Engage more with North Korea

By Shim Jae-yun

President Park Geun-hye had a rare encounter with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Monday during a gala dinner at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The impromptu meeting came with the two leaders seated beside one another and progressed in a casual fashion. It deserves note as it could have helped lay the groundwork for the two neighboring nations to mend their soured relations.

But the meeting was apparently not as fruitful as it might have been. Park seems to have been pressed to talk to Abe given the rapidly changing security situation involving the two Koreas and the powerful nations behind them – the United States, China and Japan. There has been growing concern that South Korea is becoming increasingly isolated in the midst of brisk diplomatic developments in East Asia. A recent meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Abe might have also nudged Park to talk with Abe.

The U.S. and North Korea have shown signs of improving relations with the recent release of two American detainees. This can be construed as a positive sign of relations thawing between the two countries. There appears to be no reason for Seoul to oppose this.

But it also shows that Seoul has made another blunder in dealing with the reclusive nation. A recent scuffle regarding the campaign of sending leaflets into the North vividly shows how the South continues to deal inappropriately with inter-Korean relations.

It is not a good idea to allow the defectors and other conservative people to press ahead with the leaflet campaign. There is growing skepticism over whether Seoul authorities have true and earnest intentions to check them from spreading the leaflets. Seoul has been citing the need to guarantee the citizens’ freedom of speech. If that is the case, the police should have not cracked down on liberal figures attempting to spread similar leaflets containing criticism of President Park.

The anti-North Korean leaflets mainly contain insults aimed at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju, with a focus on Ri’s alleged extramarital affairs. They also vividly describe the miserable demise of dictators like Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, suggesting the same misfortune is ahead for Kim.

A security expert whom I met recently told me that the leaflets do not have any impact on prompting North Koreans to defect to the South. Less than 5 percent of the leaflets arrive in North Korean soil, and most of them tend to fall on very limited mountainous areas near the Demilitarized Zone, according to the expert. It is ridiculous for the senders to believe that they can persuade the North Koreans to take a stand against the Pyongyang regime on the basis of such vulgar sentiments. It would be better for them to show scenes of economic growth and other affluent aspects about South Korean society, instead of the dismal pictures they now include. In a sense, the leaflet campaign has become the primary outlet for the anger and remorse of the defectors against North Korean leaders.

North Korea showed a willingness to improve relations with the South when it sent three Kim confidants to attend the Incheon Asian Games in early October. Later, the two Koreas agreed to hold high-level meetings in either late October or early November. But, that cooperative mood has disappeared, with the North heaping severe criticism on the South for having failed to curb the leaflet-sending.

Experts sometimes cite the rigid and inflexible decision-making process at Cheong Wa Dae as the biggest problem. Presidential staffers do not engage in live debate on pending issues. They only try to read the mind of the head of state and her chief of staff Kim Ki-choon.

Park is noted for avoiding face-to-face briefing from her staffers, preferring documents. Seoul direly needs a sophisticated strategy to cope with the fast-changing security and foreign affairs, all of which the national destiny hinges on.

Park needs to open her mind and hold discussions with experts and staff members frequently. She cannot secure success in crucial external issues with her stiff and sometime authoritarian ways of state management.

A Korean saying suggests that one can rule the world after he or she makes peace in their country and within their family, as well as with themselves. Likewise, South Korea’s diplomacy can succeed only when it is backed by reconciliation with North Korea. Given this, Park should take proactive measures to embrace North Korea and engage more with it.