In this issue:

Rumsfeld Orders New Battle Plan Targetting North Korea

Perry: U.S. Drifting Into War With North Korea

\Neo-cons To Change Subject From Iraq to North Korea?

Prelude to Korean Negotiations?

Powell Says Korean Diplomacy Is 'Alive and Well'

U.S. Congress Passes Sanctions Against Myanmar

Malaysia Sees Ukraine as Gateway to Eastern Europe

Manila Announces a Ceasefire With the MILF

Indian-China Trade Soon To Reach $10 Billion

From Volume 2, Issue Number 29 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published July 22, 2003
Asia News Digest

Rumsfeld Orders New Battle Plan Targetting North Korea

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has ordered the drafting of a new plan against North Korea, identified as "Plan 5030," which opponents within the Bush Administration warn could provoke war, according to the lead story in U.S. News and World Report July 21. Unnamed Administration insiders opposed to the plan warn that it blurs the lines between war and peace, by giving regional commanders authority to conduct maneuvers—before a war has started—to drain North Korea's resources, overstretch its military, and supposedly sow enough confusion that North Korean generals might turn against the country's leader, Kim Jong-il.

A senior U.S. official and opponent of Rumsfeld's plan told the magazine: "Some of the things Adm. Thomas Fargo is being asked to do are, shall we say, provocative." Unnamed sources said this amounts to a strategy to topple Kim Jong-il by destabilizing his armed forces. Those pushing the plan are "many of the same Administration hard-liners who advocated regime change in Iraq." Only recently have details of the plan been shared with White House, State Department, and other agencies. The plan is not yet approved, the article reports.

Scenarios in the draft include flying RC-135 surveillance flights closer to Pyongyang, forcing North Korea to scramble jets and burn precious fuel supplies. Another would be surprise, week-long military exercises, forcing the North to move to bunkers and deplete food and other supplies, and, finally, possible tactical operations to disseminate disinformation and disrupt finances. Andrew Krepinivich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments asks an obvious question: Does the plan make war more likely? An unnamed Japanese official responded, "Once we push them too hard against the wall, we do not know what kind of reaction Kim Jong-Il will have."

Perry: U.S. Drifting Into War With North Korea

Clinton's former Secretary of Defense and Special Presidential Envoy to North Korea Bill Perry, gave a two-hour interview to the Washington Post July 15, in which he warned: "I think we are losing control" of the situation. "The nuclear program underway in North Korea poses an imminent danger of nuclear weapons being detonated in American cities," he said. Perry said he reached his conclusions after extensive conversations with senior Bush Administration officials, South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun, and senior officials in China.

"It was manageable six months ago, if we did the right things. But we haven't done the right things," he said. He added, "I have held off public criticism to this point, because I had hoped that the Administration was going to act on this problem, and that public criticism might be counterproductive. But time is running out, and each month the problem gets more dangerous."

The immediate cause of concern, Perry said, is that North Korea appears to have begun reprocessing the spent fuel rods. "I have thought for some months that if the North Koreans moved toward [re]processing, then we are on a path toward war."

After conversations with several senior Administration officials from different areas of the government, Perry is persuaded that the Korea policy is in disarray. "I'm damned if I can figure out what the policy is," said Perry. Diplomacy is failing, he said, because the President simply won't enter into genuine talks with Pyongyang, having taken a loathing to Kim Jong-il, Perry says. The notion of trying to "interdict" or embargo North Korean exports of missiles and nuclear weapons, "would be provocative, but it would not be effective," because "you don't need a ship to transport a core of plutonium that is smaller than a basketball." Perry sees the only alternative to war as what he calls "coercive diplomacy," which he explained as, "You have to offer something, but you have to have an iron fist behind your offer."

Neo-cons To Change Subject From Iraq to North Korea?

Speaking to EIR on July 16 about the exposure of Vice President Dick Cheney's lies regarding Iraq, a South Korean diplomat said: "Since their Iraq adventure has gone bad, Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Cheney, Wolfowitz, and their group have again become suddenly aggressive against North Korea.... No one in the Bush Administration is interested in negotiation, and everyone has stepped up demands for unilateral DPRK disarmament—which they know will be rejected," the Seoul source said. "The U.S. forces in Korea announced a new multibillion-dollar military restructuring and major new exercises this week. There is giant U.S. diplomatic pressure on Japan, Australia, and other countries to enforce what amounts to a blockade against North Korea, including sanctions, and to interdict DPRK ships on the high seas, which Pyongyang has already called an act of war....

"The Pentagon has released a new war plan against North Korea calling for a new level of harassment, deliberate provocations, and misinformation. Their aim is to bring down the regime," he said, referring to Rumsfeld's Operations Plan 5030. "The neo-cons insist on just forcing regime change, with no intention to negotiate. I don't know if [former Defense] Secretary [William] Perry is correct that it is coming from Bush personally, but it is certainly coming at least from the neo-cons....

"Not only is this illegal," he continued, "just as the invasion of Iraq, under international and probably U.S. law," he said, "but it is also a deliberate violation of the Korean War armistice, the only document now preventing conflict in Korea, since we never concluded the Korean War. It appears designed to provoke Pyongyang into a reaction which could be portrayed as aggressive—so as to justify a U.S. preemptive military strike."

