Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy: A Memoir (29 page)

I had noticed something else in Wu’s bio. He had a reputation for earning the loyalty and the affection of his staff, something I could also see on their faces. They liked their boss. He was quirky, engaged in shifting
subjects, and I did my part to keep him off balance as well. Our official talking points tended to talk past each other. He called for more patience from the Americans toward North Korea, and I called for less patience from the Chinese. At times we both laughed at the impossibility of harmonizing our two approaches, but we agreed on where we should end up: with a denuclearized North Korea.

“I hope you don’t mind if I sometimes recall something from Chinese history,” he said.

“I would be disappointed if nothing from your four-thousand-year history ever came to mind. After all, this is a historic problem we are dealing with.”

Kenichiro Sasae was the Japanese representative. Like Wu, he had long experience dealing with Asian neighbors and working with the United States. He was a problem solver, a pragmatist. He understood Japan’s difficulties in the region: the internal Japanese politics churned over the thirty-year-old issue of the North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens, the competition with China, the problems dealing with Roh Moo Hyun’s administration.

He came to my home for breakfast and promptly endeared himself by congratulating me on the Boston Red Sox winning the World Series. I recognized the good staff work that had gone into that comment and wished I had something as irrelevant and personal for him as well. We talked about how the negotiations might unfold. I told him we were interested in some kind of early harvest that would show the world that the process had some possibilities. He agreed and methodically went through Japan’s negotiating history with the North Koreans, especially on the issue of the abductions. I assured him that the United States would remain engaged on the question, but that I was concerned whether the other participants shared that view. He understood but was pleased with my assurances.

I escorted Sasae to the front of the house, waving as he got into his car and waiting for the wheels to turn, the Asian custom for the precise
moment when a visit ends. I had met the South Korean, Chinese, and now the Japanese representatives and was looking forward to meeting Aleksandr Alekseyev from the Russian Federation, about whom I had heard good things from other U.S. diplomats, including those in U.S. Embassy Moscow who had worked with him. I wondered, how hard could this be? All .300-plus hitters and with great personalities as well.

I hadn’t met the North Koreans.

It was Wednesday, June 29, 2005, and I was at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., watching the Nationals play the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was the fifth inning, a tie score, and the Nats were about to come up. I had a great seat on the third-base side, but instead of enjoying the action of a close game I was anxiously looking at my cell phone. Finally, it rang.

“Chris, it’s Joe DeTrani. I think we have a deal.”

“Okay, Joe. Tell me exactly what they have agreed to.”

Joe DeTrani, whom I inherited as my deputy in the Six Party process negotiations, was up in New York and had been meeting with the North Koreans at a nongovernmental meeting, a so-called Track 2 conference sponsored by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, to which several North Korean negotiators were invited. He had just had a conversation with his opposite number in the North Korean delegation, Ri Gun. Ri had told him that if the U.S. side were to meet the head of the North Korean delegation, he was sure the North Koreans would be willing to go back to the Six Party Talks.

“Joe, it sounds encouraging, but, nonetheless, Ri being ‘sure’ is different from actually agreeing to return to the talks.”

Joe understood that if I was to sell the idea to Secretary Rice, I needed to say that if we met them, they would announce their return to the talks. Being “sure” was not enough.

“I understand, but I think we are good. Do you want to speak with him?”

I went up the stairs of the stands to get away from the noise. But
the Nationals were in first place at the time, and the stadium was pretty full that night despite a rain delay. I told him to put Ri on as I blocked one ear with the palm of my hand and pressed the cell phone against the other to try to hear him.

“Mr. Ri,” I said—not quite sure how to address him. “Good to talk with you. I want to make sure we have an understanding that if I meet Mr. Kim [Gye Gwan] in Beijing, your government will announce that you are returning to the Six Party Talks.”

“Yes. That is our understanding.”

I thought of parsing the word
understanding,
but his answer was good enough for me, or at least good enough to try out on Secretary Rice. I knew that she would share my skepticism but would want to try. Iraq and Afghanistan were not getting any easier.

