Park's unification efforts face obstacles

President Park Geun-hye gives a keynote speech at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Sept. 29. / Yonhap

By Kang Seung-woo

Whether President Park Geun-hye's aggressive bid for the unification of South and North Korea will pay off remains to be seen, especially in light of the likely obstacles to her goal, analysts believe.

Last month, Park said she and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to begin talks about how to achieve a peaceful unification on the Korean Peninsula as soon as possible. Last week at the United Nations' General Assembly, she also called for international support for a unified Korea.

Pyongyang will most likely never agree to a national reunification that will be accompanied by the demise of the North Korean regime.

"A unification scenario would have to be at North Korea's expense, with the North being absorbed under the South's political and economic system. North Korea would never agree to this, and so the division of Korea is, unfortunately, likely to remain for some time," said Terence Roehrig, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College.

North Korea leader Kim Jong-un meets with Cuban First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel in Pyongyang, Sept. 8. / KCNA-Yonhap

Citing that a possible unification would lead to the prosecution of Kim Jong-un and other senior North Korean leaders for human rights violations as specified in the U.N. Commission of Inquiry report, he said: "North Korean leaders would certainly be worried about this possibility, making it very difficult for them to reunite with the South."

Evans Revere, a former senior State Department official on East Asia, also said the North will oppose national reunification unless it is done in its own terms.

"The greatest challenge to peaceful reunification will be North Korea itself and the Pyongyang regime's determination not only to retain its own system, but also to impose it on the South," Revere said in a joint conference in Seoul early this year.

Since President Park began promoting her unification vision in 2014, including her "unification bonanza" initiative, the North has sensitively reacted to the South's emphasis on a unified Korea.

For example, after Park set up the Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation in July last year, the Kim Jong-un regime accused the South of demonstrating its pursuit of unification by absorption.

In response to Park's Dresden Declaration in March 2013 — a package of proposals calling for bolstering exchanges with the North — the North claimed that her policy on unification with North Korea was designed to hurt the ideology and socialist system of the North.

Despite being elated by the support she gained from China, Park's efforts may hit a wall when the North continues to refuse to give up its nuclear weapons program.

The repressive state has been developing its own nuclear weapons, claiming that it is a self-defense measure against the United State's extreme hostile policy and nuclear threats against the North.

"It is impossible to reunify without first resolving the North Korean nuclear issue," said Peter Hayes, the executive director of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability.

"Reunification will become harder and increase in social, economic and security costs, the longer and deeper North Korea develops nuclear weapons."

It may also put a burden on the United States, who supports a Southern-led unification, which includes the elimination of the Kim regime.

"I believe both governments are in agreement that denuclearization is a prerequisite to the expanded range of economic cooperation activities that Park laid out in her Dresden speech," said Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

As part of the government's efforts for the North's denuclearization, Seoul has strived to resume the six-party talks that were suspended in 2008 and has hardly progressed since.

"The problem is that the North has absolutely no interest in denuclearization," said Robert Kelly, an international relations professor at Pusan National University.

"North Korea used the six-party talks as a shield as it rushed toward nukes. Now that it has them, it sees no reason to talk about giving them up.

"The North was quite crafty. It must now hold out for a while until other states recognize it as a nuclear power. This will take awhile, but time is on their side."

Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at the Sejong Institute, said President Park needs to make more efforts to establish a reliable structure for lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula with relevant countries.

"Park is required to push for negotiations with the North to freeze its nuclear program and prevent it from emerging as a nuclear power state ahead of calling for denuclearization," he said.

Park is scheduled to hold a summit with her U.S. counterpart Barack Obama at the White House on Oct. 16.

Analysts have advised her to take advantage of the meeting to gain support for her unification vision because the United States would be happy to discuss nuclear weapons with the North.

"The main task is to explain clearly a process for how unification will be achieved and identify concrete areas where the United States can be of help," Snyder said.