Prelude to Korean Negotiations?

Despite the warnings by former Defense Secretary William Perry, the New York Council on Foreign Relations, and some South Koreans, as reported above, other Koreans are hoping that Washington and Pyongyang are in "one last chicken game," as the Korea Times put it July 17, as a negotiating prelude to finally reaching some kind of agreement. "Something seems to be going on between North Korea and the U.S.," Prof. Koh Yu-hwan of Dongguk University told the KT, which may have provided a chance for both sides to exchange terms prior to agreeing on a new round of talks.

China, for example, announced July 15 that senior envoy Deputy Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo had returned to Beijing July 15 after four days of talks in Pyongyang and "highly successful meetings" with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il July 14. Dai told Kim that the nations involved would jointly guarantee the North's security, Japan's Tokyo Shimbun reported. If this is true, then China may have won some sort of major new concession from the U.S., to match the pledges already made by Russia and China, to guarantee the North's security. North Korea in return said it will now accept U.S. demands for multilateral talks, an equally important concession, if Washington agrees also to a bilateral meeting on the sidelines, and follows through on the security guarantee, Japan's Kyodo News reported from Beijing.

Powell Says Korean Diplomacy Is 'Alive and Well'

China has told the United States that North Korea appears willing to accept multilateral talks on ending its nuclear weapons programs in a key concession, senior U.S. State Department officials told Agence France Presse July 17. Secretary of State Colin Powell had been given the news by Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, who called to brief Powell July 15 on the visit to Pyongyang by Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo.

Vice Minister Dai was to travel to Washington July 18 to press for a resumption of multilateral Korean peace talks, the officials said. "The Chinese have reported to us on their visit and it appears that signs are positive for some renewal of multilateral talks," one official said. Powell told reporters July 16 that he had had a "very long conversation" with his Chinese counterpart. "The diplomatic track is alive and well and I expect to see some developments along that track in the very near future," he said. "The United States is still hopeful of a diplomatic solution."

"We're certainly pleased with the strong role the Chinese have been playing," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.

U.S. Congress Passes Sanctions Against Myanmar

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill July 17 which had passed in the Senate last month, sponsored by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) and Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif), to ban imports from Myanmar, freeze Myanmar assets in the U.S., ban the country's leaders from visiting the U.S., and calling on President Bush to offer aid to opposition groups. The bill was rushed through after Secretary of State Colin Powell threw the Administration's weight behind McConnell's bill last month, following a bloody confrontation between the followers of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and pro-government groups, which resulted in house arrest for Suu Kyi.

Also, UN Secretary Kofi Annan, meeting with the Myanmar Deputy Foreign Minister U Khin Maung Win on July 17, sent a letter to junta leader Gen. Than Shwe, calling for Suu Kyi's release and a reopening of dialogue.

Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, however, told the press that there will be negative ramifications for the region from the U.S. sanctions, as more Burmese will be left unemployed and join the illegal immigration to Thailand to seek work, often in drugs and prostitution.

Myanmar sent a petition signed by 350,000 textile workers pleading for the U.S. not to impose the sanctions. Eighty percent of Myanmar's textile exports go to the United States.

Malaysia Sees Ukraine as Gateway to Eastern Europe

Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad made a four-day state visit to Ukraine, the first visit by a Malaysian Prime Minister, where he was greeted by President Leonid Kuchma July 14. Kuchma told Mahathir, "I am deeply honored by this visit. We have been watching Malaysia very closely, especially its success in overcoming the Asian financial crisis."

Travelling with Dr. Mahathir are his wife, and Malaysia's Defense, Foreign Affairs, Primary Industries, and Education Ministers. No specific agreements have been signed, but both countries see great potential in Ukraine's defense and aviation industries, which could complement Malaysia's high-tech and information technology, and also raw materials.

Mahathir later visited the Antonov aircraft plant near Kiev. The Ukrainian President expressed interest in establishing ties with the ASEAN member states. Currently, the balance of trade between the two is in Ukraine's favor.

Manila Announces a Ceasefire With the MILF

Manila announced a ceasefire with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and said it will drop arrest warrants against the leaders of the MILF, so that top leaders may participate in peace talks, to commence in Malaysia at the end of July. This was a demand of the MILF to participate in the talks.

Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo stated that safe conduct passes will be issued to MILF leaders and participants, as part of facilitating the talks. Foreign Secretary Blas Ople said that the Philippines expects the United States, through the Washington-based think-tank the Institute for Peace, to support Malaysia in facilitating talks. Manila has been told the U.S. Congress would allocate $30 million for financial and diplomatic support for the peace process.

Indian-China Trade Soon To Reach $10 Billion

India's Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley and his Chinese counterpart agreed, during the recent visit of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to China, that the level of trade between the two countries could reach $10 billion within two to three years, according to an official release by the Commerce and Industry Ministry July 16. Already, from April 2002 to February 2003, trade was worth $4.2 billion, up from $2.6 billion in the corresponding period in 2001-02. India's exports to China during the last 11 months, were up 100% over a year ago.

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