Stuck with ineffective policy

By Tong Kim

Families who were separated during the Korean War are waiting anxiously to hear a positive response from Pyongyang to Seoul’s proposal to hold their reunion meetings Feb. 17-22 at Mount Geumgang.

Both sides agree on the issue and therefore it ought to be treated as a humanitarian matter. Yet, it remains linked to other complicated issues.

Pyongyang’s decision on this issue will probably set the tone for inter-Korean relations and security development on the Korean peninsula for the rest of the year.

Recently, the North Korean regime has been sending some positive signals to Seoul for suspending mutual slander and improving relations. Seoul believes the North is engaged in what might be termed “a disguised peace offensive.”

It does not matter which side launches a peace initiative, as long as it is genuinely intended to contribute to serious dialogue and it is not just a tool for political propaganda.

Since North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s New Year’s message and the “National Defense Commission’s important proposal of Jan. 16,” Pyongyang has appeared to be searching for a breakthrough.

The Pyongyang regime seems to be more stable and to have recovered the normalcy of its rigid system of rule. It is struggling with serious economic problems, for which it had blamed Jang Song-thaek. The leadership knows that it has to feed and clothe its people if the system is to survive.

Perhaps to alleviate the international impact of the bad publicity of Jang’s execution, Pyongyang authorities seem to have decided to use their key diplomats abroad.

DPRK’s Ambassador to Britain Hyun Hak-bong has said Jang “was shot to death because he had committed a grave crime against the state and the people,” by misusing, for instance, 4.6 million euro in 2009.

Hyun denied the unconfirmed reports that Jang’s relatives were executed as well. By announcing how Jang was executed, Pyongyang may have been trying to end speculation he was killed in much crueler fashion.

Apparently, the North Koreans had not thought of how the outside world would react to the disturbing photographs of Jang being arrested, indicted and sentenced.

Earlier in New York, the DPRK representative to the United Nations Shin Sung-ho held a press conference to stress the seriousness of his government’s proposal for improvement of inter-Korean relations, and to reconfirm Pyongyang’s position that the North is ready to return to multilateral nuclear talks without preconditions.

For the past two months, Seoul and Washington have shown more interest in watching what might develop in the North than in denuclearization.

The recent high-level diplomatic contacts between Washington and Seoul, including the Jan. 7 meeting in Washington between Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, all confirm they are on the same page on the nuclear issues and the security situation on the Korean peninsula. However, they are also holding on to the same old strategy that has not worked.

The goal is good and noble ― to denuclearize North Korea, get the rogue nation to conform to international norms and preserve peace and security for common prosperity.

Many hope that the goal of a unified Korea will be realized. Without that, some believe peace is not possible on the peninsula.

After a year in office, President Park Geun-hye has yet to show any real progress in her signature policy of “trust-building on the Korean peninsula.”

The best you can say about her North Korea policy is that there has been no military clash provoked by the North under her watch, albeit its blatant threats of war last spring during combined ROK-U.S. military drills.

President Park has talked about several ambitious peace and prosperity plans, including an international peace park at the Demilitarized Zone, a joint Korea-Russia logistics cooperation project at the Najin-Hassan zone, a Eurasia economic initiative, a trans-Siberian railroad system and an East Asia peace process by building mutual trust.

Unfortunately, none of these plans can be successfully undertaken without the participation and cooperation of North Korea.

It all falls back to North Korean issues involving the reality of a political system and its leadership that people outside the North do not like. A starting point to resolve the security and peace issues for the region still rests on the Korean peninsula.

Yes, you have to build trust between the two sides to work out and implement any agreement. So goes the theory of the trust-building process of the Seoul government.

However, mutual trust is not built while one side is waiting for the other to change. Either side has to start doing something new or different to gain the trust of the other.

John F. Kennedy said, “Do not negotiate from fear, but do not fear negotiation itself.” Ronald Reagan spoke of, “Trust and verify.” Kim Dae-jung said, “I do not fear communism, therefore I negotiate with the communists.”

If you believe that North Korea has been tested enough, then and only then there should be no reason to pursue more tests.

Seoul authorities should be more pragmatic in making progress in trust-building with the North, whose GDP is less than one-30th of South Korea’s, and whose population is less than half. South Korea spends roughly nine times more in military expenditures than the North. What’s your take?

The author is a visiting scholar at the Ilmin Institute of International Relations at Korea University, a visiting professor at the University of North Korean Studies and an ICAS fellow in the U.S.