Between the 1960s and ’80s, South Korea’s general-turned-presidents visited the United States to seek economic aid, security guarantees and U.S. endorsement of their legitimacy as rulers. Since the nation became a wealthy democracy and Korea-U.S. relations turned more equal in the ’90s, their summit agendas have featured “bilateral cooperation.” That was mostly rhetoric, however, while the reality has not changed much, especially in security issues.
We hope President Park Geun-hye’s six-day visit to the U.S., her first as national leader, will change that. This may appear to be wishful thinking with North Korea stepping up its nuclear blackmail harder than ever. Yet Park should persuade U.S. leaders to give a chance to her “trustpolitik” of a more flexible approach although ― or because ― the U.S. has begun to regard the North as a serious threat, at least ostensibly.
It will be a very tough job, as Washington’s distrust of Pyongyang is now deeper than ever. Most U.S. leaders, even including Democrats like President Barack Obama, are quite wary of Seoul’s “hasty” approaches to the communist regime. Polls also say American people show an isolationist streak on foreign issues.
In short, the United States, its government and people alike, is tired of and/or loathsome to spending their time and energy on external affairs except for its ongoing war with terror, and the Middle East. They just want to focus on recovering the economy and live quietly.
But Park should allow no circumstantial obstacles or foreign callousness to keep her from making bolder and more creative diplomatic initiatives. Rather, she should turn the crisis into an opportunity.
The new South Korean leader has put forth two “processes” as her diplomatic keywords.
One of them, the “Korean Peninsula trust process” envisions Seoul taking the lead in solving the inter-Korean stalemate. The other, her “Seoul process” of promoting peace and cooperation in Northeast Asia also calls for South Korea to play a more positive role in turning the competitive nationalism in this part of the world into more constructive reconciliation. Both processes will prove to be far easier said than done, especially given Seoul’s far smaller economy than those of China and Japan and its weaker military power than even North Korea’s in some ways.
This is why U.S. help is vital for South Korea’s more desirable role, first as the leading promoter of a peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula, and for unified Korea’s role as the stabilizer of volatile political situations in Northeast Asia, a balancer between Japan, which threatened America and the world in the past, and China, which may likely do so in the future.
All this may be too ambitious an agenda to be packed into one summit meeting and a speech before both houses of the Congress. But the South Korean leader should tell Americans that the time has long past for the two allies, which celebrate the full sexagenary cycle in their relationship this year, to upgrade it from hitherto one-sidedly dependent ties to mutually beneficial one.
Park’s “processpolitik” may have far more modest goals than standing shoulder to shoulder with Korea’s two giant neighbors in the near future. But she should sow the seeds now at the least. And the ongoing visit should be the start by plowing the most important field.