The next morning, I explained the proposed deal to the secretary. She listened carefully, and didn’t seem concerned that Ri might be getting ahead of himself, except to comment that officials in communist/totalitarian societies usually have developed a survivalist sense of not getting out ahead of their talking points. She told me she’d get back to me later in the day.

When we met again, she told me I could proceed, but that the meeting had to be in a Chinese government facility, with the Chinese present. I responded that I understood the instructions, but that it might not work. The whole point of the North Korean boycott of the talks was that we don’t meet with them the way we meet with all the other parties.

“Do the best you can. Those are the instructions,” she responded. I tried to get more details on what she meant by a “Chinese government facility.” A military base? Conference center? Their foreign ministry? A government-owned hotel? And what does it mean to have the Chinese present? Should it become a three-way talk? At what level do the Chinese have to be present?

“Do the best you can,” she repeated.

I returned to the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs and went to the office of Kathleen Stephens, the principal deputy assistant secretary. I had known Kathy since my first tour in Korea and was delighted when she agreed to take the deputy position. Kathy and I started a facetious list of what could constitute a Chinese government facility in China. “There are a lot of them,” she observed in mock understatement. I then walked over to my own office and asked my assistant Stasia Miller to get the Korea team up to my office.

There was a sense of excitement as desk officers, who would soon be asked to work twelve-to-thirteen-hour days in preparing for the negotiations, not to speak of weeks away from their families, rushed into my office, led by the desk director, Jim Foster. Everyone knew that the failure to get a negotiation going was hurting our reputation in Asia, even though, objectively speaking, the fault lay squarely at the doorstep of the North Koreans. But now all that was about to change.

The first thing we needed to do was to fix a date for the meeting. I turned to Jim Foster for the best way to communicate with the North Koreans, and most urgently to suggest a date, which we had tentatively agreed should be July 9, just a little more than a week away. He suggested the so-called New York channel, our contact with the North Korean United Nations office. I asked our China desk to send a message to the U.S. ambassador in Beijing, Clark T. “Sandy” Randt, to inform him that we had proposed that date to the North Koreans, and to ask whether it would work for the Chinese and our embassy.

We decided to hold off informing the other members—Russia, South Korea, Japan—until preparations were further developed, as well as to avoid leaks. A day later, the North Koreans got back to us through New York and agreed to the July 9 date. Sandy Randt also got back to me, pointing out that he would make it work, noting something that I had completely overlooked: Secretary Rice would be in Beijing, on a previously scheduled trip, later the night of July 9. That will sure add to the drama, I thought. I could meet the North Koreans that day, report to the
secretary that night, and she could meet with Chinese foreign minister Li Zhaoxing the next day, then they jointly make the announcement following their meeting. Not bad diplomatic choreography, I thought.

I arrived in Beijing on July 8, accompanied by our Chinese-speaking staff assistant, Nolan Barkhouse. The summer heat had already set in and the dust and pollution were terrible. “Welcome to Beijing,” Ambassador Randt said as he met us at the end of the jetway along with his North Korea watcher, Deputy Political Chief Edgard Kagan, who had taken charge of the preparations for the meeting. The “Chinese government facility” the embassy had chosen was to be a dining room, tucked away in the Chinese-government-owned business center, located immediately behind the Chinese-government-owned St. Regis Hotel.

“We should be able to slip in there without any press, as they will all be at the China World Hotel waiting for Secretary Rice,” Kagan explained.

“The Chinese government owns the St. Regis?” I had asked Kagan when I first heard of the selection of venue. “Bit of a stretch as a ‘Chinese government facility,’ no?” (I was anticipating some eye rolling from Condi, who since coming over to the State Department was getting very good at rolling her eyes.)

“Hey, the Chinese own lots of buildings in Beijing,” he responded cheerfully. “In fact, they even own the American Embassy building, but we didn’t think that was appropriate.”

