Rail, bridge, tunnel and rapprochement

By Stephen Costello

As Korean and Japanese foreign ministers try their best to jump-start a three-way summit with China, one can step back and appreciate how tense and uncertain the region is, compared to just 15 years ago. If conflict is logical, then why have there been Korea-Japan bridge/tunnel parliamentary committees in the Korean National Assembly and the Japanese Diet for the past three decades? Why have the Korean and Japanese leaders felt the need to continue voicing support for this project?

For that matter, why does the current South Korean President Park Geun-hye feel she must promote a Northeast Asian Peace and Cooperation Initiative, regardless of the shaky or undefined steps on how to get there? How has the technology and safety of bridge and undersea systems changed in recent times? How much more feasible is it now to launch this project than it was in 2000? What is the expected impact on transportation prices when the Japan-Korea link is complete? And what would the South-North Korea link mean, or the Korea-China and Korea-Russia links? Good questions. Someone should be asking them.

Power relations:

And how about this one: What would the multi-year rail/bridge/tunnel effort mean for Korean, peninsular and regional power relations and politics? We know there are extensive plans and preparations already underway between Russia and North Korea, and not so long ago between South and North Korea. China, Russia and North Korea have just agreed to jointly develop a tourism zone in the Tumen Delta where the three meet, and multiple China-North Korea rail and road crossings are slowly expanding. Any rail corridor would include roads, power and probably communication wires. Routes would have to be jointly decided upon. Rail, bridge and tunnel infrastructure would all need power. And of course it would all have to be paid for, or at least it would have to rely on solid loans, grants and investments, and cooperation with the International Financial Institutions (IFIs). Perhaps the new AIIB would be interested.

That is to say, it will be essentially political, and it would move ahead only with greatly enhanced security and greatly reduced military tension. Which is why it is paralyzed today. It has been over 14 years since leaders in South Korea and the U.S. were paving the way for such a vital and obvious Korean, Japanese and regional project. Political support is a prerequisite for breaking ground on the Japan-Korea tunnel. In the next two or three years the value and multiple dividends from these linked projects might once again be recognized. There is enormous usefulness then, in bringing ourselves up-to-date on the current state of how, which leaders, how much and which companies related to this initiative, so that all parties know what is at stake. It is particularly useful in the midst of so much Northeast Asian diplomatic tension and small-minded manipulation of histories and threats. Wendy Sherman was right; maybe too right.

Development justification:

In the current issue of Foreign Affairs journal, Evan Feigenbaum describes the long trajectory of Asian regional financial evolution and the slowness of U.S. officials to understand its inevitability and their own opportunities. In the article, the need for infrastructure spending is noted, and the logic of multiple financing institutions and regional funding sources is stressed. The standing motivation for large-scale transportation (and energy) collaboration is obvious. The article is a rare and logical overview of the economic and public policy dynamics of East Asia.

One of the best tests of the new technologies has already been conducted, in Busan, Korea. A public-private partnership has a 40-year contract to build, operate and transfer (BOT) a symphony of soaring bridges and massive sections of high-tech concrete tunnel sections in the sea between Busan and Geoje island. Forty-two kilometers of National Road 58, opened five years ago, serves as a test-bed for the Korea-Japan project. The cost was roughly $1.8 billion. The Korean government put up only ¼ of the funding, with the rest financed by the partnership. This is just one method of making the linkage between 20-30 mile distances under the sea, using the most modern engineering. Daewoo was the lead contractor, but design required Dutch, British, Danish and U.S. firms.

Regional strategy:

When the Russian government celebrates the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Moscow in May, the leaders of North Korea, South Korea and Japan are invited. The Chinese President has said he will be there. This is just the kind of event where both Shinzo Abe and Park Geun-hye ought to go to see their neighbors, do business, give and receive messages, and be seen. But instead of calm and professional preparation for the trip, there is hand-wringing and uncertainty. The opportunity is being turned into a shallow display of indecision and strategic incompetence.

A tunnel/bridge between the two strong, dynamic Northeast Asian democracies is in many ways a Rorschach test of the assumptions and expectations of various actors. As such, it can expose the vision – or lack thereof – of politicians, political parties, and scholars as they talk about how they see regional development and the roles of Korea and Japan. Can leaders here return to concrete, beneficial and truly economy-changing projects for inspiration and focus? Or should scarce resources continue to be diverted toward short-term, politically-driven arms buildups? Will the quest for security without diplomacy and based upon political weakness bankrupt Northeast Asian societies just at the moment when they could build a regional development vision that compares with Western Europe?

Stephen Costello is producer of AsiaEast, a Web

and broadcast-based policy roundtable focused

on security, development and politics in Northeast

Asia. He previously directed the Korea program

at the Atlantic Council of the U.S. He

writes from Washington, D.C. He can be contacted

at cosetllos@asiaeast.org.