A Bigger, Better Bargain

By Brett Conway

In late September in New York City, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak gave a speech. In it he pitched an offer to North Korea, an offer he labeled a ``grand bargain.''

In exchange for dropping its nuclear program, North Korea would receive economic aid and security assurances from South Korea. This speech was a surprise to the world.

Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said he never heard about it beforehand. This speech, given without the consent of the Americans, without anyone from the international community, let alone the six parties, standing by Lee's side, was also met with much skepticism.

This speech received such a response, no doubt, because of its grand aspirations: North Korea's scrapping of its nuclear program would lead to increased economic aid which would lead to the unification of the Korean Peninsula.

As one Cheong Wa Dae official said, ``President Lee is proposing to settle everything at once.''

An administration that has trouble keeping the Gaeseong Industrial Complex functioning, that has of late been hearing Kim Jong-il's wish for a treaty not with South Korea but with the U.S., and that must rely on building consensus among China, Russia, Japan and the U.S. before negotiating with North Korea, should be humble in its aspirations and goals when dealing with the most secretive regime in the world.

It shouldn't feel that 60 plus years of Cold War history can be simply bulldozed away.

The speech appeared trite in comparison with the real international business going on in the United States last month. President Barack Obama spoke of a secret Iranian plant used for developing a nuclear program.

Appearing on stage with the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Obama said they will ask the International Atomic Energy Agency to begin inspections. Many expect additional U.N. sanctions against Iran. The swift global reaction against one of the ``Axis of Evil'' leaves President Lee's ``bargain'' for the other ``Axis of Evil'' looking cut rate.

Instead of making ``bargains'' he can't keep, Lee should have responded to another event. It was reported that eight North Korean defectors showed up on the steps of the Danish embassy in Vietnam. They wanted asylum. They had traveled thousands of miles from North Korea, to China, and finally to Vietnam, in order to escape a tyrannical regime and to have a new life.

They said oppression against the North Korean people has been getting worse, an opinion backed up by a Sept. 21 news story about the North Korean government shutting down local flea markets. These people risked their lives for freedom, a risk that of late has been made by more and more North Koreans renouncing residency in North Korea.

This story about North Korean defectors, I believe, was an opportunity for President Lee to make a statement to the international world, the kind that would have lent credence to the Lee administration's new slogan, ``a bigger, better Korea.''

Instead of talking about a ``grand bargain,'' President Lee should have said he will find a way to help refugees from the North. He could have outlined a plan amending the Hanawon program for rehabilitating northern defectors, saying that South Korea would help relocate all and any North Korean defectors to any countries that would take them, whether South Korea, Europe or North America, and that the plan would be financed by South Korea and by any nations willing to contribute.

When outlining his idea, President Lee could have reminded the audience that North Koreans from 1945 until the end of the Korean War left their country by the millions. He could've said that the rise of South Koreans from an income of $80 a year in 1960 to over $10,000 today came in part because of those millions who defected and succeeded in the South through hard work.

He could have asked what country wouldn't want such people in their country. He could have quoted one of the defectors in Hanoi: ``We have come to the decision to risk our lives for freedom rather than passively await our doom.'' He could have said in the last decade the number of defectors has been increasing every year. He could have concluded by saying the North Korean people want to be free.

And then, when the G20 meets in Korea next fall, North Korea wouldn't have empty rhetoric about a ``Grand Bargain'' to think about as the leaders of the world powers gather just kilometers from its border.

Instead Kim Jong-il would be dealing with a world focused not on the regime of North Korea but on those who will remain after his regime collapses: the North Korean people. Can there be ``a bigger, better'' bargain than that?

Brett Conway is a full-time lecturer at the Hansung Institute of Language and Research, Hansung University in Seoul. He is also a graduate student in the Asian studies program at Sejong University. He can be reached at brettconway@hotmail.com.