Footballers, dictators and a way forward
By Aidan Foster-Carter
To state what in my country we call the bleedin' obvious, this was the worst
quarter in inter-Korean relations of the near-decade (starting in 2001).
On the rare occasions when the peninsula makes global headlines, or even more
rarely moves markets, it tends not to be good news. Thus it was on May 24-25,
when for the first time in many years the world seriously wondered whether the
two Koreas might go to war again - almost 60 years after they fatefully did so
the first time.
Fortunately, both backed away from the brink. On closer inspection there was
both more and less to this than at first met
the eye. But it was a perilous moment; and though it now seems to have passed,
it leaves North-South relations in a pit from which no easy exit is apparent.
The cause was the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan on March
26. Yet this did not erupt as a crisis until late May. The course of those two
months is fascinating in its own right, and has been under-examined in the
welter of comment and controversy.
It reveals, we suggest, an odd mix of tactical skill and strategic flailing by
Seoul. As of early July, with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak still
smarting from an unexpected rebuff in local elections a month ago, one must
conclude that North Korea's torpedo scored a bulls-eye.
Despite delivering a remarkable economic recovery and chairing the Group of 20,
"bulldozer" Lee is now on the back foot: just as North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il intended. It was nasty and negative, but it worked. In Pyongyang's
eyes, this counts as a win - even though from any sensible perspective it is a
loss for both Koreas, and their relations.
Play it down, then build it up
Handling North Korea is never easy, let alone something as unexpected as a
naval attack. But South Korea's official reaction has been striking for its
variety - indeed inconsistency - over time, with at least four distinct phases.
Initially, the line from Seoul was to play it down.
We now know, as the Financial Times' Christian Oliver wrote on May 21, that
"South Korean officials who were whisked to the president's war bunker on the
night of March 26 thought war was imminent".
But they did not let on. Although on Wall Street both the won and the Dow
briefly dipped on news of the sinking, both swiftly recovered when Seoul at
once classified this as a tragic mystery, perhaps an accident.
Domestic opinion was fobbed off for a fortnight by focusing on the search for
more survivors, even though there was no real chance of finding any in those
cold waters. Meanwhile, the actual survivors were kept well away from the press
for as long as possible.
This phase will make an excellent case study for students of politics and
media. On many counts, this was smart. By defusing tensions, it bought time for
a considered response. The risks were many.
Short of the apocalypse of a new Korean war, which a hasty reaction could have
risked - as it was, the Cheonan's sister ship Sokcho did fire at
something, supposedly a flock of birds - in a large open economy like South
Korea even slight fears can roil markets and spook investors.
Besides, at this stage there was genuine room for doubt as to the cause. The Cheonan
might have hit a mine, or a reef; or its own ordnance could have exploded.
Unsustainable
Yet this "softly softly" line also had its downside, and was unsustainable
beyond the short term. The public soon grew restive, and (as so often)
suspicious. In one episode, guns were pointed at grieving relatives, which did
not look good.
Official silence had other costs too. It allowed South Korea's blogosphere -
near-universal, but introverted and fetid - to spawn and canvas all manner of
conspiracy theories. The military came out looking, if not furtive, then at
least incompetent: how could they have let this disaster happen? (An inquiry by
the Board of Audit and Inspection did indeed reveal a series of serious
blunders.)
The soldiers grew restive; at one point Defense Minister Kim Tae-young -
himself a retired general, as always in Seoul - was told off by the Blue House
(the center of presidential power) for hinting that a Korean People's Army
(KPA) torpedo was to blame. And the clock was ticking; the Joint Investigation
Group (JIG) of civilian and military experts, both local and foreign, set up to
look into the sinking, would have to report sooner or later.
Once the date for the JIG to announce its findings had been set for May 20, a
second and in some ways opposite phase began. Careful leaks prepared the ground
for the news that this was indeed Pyongyang's work.
On May 11, South Koreans working in the North - a mixed bag, from
archaeologists digging up a Medieval palace in Kaesong to ships dredging sand
for the South's voracious construction industry - were ordered home.
The Unification Ministry (MOU) told a dozen other ministries and agencies to
suspend their budgets for the North. It also ordered South Korean firms to make
no new visits, deliveries or investments across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
The stage was thus set for a big media event on May 20. In fact it began a day
early, when Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan jumped the gun by telling foreign
journalists in Seoul that "it's obvious" whodunit. On May 20, the JIG duly
reported, to headlines around the world.
