Exchange of mixed messages
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By Tong Kim
Since the first day of 2014, the two sides of the Korean Peninsula have exchanged mixed messages at a rather hectic pace. Due to the lack of mutual trust, the messages are “dead on arrival” and each side suspects if the other side’s message has any mischievous ulterior motive. Yet it is better that both sides exchange views, instead of not at all, even if the messages are negative, devious or unproductive.
Last Friday, Seoul’s Ministry of Unification rejected the North Korean National Defense Commission’s specific proposal made the day before that both sides “suspend mutual slander as of the end of January, cancel hostile military activities against each other, including Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, take mutual measures to prevent nuclear calamity and resolve all inter-Korean issues, starting with the meeting of the separated families.”
Seoul’s negative response to the latest North Korean peace gesture was also specific: it is the North, not the South, that has practiced slander; the annual military exercise is defensive and the sovereign right of the South; the North should first show responsibility for its past provocations, including the explosion of the frigate Cheonan and the shelling of the Yeonpyeong Island; and it should take substantive action for denuclearization.
Pyongyang’s proposal was unacceptable mainly because it demanded the cancellation of the joint ROK-U.S. military drills especially at a time when the South is seriously concerned about possible provocations by an unstable regime in Pyongyang in the aftermath of the ruthless execution of the once powerful Jang Song-thaek.
On the other hand, Pyongyang had probably not expected the South to accept the proposal to cancel this year’s exercise. The North Koreans have always complained about the allied defensive exercises that scare them, as a practice drill for a nuclear attack against their country. Every year the KPA troops also conduct their exercises that are costly to the fuel-scarce North.
When the exercises begin in the South, Pyongyang would again react with provocative threats even beyond the verbal level of last year. However, the Kim Jong-un regime is unlikely to launch a premeditated attack of any scale against the South, on land or sea, as Kim’s priorities are to solidify its stability and to improve the economy.
Although sketchy in the proposal, Pyongyang also suggested the nuclear issue for discussion with Seoul, a topic the North Koreans had long insisted as an issue between the North and the United States. However, all they could say might be that they do not intend to use their nuclear weapons on the South.
The North’s suggestion regarding slander has merit and is consistent with Kim Jong-un’s New Year’s message to the South, in which he spoke about suspension of mutual slander and creation of a “favorable environment” for improvement of inter-Korean relations. The North needs improved relations with the South from an economic perspective, to get assistance to rebuild its ailing economy.
The Unification Ministry was right when it said the Seoul government does not slander the Pyongyang regime by name calling or otherwise, as do Pyongyang’s propagandists to attack President Park. However, several civil organizations, consisting of anti-North Korean conservatives and defectors, send slanderous leaflets to the North and sometimes burn Kim Jong-un in effigy with wide press coverage.
There is no good way of measuring how effective these civilian psychological warfare activities are on the general populace of the North. Yet, it is clear that the North Korean authorities are sensitive to these activities as they directly harm the “dignity of the North Korean leader and the system.” Furthermore, the North believes these activities are carried out with encouragement or endorsement of the government.
In a series of her press conferences the last two weeks, President Park Geun-hye also kept sending a mixed message to the North. Her message was: South Korea is ready to work to build trust and cooperate with the North economically, if the North changes its behavior and takes meaningful steps toward denuclearization.
President Park would meet with the North Korean leader, if such a meeting would be helpful to a substantive improvement in inter-Korean relations and to promotion of peace on the peninsula. She believes that the Kim Jong-un regime has recently become more unstable and more unpredictable
Conscious of her defense minister’s warning that the North might launch provocations from January to March, she assures that the South is ready to meet any possible development and to resolutely reprise any provocation. She has also talked about the benefits of unification as “a jackpot” to pay for the cost of unification.
The president did not say how or when unification might come. Her pronounced policy for unification is not to absorb the North but to lay the foundation for peaceful unification during her term. Whenever there is a major development in the North, many in Seoul and Washington tend to think of a sudden change or collapse that might bring an opportunity for unification under South Korean terms.
In the wake of the brutal execution of Jang Song-thaek, there have appeared louder predictions of an early demise of Kim Jong-un’s “reign of terror.” However, there is little evidence yet for a possible collapse of the North Korean regime. Talk of cooperation with China and the United States on unification would indeed be necessary, but it is a long haul, the path of which has not been mapped out.
President Park was right when she said, “Nobody in the world can say exactly what might happen to North Korea or what actions North Korea might take. That’s why we have to be prepared for all possibilities.” What’s your take?
The author is a visiting scholar at the Ilmin Institute of International Relations, Korea University, a visiting professor of the University of North Korean Studies, and an ICAS fellow in the U.S.