N. Korea holds key as S. Korean leader begins second half of tenure

By Sam Kim
SEOUL, Aug. 22 (Yonhap) -- Relations between South and North Korea will be tense
for the remaining two and a half years of President Lee Myung-bak's tenure in
Seoul, experts said, unless North Korean leader Kim Jong-il takes a leap of faith
on his southern counterpart's offers and eases his country's recalcitrant
behavior.
Lee, who took office in February 2008, arrives at the midpoint of his five-year
term on Aug. 25. Marking the end of what has been a turbulent first half for him,
noted pundits said in interviews they hoped for the leaders of the divided states
to find a way out of the volatile face-off on the peninsula.
Yet, the experts were widely split in their assessment of the conservative Lee
administration's handling of North Korea, which recently severed its ties with
the South and has ratcheted up its rhetoric threatening war.
"'Frustrating' is the word I would use to describe the relationship between the
two Koreas for the past two and a half years," Paik Hak-soon, a North Korea
specialist at the Sejong Institute near Seoul, said.
Paik said mistrust between the Koreas has deepened as a result of the South's
policy categorically linking progress in the inter-Korean relationship to the
denuclearization of the North.
North Korea has accused the South of aligning with U.S. hardliners and trying to
topple its communist regime by undermining what it calls nuclear deterrents. The
two previous South Korean governments had taken pains to bypass the issue to
prevent it from hurting the cross-border ties, often causing rifts with the U.S.
"Even the cause of denuclearization has now taken a backseat because tension
between the South and the North is so high," Paik said.
The enmity spiked to a level unseen for years when Pyongyang began threatening
physical retaliation if it is punished for the deadly March sinking of a South
Korean warship in the Yellow Sea.
Forty-six South Korean sailors died in the sinking that Seoul blames on
Pyongyang, citing a multinational probe. Pyongyang denies involvement, but the
issue has led Seoul and Washington to dismiss any chances of restarting
six-nation talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions unless the communist regime
apologizes first.
Andrei Lankov, a professor at Seoul's Kookmin University who had studied at North
Korea's top university, said Pyongyang may have attacked the ship in part out of
frustration with Seoul, which had failed to capitalize on a chance to open
high-level talks.
In the summer of last year, North Korea sent a delegation of senior officials to
Seoul to pay their respects at the funeral for the late former South Korean
President Kim Dae-jung. The North, then, reportedly offered to hold a summit with
Lee, asking for economic assistance in return.
"Seoul, however, did not react," Lankov said. "This was, I suspect, a mistake of
the South Korean government. Had they accepted the North Korean overtures in late
2009, we would probably see the resumption of exchanges and a manageable level of
tensions."
Lankov maintained the attack was "a mistake" of the North Korean regime more than
anything, an act of provocation that gave the elite nothing more than "some
perverted sense of pride, perhaps."
"Indeed, in the current situation, the Lee government has no choice but to be
tough," he said, expecting for the "state of cold war to continue until the end
of the Lee term."
Yang Moo-jin, who teaches at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul,
agreed that Lee failed to "turn the positive atmosphere that formed last year
into something substantial."
"A major chance was wasted. The biggest issue with Lee's stance on North Korea is
that it is not flexible," he said. "You have to keep the dialogue open even as
you take a tough stance."
Yang worried Lee may now be entertaining the idea of absorbing the North, a
notion that was met with harsh words from Pyongyang when former South Korean
President Kim Young-sam mulled it over in the 1990s.
In his speech on Aug. 15, Lee proposed a "unification tax" that he argued would
help tackle the astronomical costs of merging the divided Koreas when the time
comes. Critics said such a proposal could easily be based on the premise that the
impoverished North will collapse in the near future.
"Unification is an empty word when there are no ongoing reconciliation efforts
between the two countries," Yang said. "It leads us to suspect Lee is assuming
the North will crash soon."
Im Eul-chool, a researcher at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, agreed,
saying in an e-mailed commentary that Lee appears to anticipate a radical
contingency in the North Korean regime upon the death of Kim Jong-il, which
medical experts say may not be far.
The 68-year-old Kim has been ruling his state with an iron fist for more than two
decades. He suffered an apparent stroke in the summer of 2008 and is believed to
be quickly taking steps toward the seemingly formidable task of transferring his
power to his 20-something son.
In the nationally televised Liberation Day speech, Lee also offered North Korea a
three-phase path to unification, in which the sides would reconcile peacefully,
achieve economic integration and eventually form "one national community."
It was the latest in a series of overtures Lee has made to North Korea since he
came into office. Every one of his proposals, including the establishment of a
permanent liaison office between the Koreas and a promise to help revive the
North's moribund economy if Pyongyang denuclearizes, has been roundly rejected
and ridiculed by the North.
"I don't think that there's any kind of magic new policy" when it comes to North
Korea, said Michael Breen, the author of "The Koreans" who had covered the two
Koreas for several newspapers.
"There is only so much you can do with North Korea," he said. "I don't think the
government has done that badly. Lee Myung-bak has more realism, even cynicism,
about North Korea. It's actually quite healthy."
Calling Lee's North Korea policy "a big improvement" over that of previous
leaders, Brian Myers, a professor of international studies at Dongseo University
in Busan, urged Seoul to try West Germany's Ostpolitik.
"The West Germans applied conditions to their aid, but they did so discreetly, or
underwater as Koreans say. In this way, the East German government was able to
compromise without a loss of face," he said.
But both Breen and Myers expressed skepticism that the situation on the Korean
Peninsula would improve, citing the fundamental nature of the North Korean
regime.
"(North Korea) cannot switch from being a military-first state to being an
economy-first state without becoming a third-rate version of South Korea, and
losing all reason to exist. Kim Jong-il knows this," Myers said.
Breen, who runs a communications consulting firm in Seoul, offered a piece of
advice that seemed more psychological than political.
"When you're doing something in a relationship, you should not be attached to the
outcome." he said. "You should just act out of your values, express what you want
and let the other party have the freedom to respond.
"That's all that can be done," he said, suggesting the North holds the key to
defusing the standoff on the Korean Peninsula.
South and North Korea remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War
ended in a truce, which has yet to be replaced by a peace treaty.
samkim@yna.co.kr
(END)