Geopolitics in Northeast Asia has jumped to the forefront of world affairs in the months following North Korea’s participation at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Kim Jong Un sent his younger sister, Workers’ Party standing committee member Kim Yo Jong (born in 1984), together with President of the Supreme People’s Assembly Kim Yong Nam (born in 1928), to the South to attend the Olympic opening ceremony in February.
This was followed by a sudden appearance in Beijing marking his first international trip since coming to power, shocking observers in the process and flipping Northeast Asian politics on its head. South Korean K-pop stars were then invited to perform in Pyongyang in early April. However, these events, together with the upcoming inter-Korean summit, the US-North Korea summit, and continuing diplomatic efforts by Russia, China, and Japan, serve as a stark reminder that the Korean War is still not over.
With the date and location set for the April 27 inter-Korean summit, North Korean diplomats have boosted their international presence, working behind the scenes with Swedish and Finnish mediators to help lay the groundwork and decide on locations for the US-North Korea summit slated for some time in May and potential additional summits with Japan or Russia. Regional powers are watching closely and seeking further dialogue with North Korea as the summits draw closer.
On the morning of March 31, as South Korea’s pop stars were arriving in Pyongyang for their performances, a group of Chinese business people returned to China after receiving unusually warm hospitality from the North Koreans during a visit to various important ‘revolutionary’ sites, as reported in the April 3 edition of the Rodong Sinmun. The March 31 edition reported on Kim Jong Un’s meeting with International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach in Pyongyang. Along with the meeting between his younger sister Kim Yo Jong and South Korean President Moon Jae In in Seoul and his own secret meeting in Beijing with Xi Jinping, these foreign-oriented meetings can be interpreted as clear messages towards the United States.
If Kim Jong Un discussed with Xi an “absolute guarantee” of the Kim regime’s power as well as “complete protection” of the country after denuclearization, then it may be possible to imagine that North Korea is laying the groundwork for change. Kim would likely have informed Xi about what he plans to discuss during the upcoming summits with South Korea and the US. Choosing China – a signatory of the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement – as his first foreign destination in his newly-minted role as diplomatic head of a so-called ‘normal nation’ serves as a way for Kim to reassert China’s involvement, diminish the impact of the nuclear issue on regional security, and reduce the chances of any threat resulting from a summit with the US. The Kim-Xi meeting reminded everyone of the power of the Sino-North Korean partnership and was also aimed at keeping the US and South Korea on their toes in the lead-up to their respective summits.
One remaining item of contention among analysts is why Trump and Kim are so ready and willing to participate in a game of nuclear-button-size one-upmanship. Will Kim Jong Un really “fulfill the wishes” of his father and grandfather to denuclearize? Does the US really believe that North Korea’s nuclear program is such a threat that they might conduct a preemptive strike on the North? The answer to both may well be “no.”
When major powers in East Asia sparred in the past, the threat of war increased considerably. In the 1990s, the Soviet Union – a strong ally and supporter of North Korea – began to cozy up to South Korea at the expense of their relations with the North. The Soviet Union then collapsed and ceased to exist, while China – the North’s last remaining major partner – began to embrace a free-market economic system, drawing criticisms from North Korea that they had abandoned communism. This was followed by the death of the North’s founding leader Kim Il Sung in 1994, a humanitarian crisis in the country’s great famine, and the need to accept aid from the international community. Looking back, these events are all a result of the Korean Peninsula being divided through hasty decisions by the major powers at the conclusion of World War II.
The Korean Peninsula is unique in the world in that it is the location where the interests of the major powers China, Russia, Japan, and the US all intersect. It is undeniable that the actions of these four nations have had immense sway over the fate of the peninsula. On the Korean battlefields of World War II, none of the powers were willing to withdraw from their ideological principles, and at the same time each saw it as an opportunity to improve their international standings. Thirty percent of the land on the 220,000 km² Korean Peninsula was a battlefield during World War II, and the gruesome Korean War that followed further boosted its geopolitical value.
The war went on for three years (1950-1953) as the United States decided to enforce a major policy of Soviet containment, recommitting to increased military spending and reinforcing troops in Europe as well. The Korean War solidified the communist alliance between China and the Soviet Union for the following ten years, cemented the US and China as enemies for the following twenty years, and ensured that the Cold War would last for decades more. Korea also became one of the most important and lasting geopolitical hotspots in the world, which shows no sign of abating today, 65 years after the signing of the Armistice Agreement in July 1953.
During the upcoming late April inter-Korean summit, Kim Jong Un may opt to follow the same strategy as his grandfather, seeking to drive a wedge between the South and its allies in the US and Japan and push for the withdrawal of US troops on the peninsula. Kim Il Sung thought he had accomplished such a goal when he signed a North-South Joint Statement on July 4, 1972, sending a message to his allies in Berlin soon after through his ambassador to East Germany Lee Chang Su saying, “The government and party of North Korea will concentrate on forcing South Korean leaders into agreement, to free them from US and Japanese influence and to allow no US intervention.”
President Moon must use his multiple points of leverage over the North during his meeting with Kim Jong Un to change the political dynamic over the North’s nuclear program and ensure peace in Northeast Asia. After the 1972 joint statement, Kim Il Sung likely saw himself as playing the role of problem-solver after initially helping divide the peninsula. But Northeast Asia is a much more complicated place now than it was 70 years ago. US President Donald Trump now wishes to sit across from Kim Jong Un to hear his response to the policy of complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement (CVID) of the North’s nuclear program. South Korea must support the US and reach common ground on the gradual execution of CVID.
China has pushed for the simultaneous cessation of both the North’s nuclear and missile activities and US-South Korean joint military exercises, in addition to a US-North Korea peace treaty with denuclearization of the peninsula. In all of this, each country is working towards its own national interests through different political and economic means and goals. Each side is attempting to use the situation to promote their own preferred strategies for how to preserve peace in the region, with the US saying that China is not being sincere and China asserting that the US is hypocritical in its actions. Amidst this bickering, the South must reach beyond the simple idea of territorial unification to demand more substantial actions from Kim Jong Un towards long-term inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation. It is of utmost importance, as the US continues to focus on political demands for denuclearization and China looks towards cementing itself as regional hegemon by 2025.
*Views expressed in Guest Columns do not necessarily reflect those of Daily NK.
