The Cleanest Race - B. R. Myers [49]
The discriminatory document in question was one applicable to countries that had not entered the Non-Proliferation Treaty and was aimed at ensuring the regulation of atomic facilities and equipment. Signatories to the NPT, on the other hand, were subjected only to inspection of atomic material, which is why Mun pressed this point so firmly.26
So although the DPRK had hitherto “ignored” the NPT’s stipulations, Mun wants it treated like a member in good standing. Perhaps aware of the shamelessness of his own demand, he does not appear genuinely angry. Instead he is amusing himself by bullying Blix. Readers are clearly meant to be amused too:
Squirming, Blix raised both his hands. “That was just a mistake.… A mistake! It was an error on the part of our officials. I wasn’t even aware of it until your esteemed country protested. Didn’t I even send a letter of apology, albeit a belated one, to your esteemed country? Isn’t that enough?”
“No, it’s not enough.”
At Mun’s hard and clipped response Blix stretched out his arms again. “But what else do you need? For heaven’s sake, what other pledge do you need?”27
Mun replies that America’s nuclear weapons must be withdrawn from South Korea at once. Blix stammers out his acquiescence:
“Ah, ah, I understand. Very good. I am very grateful to your esteemed country’s government for making its position known with such honesty.… Are all your esteemed country’s diplomats so direct?”
“Why,” Mun retorted, “you don’t like that?”
“N-no. On the contrary. Honest and very clear … it’s very good. But … I wonder how best to call such a diplomacy.…”
Mun laughed out loud.28
The Text has a term for it: “attack diplomacy.”29 Attributed to Kim Jong Il’s own desire to see his Foreign Ministry behaving “aggressively and combatively,” it is by no means reserved for America and its lackeys.30 One “diplomatic warrior” tells Russia that it “should not impudently stick its nose into another country’s affairs.”31 On the other hand, the regime is mindful enough of its relationship with Beijing not to revile (at least not in print) the entire United Nations, but only the “impure elements” inside it that allegedly do America’s bidding.
Needless to say, the race-oriented Text makes little distinction between political factions in Washington; Democrats and Republicans, “doves” and “hawks” are all said to be bent on destroying the DPRK.32 (Barack Obama’s accession to the US presidency in 2009 led to no reduction or softening of anti-American propaganda.) Nor can the Text acknowledge that America might refrain from a military attack in order to save Korean lives. The pure and the impure can have no common interests. Still less can the Text entertain the notion that the impure might defy their instincts. “Just as a jackal cannot become a lamb,” runs a maxim known in minor variations to every North Korean, “the US imperialists cannot change their rapacious nature.”33
This leaves the Text with no way to interpret America’s readiness to negotiate except as a “kneeling down” or “waving of the white flag” in the face of Pyongyang’s terrifying strength and unity.34 President Clinton’s letter promising “His Excellency Kim Jong Il” full compliance with the terms of the Agreed Framework appears in the official encyclopedia as a trophy of the “shining victory” of 1994.35 The enemy’s failures of nerve are portrayed as characteristic not only of the US, but of non-Asian foreigners in general. (I have already referred to the mockery of the USSR’s “surrender.”) In this passage from a propaganda novel, which is typical of the DPRK’s sneaking respect for Hirohito’s war machine, the Dear Leader recalls how Britain was taken down a peg or two during the Pacific War.
In his 1943 attack on Singapore, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, “the Tiger of Malaysia,” demanded the allies’ unconditional surrender, requesting that General Archibald Percival Wavell answer either