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Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I rise to begin a discussion of the tremendous strategic consequences which may flow from events now underway on the Korean Peninsula.
As we debate spending on non-proliferation programs--including support for the Korean Energy Development Organization created by the 1994 Agreed Framework, which was significantly reduced in the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill just passed by the Senate--it is important to keep the big picture in mind. We need to remain flexible in the face of a changing world, avoiding the twin pitfalls of rigidity and what Fed Chairman Alan
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Our decisions today will help shape the strategic environment that our children and grandchildren will live with tomorrow.
I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I think I have a good handle on some of the key questions, and I hope my colleagues will bear them in mind as we move forward.
A decade after the end of the cold war, the American people are entitled to feel puzzled and dismayed by the continued hostile division of the Korean peninsula along the 38th Parallel. More than a million soldiers, including 37,000 Americans, thousands of artillery tubes, and hundreds of tanks, are clustered along a heavily-fortified border 155 miles long. If ever a place were ill-named, it would be the so-called ``Demilitarized Zone'' on the Korean Peninsula.
Today, the two Koreas could not be more different.
North of the DMZ, people live in unimaginable poverty and hardship. As many as 2 million North Korean have perished as a result of famine and disease over the past 4 years.
The 22 million who have survived live under one of the most repressive and brutal regimes on the planet.
Their leader, Kim Jong-il, was, until recently, a recluse. We didn't know much about him, although there were plenty of rumors. He was said to be mad, irrational, a playboy obsessed by Hollywood movies. He was the ``perfect rogue'' in charge of the world's most dangerous ``rougue'' nation.
South of the DMZ, 47 million Koreans live in a flourishing democracy, one of the most productive societies on the planet. They enjoy one of the highest living standards in Asia, or indeed, in the world. Their country is completing a remarkable transformation from authoritarian rule to full-throated democracy.
They are a steadfast U.S. ally, and have shed blood and put their lives on the line alongside U.S. forces from Vietnam to the Middle East.
South Korea's leader, President Kim Dae-jung, is a visionary and a man of peace. Long imprisoned for his support for democracy and rapprochement with North Korea, Kim had the courage to extend a hand of peace and friendship across that DMZ, and the peninsula may never be the same.
Mr. President, the Korean Peninsula is hallowed ground.
This is where Americans of the 2nd Infantry division struggled their way up Heartbreak Ridge in order to help secure a defensive line which has remained static for the past 50 yrs. It is a battlefield on which 900,000 Chinese, 520,000 North Korean, 250,000 south Korean, and more than 33,000 American combatants lost their lives. It is ground on which as many as 3 million civilians--ten percent of the total population--perished during three years of desperate fighting.
The Korean Peninsula is also perilous ground.
The North has not withdrawn any of its heavy artillery poised along the Demilitarized Zone. It has not yet ended all of its support for terrorist organizations. And, perhaps of greatest concern to the U.S., North Korea has not stopped its development or export of long-range ballistic missile technology. The North's missile development poses a threat not only to our allies South Korea and Japan, but to others in regions destabilized by North Korean arms merchants.
In short, the North Korean threat remains today the most obvious strategic rationale for America's forward-deployed military forces in the Pacific Theater. Roughly 100,000 men and women of the armed forces safeguard U.S. interests in East Asia.
The North Korean threat is also the most obvious strategic rationale for those who advocate the development and deployment of a limited National Missile Defense. As the expression went back in the early 1980's, ``One A-bomb can ruin your whole day.''
Mr. President, it is too soon to pop the champagne corks. Euphoria is not an emotion that lends itself to sound foreign policy-making. As President Kim Dae-jung himself has said, we must approach North Korea with a ``warm heart and a cool head.''
Having said all of that, it would be the greatest folly for us not to consider the potential significance of what is happening on the Korean peninsula, not just for Northeast Asia, but for the future of United States strategic doctrine and our role in the Pacific.
Mr. President, the world does not stand still. The ``plate-tectonics'' of Northeast Asia are fluid. The realignments underway could have a profound impact on our force posture and role we will play, with out friends and allies, in helping to secure a peaceful and stable East Asian environment for our children and grandchildren.
