"Sooner or later, the North Koreans will return to the negotiating table," said South Korea's former Foreign Minister Lee, Joung-binn in an interview on the eve of his resignation.
At this very moment, the political realities on the peninsula do not seem to justify this optimism. With the government in Pyongyang cancelling one inter-Korean event after the other, some analysts wonder, whether it is not time to declare the Korean peace process stone-dead. I do not share this pessimistic assessment, but then, it is obvious that the whole process has received a major damper.
A key-question is: How has this been possible? What has happened that last year's political euphoria has all but vanished, that one gets the feeling, we're back to square one with the old practices of rhetorical confrontation and verbal abuse resurfacing?
The commentators in the Korean media have more than one answer: one camp opines, the near-collapse of the Sunshine Policy is the result of a lack of domestic support. As the masses -- so goes this argument -- do not adhere to the strategy of engaging the Northern communists, the policy has been condemned to fail.
This line of thought originates in the conservative section of public opinion. It is forwarded by those, who from the very beginning of the Kim Dae-jung administration set out to discredit the conciliatory approach with their poisonous pens. But, the ideologues' argument is incorrect: It is not true that a majority of the South Korean people do not support the engagement policy. Recent opinion polls show about four fifths of the population support engaging North Korea. This is a remarkable success for the government, considering the unceasing barrage of hostile commentary against this policy.
No, public opinion in South Korea has not been the decisive factor responsible for the present stalemate on the peninsula. Developments well away from the shores of this land must be considered to explain the impasse, viz. the political shift in the US and the rise to power of George W. Bush. In the run-up to the presidential elections a myriad articles and analyses were published dealing with the possible effects a victory of the GOP-candidate would have regarding developments in North East Asia.
Judging from the present position, one comes to the sobering conclusion that the most pessimistic predictions have come true.
A key date for inter-Korean relations -- and, certainly, a date the South Korean President will not forget easily -- has been the encounter of the two heads of state in early March at the White House. Kim Dae-jung had hurried to Washington in an effort to mobilize diplomatic support for his Sunshine Policy. But all he was given by his not-that-reverential host was the information that it was still too early to expect a definite US position regarding the future strategy, and that -- by the way -- the North Koreans could and should not be trusted.
Much has been written about this diplomatic episode in the US capital. There is general agreement that the treatment of the South Korean guest is not among to the brighter performances of the new president. A US commentator called Bush's conduct "one of the most serious diplomatic blunders of the post-war era." Other US observers spoke of "a diplomatic train-wreck," a "fiasco," even a "catastrophe."
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