Drawing Grand Picture
Seoul Needs to Prepare for Various Possible Scenarios
``The relationship between the United States and China will shape the 21st century,'' U.S. President Barack Obama said Monday.
Not every country in the world may agree with this remark, which came at the opening of two days of high-level talks in Washington, declaring the advent of a bipolar era. When it comes to the fate of the Korean Peninsula, however, it has been true over the past six decades and will remain so in the foreseeable future. For instance, former Foreign Minister Song Min-soon recently said, ``The North Korean nuclear crisis has become a tango danced by Washington and Beijing.''
Which is why the two Koreas couldn't help paying special attention to the so-called Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Reflecting the prevalent ambience of respecting each other, the two countries reached a mutually pleasing conclusion: Beijing would ``seriously and faithfully implement'' a series of sanctions enacted by the U.N. Security Council at the behest of America, while Washington will continue to pursue its peaceful solution through the six-party talks, in which China plays a central role.
To sum up, they were telling Pyongyang in one voice to take up where it has left off in the denuclearization process, instead of returning to its trademark strategy of ratcheting up stakes through provocation and seeking bigger rewards at bilateral talks with the United States.
It is only natural that both the U.S. and China loathe to see a nuclear-armed North Korea: Pyongyang's possible sales of nuclear weapons and technology to anti-American organizations would pose a serious threat to Washington's war with terrorism; and the North Korea-triggered nuclearization of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan would sharply weaken Being's diplomatic leverage in Northeast Asia.
Among the four surrounding powers, China would most prefer the status quo rather than bordering a reunified, capitalist Korea as its next-door neighbor ― a state of equilibrium that would require the U.S. to take enormous risks to break. This means, the stronger China becomes, the greater the chances North Korea would be recognized as a nuclear power.
Left with huge security risks and prohibitively heavy defense burdens will be South Korea, which is why Seoul should not remain content with only ``forging an airtight alliance'' with Washington.
The late former President Roh Moo-hyun once came under fire at home and abroad, for taking the abortive initiative with South Korea playing the role of a ``regional balancer.'' A closer look at President Lee Myung-bak's ``new Asia diplomacy,'' however, shows it is pursuing surprisingly similar goals to those of the deceased leader's idea, except that President Lee's strategy is disproportionately slanted to Washington and Tokyo in relative neglect of Beijing and complete ignorance of Pyongyang.
Diplomacy is about seeking not just moral justification but also practical benefits. One-sided, unbalanced approach is feared to lose both. If unexpected, worst situations happen in North Korea, South Korea should at least be able to serve as a partner to depend on. If not, the Korean Peninsula's fate will be at the hands of others like a century ago.
The government has recently signaled the resumption of humanitarian aid as well as civilian visits to the North. We hope these will lead to a major policy turnaround.