It found that a Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) torpedo was
responsible, and indeed it found the torpedo, or part of it - the steering
mechanism, trawled from the sea bed by a fishing boat just days earlier. All
this was widely reported around the globe, so there is no need to repeat the
full details here; we shall focus on analysis.
The world - mainly, in fact, South Korea's Western allies - rushed to support
Seoul and condemn Pyongyang. The latter indignantly denied any culpability, as
it had done ever since its first comment on April 17.
May 20 was a Thursday. Further drawing out and perhaps savoring the moment,
Seoul let it be known that its official response would not come until after the
weekend. On Monday May 24, President Lee gave a speech, while the Ministries of
Defense, Foreign Affairs and Unification - MND, MOFAT and MOU - held a joint
press conference. This moved the affair into a third phase, which though
mercifully short-lived caused a sharp intake of breath.
Lee solemnly warned that in case of any further provocation, Seoul would
exercise its right of self-defense, ie, retaliate militarily. In any case, it
would resume propaganda broadcasts across the DMZ, silent since 2004. Declaring
that "any inter-Korean trade or other cooperative activity is meaningless" now,
Lee suspended most commercial and other exchanges with the North and banned
DPRK vessels from South Korean waters.
World markets worry
Seoul's reaction was widely perceived as hardline. In fact, the markets heard
war talk - and wobbled, worldwide. On May 24-25 there were other worries too,
about Greece and the euro; but financial reports cited peninsular uncertainties
as a main factor.
A major Western bank, heavily invested in Korea, asked this writer to give a
hastily convened teleconference to try to explain what on earth the Koreans
were up to. (Note: I did not say North Koreans.)
It was a good question, if not easy to answer. I was able to reassure them on
two counts. Lee Myung-bak wisely nowhere criticized Kim Jong-il by name. This
may reflect uncertainty in Seoul as to whether the Dear Leader is fully in
control and had personally ordered the sinking. Or it may just have been tact,
giving Kim an exit strategy so that he could apologize and blame others sans
loss of face personally, if and when - as will happen, however remote-seeming
at the moment - the two Koreas find a way to move on and rebuild some bridges.
A second slight sign of hope was the Kaesong Industrial Zone (KIZ; the South
calls this the Gaeseong Industrial Complex or GIC). The hope was itself
twofold. First, Lee exempted the complex from his ban on inter-Korean trade. It
is a hefty exception as the KIZ accounts for over half of North-South commerce.
This undermines Lee's statement that such exchanges are now "meaningless".
To the contrary, the last remaining inter-Korean joint venture, where some 110
Southern small-medium enterprises (SMEs) pay 44,000 Northern workers very
little, is evidently still perceived as worth holding on to.
That was not immediately apparent on May 25. Pyongyang's furious riposte to
Seoul's new measures included a threat that "all communication links between
the North and the South will be cut off".
In extremis, closing the border could leave several hundred South Koreans -
most of whom commute daily across the DMZ from greater Seoul to work at the KIZ
- as hostages, or at any rate stranded.
Or, if the North merely stopped answering the phone, as it explicitly
threatened, that would suffice to sink the KIZ since cross-border passage
depends on lists of names of those crossing each day being faxed North for the
DPRK's approval.
Kaesong: Business as usual
But it never happened. Throughout the crisis, even at its peak, the KIZ kept
working and the commuters kept crossing the border. This was a first and
welcome sign that both sides' bark - even the North's by now frantic baying -
might be worse than their bite.
Southern firms in the KIZ found their Northern workers keener than usual, as if
aware their livelihood may be at stake. One DPRK official told South Korean
managers not to take any machinery out of the zone unless it was leased or
needed repair, saying it would be Seoul's fault if the venture failed. And
despite earlier reports of labor shortages, MOU revealed in June that DPRK
workers in the KIZ now numbered a record 44,000, up by 2,000 since January.
That sounds like commitment.
The dawning and relief that it was still business as usual at the KIZ ushered
in a fourth phase, which continues. In a word, the South backed down, leaving
many scratching their heads as to what Lee's overall game-plan might be.
