Moon survives Trump treatment

By Stephen Costello

We should probably give President Moon Jae-in the benefit of the doubt. No amount of preparation can ensure that a foreign leader will escape the random and unpredictable urges of President Donald Trump. Just ask Angela Merkel, Malcolm Turnbull, or Xi Jinping, to name a few. The treatment of Moon by the US president and his advisors on trade issues, as well as on military burden-sharing and policy toward North Korea, should be a scandal. But we have lowered the bar for behavior by Trump and his team, so such disrespect and tone-deafness are pretty much to be expected.

The South Korean President is new at this. Not as new as Trump, a somewhat accidental president, but new nonetheless. And he cannot manage policy development, personnel decisions, and message management by himself.

He needs a very good team, and they need to work together. It may be that the summit in Washington was conducted prematurely, but there are reasons to be glad that it is over with, so that the hard work of governing Korea in the 21st century can be refocused.

The Seoul government can certainly say that it has gone the extra mile to assure its US ally that basic bonds will hold up just fine, and that even contentious issues can be discussed and debated. President Moon also carried a message to Washington that may be more important than policy issues. His repeated references to Korea’s democratic system, to its unprecedented civic involvement, and to his personal and political debt to the Candlelight Movement, marked him more sharply than his policy positions, which seemed to be in a state of evolution.

It was left unsaid that basic systems in the US are broken, from the electoral process to health care to infrastructure, while the presidential candidate who got 3 million fewer votes than his rival now occupies the White House. That may partly explain the repeated congratulations to Moon, and the unusual and noteworthy acknowledgement by senior officials, including President Trump, of Korea’s transparent and relatively orderly process of impeaching a corrupt leader and replacing them in a matter of under six months. For Washington and for Korea’s profile among policy professionals, this was a big deal.

On policy, much work needs to be done. Moon’s approach to Trump and his team was only one of several ways he could have strategically dealt with the US. Since he chose to do it this way he should now have multiple channels through which to attempt to influence the tactics, goals and vision on the US side. Language in the “Joint Statement” referred to a “high-level strategic consultation mechanism” on the North Korea issues, and to several existing useful channels for coordinating policies.

The problem with this is that the summit provided little if any confidence that the Trump team could understand how Moon would like to alter US and ROK goals and strategies to achieve results that both want. Beyond that, it provided no confidence that the US administration would agree to any changes, even if it did understand them, which remains unlikely in any case. The Korean president’s language ­ when referring to what he wanted to achieve with the DPRK, how he wanted to proceed, and what time-frame would be appropriate ­ was embarrassingly vague.

At the same time, when talking about North Korean motivations, power relationships among key actors, and threat perceptions and realities, he embraced language and concepts which are based on false assumptions or are inaccurate, and which have been used for decades by opponents of the efforts of Kim Dae Jung, Roh Moo Hyun and Bill Clinton.

Many of these are matters of policy development, coordinated implementation and public diplomacy. They will surely be refined and adjusted as the Moon team is filled out and its structures begin to work better. There may also be opportunities to switch senior officials in or out of different positions in order to be sure capabilities match responsibilities.

But the summit revealed that basic concepts must be examined to see if they fit Moon’s strategy. For instance, is the main source of instability in the region the “threat” from North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs, or from its continued isolation and lack of security and development? Does the THAAD issue really come down to placating some residents of Songdu and explaining its technical details to the Chinese, or does it fundamentally hurt Korea’s security and diplomatic interests, regardless of its military capabilities?

Are the North Koreans really confused about which “path” to take between peace and development, or are they credibly worried about their security, and waiting for the ROK and US to return to mutually beneficial arrangements? Are the Chinese really confused about joining the US, Japan and the ROK in a pressure-only campaign against North Korea, or have they accurately concluded that it won’t work, and that in any case the campaign’s consequences are against their economic and security interests?

President Moon should know the answer to these questions. In his campaign he seemed to know what would be practical and realistic and what would not. His advisor and friend Moon Chung-in had a detailed grasp of these issues, and urged US specialists to begin thinking about how to change their tactics. That is why the mainstream in Washington policy circles attacked him so severely. As we know, the Trump group is significantly less knowledgeable and less moderate than the mainstream here.

There is a lot we don’t know. As former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld memorably pointed out, you need to know what you don’t know. So there is time for increased organization and clarity on the Korean side. These cannot be expected, however, on the US side. It was assumed from before this summit that if many of the realistic changes to policy required by Korea were to be achieved, then Seoul would have to carefully pull the US to change course. The US needs Seoul to do this more now than ever before, since it is so profoundly incapable of leading on these issues now.

This may be what President Moon is trying to do.

And that may work. But Trumps “support” for Korea’s leading role in “fostering an environment for peaceful unification” is empty if Moon does not soon make clear what he will do, and what he expects his ally to do. That is the only way this works. Trump’s maximum pressure campaign will prevent Moon’s engagement with North Korea. The THAAD deployment will complicate if not prevent honest improvement of Korea-China relations. Both will prevent Korea from playing a leading role in stabilizing the Peninsula and guiding development in the region. Both will also prevent a long-delayed rebalance in the Korea-US relationship, so that Seoul can help Washington escape its long vacation from responsible policy toward Korea.

Michelle Obama recently observed that the presidency doesn’t change a person. Rather, it reveals who they are. President Moon seems to be able to see the opportunities ahead. His US friends spoke up loudly this week, from William Perry to Robert Gallucci to Senators Markey and Franken and many others, all in support of the US changing its tactics. They need the Korean side to lead.

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 reached at scost55@gmail.com.