ABSTRACT
The two tracks in the North’s policy became clearer after the first round of the Six Party Talks. It joined the talks under Chinese pressure and South Korean encouragement but it also continued with the development of its nuclear program and eventually declared that it had manufactured a nuclear capability. The South Koreans and Chinese believed that the North’s nuclear track was a bluff intended to maximize concessions from the US in a complicated process of bargaining. What the Chinese and South Koreans wanted was an agreement which would bring an end to the tensions on the Peninsula for which they blamed the US. Chinese involvement became more frantic, spurred by the fear that the US may fail to take the opportunity to come to a deal with the North. South Korea pursued its goal of dialogue and reconciliation with the North which it believed should provide favorable conditions for the elimination of the North’s nuclear program. Both South Korea and China assumed that with the right incentives the North would surrender the nuclear program and to this end they pressed the US to adjust its position. In the third and fourth rounds of the talks the US agreed to offer a security guarantee as well as energy incentives to the North, without giving up its demand for dismantlement of the nuclear program up front. The differences were seemingly irreconcilable until September 2005 when agreement was reached as the culmination of the efforts to resolve the nuclear issue. This agreement seemed to vindicate the South Korean and Chinese position that the North’s nuclear program was indeed negotiable, and that there was nothing inevitable about its development.
