Volatility on Peninsula

By Tong Kim

South Korea is again facing multiple challenges to its security and peace from friends and foes alike, including the U.S., Japan, North Korea, and China. Not a surprise from the viewpoint of history and its geopolitical destiny.

Washington is pressuring Seoul to revive an information sharing agreement with Tokyo called the GSOMIA in support of a trilateral alliance between the South, Japan and the U.S. However, Tokyo is reluctant to lift trade restrictions that led to Seoul's decision to terminate GSOMIA from Nov 22.

Last Friday, President Moon said “no” to visiting U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper who had hoped for a revival of GSOMIA. Moon's “no” may be seen as a legitimate exercise of sovereign right or as a risky reaction that could jeopardize the alliance with the United States.

Washington is also pressuring Seoul to pay $5 billion, roughly five times the amount that it is paying now, for defense cost-sharing with the U.S. Asking for an increase in the share, Secretary Esper repeated Trump's words, “South Korea is rich and it should pay more.”

With a higher contribution from Seoul, the U.S. intends to cover some of the costs of its troop presence outside the Korean theater and the deployment of war assets for exercises to maintain warfighting readiness against North Korea. Trump seems to think the deployment of U.S. forces is only for the interest of its allies, not the U.S. strategic interest in the region.

The final amount of the share will be determined through negotiations. In the meantime, there come some radical views that $5 billion could be better spent for self-defense and developing the South's own nuclear weapons to cope with the nuclear threat from the North. The Trumpism of “America first” of an isolationist tint does not seem to be very helpful to the strengthening of the alliance.

The North is rejecting inter-Korean dialogue. It demands a discussion by letters regarding the demolishment of tourist facilities, in which the South invested, for tourism to Mount Geumgang. It has rejected the South's proposal that the two sides meet to negotiate the issue of Mount Geumgang. The North is saying, “There is no room for the South to get involved in any development project of tourism in North Korea.”

Pyongyang has been disappointed by the South failing to help the North economically without U.S. approval, either on Mount Geumgang tourism or the Gaeseong Industrial Complex. It complains that Seoul has been supporting UN sanctions against the North, as it is “a sycophant to the U.S.” The North worries about ROK-U.S. military drills and Seoul's military acquisitions of cutting-edge weapons including the F-35 stealth fighter aircraft.

In contrast to a hopeful outlook following three inter-Korean summits last year, the North has been losing its confidence in the South, even feeling betrayed by it, since the summit failure in Hanoi at the end of February this year. Now, the question is how long the Moon government ― that has been patient, trying hard to accommodate the North and to contribute to resolving the nuclear issue by cooperating with the U.S. ― can put up with the disturbing behavior of the Pyongyang regime that insults the South.

The North has excluded any South Korean role from the nuclear talks. Last week, it welcomed Esper's comment that the U.S. will reduce military exercises to support diplomacy. Pyongyang is willing to come to the table if the U.S. will be flexible on sanctions. It is not interested in an offer of an exchange of liaison offices or an end of war declaration.

The North has rejected a U.S. request, conveyed to it by an unknown third country, for resuming working-level talks. North Korea saw it as a trick to pass over the end-of-year deadline set by its leader. If the deadline is missed, it threatened to resume the testing of ICBMs or nuclear weapons. The North Koreans appear to be pressuring themselves to obtain U.S. concessions before the deadline.

Finally, Beijing is wary of Seoul which may become an active participant in the architecture of Washington's Indo-Pacific strategy that is now openly known to be designed to contain and compete with China's growing power and influence. Beijing sees the trilateral alliance among U.S., Japan and South Korea as possibly leading to a joint missile defense system against China.

South Korea has paid a dear economic price after the partial deployment of THAAD systems on its land, although Beijing had been told the missile defense system was targeting North Korean missiles only. China did not believe it.

South Korea will have to make hard decisions soon for its own survival in a rapidly changing security environment and international order in the region.

Tong Kim (tong.kim8@yahoo.com

), a columnist for The Korea Times, is a fellow at the Institute of Corean-American Studies and a visiting professor at the University of North Korean Studies.