EXPERT SURVEY 'Balanced approach needed for inter-Korean summit'
From left: Bonnie Glaser, Daniel Pinkston, Victor Cha, Kwak Tae-hwan, Shin Beom-chul
Experts present mixed prospects over denuclearization
By Jung Da-min
Three days ahead of the third inter-Korea summit, North Korea watchers from Washington and Seoul exchanged their views on the upcoming meeting at an academic forum in Seoul.
They called for a balanced approach in dealing with North Korea in the summit between President Moon Jae-in and his counterpart Kim Jong-un.
At the 2018 Asan Plenum, an annual conference hosted by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies on April 24 and 25, over 100 experts from around the world gathered to discuss different topics in international relations.
Among them, The Korea Times asked five experts with a focus on East Asia to speculate on possible outcomes of the summit.
Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon said Tuesday denuclearization would be one of the key issues on the summit agenda.
On this possibility and North Korea's willingness to do so, however, many pundits remained skeptical.
"That would require a change in national identity, the party biology and state ideology but I don't see any of that," said Daniel Pinkston, a lecturer in international relations at Troy University in Alabama.
"We should still look into the prospects of peace with the eyes of doubt," said Shin Beom-chul, a senior fellow with the Asan Institute of Policy Studies. "We talked about it at the level of freezing but that was without mentioning any practical measures for denuclearization."
North Korea watchers from Washington also said there has been nothing in recent developments that would promote the denuclearization process.
"Thus far we have not heard anything new," said Victor Cha, the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). "Kim Jong-il did the same thing with Kim Dae-jung, the announcement which formalizes what the South Korean government has been committed to before."
"It is true that recent developments are positive, but nothing new."
One expert based in Seoul, however, presented a different view _ that North Korea would sincerely give up its nuclear weapons.
"Kim Jong-un made a strategic determination to give up nuclear weapons and North Korea might use this as a bargaining tool during the negotiations," said Kwak Tae-hwan, chairman of the Institute for Korean Peninsula Future Strategies. "It comes out of the country's confidence that they have already completed the technologies for nuclear weapons."
Should sanctions be eased?
Many agreed the sanctions against the regime could be eased after the summit, but this has to be done with discretion and with the assurance of the North's denuclearization.
"Once the sanctions are lifted, it would be difficult to regenerate them with the whole consent process at the United Nations Security Council," Shin said. "However, North Korea's denuclearization measures are easy to reverse. You can freeze it and start it up again."
This is going to be a long game, according to experts.
"It can be a series of getting a signal and sending back a signal," Kwak said. "North Korea showed its willingness to continue the peace process by declaring the suspension of ICBM and nuclear weapons tests, and South Korea in return stopped broadcasting at the border. Easing sanctions gradually can be part of this process."
Easing sanctions is also in other countries' interests and could bring potential conflict among them, another pundit pointed out.
"We will differentiate very quickly between the United States and China, because China will push for an early easing of sanctions and I expect the Trump administration will not want to have that done too soon," said Bonnie Glaser, the China Chair at CSIS.
"The Trump administration will want to see North Korea take some very concrete steps before it agrees on lifting sanctions, so I think this is an area where the U.S. and China potentially will have differences."
Balanced approach needed
Overall, a balanced approach between exchanges and denuclearization is needed, according to the experts.
“At least one thing is clear. The result of the inter Korea summit will be a sign for the outcome of the U.S.-North Korea summit,” Cha said. “If the outcome of the former is positive, we can optimize the latter.”
“The U.S. seems to be skeptical about the results of the summit because it has reviewed North Korea's past activities and has not seen the outcome it wanted to see,” Shin said.
“For our government, however, it knows the importance of denuclearization, so I think a balanced approach of exchanging cooperation and denuclearization is necessary at the summit.”