The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [180]
As the sanctions drive got under way, Carter expressed his growing anxiety in a telephone call to Clinton. Briefed on June 5 by Gallucci, who was sent to Plains for that purpose, Carter learned to his dismay that there was no American plan for direct contact with Kim II Sung. He immediately dispatched a letter to Clinton telling him he had decided to go to Pyongyang in view of the dangers at hand. Clinton, on the advice of Vice President Gore, interposed no objection to the trip as long as Carter clearly stated that he was acting as a private citizen rather than as an official U.S. envoy. As Carter was launching his initiative and proceeding to Seoul en route to Pyongyang, a series of new developments added to the importance of his mission.
In the diplomatic field, the administration drew up a program of gradually enforced sanctions against North Korea for refusing to cooperate with the IAEA. As prepared for the Security Council, the sanctions resolution would have given North Korea a thirty-day grace period to change its policies, after which such relatively lightweight measures as a ban on arms sales and transfers of nuclear technology to Pyongyang would take effect. This would be followed, if necessary, by a second group of more painful sanctions, including a ban on remittances from abroad, such as those from pro-North Korean groups in Japan, and a cutoff of the vital oil supplies furnished by China and others. A potential third stage, if the others failed, was a blockade of shipping to and from North Korean ports.
Among the other major powers directly involved-Russia, Japan, and China-there was little enthusiasm for even the mildest set of sanctions.
Russia was in the process of attempting to rebuild relations with North Korea, which had nearly been destroyed in the abrupt 1990 Soviet turn toward South Korea. In March, in an effort to find a role for itself in the crisis, the Russian Foreign Ministry had proposed an international conference of the two Koreas, the four major outside powers, the UN, and the IAEA to resolve the nuclear issue. None of the other parties had accepted it, but Russia continued to advocate such a meeting prior to any UN sanctions.
For Japan, the crisis on the Korean peninsula was serious and close to home. Tokyo had been severely criticized in the West for failing to assist the American effort in the 1991 Gulf War, despite its dependence on gulf oil. To fail to do its part to back up sanctions and assist the U.S. military where its own security was potentially at stake would be far more damaging to its reputation and self-esteem and could have been devastating to the U.S.-Japanese alliance. Yet the difficulties were great.
The Japanese political system was in an especially volatile and vulnerable state. At the time of the crisis, the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party had splintered and lost power, and the eight-party coalition government of Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata was in danger of collapsing. Its continuation in office depended on the acquiescence of the Japan Socialist Party, which had historically close relations with Pyongyang and was reluctant to take action against it.
If full-scale sanctions were to be voted by the UN Security Council, the Japanese government believed it would have no choice but to enforce a cutoff of the remittances from Koreans in Japan to North Korea, which were estimated at about $600 million annually. After extensive study, however, Japanese officials told their American counterparts it was unlikely they would be able to cut this off completely, since there were many ways beyond its control by which such money could flow, ranging from the transfer of suitcases full of currency to electronic transfers through Switzerland, Hong Kong, and other financial capitals. In a secret report, a government task force expressed concern that in case of such a crackdown, proPyongyang residents of Japan would mount "severe protest activities" against Japanese government and UN offices in Japan and the U.S. Embassy, possibly involving violence and