Retreat was evident on many fronts. The propaganda loudspeakers had been
readied, but have yet to start blaring their strident message. That is good;
switching them back on was a bad idea, pointlessly provocative. The KPA had
threatened to shoot them if they did start up. So a sensible retreat, but still
a retreat.
Then there were the joint US-South Korea anti-submarine drills in the
West/Yellow Sea. Or rather, there weren't, and probably won't be. They have
been postponed several times, amid fears that they would rattle not only North
Korea but also China - whose cooperation at the UN Security Council to condemn
Pyongyang for the Cheonan Seoul still seeks, probably in vain. [1]
The trade front too has seen back-pedaling. The KIZ is ring-fenced, but Seoul's
ban affects some 800 other Southern firms, mainly small, which make a modest
living trading with the North or having goods made there (this so-called
processing on commission trade, or POC, was worth US$253 million last year).
Naturally, these companies are howling at the new peremptory freeze, which
leaves many of them unable to fulfill contracts or with goods stuck in the
North. Seoul has made some arbitrary-seeming exemptions for garlic and
garments, and is hearing other grievances and demands for compensation.
It all looks a bit of a mess, if not an own goal. For that matter, President
Lee cut a contradictory figure at the Shangri-La dialogue (annual meeting of
defense ministers) in Singapore on June 4 where he stressed the threat from the
North and the need to tackle it, while also reassuring business and others that
Korea was perfectly safe and a great place in which to invest.
Political fallout
If the impact on business from South Korea's reaction to the Cheonan is
messy, the political fallout both at home and abroad is worse. Presumably the
whole JIG strategy was intended to convict North Korea, leaving no shred of
ambiguity. But this approach has proved flawed on several fronts.
An international team is all very well. But, except for some Swedes the team
was drawn exclusively from South Korea's allies; all belligerents in the
1950-53 Korean War, the 60th anniversary of whose onset the South commemorated
in late June with due solemnity and gratitude to those who gave their lives to
repel that earlier attack by North Korea.
Some critics make much of this bias and Russia complained at not being asked to
take part. Had it been part of the team, Moscow might have found it harder to
wriggle and temporize later on. The full JIG report apparently remains
unpublished for some reason. The five-page summary [2] has not quieted critics.
Apart from conspiracy theorists with lurid fantasies of "friendly fire", there
are specific loose ends, some technical. [3]
That doubts remain means the JIG strategy has backfired, but it was arguably
faulty from the outset. Painting North Korea into a corner - something
Pyongyang does on its own account - is ineffectual and may raise risk. A
cornered rat bites back.
Even those who insist it is right to nail the criminal could surely have
predicted that China and Russia would find reason not to play along. Seen from
Beijing, the DPRK's collapse remains the worst-case scenario; the priority is
to reduce tensions, not to point the finger.
Hence, in early July it remained unclear what joy if any Seoul would get from
the UN Security Council. South Korea is not seeking fresh multilateral
sanctions; it would be hard to devise any on top of those already imposed under
previous council resolutions after Pyongyang's two nuclear tests in 2006 and
2009. But it would welcome a strong, unanimous resolution. It may have to be
content with a chairman's statement; a damp squib, frankly.
Rebuff at the polls
More damaging for President Lee was the unexpected rebuff that voters gave his
ruling Grand National Party (GNP) in local elections on June 2. With South
Korea posting strong growth after a swift recovery from the global financial
crisis, opinion polls had predicted an easy win for the GNP - assisted by a
"north wind" from the Cheonan.
In the past, fear of the North could be relied on to scare people into voting
conservative. The center-left opposition Democratic Party (DP) accused Lee of
timing the release of the JIG report to boost the GNP.
If that was Lee's aim, it backfired badly. The DP won seven of the 16 key posts
of big city mayor and provincial governor to the GNP's six, doing even better
at lower levels. In Seoul, an incumbent GNP mayor with presidential ambitions,
Oh Se-hoon, almost lost to ex-prime minister Han Myung-sook (South Korea's only
woman premier so far), who campaigned as the "peace candidate".
Oh must now cohabit with a DP-controlled city council; the opposition won 79 of
the 106 seats, as well as 21 of 24 ward headships (a GNP clean sweep last
time).
