I.
When 2002 World Cup fever was about to reach its peak, 6 soldiers died, 18 were wounded and South Korean patrol boat PKM-357 was completely destroyed in the Second Battle of Yeonpyong, just two years after President Kim Dae Jung visited Pyongyang and the two sides issued the June 15 Joint Declaration, and only three years after the launching of the Sunshine Policy.
“North Korea’s intentions cannot be well understood. This situation is not explicable through logic.” (Seo Dong Man, Professor, Sangji University)
“There must have been a purpose, but it’s hard to guess what it was. Because there’s not a great deal of benefit North Korea can get from this kind of activity.” (Lee Jong Suk, Researcher, Sejong Institute)
That Sunshine Policy supporters couldn’t logically explain North Korea’s intentions was inevitable, and that was because the battle was like spitting on the Kim Dae Jung administration just as it was undertaking a moderate, reconciliatory policy involving the offering of enormous assistance to North Korea. It led many South Koreans to distrust the Sunshine Policy, something which they couldn’t avoid thinking wasn’t helpful for the North Korean regime at all.
Yet these two individuals, who couldn’t understand North Korea’s logic at all, ended up in important positions under Roh Mu Hyun, controlling policy toward North Korea.
However, North Korea’s logic can be easily understood now. Going over the daily press records of North Korea’s provocations right after the Yeonpyeong Island shelling of last year is enough to understand it.
From the mid-1970s right through to the Kim Dae Jung administration, North Korean provocations, the Rangoon bombing, say, or the downing of KAL-858, were characterized by attempts to assassinate a head of state or kill large numbers of civilians. But since the Kim Dae Jung Sunshine Policy was launched, major provocations have been focused on the five islands in the West Sea. Why?
This is because such projects focus on the annulment of the existing NLL, something North Korea regards as a long-term aim. The desire to assassinate South Korea’s head of state disappeared when the Sunshine Policy started. Killing presidents would do nothing to help North Korea whatsoever.
While North Korea made little progress on this issue before the Kim Dae Jung administration took office, it seems they decided it was worth trying it under the Sunshine Policy, and with the Roh Moo Hyun-Kim Jong Il summit of October 4th, 2007, it appeared to bear fruit, as plans for a joint fishing area came into being.
North Korea’s repeated provocations in the West Sea even allowed the South Korean left to believe that North Korea’s claims were more objective and logical than South Korea’s. Finally, Roh Mu Hyun went so far as to call the NLL a ‘unilaterally drawn line, not a line agreed upon by South and North Korea’ and mislead the people into thinking the line had no historical justification. Does it not seem as though North Korea’s long-term project was nearing success?
II.
The Lee Myung Bak administration discarded the unconditional engagement policy toward North Korea and brought in a conditional engagement policy. But North Korea never accepted the conditions. Accordingly, North Korea could no longer harvest the fruits of Kim Jong Il’s labors by receiving fertilizer in March, rice in June and light industrial materials in September from South Korea, and for any reason that came to hand they began to criticize the South Korean government; but the following summer they received fertilizer again for holding an inter-Korean ministers’ meeting, as they had with the Kim Dae Jung and Roh Mu Hyun administrations.
Meanwhile, however, North Korea’s long-term NLL incapacitation project became a testing ground for the Kim Jong Eun succession. North Korea fired a torpedo to sink the Cheonan in March, 2010, killing 46 soldiers, and fired indiscriminately at Yeonpyeong Island in November of the same year. According to media reports, the prince, Kim Jong Eun oversaw combined armed forces training on an island near Nampo while Kim Jong Il was in Russia between August 20th and 25th. A military official even said, “There’s been intelligence since last year that North Korea intends to seize the five islands in the West Sea.”
But regardless of whether this extremist plan exists or not, it is certain that the North Korean regime will continue to work on the NLL by localizing the dispute, as well as on nuclear development. It has become very obvious that nuclear development and NLL incapacitation are North Korea’s long term projects, regardless of the South Korean government’s ideological bent. The problem is to know when North Korea will provoke.
III.
To forecast when North Korea is going to provoke is the role of intelligence experts who detect signs and judge their meaning, but the truth is that such predictions are not even difficult for you or I.
Kim Jong Il tends to provoke when South Korea asks to improve inter-Korean relations or for an inter-Korean summit, or expresses understanding of North Korea’s hostile actions; in other words, when South Korea tries to do North Korea a favor. Look at former President Roh Moo Hyun’s remarks beofre North Korea conducted the first nuclear test.
“We will do much to compromise with North Korea.” (May 10th, 2006)
“Movements which create unnecessary tension and confrontation due to excessive actions beyond the nature of the situation are not helpful in solving problems.” (To domestic hard-liners and the U.S. and Japanese governments which were trying to put pressure on North Korea after a missile launch on July 20th, 2006)
“Strengthening our national defense represents preparing militarily to check Japan and China, not North Korea.” (August 13th, 2006)
“We need to get over the feelings of anger and hatred left in our hearts. We need to forgive, and proceed toward reconciliation and cooperation.” (Commemorative speech on Independence Day, August 15th, 2006)
“Having no signs or clues as to whether they will conduct a nuclear test or not, or speaking based on various assumptions absent evidence, this makes people anxious and inter-Korean relations difficult.”(September 8, 2006)
North Korea carried out their first nuclear test on October 9th, 2006. Then President Roh alluded to the abandonment of the Sunshine Policy, saying, “To continue insisting on an engagement policy in this situation is difficult.”
But the very next day, then-Minister of Unification Lee Jong Suk defended North Korea, saying, “The engagement policy must continue so the North Korean people do not have hostility towards us.” Soon enough, President Roh busied himself covering for the situation, saying on November 2nd, “We shouldn’t exaggerate North Korea’s nuclear test; the military balance between South and North Korea hasn’t been broken by it.”
IV.
Under a leftist government, all provocations can be interpreted as ‘we didn’t support North Korea enough’ or as a ‘plan to save ourselves under the U.S. threat toward North Korea’. All provocations under a rightist government can be interpreted as the result of a hard-line policy giving the impression of wanting to fight. We could find this clearly in last year’s Yeonpyeong and Cheonan attacks.
North Korea’s tough provocations soon generate pressure to soften policy toward North Korea. The Cheonan and President Lee’s May 24th Measures brought the complete defeat of the Grand National Party in regional elections on June 2. The right government’s hard-line policy toward North Korea was seen as causing the sinking. In a word, North Korea feels it has nothing to lose by provoking.
We haven’t yet been able to confirm whether the Lee administration understands North Korea’s provocation pattern properly.
President Lee seems confident that the gas pipeline project will go ahead, while Ryu Woo Ik, the new minister of unification, has acknowledged the possibility of an inter-Korean summit. It seems that the administration has suffered a relapse of ‘summit impatience’ at the end of its term. The problem is that it is unclear whether the President and his minister of unification have plans for possible provocations.
As emphasized above, to North Korea, nuclear tests and NLL-incapacitation provocations are necessities, not possibilities. A government which doubts this is neglecting its duties. Especially with several elections from the end of this year to next year, North Korea may wish to incapacitate the rightist government and fool it through provocation. If South Korea approaches North Korea openly and North Korea conducts a nuclear test or some other form of provocation, then South Korea will be caught in a trap.
Judging that Kim Jong Il will accept and allow the Lee administration to dramatically improve inter-Korean relations is irresponsible. North Korea will attract the South Korean government at first, but when the time is right, they will turn.