With the emergency of Kim Jong-il from what he jokingly admitted was a ``hermit's'' existence in North Korea, we are beginning to see the rewards of patient diplomacy backed by strong deterrence. If implemented, the agreement reached in Pyongyang--especially provisions for family reunion visits, economic cooperation and eventual peaceful unification--promises to reduce tensions in this former war zone and enhance economic, cultural, environmental, and humanitarian cooperation on the peninsula.
In five year's time, we might be evaluating a new North Korean missile threat. Alternatively, we might be marveling at the creation of a genuine demilitarized zone linking, rather than separating, North and South.
North Korea appears to have made a strategic decision that reforming its moribund economy and normalizing relations with its neighbors are the keys to the survival of the regime.
This decision was not made at the summit. It has its origins in the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the success of China's economic reforms. Absent Soviet subsidies and military, North Korea has become a desperately poor country, unable even to feed itself. It has begun to seek accommodation, even on tough issues involving national security.
Just yesterday, in response to President Clinton's decision to lift some economic sanctions on the North, the North Koreans agreed to extend the missile launch moratorium it has observed over the past year.
The North also agreed to engage in a new round of talks next week with the Administration. These talks will take time, but they could ultimately lead to a decision by North Korea to forego future missile exports and curtail its development of long range missiles.
What would be the consequences of a world in which North Korea no longer posed a significant threat to its neighbors? Where would our interests lie?
It's hard to answer the first question without first engaging in thorough deliberations not only with our allies South Korea and Japan, but also with others with a stake in preserving peace and stability in northeast Asia, most notably China and Russia. I believe those deliberations should begin now. We should not wait for events to dictate an answer to us, as occurred in the Philippines when we suddenly found ourselves without bases on which we had staked much of our future in Southeast Asia.
It's a little bit easier to answer the second question. I believe our enduring interests are clear.
First and foremost, will be our desire to preserve peace and stability. There are regional tensions beyond the division of the peninsula.
Japan and South Korea have unresolved territorial disputes and a historical legacy of war and mistrust. The Perry Initiative has helped forge a remarkable trilateral spirit of cooperation, and we should seek to ensure that spirit lives on even after the threat of a second Korean War is laid to rest.
Japan and Russia have much the same difficulties as do Japan and South Korea, and we should do our part to help them to resolve their differences peacefully.
Second, we must pursue non-proliferation. The danger of nuclear proliferation will not evaporate just because North and South Korea are reconciled. U.S. strategic doctrine--especially our decision on whether to proceed with the development and deployment of a National Missile Defense--will have a huge impact on whether Japan goes nuclear, which would immediately trigger a Korean response, and whether China builds more ICBMs or decides to MIRV a future generation of missiles.
The North Korean threat is literally and figuratively a ``moving target.'' We should make sure that our aim is true, and that we do not inadvertently cause more problems than we solve in our haste to address it.
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Third, we will want to foster respect for international norms in the areas of human rights and the environment. This will be particularly important in our relationship with China.
Fourth, we will continue to seek economic openness, including securing sea lanes of communication. A decision looms before the Senate on whether to extend permanent normal Trade Relations to China.
I support PNTR for China, in part because I believe it is an essential ingredient of an overall strategy which secures a place for us in more prosperous and economically integrated East Asia.
For all of these objectives, maintenance of robust U.S. military capabilities, forward deployed in the region, will be essential, although the composition of those forces is likely to change as their roles and missions evolve. Our forward-deployed forces and the maintenance of strong strategic airlift capabilities at home enable us to respond swiftly and effectively to regional contingencies, humanitarian disasters, and political instability which might impact our vital interests.
Mr. President, as I said at the outset, I think we may be witnessing something extraordinary underway in Northeast Asia. We don't know exactly how it is all going to play out. But we had best begin now to discuss the potential implications. The decisions we make today will shape the strategic environment and the tools we have to advance our interests in East Asia tomorrow.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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