Originally published on the CGS blog on January 14, 2013.
Some may call it “hopelessly naïve” but no one can say that Google Chariman Eric Schmidt’s four day trip to North Korea, where he was photographed walking through the streets surrounded by North Korean people, did not have an impact on the mindsets of people ordinarily closed off to the outside world. For more than half a century, North Korea has maintained its tightly state-controlled system and built up its nuclear weapons program, keeping foreign invaders at bay, while millions of its citizens are at the same time dying from food shortages. The United States government has, understandably, hesitated to act; however, it is about time we let somebody else try to negotiate with the Kim dynasty.
Even though it is gutsy of Schmidt to dabble in diplomacy with North Korea, I have to applaud him for giving it a shot. Last week, BBC News reported that Schmidt and a delegation that includes former New Mexico governor and US envoy to the United Nations Bill Richardson visited North Korea in order to urge the country to take down some of its restrictions and to allow its citizens to use the internet. It also pushed for North Korea to end its nuclear weapons and missile tests and discussed the case of the Korean-American detainee, Kenneth Bae, who has been held in the country on arrest since November.
Commenting on the trip, which was made in an unofficial capacity and unaccompanied by any U.S. officials, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that the trip was “ill-advised”. She also added that the State Department does not consider the timing of the trip to be particularly good because it follows a satellite launch using a long-range rocket made by North Korea in December. The launch was a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and the Security Council has not yet decided whether to take action.
I would not advise any ordinary American citizen to try something similar to this delegation, and Schmidt is stepping on some toes by doing so, but I am excited to see a private citizen actively pushing for better relations with North Korea. Economics, not military force, are how relations with North Korea are going to improve. I still believe that we should pursue North Korean disarmament but, we are far more likely to live peacefully with North Korea if we are bound by strong economic interests.
Fox News noted that the trip came days after ruler Kim Jong Un spoke of expanding science and technology as part of the country’s goals for improving its economy in 2013. In 2012, we saw North Korea introduce small-scale agricultural reforms that provided a hint at the rhetoric shifting from its focus on the military to focusing on the economy. Now is the time to embrace investment-oriented diplomacy.
We still have reason to be concerned that North Korea is violating international norms and could fire a missile at South Korea; but, it might be best now to pursue a multipronged approach in which capitalism takes the lead in urging North Korea to liberalize. Furthermore, allowing a nation to keep hundreds of thousands of political prisoners and to torture its citizens is also a violation of international norms. The United States and North Korea can’t just dance around each other forever. For nearly 50 years, the totalitarian county has shown that it doesn’t want to listen to the U.S. government so, why not let private enterprise take a stab at diplomacy?
