Unhappy holidays

By Deauwand Myers

Christmas has never been my favorite holiday: the glaring decorative lights, the rank consumerism. Even the Christmas dinner food isn't all that great (eggnog and fruit cake come to mind). Thanksgiving, its problematic origins notwithstanding, is a much better day for eating, and less garish all around.

The cold and gloom this Christmas season matches the mood on the Korean Peninsula and elsewhere. And unfortunately for world leaders like President Moon Jae-in, he won't be getting what he wants for Christmas.

The threat of a fully operational nuclear arsenal controlled by North Korea has become an increasingly likely scenario, a position that's untenable and obviously dangerous.

How did we get here?

Well, first, let's look at the players. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is not the best arbiter when it comes to Korean relations because of his increasingly truculent and ahistorical rhetoric on Imperial Japan's war crimes.

Unfortunately, Abe is not even the worst elected official in his party (the Liberal Democratic Party) when it comes to said rhetoric. Some have gone so far as to say no war crimes occurred, and that "comfort women" (mostly Koreans and other Asians forced into sex slavery) were doing the job voluntarily.

The recent diplomatic skirmish between Seoul and Tokyo over the Korean Supreme Court's rulings ― that Japanese companies responsible for forced labor during World War II are financially liable for reparations to the survivors ― has spiraled out of control rather quickly. Korean and Japanese citizens and celebrities are boycotting each other's goods and services.

Japan is no longer exporting the vital materials South Korea's high-tech sector needs to make products like semiconductors and high-resolution TV and phone screens. Respective Korean and Japanese national security agencies have suspended military intelligence sharing.

All of these are damaging to both countries' economies. But much worse than that, Seoul-Tokyo ties, hit by these petty skirmishes, weaken both countries' attempts at negotiating with North Korea on suspending its nuclear program in return for relief from crippling economic sanctions. Intelligence sharing is vitally important because it helps shed light on the military activities of North Korea, an infamously secretive regime.

Then, of course, there's U.S. President Donald Trump. His two failed summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un were predictably unproductive photo ops for Trump's ridiculous obsession with getting the Nobel Peace Prize. Predictable because, like everything else Trump does, his large ego doesn't match his actual capabilities.

He is woefully unprepared for the complexities of much of how government and diplomacy works, and refuses to study any issue with seriousness. Something as complex and potentially volatile as negotiations with the Kim regime should be handled with great care and research.

Trump dislikes studying. Intellectually lazy are the words I'm looking for. But what's scarier is, as uneducated and naive as he is, he thinks he's smart. An unwise man who thinks he's wise is annoying.

When he happens to be leader of the richest, most powerful nation in human history and sole operator of America's nuclear arsenal (the second-most warheads on earth, right behind Russia) it's an existential threat.

China's President Xi Jinping is not nearly as intellectually uncurious as his American counterpart. But he is ideologically rigid. Besides Xi's paternalism and nationalistic rhetoric, long before Xi's ascension, China's governing elite has supported North Korea with food, fuel and trade. Why?

One, if the Kim regime collapses, potentially hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees would flood China, introducing a destabilizing and expensive element on the mainland.

But more than this, a reunited Korea would mean a democratic country right on China's doorstep, a scenario that's unpalatable to the Chinese Communist Party. Xi wants North Korea to suspend its nuclear weapons program, but he most likely doesn't want it completely dismantled. He sees these weapons as the Kim regime does: as a kind of insurance against regime change.

Then there's President Moon himself. His breathless attempts at rapprochement with North Korea have been unsuccessful. His overtures to North Korea, though noble, were naive and politically wasteful. Had he spent more time on domestic affairs than this, his approval numbers would be higher.

And let's be brutally honest. The Kim regime has said for decades that North Korea will never fully denuclearize because it's the key to the regime's survival. They fear that without the threat of using these deeply immoral weapons in a conflict, an American administration at one point in the future would attack and destroy the North Korean government, reunifying the Korean Peninsula.

Libya and Iraq serve as stark reminders that non-nuclear autocracies are ripe for dismantling under the right conditions. North Korea's political calculus on this particular issue may actually have merit.

Recently, the North printed that the regime is impatient with the stalled nuclear talks and will have a "gift" for America. The nature of that gift depends on the success or failure of these talks. Merry Christmas, indeed.

Deauwand Myers (deauwand@hotmail.com) holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul.