments to all comers, excluding North Korea.
Even though Moscow’s displeasure with the DPRK’s domestic policies and many aspects of its foreign policies was warranted, Russia’s self-imposed alienation from Pyongyang and loss of influence over North Korea harmed the prospects for improvement in bilateral relations. Moscow’s leverage in the region also suffered. As a result, during the second half of the 1990s, Russian political elites began preparing new approaches to Korea.
The first meeting of the Inter-governmental Commission for Trade, Economic, and Scientific-Technical Cooperation between Russia and DPRK was held in the spring of 1996. Furthermore, visits of high-level Russian statesmen to North Korea, such as the Speaker of the State Duma Gennadi Seleznev, were important events in the rehabilitation of Russia-DPRK bilateral relations, and aided in halting their further deterioration.
Russian diplomats began to realize that Moscow’s relationship with Pyongyang had to be improved in order to achieve a balanced position on the Korean peninsula. In the fall of 1996, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs from both countries signed a plan covering diplomatic exchange and an agreement on cultural and scientific cooperation for 1997-1998. This agreement became the basis for the conclusion of numerous interdepartmental agreements in the following years. In November 1998, Russia and North Korea, alongside with China signed a treaty to clearly demarcate their territorial waters on the Tumen River, which borders the three countries.[1]
Vladimir Putin’s elevation to Prime Minister in August 1999 and then President in March had critical significance for Pyongyang, which attributed its previous grievances to Boris Yeltsin. Kim Jong Il’s references to Vladimir Putin were to the effect that at last Russia had a leader “with whom to do business.” However, intensive diplomatic hard work had to precede a historical breakthrough in Russia–DPRK relations. These efforts began to bear fruit in late 1998, and by March 1999, it became possible to agree completely on the text and initial new Treaty on Friendship, Good-Neighborly Relations and Cooperation. It was signed in February of 2000, after Yeltsin left the political arena.
Starting in April 2000, covert preparations for a visit by President Putin to Pyongyang began. The first summit meeting in the history of Russian-Korean relations took place in July 2000 when a Joint Declaration was signed, the first international document signed by Kim Jong Il as leader of the DPRK.
Following North Korea’s withdrawal from the NPT on January 10, 2003 and its decision to suspend participation in the Six-Party Talks on February 10, 2005, official Russian representatives expressed concern, and stated that such actions did not correspond to the goal, supposedly shared by the DPRK, of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
On May 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a presidential decree prohibiting Russian state and government agencies, industrial, commercial, financial and transport companies, and enterprises, firms and banks from exporting or transiting military hardware, equipment, materials, or know-how which could be used in North Korea's nuclear or non-nuclear weapons programs.[2]
[edit] Economic relations
After the Korean War, the Soviet Union emerged as the main trading partner and sponsor of North Korea. Ninety three North Korean factories were built with Russian technical assistance, forging the country’s heavy-industrial backbone. In 1988, at the peak of the bilateral relationship, about 60% of North Korea’s trade was with the Soviet Union. Much of the trade was in raw materials and petroleum that Moscow provided to Pyongyang at concessional prices. The economic reforms in Russia and the end of the Cold War greatly reduced the priority of the DPRK in the strategy of Russian foreign policy. Relations between the two cooled seriously in the 1990s as Russia recognized South Korea, announced that trade with North Korea was to beconducted in hard currencies, and opted out of its bilateral defense agreement. Trade turnover between the two states had dropped from US$1 billion, during the peak of the Soviet-DPRK trade in the late 1980s, to $1.97 billion in 1990 and to $0.58 billion in 1991; in 1993, export levels had declined to a mere 10% of its previous contributions. By 1999 the number stood at US$80 million. In 1989, 830,000 tons of freight passed throw the border from Russia (Khasan) to North Korea (Tumangang). By 1998 this number stood at 150,000 tons.[3]
Recently, overall relations between Russia and North Korea have been improving. Russia is upgrading its railway connections with North Korea in Khasan and has been participating in an ambitious plan to build a trans-Korean railway. As is the case with China and South Korea, Russia is critical to North Korean security, since Russia shares a 18.3km border with the DPRK, and Russian cooperation would be necessary to enforce any security guarantee. As fuel aid from abroad has decreased, moreover, North Korea has turned again toward Russia as a source of supply.
Major Russian exports to the DPRK include mineral fuels, wood and pulp, fertilizers, ships/boats, and iron/steel. The large increase in 2003 came mostly in refined oil (total exports of mineral fuel oil jumped from $20 million in 2002 to $96 million in 2003). Pyongyang had to turn to Russia for petroleum, as supplies of fuel oil from the United States, Japan, and South Korea were curtailed as the six-party talks bogged down. During 2000–2005, trade grew from US$105 million to US$172.3 million, an increase of 64%. The value of Russian exports for the first nine months of 2005 reached US$168.7 million, while imports were estimated at US$3.6 million. Russia’s main export items were, oil products (63%), ferrous metal and steel production (8%), and machinery and equipment (8%). Major Russian imports from North Korea include machinery, electrical machinery, tools/cutlery, and railroad equipment. Russian exports of grains to North Korea was no more than 890 tons in 2002, but increased to 1,070 tons (mainly wheat) in 2003, and to 34,716 tons ($5.31 million) in 2004. In 2005, however, there were no Russian grain export to the North again. At the time of North Korea’s nuclear test in October, 2006, Russia published trade statistics only from January to March, 2006, and Russia’s exports of petroleum products to the North, compared to the same period of the previous year, drastically decreased by 91.1 percent (6,092 tons), while exports of food grains remained zero. Because of the nuclear test, Russia’s total exports to the North are likely to sharply decline.
However, of the overall bilateral economic trade between Russia and North Korea, 80% consists of cooperation and investment between North Korea and Russian regional areas. The most active regions are Siberia and the Far East, mainly the Kemerovo, Magadan and Primorski regions.
[edit] Labor trade
North Korea’s export of labor to Russia dates to the Soviet era, when prisoners were used in logging compounds that were run entirely by North Korean security forces. In 1995 the North Korean and Russian governments renewed the treaty that had lapsed in 1993 under which North Korea would supply 15,000–20,000 loggers to work off Soviet-era debts. A variety of other North Korean enterprises have subsequently entered the business of providing contract labor in logging and the construction sector in Vladivostok.[4]
In 2004, the Russia Federal Immigration Service issued in 14,000 licenses for the employment of North Korean laborers in Russia.
| year | 1990 | 1992 | 1996 | 1997 | 2000 | 2001 | |
| trade turnover (million$) | 2600 | 600 | 65 | 90 | 105 | 115 |
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ China, Russia, N. Korea sign border demarcation deal
- ^ RIA Novosti- Russia makes U-turn, joins UN sanctions against N.Korea
- ^ James Moltz, The North Korean Nuclear Program: Security, Strategy and New Perspectives from Russia, 1999
- ^ Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, North Korea’s External Economic Relations
- Russia secretly offered North Korea nuclear technology, by a Special Correspondent in Pyongyang and Michael Hirst, 08/07/2006
- Kim Jong-il’s Train Kommersant, June 24, 2006
- North Korea in Russian policy
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