Love call, N. Korean style

By Chung Dae-hwa

There is no military action without political purpose. What then is the political purpose behind the latest North Korean military threats and its unilateral nullification of the Korean armistice and non-aggression agreement with the South, timed exactly with stronger U.N. sanctions, and also beginning of the Key Resolve U.S.-ROK joint military exercises?

This situation can also be explained in terms of a condensed version of “action and reaction” in international politics.

It is my view that disguised behind this seemingly “extreme" North Korean behavior is a burning desire or outcry to break out of the current deadly impasse and start a meaningful dialogue and relationship with its adversaries.

The current tension on the Korean Peninsula, therefore, may be likened to the darkest hour before the daybreak. It seems that we begin to see light at the end of the tunnel with the recent announcement of President Park Geun-hye’s visit to Washington and a subsequent three-way summit between Korea, China and Japan.

We also saw former American basketball star Dennis Rodman make a trip to Pyongyang recently, where he met with North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and returned to the United States with a loud and clear message that “Kim wants President Obama to call him."

So, I say, why shouldn’t Obama give Kim a call and say, “Hey young man, please calm down, let's play a game of basketball, sit down, and have a chat," so to speak. What I mean is that a crisis like this demands statesmanship and bold initiative.

South Korea alone cannot provide leadership in this case, as the nuke deal must be played out between North Korea and the United States. If North Korea is not provided a face-saving way out, Kim might resort to some kind of military misadventure, probably near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), which Seoul has long regarded as S. Korean boundary, but which was disclaimed by Henry Kissinger as not recognizable by international law.

The latest U.N. sanctions also stress diplomacy in the end. Glenn Paige, president of the Center for Global Nonkilling, proposed as an alternative a U.N. political peace-settlement conference on Korea, including 16 U.N. members that participated in the Korean War, in his letter to Ban Ki-moon and the London-based Economist magazine.

On a lighter side, I wrote a piece in The Korea Times (Feb. 22) entitled, "Please go to Pyongyang Mr. Obama" and a reader commented, "This writer sounds like a ‘blame America’ for everything. Loser. Go to North Korea if you love it so much."

I call this American Western cowboy style! In my opinion, at least half the global villagers outside of the United States and the United Kingdom do not blame or demonize North Korea for everything. I wonder how the same reader would respond if I said, “It was after all America that communized North Korea, by inviting the Russians to enter the Pacific War"?

I am not crazy about North Korea, but for not a few South Koreans, it’s still similar to saying, “I hate my brother, but if somebody else hates my brother, I come to his defense." There is also another old Korean saying that, “A rat cornered in a dead-end will dare to bite a cat."

Wherever there is oppression, there is resistance. For example, harsh sanctions and massive war exercises produce violent reactions.

This time around, China got tougher with North Korea, but emphasized its top priority is to “defuse tension" on the Korean Peninsula.

After all, what China most hates to see is nuclearization of North Korea prompting its regional rivals, especially Japan, to go nuclear in the years to come.

Eventually it has been, and will be, up to the United States ― not China ―to choose peace or war in this part of the world.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at Busan National University, and is currently affiliated with the Center for Global Nonkilling in Honolulu, Hawaii. His email address is dhchung@pnu.edu.