Wasting Time with No Time to Waste

The problem inherent in South Korea’s policy toward the
North is that it does not see North Korea’s attitude as an extension of the
attitude that country has adopted over many decades. Instead, it constantly
interprets events optimistically, with new hope. The influence of the approach
of the Sunshine Policy presidents, Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun, which called
for understanding the North above all else, now leaves us with a structural
weakness; policy toward the North must be framed in terms of good will and
hope. North Korea is able to use this to negotiate and pursue meetings with the
South on its own terms and in its own time. If there is something that North
Korea needs, it is a simple matter of adjusting the level of their demands.
Herein lies the explanation for how North Korea has been able to thus far
maintain the upper hand in inter-Korean dialogue. 

South Korea, perennially playing second fiddle, has no
choice but to wait on North Koreas reaction, or indeed its good will. This becomes clear
when we look back over the past year. Although President Park clearly
stated “we cannot live with a nuclear North Korea,” in truth the
South Korean government has made no active steps towards denuclearization in
that time. This is because the present administration’s North Korea
denuclearization strategy is tied in with the “peninsula trust
process,” and, as it turns out, last year’s events were the complete
opposite of building trust. It is for these very reasons that I have previously
argued that South Korea must work hard to gain the upper hand in its North
Korea policy.

Ultimately, the side that proposed and then brought to
fruition the most recent meeting was in fact the North. Although they initially
linked recent family reunions with U.S.-ROK joint military drills, they still
likely thought that being on board with the peninsula trust process would be
sufficient to get humanitarian aid and economic assistance. They believed that
by joining in, humanitarian and economic assistance would follow automatically.
Of course, President Park promised that huge amounts of aid would come if North
Korea gave up its nuclear weapons, but in the eyes of the North, rice and
fertilizer is no less significant; to Pyongyang, they are strategic goods.   

Looked at with clear eyes, the most critical element in current
tensions is clearly North Korea’s nuclear weapons. It is most critical simply
because there is no time to waste. And yet, the first objective of the “peninsula
trust process” is to sooth North Korea, and when this is the goal, there can be
no pressure. Once the soothing starts, it is very difficult to stop and turn
back to pressure. Besides which, President Park’s political creed is that her creed is not easily changed.
In other words,
we are now in a situation where, compared with the
pressing urgency of the matter, South Korea has adopted a long-term, rather inflexible
policy. Within this time North could miniaturize a nuclear warhead, and by the
end of Park’s five-year tenure could have conducted a continent-to-continent missile
test and a 4th nuclear test. At that time, North Korea’s possession
of nuclear arms would have been confirmed. 

* This is the second part of
an abridged Guest Column that appeared in Korean on February 17th. The views
expressed in Guest Columns are not necessarily those of Daily NK.