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Global Changes Skew Calculus Of Food Aid For N. Korea
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While South Korea will probably end up providing some aid without conditions, a long and politicized debate in Seoul about how much to give and under what conditions is delaying delivery.
"I will not rush but wait until the time is ripe," South Korea's new minister of unification, Kim Ha-joong, told reporters this week.
It seems unlikely that South Korean fertilizer -- a key to preventing crop failure in the coming fall harvest -- will arrive in time for planting, analysts here say.
"Crunch time for fertilizer is now, but negotiations haven't even begun to arrange for delivery," said Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea specialist at Kyungnam University in Seoul. "This means that North Korea's dependency on China has to grow."
But China, the North's closest ally and main trading partner, also seems to be stiffening its food policies.
It has quietly slashed food aid to North Korea, according to figures compiled by the World Food Program. Deliveries plummeted from 440,000 metric tons in 2005 to 207,000 tons in 2006. Last year there was a slight increase in aid, but it remained far below the levels of the past decade.
The reason for the cuts has not been made public, but some analysts believe it is related to North Korea's decision in 2006 to detonate a nuclear device. "China decided to punish the North Koreans," said Andrei Lankov, a professor who specializes in North Korean studies at Kookmin University in Seoul.
The nuclear explosion led the Bush administration to begin negotiating directly with Kim's government. But it also brought on a drastic reduction in the willingness of the United States and much of the rest of the world to give food to North Korea.
Total donations under a World Food Program project declined by more than 80 percent between 2005 and 2007, and U.S. donations fell to zero.
China also appears to have tightened its food squeeze on North Korea for domestic reasons. In order to meet local demand and control inflation, Beijing slapped a 22 percent tariff on grain exports to the North.
China is by far the country's major source of food imports, and the tariffs have resulted in higher prices and less grain in markets across North Korea, according to several aid groups.
Still, if hunger inside North Korea threatens to become widespread famine, China -- host for the Summer Olympics in August -- is certain to rush in large amounts of food, according to diplomats and aid experts.
