GSOMIA decision: Moon Jae-in's nuclear option

President Moon Jae-in receives a briefing on the National Security Office's recommendation to scrap the Korea-Japan military intelligence-sharing agreement, Thursday. Yonhap

By Oh Young-jin

Not long after President Roh Moo-hyun took office in 2003, he gathered presidential aides and discussed how to lead and govern the nation.

There was near-consensus against Roh's visit to the United States, espoused by former activists among the Roh aides who saw the U.S. as a supporter of the previous dictatorships they fought against. They were the so-called "386 generation" ― born in the 1960s, attending college in the 1980s and aged in their 30s. They belonged to the age when Korea was getting wealthy and starting to assert its national identity.

Their objection to Roh's U.S. visit was based on their wish to break the tradition of a newly elected president visiting Washington as his first overseas destination to gain America's recognition. But a few experienced hands who insisted on the importance of the ROK-U.S. alliance torpedoed their effort.

Ironically, those young cadres of Roh and the president himself were still cautious about going into the uncharted realm beyond the alliance's boundaries. In May, Roh made his first visit to the U.S. and met President George W. Bush. It set a pattern for Roh to protect the alliance by even alienating his support base in pushing for a free trade agreement with the U.S. and sending troops to the Middle East, as requested.

Fast-track to the incumbent President Moon Jae-in. Roh was his mentor and he served him in the presidential office. Now Moon is in the spotlight for his unexpected decision Thursday to scrap the country's three-year-old pact with Japan ― the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA).

Cheong Wa Dae's decision was a surprise as it came despite the U.S.'s open objections. The pact was established at U.S. urging to strengthen the trilateral alliance against North Korea's nuclear and long-range missile activities and, more importantly, to keep China at bay.

A presidential aide said Japan snubbed Moon's proposal for dialogue during the recent anniversary of the Aug. 15 day of liberation from Japan's 36-year colonial rule. Earlier, Japan slapped export restrictions on key items for semiconductor production and dropped Korea from the list of preferential trading partners in retaliation for the Supreme Court's November ruling to allow Korea's former forced laborers to seek compensation from big Japanese firms that participated in its war effort.

Abe says S. Korea's GSOMIA termination 'damages mutual trust'

2019-08-23 13:28 | Foreign Affairs

Japan claims that all bills for Japan's occupation of Korea were settled by the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and restitution in the 1965 Basic Treaty. Korea believes Japan should remain perpetually in debt and argues that the treaty doesn't address some of its activities, such as conscription of young girls as sex slaves, or "comfort women," for Japanese Army brothels.

Scrapping the GSOMIA will not have a big effect militarily because it served as a bridge of low-level intelligence and most intelligence needs can be satisfied by the U.S. But symbolically, it is nothing short of a "nuclear option" as it defied Washington's wish at a critical moment when the U.S. is facing a growing challenge from China in their power struggle. How it will affect the alliance is something that is worth another column. Perhaps more important is why the Moon administration made the decision.

It is the combination of four factors ― remorse and reflection, on one hand, and confidence and determination on the other. The first set dates from the Roh era on which those of the 386 generation look back, thinking of their mistake in not being more forceful with their agenda, domestic and diplomatic. In the following 10 years, they reflected on that era, promising themselves never to let go another chance to implement that agenda.

The second set of factors is from the toppling of the Park Geun-hye administration through mass candlelight protests, on which Moon rode to his presidency. In the process, the administration's conservative opposition has been reduced to a mere shadow of its former self. Even at the worst time for Moon, marred by a hostile North Korea and scandals engulfing his top aides, such as justice minister nominee Cho Kuk, few would think of the Liberty Korea Party, the main opposition, and Bareun Party, the conservative opposition, as alternatives to Moon's ruling Democratic Party of Korea.

A look at the participants in the National Security Office meeting presided over by Chung Eui-yong, Moon's top security aide, does not reveal these elements in play before the GSOMIA decision. But the movers and shakers that led the move were hidden in plain sight, as it was more the action of working-level presidential aides and others outside Cheong Wa Dae that have inherited Roh's zeitgeist.

Some argue openly ― and more wonder ― whether the GSOMIA decision is aimed at diverting public attention from the scandal involving the justice minister-to-be regarding a mushrooming body of allegations of unethical, if not illegal, activities involving his daughter, himself and other family members. The revelations are shocking, dumb-founding and despicable to the point that his nomination deserves an immediate withdrawal.

But speculation appears quite plausible that Moon ditched the military pact to save his apostle, whom he depends on solely to achieve one of his key presidential agenda items ― reforming the prosecutors, an influential group notorious for colluding with power at a given time and thereby hindering the development of the nation's democracy.

However, it is speculation that lacks evidence so can't be substantiated. A more correct way of looking at it is that the Moon administration decided on the GSOMIA termination because it judged it to be the best and right decision in the given situation.

They decided to kill the pact, the decision-makers knowing that any deviation on Cho's nomination meant a potentially irreparable setback to the administration's governance itself for the rest of its term. In other words, like any presidential decision on a key issue, killing GSOMIA is open to a lot of different interpretations but with few provable.

And the truth is up for grabs, depending on the outcome of the duel between the administration's supporters and detractors. If the Cho Kuk saga is put back on the main public agenda and his candidacy nixed, the detractors can claim that the GSOMIA scrapping was for public diversion and they stopped it. If Cho becomes justice minister, supporters may claim that killing the pact and Cho were two separate issues. So it is very much the victor's point of view that will prevail until it is debunked.

By this time next week, I am not sure whether these issues will remain controversial given the public's short attention span. But Moon has many more battles to fight and wars to wage in his campaign to clean up past ills and enable the nation to make a fresh start. Who's next?

Oh Young-jin (foolsdie@gmail.com, foolsdie5@koreatimes.co.kr) is digital managing editor of The Korea Times.