Edgard Kagan was a solid professional and a real talent. He had served in Jerusalem and understood high-stakes diplomacy. In serving in different parts of the world, in jobs always close to the action, Edgard had a better understanding of each because he had a point of comparison. As for our condition that the Chinese had to be there, Edgard explained that negotiations for getting the Chinese to take part in the meeting had not been going well. At our request, the Chinese proposed to the North Koreans that Wu Dawei take part, but the North Koreans vetoed that on the basis that what we had agreed to was a bilateral meeting, not a
trilateral. The Chinese countered by offering their director of peninsula affairs, Yang Xiyu, but that too looked to the North Koreans like a trilateral meeting. We agreed to the Chinese suggestion as a fallback that Yang take part only in the beginning of the meeting, and then leave, but as of the morning of July 9 we had not heard back from the Chinese.

It was a Saturday, late morning, and with nothing more to do in preparation for the meeting except monitor our cell phones, Edgard proposed we drive the forty-five minutes out to the Great Wall. In all my trips to China that spring, I hadn’t yet seen the Great Wall, and with nervousness building up in my stomach and my head starting to throb at the thought that the Chinese might not show, I agreed.

It was a bright sunny day when Nolan, Edgard, and I joined the thousands of Chinese tourists on the wall. I wasn’t sure what fascinated me more: the thousands of tourists or the thousands of miles of wall. I asked Edgard every few minutes to call the Chinese, which he did each time, sticking his head out between parapets to gain some privacy for the call. The Chinese never picked up. Edgard called his contact in the North Korean embassy, who confirmed they would be there.

“I’m not sure the Chinese are going to show,” I said, wondering what I should do.

“We can cross that bridge when we get to it,” Edgard said, not wanting to think about the unthinkable.

As I got back into our car and took one more look at the Great Wall, I thought about the work that went into the construction of something 5,500 miles long, almost twice the breadth of the United States. To all the think tankers who believe conflict or enmity is something we should consider inevitable with China, I thought: Who would ever want to get into a fight with a people who built a thing like this?

I arrived at the business center with Edgard, Nolan, and Beijing political counselor Dan Shield. We waited. There were no Chinese, but neither were there any North Koreans. I asked Edgard, for about the fiftieth time that day, to try all his numbers at the Foreign Ministry again. No
answer. I then asked him to call his contact at the North Korean embassy to ask where their delegation was.

“He’s asking if the Chinese are there,” Edgard said, holding his cell phone against his chest.

“Just a second,” I responded, trying to get some time to think.

Of course, there were no Chinese, and based on my instructions I should call the whole thing off. I glanced at my watch and realized that Secretary Rice was on her way to Beijing, probably just finishing the refueling stop in Alaska, meaning I could never reach her through the air force’s telephone operator in time for guidance.

I thought about what would be the best outcome: We cancel, because going through with it would violate my instructions, or we proceed with the meeting and get the announcement of the resumption of the talks—and who in the world is going to care whether the Chinese were actually sitting there or not? After all, we were in Beijing, the venue for the Six Party Talks, and the whole purpose was to restart those
multilateral
talks anyway. All our partners wanted this to happen and were anxiously awaiting word. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen to me? They fire me, and given the state of my head and stomach, I wouldn’t have minded at all. I thought of past mentors: Would Holbrooke have canceled the meeting? How about Eagleburger? Bob Frasure? What would my dad have told me to do? I knew Condi wanted the meeting; she understood more than many people the world of hurt our foreign policy was in and the need for a breakthrough somewhere. And I was sure she would not have appreciated my canceling it without having asked her first. However, neither was I sure she would have wanted even to be asked that question. I took one more look at Dan, Nolan, and Edgard, who by this time was gesturing with a finger of his free hand at his phone clutched in the other, and with an exasperated look all for the purpose of reminding me that I didn’t have all night to answer a simple question. I decided that if there was ever a time to call a diplomatic audible, it was now.