[opinion] editorial-1
North Korea is busy holding out an olive branch to all major countries surrounding it.
Leader Kim Jong-un has sent a special envoy to Beijing to make public his regime’s intention to talk with countries concerned. Before that, Kim made it clear that Pyongyang is willing to resume talks with Tokyo to normalize the bilateral relationship, to an envoy of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The North has also just proposed to hold a joint event with the South to celebrate the anniversary of the June 15, 2000, inter-Korean summit. It is well known that Kim has been waiting for a call from U.S. President Barack Obama, too.
Believe it not, all this shows how thirsty the isolationist regime seems to be for dialogue. But all regional powers, even North Korea itself, know the talks, bilateral or multilateral, will not be able to produce much. As long as the North sticks to its nuclear weapons and its foreign counterparts will not recognize it, fundamental changes are impossible to make.
Pyongyang may offer soon to suspend its nuclear and missile programs temporarily and gain time for resuscitating its near-bankrupt economy somewhat. That would mean the repetition of a stop-and-go process that has continued since the communist regime began its atomic weapons program 20 years ago.
There is almost no possibility that North Korea will abandon its nuclear programs: Pyongyang, which made the pretense of denuclearization as the dying injunction of its founder Kim Il-sung until a few years ago, recently put the words "nuclear power” into its constitution. Nor will its "military-first” policy change much. Kim’s envoy, Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, is striding down the streets of Beijing in uniform, as Cho Myong-rok did in Washington 13 years ago.
What can change the recalcitrant regime, then?
Giving Pyongyang what it wants: the discussion of a peace regime along with denuclearization talks, or in North Korean’s own term, a "big-frame” talk.
Hawks may say this is capitulation, citing the North’s track record of having never ceased its nuclear programs. But it is also true the allies have given up efforts too easily, like when the former George Bush administration hastily discontinued the KEDO program.
In conclusion, North Korea’s nuclear development program has ended in success, at least so far, thanks in large part to the allies’ lack of audacity in dissuasion, although such success does more harm than good for everyone, even for the North itself in the long run. It’s time to undo the program before it becomes all but impossible to do so. Considering the light-water reactor supply program’s failure was due to a lack of mutual trust, it was good for President Park Geun-hye to base her North Korea policy on a trust-rebuilding process. The problem is, the ``trustpolitik” seems to be a loose concept with few concrete plans.
Park herself also appears to be more bent on forcing the North to drop nuclear weapons and taming the latter’s bad behavior rather than creating a framework for dialogue. It is hard to find a difference between her two-track approach of denuclearization and (as a precondition for) dialogue with her predecessor’s strictly reciprocal policy. Little wonder critics say the trustpolitik may end up a big misnomer and former President Lee Myung-bak was more frank in dealing with the North.
Park said on Thursday that Kim Jong-un’s experiment of pursuing both nuclear weapons and economic prosperity is bound for failure, citing the North Korean leader by name for the first time and dashing cold water on Kim’s dialogue gestures. She might be right but was far from diplomatic. The remark left much to be desired as it came when the diplomatic capacity of South Korea, and its leader, is now needed more than at any time.
The Unification Ministry also hinted at disallowing a visit to Gaeseong by South Korean private groups for the proposed joint event. One cannot build trust without meeting and talking with the other party, whatever the circumstances may be. Koreas need leaders who can see far longer and wider than now.