ed Koreas must re-adopt 1991 Basic Agreement
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By Lee Chang-sup
For the past 16 years, the Korean Peninsula has become an allegory for the Aesop fable “The North Wind and the Sun.” The North Wind and the Sun competed to decide which is the stronger of the two and to make a passing traveler remove his cloak. However hard the North Wind blew, the traveler only wrapped his cloak tighter, but when the Sun shone, the traveler could not overcome heat and had to take his cloak off.
South Korea has adopted both the sun’s subtle approach and the wind’s aggressive approach in its North Korea policies, yet, it has not significantly improved its relations with North Korea.
From 1998 to 2007, liberal Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun implemented unassuming policies, which they had hoped would make the North more agreeable. Meanwhile, from 2008 to the present, conservative Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye adopted hard-line policies, hoping they would lead to desired results. The North liked the formers’ sun approach, known as the Sunshine Policy, in which Seoul provided Pyongyang with massive aid, including cash, without difficult conditions; aimed for inter-Korean reconciliation, not reunification; did not question the North’s dictatorship and flagrant human rights abuses; and downscaled its annual military exercises with the United States.
In return, Pyongyang accepted exchanges of visitors and sports teams. In 1998, it welcomed South Koreans to tour the North’s Mt. Geumgang. It also stopped vilifying Seoul. Then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il met with Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun in Pyongyang in 2000 and 2007, respectively. In 2000, it worked with Seoul to establish the industrial park just north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
However, the ensuing conservative Presidents Lee and Park took a different approach to North Korea. They claimed the North used much of Seoul’s cash aid to develop nuclear weapons and criticized the Kim regime as a dictatorship that abuses human rights. They said Seoul’s aid will continue only if the North scraps its nuclear weapons.
This hard-line policy backfired, however. In 2008, a North Korean soldier killed a South Korean female tourist, which led to the suspension of South Korean tours of Mt. Geumgang. In 2010, the North sank a Korean Navy ship and shelled Yunpyeong, the South’s northeastern island off the west coast of the DMZ. In 2013, it suspended the operations of Gaeseong Industrial Park briefly.
President Park’s recent North Korea plan, which she unveiled last month in Dresden during her visit to Germany, clearly shows that she will stick to the wind’s approach. She favors the South’s absorption of the North for reunification. She praised West Germany’s absorption of East Germany, saying she wants to emulate it. She apparently assumes that the Kim Jong-un regime will become unstable and ultimately collapse.
However, there are few indications that the North will collapse soon. Kim Jong-un has allegedly tightened his control of the political party, the military and the security agencies. He has tested nuclear weapons and missiles and has improved the North’s food situation and stabilized consumer prices.
The North rejected Park’s “Dresden Declaration,” claiming it is a political provocation based on sophistry, apparently for three reasons. The North views Park’s attempts to reunify the two Koreas and thus, the South’s absorption of the North, as a move to topple the Pyongyang regime. It claims Park’s proposal to aid malnourished children and pregnant women hurt the North Koreans’ pride. Finally, it claims Park did not say anything about lifting the tough sanctions Seoul and Washington imposed on Pyongyang. Ultimately, the North greeted her declaration with a threat to conduct more nuclear tests.
The North also regards Park’s proposal in Dresden as undiplomatic. It was not informed by the South in advance about what President Park would say in Dresden. Kim Dae-jung informed Kim Jong-il of his North Korea policy before unveiling it in Berlin in 2000. In addition, the Dresden Declaration also came at a bad time, at the peak of the annual Korea-U.S. military exercises, which the North regards as a drill to attack the North.
However, even South Korea is still divided about the government’ North Korea policy. Liberals claim Park’s hawkish stance would unite conservative voters, which might increase the governing Saenuri Party’s chances of victory in the local elections on June 2. They say the South should embrace the North and encourage it to scrap its nuclear weapons through patient dialogue. They believe the North would ultimately improve its human rights efforts once the two Koreas interact more frequently. However, conservatives dismissed these assumptions as naive.
To break the current stalemate, the two Koreas should start talking about reactivating the agreement they signed in 1991. Called the Basic Agreement, it aimed to promote reconciliation and nonaggression between the two countries through four joint commissions: South-North economic exchanges and cooperation, cultural and social exchanges, reconciliation and military affairs. The agreement is the only viable approach to promote trust, transparency, predictability and consistency between the two countries. Had the agreement been in place for the past 23 years, the Korean Peninsula would have been more peaceful and prosperous than it is now. But it is not too late to re-adopt the agreement.
Lee Chang-sup is The Korea Times executive managing director. Contact him at editorial@ktimes.co.kr.