Conflicting interests in Olympics

By Tong Kim

As the 2018 Winter Olympics approach, major players of influence over the Korean Peninsula ― including the two Koreas, the U.S., Japan and China ― have divergent hopes and concerns over what might evolve from North Korean participation in the Games.

Seoul hopes the ongoing talks with the North will proceed beyond a successful hosting of the Olympics toward lasting improvements in inter-Korean relations that can actually contribute to a peace settlement and eventual denuclearization. The Moon government is keenly aware of potential pitfalls of discord with Washington and losing domestic support for its progressive approach to the North. Moon’s popularity is slipping amid rising public concerns that the inclusion of Pyongyang’s game plan might compromise Seoul’s intrinsic interests.

Pyongyang hopes to run a propaganda campaign showing it is a normal state and can work with any countries that are not hostile to it, underscoring that its nuclear weapons are not to threaten or attack any country that does not threaten to invade it with nuclear weapons.

The North makes it clear its nuclear weapons are not subject to discussion with the South. It knows its economy will not improve very much under toughening sanctions. The North may succeed in dividing people in the South, but not in driving a wedge between Seoul and Washington.

Washington hopes the alliance will continue its maximum pressure against North Korea until it gives up its nuclear-tipped missiles, seemingly an impossible goal. Washington is concerned that the reconciliation mood on the peninsula might lead to unwarranted concessions by the South, undermining the efficacy of the pressure campaign.

Washington’s goal is to prevent the North from acquiring the nuclear capability to strike the U.S. homeland. Attending the Olympics, Vice President Mike Pence is expected to reconfirm the current course of pressure backed up by military options against the North.

Tokyo has similar concerns that Washington has against Pyongyang’s peace “charade,” which it sees as a scheme to dissolve the trilateral commitment between the U.S. and its two allies in compelling the North to give up its nuclear weapons.

Japanese leader Shinzo Abe is expected to express Japan’s view that Seoul should honor its “irreversible” agreement on sex slavery, which President Moon declared unacceptable. Abe and Pence are likely to exploit the vulnerable human rights situation in North Korea to rally more international support against Pyongyang.

Beijing hopes the inter-Korean dialogue deepens to pave the way to stabilize the volatile security situation on the peninsula. China welcomed the deferment of U.S.-South Korean military drills and it is watching Pyongyang’s pause of provocative actions. Beijing will not be surprised if the situation falls back into the same track of a potentially dangerous war after the joint exercises resume following the Olympics.

China’s long-term concern is how to cope with the U.S. strategic view of China as a “revisionist power” seeking “Indo-Pacific regional hegemony” to displace the U.S., as revealed by President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy.

Pyongyang’s massive military parade on the eve of the opening of the Olympics would not be as detrimental as another missile launch. There will be several spectacular events including a joint entry parade, the North Korean troupe’s prescreened art performances and cheerleader squads. They will never be as harmful as mutual slander or an exchange of bellicose rhetoric.

While a meeting between the South Korean president and a senior representative of the North Korean delegation seems likely to take place, a meeting between the U.S. vice president and a senior North Korean representative does not. If there is further progress in inter-Korean dialogue, Trump may want to claim credit for that also. If he wants, give him the credit. This way, it would be less problematic for Seoul to make progress with Pyongyang.

In Washington, CIA director Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, the two most hawkish members of the Trump administration, besides the vice president, warned again against an unacceptable North Korean nuclear/missile capability that could strike the U.S. homeland.

Both reconfirmed that Trump will be provided with military options to choose if diplomacy fails. The dilemma is that few believe diplomacy will succeed and many believe any military option ― a limited “nose bleed” strike or other ― will inevitably lead to a catastrophic war in the region that could kill millions of people.

McMaster believes it would be worth going to war to get rid of North Korea’s nuclear weapons. Pompeo thinks the goal of a nuclear North Korea is not for defense but for unification of the peninsula under its system. Trump may not agree with either of them in the end. What’s your take?

Tong Kim (tong.kim8@yahoo.com) is a Washington correspondent and columnist for The Korea Times. He is also a fellow at the Institute of Korean-American Studies.