After Gaeseong is closed, what is correct thinking?
By Stephen Costello
In the wake of South Korea’s closure of the Gaesong Industrial Complex (GIC) in North Korea, the DPRK responded by freezing the complex’s assets and expelling the remaining ROK managers. Reading the reactions in the US press, one would conclude that the action by the South was overdue and justified, that the North’s nuclear and missile tests were un-provoked provocations, and that there is not, and never really has been, an opportunity to decrease tensions and increase security through dialogue and deals. When deals were broken, it was always the fault of North Korea, never the US or ROK, and for reasons that are unfathomable or “unpredictable.” Most importantly, the DPRK was never motivated by strategic interests, and in any case those interests have never overlapped with those of the US and ROK.
The conservative mainstream view in current US and ROK policy debates toward Korea and Northeast Asia is both a real “consensus” and a false one. It’s real in the sense that it reflects a broad group of the most prolific and quoted go-to commentators that one can easily find. It’s not a coincidence that those views are government-friendly, at a time when the US has perhaps the most closed and paranoid administration since Richard Nixon, and the ROK is increasingly embarrassed by an administration that is seen as anti-democratic and divisive.
But it’s a false consensus because it overlooks many of the most experienced, thoughtful and insightful specialists now writing. In identifying and promoting this pretend consensus, quality is devalued and non-diplomatic language is prized. The obvious and well-known benefits of analytical approaches and cool heads are often ignored. Perhaps most importantly, the current majority mainstream view toward profound and important developments in this region ignores a longstanding, raging debate in the US and ROK about very different analyses, goals and policies.
This debate demonstrates clearly how political, ideological and dumbed-down so much of this discussion has become. Of course in order to cover up these motivations, the reasons given for opinions, reportage and research are variously security, protection of allies or the “homeland,” and the promotion of a fantasy diplomacy in which countries “pay the price” for “defiance,” are “punished” for disobedience, and opponents are compared to horses, children and worse. The North Koreans are probably best at this, but the South Koreans and Americans are getting pretty good at it too.
The preference for “correct thinking” has been evident in statements and coverage surrounding the closing of the GIC. If one looks, however, other voices are clear and consistent. Alternative analysis and proposals continue to be articulated by experienced players and analysts. Only by finding them will readers appreciate how deliberate and political choices by elected leaders have helped create the present low point, and how different leaders would choose different approaches.
When North-South discussions and cooperation do resume, new projects will spring up, going beyond the scope of Gaeseong. The GIC was always an initial test of cooperation, never intended to grow, or even exist, beyond the work and determination of the North and South leaderships to keep it alive. It was also part of a multi-pronged engagement plan, which itself sought to change incentives, security/fear calculations, and goals. It outlived Kim Dae Jung, Kim Jong Il and Roh Moo Hyun. It survived the Bush policy reversal and most of Obama’s embrace of the Bush regional view.
The remarkable thing is that it survived as long as it did, without the understanding or support of ROK leaders since 2008. It’s a tribute to their timidity and lack of any defensible approach that those leaders did not have the courage to shut it down until now. The fact that the current President has done so, just when Seoul’s naïve and implausible treatment of both North Korea and China has been exposed, is perhaps an appropriate ending to a project that was modern, post-Cold-War, and in some ways ahead of its time. President Park’s embrace of failed US policy, after increasingly being viewed here as pro-China and disloyal, should erase all doubt that she ever imagined South Korea as a middle power or more independent regional actor with its own interests.
And of course the Gaesong Complex will not go anywhere. It will most likely be used in various ways ― by the military, according to early DPRK statements ― until other presidents tackle the job of North-South rapprochement, and the logic of using it as part of tension-reduction once again becomes clear. It’s ironic that the GIC’s establishment in 2004 closed off the most useful route for the North to attack the South. That example, along with a long catalogue of freezes, delayed weaponization opportunities, and budding government and civilian exchanges, were always conveniently ignored by opponents of the GIC. Many claimed the GIC and “engagement” in general were reciprocated with “nothing.”
Now we will learn again what has just been lost, how valuable it was, and why such a broad range of leaders has advocated comprehensive North-South cooperation for so long. But as Kim Dae jung insisted for decades before he became President in 1998, the South can never interact successfully with the North until it embraces a domestic politics of inclusion, accepts opposing views and political opposition, and graduates beyond the suffocating restrictions of anti-communist ideology.
Stephen Costello is a producer of AsiaEast, a Web and broadcast-based policy roundtable focused on security, development and politics in Northeast Asia. He writes from Washington, D.C. He can be reached at scost55@gmail.com.