Days shaking the world
An American soldier who belongs to the United Nations Command stands on guard in front of the Peace House, the venue for the April 27 inter-Korean summit, which is under the UNC control at the truce village of Panmunjom. / Yonhap
By Oh Young-jin
It is difficult to fathom how big the change is that not just Koreans but people of the world have been experiencing over the past couple of months.
The difficulty lies in the fact that we stand at the entrance to a historical vortex that may deliver a brave new world, but we really don't know what to expect.
U.S. President Donald Trump, often described as anti-intellectual, nailed it when he recently declared he would make his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a “worldwide success.” The summit is expected in late May or early June.
Whether he knows it or not, there are at least two factors that can give a global scale to the success of their summit.
First, it would spell the true end of the Cold War that is often believed to have ended with a series of events that culminated on Nov. 9, 1989, the day the communist East died and the capitalist West triumphed.
The declaration of the end of the Cold War was premature. The Korean Peninsula was left out as the last remaining ideological flashpoint. There, the potential of the Cold War danger, with the possibility of nuclear confrontation, has been preserved with the emergence of a strong China and the Soviet Union that was reduced to Russia that under President Vladimir Putin is armed with nuclear weapons and is hell-bent on revanchism.
President Moon Jae-in has promoted the official end of the Korean War as the key goal for his April 27 summit with Kim that will serve as an important stepping stone for the Trump-Kim summit. The two Koreas have been technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ― that started with the North's surprise southern attack in June 1950 ― was brought to an end by a truce, not a peace treaty. The Korean conflict was one of the first proxy wars between the communists and capitalists after World War II.
What Moon and Trump have agreed on is to replace the truce with a peace treaty. The signatories would include South and North Korea together with China and the United States as guarantors to maintain the peace. The U.S. and China fought in the Korean War but their signing for peace may be the first between the two since China is starting to threaten U.S. global hegemony. Maybe that can serve as an anticlimax against a hegemonic battle between the two.
The Korean armistice agreement is signed by U.S. and Chinese delegates at the truce village of Panmunjom, July 27, 1953. / Yonhap
Second and more importantly, if the summits are successful, they could not just avert a potential nuclear conflict but put it to rest forever.
Last November, the North declared that it had become a nuclear weapons state. In the lead-up to that declaration, the North conducted nuclear and missile tests that convinced the world that it was near completion of nuclear-armed intercontinental missiles that could strike the U.S.
Trump reacted angrily, tightening the screws of international sanctions, joined by Pyongyang's patrons China and Russia, on the destitute North, and threatening to mount a preemptive U.S. strike.
Kim didn't back off. He fired dummy long-range missiles over Japan and close to the U.S. territory of Guam. The two called each other names, making people feel that war was imminent.
That war, if it should take place, would be different from any in the past. The North, with a sizable arsenal of nuclear missiles, would retaliate with all it had by firing at Korea, Japan, Guam and the mainland U.S.
Korea and Japan are under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, meaning the U.S. would strike back at the North in kind. China and Russia also would engage if a nuclear exchange took place. Nuclear apocalypse that was avoided during the Cold War could emerge as a distinct possibility.
Trump conditioned the success of his summit on the dismantling of the North's nuclear program in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner. Now, Moon Thursday said he is optimistic that the summit will achieve the North's denuclearization.
This global peace process will start Friday at the truce village of Panmunjom when the North's leader comes to the southern side and sits down for the summit with Moon.
Through a live broadcast, the world can watch each move they make and hear each word they speak, knowing that the globe-reshaping effort is under way.
Then it would move to the next stage ― the Trump-Kim meeting.
The world has started to shake for a new order. Let's hope it will change for the better. But getting unstuck from the 65-year-old status quo itself is something to get excited about.
Oh Young-jin (
foolsdie5@ktimes.com, foolsdie@gmail.com
) is the digital managing editor of The Korea Times.