What does this tell us about South Korean attitudes? One should be cautious
here. Voters had much on their minds besides the Cheonan. A mid-term
rebuff for an incumbent is not unusual - Lee's five-year term reaches its
half-way point in August. It has been quite a rollercoaster.
Elected by a landslide in 2007, within months his popularity plunged amid
protests ostensibly against the hasty unbanning of US beef imports, but
reflecting wider unease at his "bulldozer" (his nickname) propensities to
charge ahead without building consensus. Skilled handling of the financial
crisis restored Lee's luster, but now voters have slapped him again.
In large part, this reflects domestic issues beyond our scope here, especially
two contentious and costly projects - a new administrative city, and the
"restoration" of four major rivers. As to the Cheonan, polls suggest a
quarter of South Koreans are skeptical of the official verdict. It is hard to
prove, but probably a larger number felt fearful in late May - and appear to
have blamed Lee for rocking the boat as much as Kim Jong-il for sinking it. For
a moment, South Korea looked into the abyss - before hastily putting its head
back in the sand.
Stealing from Hyundai
While the Cheonan cast a dark shadow over all else, it is not the
totality of inter-Korean ties. Another big ongoing story, hardly less
depressing, is the standoff over Mt Kumgang. The resort in the DPRK's southeast
has now been idle for two years, since one of the 1.9 million South Korean
tourists who visited during its first decade (1998-2008) was shot dead after
she strayed off-limits on a pre-dawn stroll.
The North refused to let in a Southern team to investigate, so the South
suspended the tours. Neither side has budged since, so the result is deadlock -
and copious red ink for the developer, Hyundai Asan, which is close to
bankruptcy.
In a campaign that began in March, Pyongyang is now carrying out its threats to
freeze and confiscate Southern property - including some owned by the South
Korean government - at Mt Kumgang. It is also expelling the remaining staff,
leaving only a minimal maintenance team. Thus far, these measures are mainly
symbolic - covering locks, for instance - and could easily be reversed if
relations improve. But that prospect, alas, appears remote.
A more serious worry is that these facilities, worth over $300 million, might
be handed over to Chinese tour operators. They may well be used by others,
which Hyundai Asan (though annoyed) says is not in breach of contract. Although
ready to brave Seoul's wrath by fence-sitting over the Cheonan, Beijing
surely draws the line at its firms handling stolen property.
Unhappy anniversary
Needless to say, in the current atmosphere the 10th anniversary of the first
inter-Korean summit in June 2000 went largely uncelebrated, especially in
Seoul. Pyongyang used it as yet more mud to sling at Lee Myung-bak for his
retreat from the former "Sunshine" policy.
In a throwback to the 1980s - some will remember the Reverend Moon Ik-hwan and
"flower of unification" Im Soo-kyung, back in 1989 - a radical South Korean
priest, Reverend Han Song-ryeol, made an unauthorized visit to Pyongyang for
the summit anniversary, having been refused permission to go by MOU.
He was duly feted in the North, and plans to return home across the DMZ on
Liberation Day, August 15, just as Im did. One hopes Seoul will learn from the
past and not make a martyr of him. But, current attempts by the South Korean
authorities to criminalize "Cheonan deniers" for spreading false rumors
are not encouraging.
Reshuffling the deck
Domestic developments cannot be ignored, especially if they affect foreign
policy. One of many theories as to why North Korea sank the Cheonan links
it to the DPRK's fitful succession process and associated power plays. Many
permutations are possible. Kim Jong-il may have seen this as a gift to his son
and heir Kim Jong-eun, or vice versa.
Perhaps a naval commander did it to curry favor with both of them. Or the
opposite, perhaps whoever did it was trying to torpedo someone else's chances,
or hopes of peace on the peninsula. Either way, the succession process wants
watching.
Here, the past quarter brought movement and the promise of more to come. The
Supreme People's Assembly (SPA), North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament, having
met as usual in April for a single day to approve a budget with no numbers, was
unexpectedly recalled on June 7.
This time, Kim Jong-il showed up, and proposed his brother-in-law Jang
Song-taek as vice chairman of the National Defense Commission (NDC), which is
the top DPRK executive organ, outranking the merely civilian cabinet. This
cements Jang's position as the de facto number two man in Pyongyang, and the
likely regent for and protector of Kim Jong-eun. (A reported rival for that
role, Ri Je-gang, died in a mysterious but well-timed car crash on June 2.)
