ED Restore diplomatic balance

A recent series of media reports predicted the possibility of new security challenges next year on the Korean Peninsula.

On Thursday, North Korea’s state media said Kim Jong-un encouraged and supported the officials responsible for the country's intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). It quoted Kim as saying, “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) will not hesitate even to launch a nuclear attack if the enemy provokes us with nukes.”

A day before, the U.S.' B-1B strategic bombers took part in an aerial exercise above the Korean Peninsula that also included South Korea and Japan. It was a show of force by the three countries after the North’s ICBM launch.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported that Sung Kim, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, will retire this year. “However, the U.S. is unlikely to name his successor soon,” it added.

Believing that Pyongyang has lost interest in negotiations, Washington will focus on deterrence. The presidential election next November will leave even less time for talks.

To sum up, there will be no attempts for dialogue amid escalating tensions.

It's no wonder that more and more Koreans, from business executives all the way to taxi drivers, are talking about the possibility of inter-Korean conflicts in 2024. The two Koreas’ de facto scrapping of their military agreement signed on Sept. 19, 2018, seems to be deepening the public’s concerns. So far, the Yoon Seok Yeol administration has been responding to the North’s saber-rattling in kind. The tactic is exhausting and dangerous. It’s time to change course.

Since he took office, President Yoon also has strived to cement ties with the U.S. and Japan. That was the right thing to do. However, Yoon has estranged China and Russia unnecessarily and hurt their feelings unduly in the process, as if it were all a zero-sum game. That was wrong. It could hardly even be called diplomacy, which normally calls for maximizing friends and minimizing enemies. Seoul is trying to mend fences with Beijing, thinking it can drive a wedge between China and its two regional allies.

It will be far easier said than done, however. Nothing showed this better than the APEC summit in San Francisco last month. Xi Jinping met Joe Biden for four hours and Fumio Kishida for 65 minutes. Xi met Yoon for three minutes. According to reports, the Chinese delegation did not even include a Korean translator. It did not reveal gaps in the relative importance of countries but more the diplomatic balancing acts and lack thereof.

Polls show 72 percent of Koreans dislike China, but 82 percent think the nearby nation is important. Leaders should be at least as knowledgeable as their people.

On Wednesday, foreign minister nominee Cho Tae-yul said the Korea-China relationship is as crucial as Korea-U.S. ties. His remark on the obvious almost sounded refreshing. At stake is how to follow up such a sentiment with action. Cho is an expert in trade diplomacy but should not prioritize minimizing China’s economic retaliation against Korea.

Cho and Yoon’s second security-diplomacy team should try to restore the overall balance between Washington and Beijing. To do so, Seoul should maximize its economic and cultural power while emphasizing Beijing’s role in regional stability as a global leader.

Contrary to Seoul’s wishes, there is talk that China may condone North Korea’s nuclear progress. That and the possible return of Donald Trump, who reportedly will recognize the North’s nuclear power status in return for freezing it at current levels, could lead to a worst-case scenario for Seoul. Some pessimists even imagine a situation where South Korea is reduced to a side player in resumed multilateral talks on North Korea’s nuclear crisis. Its prevention requires presidential, not ministerial, efforts.

The president must waste no time in repairing ties with China and managing those with Russia. Yoon must start with inter-Korean relations. He must realize why the U.N. Command advises reviving the Sept. 19 agreement.

More fundamentally, the time has passed for Seoul to set — or reset — its coordinates in dealing with the four major powers, including Japan.

Its foundation should be the unwavering determination for peaceful co-prosperity with North Korea until the two divided halves reunite as one.

Leaders must remember their constitutional duty.