US Policy Dilemma: Food Aid to an "Enemy State"? The Case of Communist China, 1961-1963, and North Korea, 1993-2000

Abstract

Both Communist China of the early 1960s and North Korea of the 1990s posed significant policy challenges to the United States revolving around the important question of food aid. The Clinton administration was faced with the task of responding to the height of the North Korean famine, which was estimated to have taken place between 1995-1998. Interestingly, the dilemma that confronted the Clinton administration of whether to provide US food assistance to a nation considered an "enemy state" was reminiscent of the circumstances faced by the Kennedy administration with regard to the famine that scoured Communist China in the early 1960s. Estimated to have claimed nearly 30 million lives, the details of the Chinese famine resulting from the Great Leap Forward of 1958 have only recently been examined, as foreigners were unable to gain access to the PRC until nearly twenty years after the events. Similarly, only time will bring to surface the details of the famine in North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea, hereafter "DPRK") due to the country's present self-imposed isolation, comparable to that of the PRC in the 1960s. This study will examine the policy dilemma that confronted the United States with regard to the famine in Communist China following the Great Leap Forward in the 1960s and again in North Korea from 1993-2000. The divergent responses of the Kennedy administration and that of the Clinton administration will be studied, with a focus on Congressional discussions regarding the donation of US food aid to an "enemy state."