Elsewhere, Premier Kim Yong-il - no relation - was sacked, possibly for last
December's currency reform fiasco. Rather than bringing in new young blood, his
successor is a veteran loyalist - Choe Yong-rim, aged 79. Three vice premiers
were dismissed and four appointed, including the incumbent ministers for
electronics and machine-building. Three ministers got the sack, those for food
and light industry - suggesting all is not well in these most basic of fields -
and sport, though the DPRK's footballers had yet to crash out of the football
World Cup. In a striking reinforcement of gerontocracy, the new vice premiers
are aged 82, 80, 77 and 72.
Other mysterious machinations, mostly off-stage, affected several senior
figures. On May 13, the NDC relieved Vice Defense Minister Kim Il-chol of all
posts, citing "his advanced age of 80". That strains credulity. Not only are
many top positions held by octogenarians, as just noted, but Kim looked well
enough at recent outings - including the funerals of other elite figures.
An admiral whose rise began with the 1968 seizure of the USS Pueblo, he
was defense minister from 1998 until 2009, when he was demoted to vice minister
- a rare step. His sudden departure might reflect dissent at this demotion. Or
given his naval background, the speculation in Seoul is that this is linked in
some obscure way to the Cheonan affair.
But youth may yet have its day. On June 26, the official Korean Central News
Agency (KCNA) briefly reported that "the Political Bureau of the WPK [Workers'
Party of Korea] Central Committee decides to convene early in September ... a
conference of the WPK for electing its highest leading body reflecting the new
requirements of the WPK".
This is intriguing on several fronts. Though it is nominally North Korea's
ruling communist party, and still an important tool of control at lower
echelons, the WPK has seen its topmost organs atrophy under Kim Jong-il.
Neither the rarely mentioned politburo - most of whose members have died off -
nor the Central Committee (CC) is known to have met at all in the 16 years
since Kim Il-sung died in 1994.
Kim Jong-il has favored the army, ruling through the NDC and informally via a
kitchen cabinet of trusted cronies. The Dear Leader is also secretary general
of the WPK, but he acquired that post irregularly; by acclamation at a series
of local party meetings, rather than being duly elected by the CC.
Hence, while the precise nature of September's meeting remains vague, like its
exact date, it looks like a long overdue effort to restore a measure of due
process to the party. If this is in fact a full formal WPK congress, it would
be the first since the Sixth Congress 30 years ago in October 1980.
It was then that Kim Jong-il, hitherto veiled behind coded references to a
mysterious "Party Center", was finally revealed in the flesh. The speculation
is that this new meeting similarly will finally give the world a glimpse of the
enigmatic Kim Jong-eun.
While all rumors emanating from Seoul should be treated carefully - the more so
now that South Korea's riposte to the Cheonan includes a declared
resumption of psychological warfare - it is hard not to link this news with
reports that Kim Jong-il's health is worsening.
There are claims that on some of his reportedly numerous guidance visits, aides
including his son are deceiving him with Potemkin factories to conceal from him
how dire the economy really is. Yet Kim is no fool - unless perhaps, as other
reports suggest, he is developing Alzheimer's. In that case, an already tardy
succession can clearly brook no further delay, or else regime stability and
continuity may be gravely imperiled.
The economy shrank again last year
If Kim Jong-il wants or is compos mentis enough to know how his economy is
really doing, he could look at the latest estimates from the enemy. Each year
the (southern) Bank of Korea (BOK) endeavors to compute North Korean national
income.
Quite how they go about this in the absence of any official data is obscure,
and some scholars are skeptical. But at least a time series using consistent
methodology may pick up changes, which is better than nothing. BOK published
its latest estimates, covering 2009, on June 24 just in time for Seoul to crow
about them as it marked the Korean War anniversary. [4]
By this reckoning, North Korea's real annual gross domestic product (GDP)
shrank by 0.9% last year. Unlike most other countries - including South Korea,
which just scraped positive growth of 0.2% - this had little to do with the
global financial crisis but reflected local conditions, natural and man-made:
"...decreased agricultural production due to damage from particularly severe
cold weather and sluggish manufacturing production owing to a lack of raw
materials and electricity."
