Daily Times

Why has American failed to send its rival North Korea back to the Stone Age?

Why the US does not want a normalised mutual relation between the South and North Korea? What compelled US president Trump to seek China’s help in minimising the so-called North Korean threat?

Why the American media seems agitated over the publishing of an article that depicted a brighter side of North Korea? Why the world in general and the West in particular have failed to appreciate Kim Jong Un’s positive move towards South Korea?

In their article titled ‘Kim Jong Un’s sister is stealing the show at the Winter Olympics’, Joe Sterling, Sheena McKenzie and Brian Todd apparently highlighted a bit positive aspect of North Korean incumbent family. The CNN authors rightly pointed it out that Kim Jong Un’s sister ‘is stealing the show at Winter Olympics’.

Kim Yo Jong with her amazing smiles and positive gestures has attracted the world media more than US Vice President Mike Pence could. Both leaders shared the same place and enclave to watch the ice-hockey match; however, didn’t talk to each other — nevertheless, she remained at the centre of world headlines. Kim Yo Jong herself delivered the message to the South Korean President Moon Jae-in to visit the North which he accepted.

It is a strategic move by North Koreans to gain the world’s attention and inflict damage to American narrative about North Koreans. North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s unpredictable decision to send his sister Kim Yo Jong to South Korea to attend the Winter Olympics — makes one thing absolutely clear that he is a rational person and is fully aware of the dangers of an armed conflict between the North and South. Kim Jong Un’s decision has out-manoeuvred the US and Vice President Mike Pence seems to be on the defensive.

Kim Jong Un’s unpredictable decision to send his sister Kim Yo Jong to South Korea to attend the Winter Olympics makes one thing absolutely clear — that he is a rational person and is fully aware of the dangers of an armed conflict between the North and South

The excessive or perhaps unnecessary criticism on CNN’s reporters exposes the narrow mindedness of the West. North Korea and South Korea are not infants but rational sovereign states which do not need anybody else’s meddling in their mutual affairs. If any regime is to regulate or monitor the North-South relations — it is United Nations not United States.

The US Vice President Mike Pence is fuelling the fire between North and South Korea. His symbolically significant presence at South Korean Winter Olympic Games and meeting with North Korean defectors is a negative gesture at a good time. If America considers itself to be that much of a moral nation — then do we have to ignore all that were said and the subsequent evidence provided by Edward Snowden (a former CIA analyst)?

The United States must cease its activities against North Korea. The world must begin to contemplate that why North Korea maintains a rhetoric about America being an enemy of the Korean people? There is another dimension to the heated temperature in the Pacific. Besides, America cannot overwhelm North Korea in terms of military power; nevertheless, it is not surprising that American and Western activities in the Korean peninsula are actually aimed to contain China and its emerging economy. The US Pivot to Asia Policy and Malabar Naval Exercise are testaments to that.

It is an irony of the great powers that America and the West are ever ready to poke their nose in Korean matters. North and South Korea which have not signed an international peace treaty until now; however, both reached an armistice in July 1953 at the end of the Korean War — putting a ceasefire to the three years long bloody conflict. Nonetheless, the great powers have failed or perhaps deliberately ignored to solve the Kashmir Dispute — between nuclear armed and archrivals — Pakistan and India.

Despite of the fact that the United Nations — the blue eyed boy of great powers — passed many resolutions to settle the Kashmir Dispute according to the will and self determination of the Kashmiri people. Unfortunately, quite the contrary — great powers and US to be precise — is providing India an opportunity to alter the demographic conditions in Indian-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Why America feels threatened when Socialist Korea conducts missile tests but does not feel threatened when historical socialist India conducts an intermediate range ballistic missile (ICBM) test? If the argument is that Kim Jong Un is dangerous — then it is not to be forgotten that Indian prime minister Modi was once banned to enter the United States due to his extremist connections with fundamentalist Hindus and massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. It clearly exhibits the double standards of the United States.

The world has to realise that Kim Jong Un is completely rational and not a mad man. If Mr Kim is ‘operating Nazi-style prison camps’ then we should not forget that Mr Trump’s Guantanamo Bay Prison is not for amusement purposes — perhaps states do that. Diplomacy dictates states and nations to keep their back doors open for talks. It is an established historical fact that whenever diplomacy fails — war happens, and it appears that Kim Jong Un wants the former to prevail in relation to the latter.

It is conceivable that international politics is a game of endlessly unlikely events to happen. Correspondingly, the Korean Unification seems impossible; however, if East and West Germany can unify then it can be among the possibilities in Korean case — provided a lesser US and enhanced UN role.

The writer can be reached at: mmab11@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, February 15^th 2018.