The inter-Korean tug-of-war over their joint factory park is moving in a least desirable way.
South Korea decided Friday to pull out all remaining personnel from the Gaeseong Industrial Complex after the North rebuffed its dialogue offer. Although Pyongyang’s rejection of talks and Seoul’s decision on withdrawal had been expected, that didn’t reduce the disappointment felt by all who know the importance of the joint-venture project.
The North took issue with the way Seoul proposed the working-level talks a day earlier, saying it was nothing but a “one-sided ultimatum.” Yes, Seoul could have set a more flexible deadline and its mentioning of “grave measures” was somewhat hasty, too.
But none of these can be valid excuses for Pyongyang to turn down the proposal for talks. The North’s recalcitrance to sit face to face with the South had long been evident since it brushed aside two similar offers, including one made by President Park Geun-hye, describing them as just “shallow tricks” to camouflage Seoul’s confrontational tactics. The regime’s persistent message has been: “Take our demands or leave it.”
With the North not even allowing the passage of emergency supplies such as food and medicine, Seoul has few other alternatives but to consider the safety of 175 South Koreans staying in the complex.
It is not hard to read Pyongyang’s intention behind its thinly-veiled attempts to take the hard-won inter-Korean industrial project hostage of its political maneuvers. If the North’s missile launch and nuclear test were its preemptive bids to take the upper hand in diplomatic tug-of-war with Washington, the ongoing threat to shut the Gaeseong complex is a bid to get a head start over the new South Korean government in the next five years.
Pyongyang knows all too well Seoul will make up for any eventual losses for investors from its South-North Cooperation Fund. True, about 1 trillion won ($1billion) of compensation may not matter much for the world’s 14th largest economy. The North might also think it can relocate about 50,000 North Korean workers to China and other Southeast Asian countries willing to pay more than the about $140 a month they receive at Gaeseong.
But both Koreas must know they have far more to lose from a shutdown of the industrial park than immediate economic losses.
For Seoul, it would mean the southern relocation of North Korean troops, including long-distance artillery, which were pushed back when the joint factory park was built. For Pyongyang, reneging on business contracts and its failure to keep international trade terms would have the effect of scaring away potential investors, dealing additional blows to the impoverished state thirsty for foreign capital. No doubt North Korea will be a far bigger, longer-term loser.
The biggest victim of this unproductive war-of-nerves is the inter-Korean relationship itself, however.
President Park Geun-hye is right to deal with the North’s one-sided and unreasonable threat on the park’s closure with determination and principle.
Yet she must know her predecessor’s North Korea policy ended in a fiasco because of rigidity, or undue adherence to principles. When it comes to inter-Korea policy, Park’s government is a victim of the Lee Myung-bak administration, which broke inter-Korean ties beyond repair amid mutual distrust and wariness. No doubt Park’s own initiative of “trustpolitik” should start with dissolving such distrust.
Koreas will be repenting for very long if they abandon this “small unification” experiment, because of their petty one-upmanship.