According to BOK, North Korea has posted negative growth in three of the past
four years. Taking the longer view, the DPRK economy has yet to recover from
the catastrophe of the 1990s, when GDP plunged by half after the abrupt ending
of aid from Moscow and famine took perhaps a million lives in 1995-98. GDP
today is probably still lower than in 1989.
As usual, BOK's North-South comparisons make painful reading. It was not always
thus. In a new book US scholar Nicholas Eberstadt deploys a wealth of
statistics to conclude that North Korea - the site of most of the peninsula's
heavy industry during the Japanese colonial era - out-performed the South
economically for a quarter of a century after partition in 1945, and perhaps
even into the 1970s. [5] That halftime lead, so to speak, has now been
definitively reversed. The Northern economy has collapsed into prolonged and
profound ruination, while the South continues to forge ahead.
The gaps just get wider
The result is a huge and ever-widening gap. Structurally, agriculture still
contributes a fifth of Northern GDP as against just 2.6% in the South. Services
make up 61% of Southern GDP but only 32% in the North.
In overall size - using a slightly different measure, nominal gross national
income (GNI) - North Korea's national income in 2009 was a mere 2.7% of the
South's. BOK gives the numbers in South Korean won.
Converting them to US dollars at the rate BOK cites ($1=KRW 1,276.4), North
Korean GNI in 2009 was $22.4 billion, against $837 billion for the South. True,
the South has twice as many people: 48.7 as against 23.3 million. But this
hardly helps - average North Korean per capita income too is a minute fraction
of the South's, with the ROK topping $17,000 while the DPRK's is a paltry $960.
(Some experts, including an ex-unification minister, think even this is too
high. They posit a figure nearer $300, putting North Korea among the poorest
nations on Earth.)
With trade figures we are on firmer ground - and the gap is even wider.
According to BOK, North Korea's merchandise goods trade in 2009 totaled $3.41
billion - a mere 0.5% or one two-hundredth of South Korea's $686 billion. But
this is untrue.
Annoyingly, BOK like other ROK government sources persists in excluding
inter-Korean trade, on the specious ground that this is not foreign. (One might
expect Lee Myung-bak of all people to have gotten rid of this nonsense, just as
one hopes that one of these years BOK will convert its figures to the normal
global units of thousand, million and billion, rather than presenting them in
the Korean man-ok system which uses 10,000 and 100 million to confuse
the unwary foreigner.)
This year, inter-Korean trade will fall, since Seoul has banned most of it
(except the Kaesong zone, which accounts for over half) as punishment for the Cheonan.
Peanuts to the South, this has been crucial for the North. South Korea is its
largest market, taking almost half of its meager total exports. Last year,
inter-Korean trade like DPRK trade overall fell, from $1.82 to $1.68 billion.
Yet Northern exports still crept up slightly, from $932 to $934 million.
Reassembling what BOK perversely separates, in 2009 North Korea's real trade
totals were just under $2 billion in exports and $3.1 billion in imports. They
are still dwarfed by South Korea's respective figures of $364 billion and $324
billion - and remember this was a bad year for the South, due to the downturn;
Seoul's 2008 figures had been $422 and $435 billion.)
One could go on, and BOK does. Sector by sector, it is a similar story. Only in
mining (coal, iron ore) is the North ahead, and then only because most of the
peninsula's minerals lie north of the DMZ. The Chinese are busy buying them,
the more so now that Seoul has withdrawn from the fray, but that is another
story.
Otherwise, the multiples pile up. In 2009, South Korea produced five times more
fertilizer, eight times more cement, 18 times more electricity and 39 times
more steel than the North. It even grew 2.6 times as much rice, and imported
219 times as much crude oil. And so on, and so on.
Every year the gap widens further, yet Kim Jong-il refuses economic reform. It
is hard to fathom a mindset that can inflict such disaster and tragedy on a
once proud land and people - and whose idea of a way out of its self-dug hole
is to fire a sneaky torpedo.
Good losers
In a busy quarter all round, it was left to North Korea's footballers to remind
the world that their country does not lack for talent and virtue. For the first
time ever, both Koreas made it to the finals at the same time to the football
(soccer) World Cup, held in South Africa. Luck of the draw put the DPRK in a
formidable group.
