Lamentable Setback

Patience, Consistency Are Key Words in Inter-Korean Ties

Diplomatic watchers here have long wondered who the main architect is of the incumbent administration's rather hawkish North Korea policy.

If recent news reports are true, however, none other than President Lee Myung-bak himself seems to be at the forefront of the hard-line approaches toward Pyongyang. In a national security meeting in mid-October, Lee reportedly instructed his aides not to push ahead with economy and energy working-group process unless there is further progress in the North's denuclearization.

This is a sharp turnaround in Seoul's position, which welcomed Washington's removal of Pyongyang from the list of state sponsors of terrorism early last month, but, at the same time, confirms another report that some governmental hawks think the U.S. is succumbing to the communist country's nuclear threats.

President Lee also was quoted as saying that heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula would not affect South Korea's economy much; Seoul is ``managing" Pyongyang well, and he is confident of success in the inter-Korean relationship.

The chief executive's expression of confidence should be welcomed, provided it is backed by plausible grounds and comprehensible policy. If the President's confidence is based on some ``intelligence" that cannot be shared with even his closest aides as Lee said, however, popular doubt cannot help but grow, particularly since the relationship between the two Koreas has been regressing since the inauguration of the Lee administration.

Cheong Wa Dae officials denied most of these remarks, saying the reports could distort the government's policy by interpreting them in overtly narrow manners. But the denial does not dissolve but rather deepens popular suspicion, not least because they coincided with the unification ministry's stance reversal on food and other economic aid to North Korea. Nor was it the first time the ministry's showed an about-face in economic support to isolationist North, according to changing international circumstances and the President's inconsistent moods.

The government can maintain a hawkish stance against the North if that is its pronounced policy. Even from the standpoint of neutral observers, however, the Lee administration has been wavering too frequently between a soft and hard approach, both in dialogue and economic aid.

If the government finally has decided to maintain a containment policy until the North's complete denuclearization, Seoul should say so and try to gain endorsement of the new policy.

But it must be accompanied by the confidence of maintaining sufficient leverage in bilateral relationships with the reclusive regime. If the new administration in the United States attempts rapprochement with Pyongyang, South Korea may fall into a situation former Kim Young-sam administration faced, in which Seoul was reduced to a spectator in affairs surrounding the Korean Peninsula.

The discord between former President Kim Dae-jung and the Bush administration has led to waste of six years in the North's denuclearization. It is hard to imagine what is the secret information on which Lee's confidence is based, but one can only hope it would not work to disrupt Seoul-Washington cooperation in dealing with Pyongyang, this time due to reversed positions.