Seoul and Washington have reportedly decided to hold a series of joint naval exercises in the East Sea in late July. The exercises are part of bilateral efforts to prevent a recurrence of North Korea's military provocation following its torpedo attack on the South Korean warship Cheonan.
Details of the drills will be made public July 21 when U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates visit Seoul for a meeting with their South Korean counterparts. We hope the exercises will contribute to enhancing the South's military preparedness, especially its ability to detect the North's submarines, in order to thwart any further infiltrations.
However, speculation has risen that Seoul and Washington made a compromise over the scheduled exercises due to China's strong opposition. Critics claimed China has pressured the U.S. to refrain from staging military exercise in the Yellow Sea. Although the South and the U.S. dismissed such a claim as groundless, many still believe that the two sides have yielded to Chinese pressure.
If Seoul and Washington compromise to avoid a conflict with Beijing, they could send the wrong signal to Pyongyang. How can we make sure that the North can never go unpunished for its provocation? In the past decade, the North has violated the maritime border with the South in the Yellow Sea several times, resulting in bloody naval clashes. It has also tried to nullify the established sea demarcation line to expand its territorial waters there.
It is safe to say that the Kim Jong-il regime has gotten used to a misguided learning curve that it may commit provocation without facing punitive action. The international community should no longer tolerate the North's repeated violation of the armistice treaty and its military adventurism to destroy peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
The South's dilemma is that it has no effective means to punish the North for the naval incident. It has exhausted its diplomatic efforts since the Security Council adopted a presidential statement over the ship attack July 9 that failed to name North Korea as the perpetrator.
It is no secret that the Lee Myung-bak administration has sought to hold Korea-U.S. drills in the Yellow Sea with the dispatch of an American aircraft carrier there. But the U.S. plans to send the USS George Washington to the East Sea, instead. This plan may weaken Seoul's position that it would let the perpetrator pay the price for the ship sinking.
President Lee and his policymakers have vowed to take stern and resolute action against the attacker. But now, they may only prove that they have put words before action. More worrisome is that the North will not abandon its hostility. Seoul had better show that actions are stronger than words in order to guarantee national defense and security.