Will Seoul engage Pyongyang?

By Sunny Lee

BEIJING — The arrival of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Seoul, Saturday, is likely to be a key moment for South Korea to decide whether it should engage with North Korea by accepting China’s new proposal to resume the stalled six-party talks.

Earlier this week, Beijing made public a “three-step” proposal that places inter-Korean talks as the first step, followed by U.S.-North Korea talks as the second step, as a lead up to the eventual resumption of the six-party talks. The announcement was made after Pyongyang’s chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan’s visit to Beijing, indicating Kim apparently agreed to the proposal.

In that step-wise approach, the inter-Korean talks come first. That means Beijing is letting Seoul take the lead by taking the driver’s seat in the multilateral negotiations that aim to end Pyongyang’s nuclear drive.

“It signals China’s growing flexibility on the North Korean nuclear talks,” said Zhu Feng, a security expert at Peking University in Beijing. “I think inter-Korean dialogue is quite necessary. That will also lay a foundation for the resumption of the six-party talks,” which China has consistently advocated. It also believes resuming the six-party talks will help maintain stability in the region.

If realized, it would be the first meeting of the chief nuclear negotiators from the two Koreas since the Lee Myung-bak administration was sworn in.

Choi Myeong-hae, a North Korea expert at the Samsung Economic Research Institute, doesn’t necessarily see China as making a new initiative. “In fact, that was more or less what the countries involved in the six-party talks, except for North Korea, saw as how things should be worked out. Now, the more relevant question is what the agenda will be for the inter-Korean meeting of chief nuclear negotiators,” he said. Choi believes Seoul is likely to accept Beijing’s proposal.

Seoul has yet to make an official announcement on the matter. South Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator Wi Sung-lac was in Washington, Tuesday, to pave the way for Clinton’s visit and fine-tune a common posture on the possibility of holding an inter-Korean meeting.

North Korea has always sidelined South Korea and preferred to deal directly with the United States, as a lead up to holding the six-way negotiations.

“In this sense, China’s proposal, to some extent, was a rejection of North Korea’s stance,” observed Jin Canrong, an international relations expert at Renmin University in Beijing.

That may partly explain why Kim Kye-gwan stayed in Beijing for six days before he returned to Pyongyang on Tuesday. “There were likely intense discussions with the Chinese,” said Zhu.

Despite Pyongyang’s new overture, Seoul has not withdrawn its demand for an apology for last year’s two attacks as well as a show of “sincerity” toward denuclearization as preconditions for re-engagement.

But recently the South also signaled flexibility when Chun Young-woo, the top national security advisor to President Lee Myung-bak, said Seoul would be willing to decouple inter-Korean dialogue from the six-party talks.

“My understanding is that this two-track approach is also what the U.S. is proposing to Seoul,” said Choi.

“Seoul can accept inter-Korean dialogue if the agenda of the talks includes the nuclear issue.”

“I don’t think Seoul expects a lot from the inter-Korean talks. Neither do the other countries of the six-party talks, including Beijing,” said Han Suk-hee, an expert on Chinese-North Korean relations at the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University in Seoul.

“By holding the talks with Pyongyang, Seoul may avoid criticism over its lacking engagement with the North. But then, most people tend to think ‘what’s the use of holding the six-party talks?’ For South Korea, that would be more of a gesture to change the stalled atmosphere,” said Han.

Even if North Korea agrees to the South’s terms for discussing the nuclear issue within inter-Korean dialogue, that doesn’t necessarily signal the beginning of the solution. Rather it is likely to be opening a Pandora’s box as the two sides discover what they are dreading to find out.

“That is, no one believes North Korea would give up nukes in a short period of time,” said John Park, a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington. And that’s the view not just of Seoul, but also Washington and even increasingly Beijing, according to experts.

Zhao Huji, a political scientist at the Central Party School in Beijing, an elite institution that grooms promising mid-career Communist Party cadres, is not optimistic either. “North Korea will display a more flexible attitude in an effort to earn outside aid. It’s because North Korea’s food shortage is very severe. But Pyongyang’s stance is very clear. If there is ‘denuclearization,’ it should mean the denuclearization of the entire Korean Peninsula, not just North Korea.”

Seoul also has not withdrawn its demand for Pyongyang’s apology.

“There’s no change in our position that inter-Korean relations will improve in a genuine way and aid can resume only if the North admits its attacks on the Navy frigate Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island and apologizes for them,” South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho

Byung-je told reporters.

Zhao and Zhu both visited Seoul this month. Zhao said he hardly saw any signs of change from South Korea. Zhu also observed: “It seems Seoul has its own timetable for the inter-Korean talks, rather than following the plan proposed by China.”

It is uncertain whether Seoul will go ahead and accept Beijing’s proposal and sit down with Pyongyang, fully knowing that North Korea’s position hasn’t changed. Seoul will fine-tune its position after consulting Obama’s top foreign diplomat this weekend.

In the meantime, “what is certain,” said Han at Yonsei University, “is that both Seoul and Washington are continuing with their preparations for North Korean contingency. North Korea’s instability will continue to grow. Even China is taking that possibility more seriously than before.”