ROK-US summit shows mature partnership

By Donald P. Gregg

Donald P. Gregg

President Park Geun-hye made a very successful visit to Washington, in terms of strengthening her relationship with President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress. What the impact of her visit will be in Pyongyang, Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo remains to be seen.

Speaking before a joint session of Congress, Park made an excellent impression. Her spoken English is clear, she uses the teleprompter well, and she comes across as confident and intelligent, showing interesting flashes of charm. Her decision to recognize by name the four members of Congress who had fought in the Korean War brought a wave of bipartisan applause such as I had not heard for several years on Capitol Hill.

She made frequent negative references to North Korea, saying that it would not be accepted as a nuclear power, and that any provocations would be strongly responded to.

But she also spoke of her hope to build trust between North and South Korea by not tying humanitarian aid to politics. As she put it: “With trust that gradually builds up through exchange, through cooperation, we will cement the ground for durable peace and eventually peaceful reunification.”

Her overall tone was that South Korea is headed for new levels of economic growth, and increasing influence around Asia and the world, no matter what North Korea does. In effect she was saying to Pyongyang “Join us in peaceful growth and progress or you will be left behind.”

How Kim Jong-un reacts to this message will be a key indication of how sophisticated a leader he is. Will he misperceive Park as a carbon copy of Lee Myung-bak, or will he recognize that the time for threats and bluster is over? I cannot predict what Kim will do, but I hope he will see that the way lies open to trust-building, and that, as Park put it, “It takes two hands to clap.”

Kim’s response from Pyongyang will play a role in how Park is perceived in South Korea, particularly by those on the left who voted against her in the recent election in the hope of a return to the “Sunshine policy.”

Right-wingers in Seoul who have been advocating the building of nuclear weapons by South Korea will no doubt have been taken aback by Park’s clear-cut advocacy of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, and their ongoing attitude toward her is not at all certain at the moment.

Park’s decision to strongly ally herself with Obama’s policies leaves her vulnerable to misguided accusations of having a “sadaejui (subservient) mentality” from both left and right.

In her interview with the Washington Post, Park spoke with vigor and clarity about her feelings toward China and Japan.

She spoke positively of her recent communication with China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, saying she hoped Beijing would do more to rein in Pyongyang’s belligerence, but that the Chinese “cannot do everything.”

It was clear from what she said that she feels she has started her relationship with China on a positive note, and looks forward to her upcoming visit to Beijing.

She was extremely blunt in speaking about Japan, saying it has been opening past historical wounds, “and letting them fester.” She urged Japan “to reflect upon itself,” and then moved quickly to discuss what she called “the Asian paradox” where growing economic interdependence uneasily coexists with historical tensions.

A former U.S. ambassador to Tokyo had also spoken disparagingly about Japan earlier in the week as it seemed to be moving toward disavowing apologies to the victims of World War II made by Prime Minister Tomoichi Murayama in 1995.

Hasty statements coming out of Tokyo reaffirming the apologies showed that Tokyo had gotten the message. This incident clearly showed the extent of Japan’s fall from the time in the 1980s when Ambassador Mike Mansfield in Tokyo used to speak confidently of the U.S.-Japan relationship as “the most important bilateral relationship in the world.”

I knew both of Park’s parents, and have felt that she inherited her father’s strength and intelligence, and her mother’s grace. I feel that now, more strongly than ever. When I served as American ambassador in Seoul, my efforts were directed to changing the US-Korean relationship from a military alliance into an economic and political partnership.

President Park is also moving in that direction and I fervently hope that by building trust with North Korea she can gradually help it become part of that partnership.

Donald P. Gregg was U.S. Ambassador to Korea from 1989 to 1993 and is chairman of the Pacific Century Institute.