Summit - step toward strategic clarity?

By Ahn Ho-young

President Moon Jae-in visited Washington, D.C. for a summit with President Joe Biden, May 21. Moon was the second foreign leader to have a face-to-face meeting with Biden, only after Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan. Reading through the Moon-Biden joint statement, I was pleasantly surprised with the overall tone and contents of it.

I was most impressed with what the statement had to say about the Indo-Pacific: “The U.S. and the ROK oppose all activities that undermine, destabilize, or threaten the rules-based international order and commit to maintaining an inclusive, free and open Indo-Pacific.”

This is quite a departure from Korea's apparent efforts in the past several years to maintain a distance with the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy, which made Korea skip regional military exercises and high-level meetings among defense officials in the region.

Former Foreign Minister Song Min-soon characterized this as “geographic extension” of the Korea-U.S. alliance, which could have positive impact upon the alliance for decades to come. This just happens to be the same characterization I made in a webinar organized by the Korea Peace Foundation on May 24.

Another characterization I made in the same webinar was the “functional extension” of the Korea-U.S. alliance; the vast scope of economic and technological cooperation Korea and the U.S. committed to undertake in such areas as semiconductors, batteries, strategic and critical materials, pharmaceuticals, Artificial Intelligence (AI), 5G, 6G, open-RAN technology, quantum technology, bio-technology, space technology and nuclear energy.

With respect to these sectors, the two leaders agreed on “the careful screening of foreign investment and cooperation on export control on critical technology,” and “to increase resiliency in our supply chains.” This again is quite a departure from Korea's apparent efforts in the past several years to distance itself from such U.S. initiatives as Clean Network, Economic Prosperity Network and Quad-centered activities.

What all of these extensions come down to is setting the Korea-U.S. alliance in the right direction as we approach its 70th anniversary, and moving Korea toward strategic clarity in its geopolitical positioning. Since the shift to these extensions of Korea-U.S. alliance was so sudden and significant, however, it naturally leads to much conjecture about how and why this could happen.

The most popular explanation for the moment seems to be that Korea “bartered” these in order to get U.S. support for inter-Korean dialogue and engagement, especially the statement's reference to “previous inter-Korean and U.S.-DPRK commitments such as the 2018 Panmunjeom Declaration and Singapore Joint Statement.” (DPRK stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name)

These conjectures lead to an even more important question, which is of course implementation. Let me limit myself to two inter-related issues for implementation. With respect to North Korea, many commentators are skeptical if this alleged concession by the U.S. would lead to another cycle of meaningful dialogue with North Korea. Pyongyang continues to stubbornly stick to further strengthening its nuclear and missile capability, while preparing and indoctrinating its people for harder work and sacrifice.

The U.S., while consistently professing to promote dialogue with North Korea, does not look to be ready to offer any premature compensation to North Korea. Given the situation, any impatient move by South Korea, for example ratification of the Panmunjeom Declaration as called for by some members of the National Assembly, stands very little chance of bringing back momentum to the peace process on the Korean Peninsula. It would only aggravate further divisiveness in the South Korean debate on inter- Korean issues.

Let me now turn to the “geographic extension” of the Korea-U.S. alliance. In the press briefing organized by Cabinet ministers who accompanied President Moon to the U.S., they focused on four points as the major achievements of the visit; 1) restoring momentum to the peace process on the Korean Peninsula; 2) the termination of Korea's revised missile guidelines; 3) agreements on the supply of vaccine, technology and nuclear energy and 4) multilateral cooperation on such issues as climate change and health security.

The ministers were totally silent on Korea's commitment to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific, which made quite a few commentators wonder out loud if the Korean government had already started to water down the importance of the commitment it made in Washington, D.C. just a short while ago.

I hope this is not the case. Trust is a much appreciated commodity in any relationship, especially between security partners. I have long argued that the so-called strategic ambiguity, meaning frequently shifting position depending upon issues and the calculation of short-term interests, is not sustainable, because it will only deepen the impression that Korea is the weakest link in the Asia-Pacific and make Korea lose credibility with both the U.S. and China.

Whatever the motivation may have been, the recent Moon-Biden joint statement shows that the government made the right choice in clarifying its position on the Korea-U.S. alliance. Receding from the choice is not an option.

Ahn Ho-young (hyahn78@mofa.or.kr) is president of the University of North Korean Studies. He served as Korean ambassador to the United States and first vice foreign minister.