US to Roh: Do No Harm

This is the ninth in a series of articles on the forthcoming inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang. .. ED.

By Derek J. Mitchell

It has been no secret that President Roh Moo-hyun has desired a summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jongil since entering office in 2003.

Periodically testing the waters with Washington through proxies, Roh’s administration would receive word that while a North-South summit was the business of the two sides, without any progress in the nuclear question, a summit that was mostly about positive atmospherics threatened to send a wrong signal to the North about international unity to encourage the regime to re-evaluate its course.

The Oct. 2-4 summit, however, has received less opposition from Washington primarily because there has been progress on the nuclear issue in recent months.

With the North halting operations at its Yongbyon facility and providing satisfactory access and information to IAEA and other international inspectors sent to re-establish safeguards, a sense of cautious optimism has developed that at least the Feb.

13 six-party talks agreement might be successfully implemented, perhaps even by the end of the year. Such an atmosphere of positive momentum has offered Roh an opening he has been waiting for.

Many observers have suggested that the summit is a political ploy to increase support for the progressive candidate as the December presidential election approaches.

This may be so; however, a more important factor is the realization that all political leaders have as their term in office comes to a close, that they must tend to their legacy.

And in Roh’s case, the legacy of a North-South summit is both professional and personal, being the culmination both of five years of policy that sought to build constructive ties with the North, some say at almost any cost, and of a lifetime of fighting a system in South Korea that he viewed as paranoid and unnecessarily hostile toward the North Korean regime.

President Roh has indicated that he will not press the nuclear issue with his counterpart at the upcoming summit, suggesting that to do so would be quarrelsome and thus only undermine the positive atmosphere of the event.

Roh has focused instead on laying the groundwork for regular summit meetings between the North and South, developing economic opportunities for South Korean investment in the North, and reaching some kind of peace arrangement with the North.

This is quite an ambitious agenda, and appropriate if one seeks to establish a legacy of progress toward reconciliation in North-South relations.

However, Roh faces several severe obstacles to the realization of his goal. First, an observer will reasonably ask how a leader with such low public approval ratings in the final four months of his tenure can establish a legacy that will survive the end of his tenure.

Any commitments he makes that are remotely controversial will have a questionable future. Indeed, Roh will need to be careful not to reach agreements that may hamstring future South Korean policy or fail to stand the test of time, thus undermining South Korea’s diplomatic credibility and relations with the North in the longer term.

Any substantial outcomes will likely become fodder for South Korea’s political season, transforming the December election in part into a referendum on relations with the North.

From the perspective of the United States, the summit is a mixed blessing at best. The momentum in the six-party talks process and in the overall U.S.-North Korea working relationship will likely not be undermined by a South-North summit.

But Roh’s clear eye on his legacy, and his record of rather mercurial policy-making, must leave American observers a bit nervous about what might come out of the meeting that could send mixed signals about the North’s nuclear program.

High on that list of U.S. concerns would be a show of South-North solidarity over a peace agreement on the peninsula before completion of nuclear disarmament in the North.

The awkward public exchange between Roh and Bush at their meeting in Australia on the margins of the recent APEC summit demonstrated the differences in perspective between the two countries on the sequencing of developments on the peninsula.

Should Roh go too far in promoting his agenda, to the point of encouraging the North to obstruct progress in declaring and disabling its nuclear programs under the Feb.

13 agreement, the summit will be viewed as not only a failure from the U.S. perspective but also another point of division and tension in the alliance relationship as a whole.

The United States certainly does not oppose North-South reconciliation, nor does it want to be seen as such.

However, its mantra for the upcoming summit corresponds to the Hippocratic Oath of medical science - “do no harm.” The United States has supported the South-North agreements of the past, including the 1972 Joint Communique, 1991 South-North Basic Agreement, 1992 Joint Declaration on Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and 2000 Summit Joint Declaration.

Remaining true to the letter and spirit of these agreements provides enough of an agenda for promoting North-South goodwill and reconciliation, from the perspective of the United States.

Indeed, as long as Roh consults closely with the United States about his message and intentions, and does not get too far ahead of the six-party process to promote inter-Korean ties -- and his own legacy -- the U.S. reaction will be muted, and its leadership frankly rather relieved.

North Korea has a history of diplomatic initiatives and summit meetings during the waning months of a counterpart’s political tenure, whether Roh Tae-woo in 1991-92 or Bill Clinton in 1999-2000.

During the final months of the Clinton Administration, in fact, there arose rumors of a visit to Pyongyang by the president himself in an effort to complete a missile moratorium agreement.

At the time, there was talk of the president’s legacy. But rushed timeframes and personal agendas often make for bad policy. In the process, diplomatic leverage is sacrificed to one’s counterpart, which will recognize the asymmetry of need for an agreement, and take advantage to seek maximum concessions.

Roh himself must recognize that succumbing to the temptations of legacy may not only be ephemeral if agreements do not have the support of the South Korea body politic, but they may also complicate South Korea’s interests in the longer run, as well as the broader interests of international security that are embodied in the North Korea conundrum.

Derek J. Mitchell is senior fellow and director for Asia International Security Program Center for Strategic and International Studies.