"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."
It is noteworthy -- and typical of the defensiveness Seoul's diplomacy is caught up in in this phase, that the South Koreans are practising restraint. Kim Dae-jung's new foreign minister, praised for his cordial relations with the right-wing of the political spectrum in the US dating from former ambassadorial times, is in retrospect trying to sell the Washington summit as a diplomatic success story.
All this borders on obsequiousness, and is part and parcel of an obvious effort to avoid anything that could further irritate the almighty ally on the other side of the Pacific. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has announced it needs time to revise its North Korea-policy.
Revising policies after a change of government is a normal, totally legitimate procedure. Against the background of the situation on the Korean peninsula, though, the president -- and if not him, his advisors -- should have been aware that any delay would in fact boil down to effectively sabotaging the political momentum created by the Koreans since their historic summit last June in Pyongyang.
"Delay is destruction," noted a US analyst. "Under the guise of a long-term policy review, that may well be what the conservatives in the Bush White House intended," the observer said.
That conservatives have moved into the White House, and the new administration has a different world view compared with its predecessors, has become apparent regarding several important global matters. In many parts of the world, governments are bewildered to perceive Bush behaving on the stage of international diplomacy like a bull in a china shop.
Regarding the Koreas, an old question has once again moved into the forefront, a question, that -- one could have hoped -- had been laid to rest after the Cold War: How should democracies deal with undemocratic regimes? Once again, two camps are confronting each another in an ideological debate, with one side saying engagement and cooperation are the most efficient strategies, while the others proclaim isolation and containment to be the better strategic options.
It seems, the advocates of the cold war-philosophy have gained the upper hand in the White House: "There are troubling indications that this administration may abandon the path of engagement on the peninsula," a senator from the Democratic Party said the other day, warning of the dangers a shift in US strategy vis a vis North Korea would have, and emphasizing that Bush made a mistake, when he told Kim Dae-jung that he would not engage North Korea any time soon. Traditionally, conservatives believe, military power combined with a policy aimed at containing and isolating the ideological adversary will at the end of the day lead to the downfall of the communist regime. Many conservatives have problems with the thought of sitting at one table with communists and engaging them in serious negotiations. Only a dead communist is a good communist, this somewhat adapted cowboy-mentality could be termed.
As to North Korea, this school of thought would prefer to see the regime in Pyongyang collapse, with all what is left being absorbed by the ally in the South. This would be the final victory in what is perceived as the not-yet-ended Korean War.
Kim Dae-jung, and with him the supporters of the engagement process, have a radically different approach. For fundamental reasons, they abhor the idea of a collapse of the North Korean regime and the absorption of the North by the South along the lines of Germany's unification.
"We cannot afford a collapse of North Korea," a senior aide of the South Korean president said recently. "This is not like West Germany absorbing East Germany. And what happens if the North Korean state falls? A military government takes over, and the prospect of a last desperate war becomes very real." It will take considerable time before this thinking is understood, let alone appreciated in Washington. One problem is Kim Dae-jung, whose term expires in less than two years, simply does not have this time. There is one person who could help the beleaguered South Korean president out of the corner. This someone is the North Korean strongman, Kim Jong-il. It is high-time for Pyongyang to prove to the world, with practical moves, that it takes the process of inner-Korean reconciliation seriously. That would be the best Korean answer to the skeptics on the other side of the Pacific.
Ronald Meinardus is the Resident Representative of the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation in Seoul and a commentator on Korean affairs.
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