Summits

By Stephen Costello

On this page, June 15, I imagined the speech President Park Guen-hye was not able to give during her aborted visit to the United States. That exercise remains one of the “roads not taken” by the President, and its themes are still at the center of public debates.

The latest summit between the two countries is not a problem in itself, since sometimes the status quo is acceptable, the best we can do for now,

comfortable. In fact the U.S.-Korea alliance is not at risk; Korea’s middle power capabilities are causing it to engage in problem-solving around the world; its military is stronger than ever, ranked seventh in the world. It has not yet joined the

Trans-Pacific Parntership (TPP) or the U.S.-led trading pact, but it does not have to. It can wait.

Still, when a range of commentators, journalists and former officials talked about the Park-Obama summit at think tanks and meetings in Washington in the past two weeks, three issues came up repeatedly.

The North Korea challenge, both to the US and its interests in the region and to South Korea, was the first. South Korea's relationship with China, and the worry that its ties with Beijing and Washington are zero-sum, was the second. And Korea-Japan relations, and US views of tensions between the two leaders, was the third. There were repeated calls for more clarity on the part of the Park administration about its strategy and vision in addressing each. One got the sense that Seoul's potential diplomatic capabilities had grown, that Washington's had contracted or been drawn in, and that neither president knows quite what to do to advance common strategic interests in northeast Asia.

Each of these issues is of real importance to people in the region, each has a direct bearing on the real and symbolic security and development in the region, and each is now dynamic, in motion. Embracing the status quo, then, will not likely be seen as satisfactory for many observers. So the tension at the summit will be between the unfortunate lack of realistic ideas for addressing major issues and the inescapable need to do so. Whatever is attempted to obscure this will prove insufficient. It is no wonder that a former senior US official urged thinkers this week to prepare ideas for the next presidents, not these.

With North Korea, manyspecialists have publicly urged the two presidents to jointly propose a new – and presumably more bold – engagement scheme so that the paralysis in policy by US and Korean leaders could come to an end. One can hope this would be done, if only to test the North and reorient debates toward peace-building and effective denuclearization. But we should be modest in our expectations.

Any authentic change of policy by either of these administrations toward North Korea would require extensive internal and external preparation. The Iran and Cuba initiatives by the US during the Obama administration – using rationales that apply doubly to the North Korea case – are a good example of what is necessary to change policy. The multilateral and North-South initiatives by South Korea during the Kim Dae-jung years – which remain the best and most relevant model for Seoul – are other examples of what is required. Much has changed since US policy was unilaterally reversed 14 years ago, but fundamental interests have not. Nevertheless, no one claims to have seen the necessary policy preparations related to North Korea. Rather, in Washington, North Korea policy seems to occupy a place bounded by selective anti-communism, myths of moral clarity, confusion over China, and political insecurity. A joint posture of solidarity against North Korea by Park and Obama at this summit would substitute for effective new approaches.

The debates over South Korea's apparently closer ties to China are widely shared here. Some experts see this gambit by Seoul as transparent and unworkable, and as a misuse of Seoul's power. Others expect that it can work, that somehow the Chinese can be turned away from their long-term interests with North Korea to support fanciful, counter-productive and ill-conceived scenarios for collapse, absorption or submission. Still others worry that Korea's leaders will inevitably drift into a dependent and/or submissive relationship with their larger neighbor, and are convinced that the US-China confrontation makes all other alliances subservient to it. This zero-sum view of Korea, being forced to choose between China and the US, is unfortunately persistent, even alongside official and other protestations. It can be heard in discussions of THAAD, the Chinese AIIB, and the TPP. Largely missing in Washington discussions is the view that Korea should try to become active rather than reactive, perhaps leading the way to new agreements.

The Japan-Korea relationship, and its impact on this Korea-US summit may be the most complicated of the three. A minority in Korea accept some modest improvement in Japan's military flexibility. Most are skeptical of the Abe government's justifications for changing the laws, and almost all are convinced that Abe's desire to escape from Japan's post-War pacifism and rewrite its history fatally undercuts his military modernization project in the eyes of Japan’s three closest neighbors. In this they have much in common with an unprecedented outpouring of opposition to these changes within Japanese society.

Few in Washington take into account that in Tokyo and Seoul there are two middling conservative nationalists with family histories to protect. Tensions between Korea and Japan are partly the result of divisive political maneuvering by them at home that inevitably energizes ideological minorities and makes cohesive national identities difficult. Both have embraced rewriting history textbooksto whitewash and idealize national narratives.Certainly they should move beyond distracting debates, but for the two, politically, the current strains may be just too comfortable.

The summit will be fine. There is no harm in celebrating a long-term alliance based on deep interests and human bonds. But there will be some regret among close observers if the two presidents make unhelpful and politically easy statements while keeping real strategic policy aimed safely at the lowest common denominator.

Stephen Costello is a producer of AsiaEast, a Web and broadcast-based policy roundtable focused on security, development and politics in Northeast Asia. He writes from Washington, D.C. He can be contacted at cosetllos@asiaeast.org.