They began quite credibly, going down 2-1 to Brazil on June 15 in a game far
more evenly matched than most had expected, including a brilliant late goal
from Ji Yun-nam. That was the high point. There followed a 7-0 trouncing by
Portugal - who had also knocked their famous predecessors out of the 1966
competition, held in England - and a 3-0 defeat by Ivory Coast. (South Korea
fared better in an easier group; they reached the last 16, only to be knocked
out on June 26 by mighty Uruguay - population 3.5 million.)
As one would expect, North Korea were a disciplined team, a refreshing change
from the petulant prima donnas who rule the modern game. Yet, as in 1966, this
was not at the price of flair, at least on the field. Off-pitch was another
story. The team kept to itself and avoided the press - with one striking
exception.
Jong Tae-se, known as the Asian Wayne Rooney (after England's star forward), is
not your average North Korean. Indeed, his biography and demeanor alike hint at
complexities and subtleties on the ground that the current rulers in Pyongyang
and Seoul alike - to both of which Jong has affiliations - seem to have lost
sight of.
Born in Japan to a South Korean father and a pro-North Korean mother, having
attended schools run by Chongryun - the organization of pro-North Koreans in
Japan - he elected to play for the DPRK; although he still holds South Korean
nationality, lives in Japan and plays in the J-League for Kawasaki Frontale.
A young man whose talk is as uninhibited as his style of play and who wears his
heart on his sleeve, Jong cried when the DPRK anthem was played before the
Brazil match. Yet his love for his adopted homeland is not uncritical.
"Everybody thinks about our country as being closed and mysterious, so we have
to change that," he told Agence-France Presse.
"We can change for the better if we are more open with the way we talk to
people and it would make a better team." And a better country too. If North
Korea's future must rest in the hands of an untried youth, the warm-hearted
Jong Tae-se sounds a safer bet than the spoiled and callow Kim Jong-eun.
Learn from Chun
Putting aside dreams and looking soberly ahead, it is not too soon to ponder
how the Koreas will get past the Cheonan, as eventually they must and
will. There is a precedent for this. It is rare to cite the rightly reviled
dictator Chun Doo-hwan as a model for anything; in another grim anniversary
this quarter, May marked 30 years since the Gwangju massacre in 1980, when
Chun's paratroopers slaughtered hundreds who had risen to defend democracy.
Not a few in South Korea would have cheered if North Korea's notorious attempt
to kill Chun in Yangon in Myanmar three years later had succeeded. As it was,
this flagrant act of terrorism, blowing up a sacred shrine on the soil of a
friendly state - it took 20 years for DPRK-Myanmar relations to recover -
killed 17 innocent senior South Koreans and four Burmese.
Less than a year later Pyongyang goaded Chun again. South Korea suffered
serious floods, which killed 190 and left 200,000 homeless. The North loftily
offered aid. With rare cunning and imagination, Chun said yes - no doubt to Kim
Il-sung's consternation, as he now had to deliver the goods.
So in late 1984 Korea saw the unprecedented spectacle of Northern ships docking
in Southern ports. Other goods - rice, medicine, clothes, cement - were brought
by truck to Panmunjom and handed over. No matter that the medicine was judged
unsafe and quietly warehoused. It was the gesture that counted. This led in
1985 to a year of dialogue, including the first ever family reunions. In the
end the talks foundered, but it was a start.
A Korean proverb often heard during the "Sunshine" era (1998-2007), but no
longer, is Sijaki banida: the first step is half the journey. Patently
it is not. The long and tortuous history of inter-Korean relations has seen
many a first step, but all too few second steps or sustained processes.
If anything, it resembles the board game snakes and ladders. The Cheonan
sinking is an especially long and nasty snake, taking things back almost to
square one. But not quite. The Kaesong zone is still in business and behind
their current standoff both sides now have over 20 years of shared experience
to draw on and learn from - if they so choose.
Might soccer help? On June 16, Lee Myung-bak's aides reported that the
president had got up in the small hours to watch the DPRK play Brazil. His
spokesman said that Lee "wholeheartedly supported the North Korean team and
wished them good luck ... Inter-Korean relations have been worsening since the
sinking of the warship Cheonan, but it is politics. As a compatriot, he
really wanted them to win."
That sounds like an olive branch - or perhaps a tacit admission that Lee has no
clear idea of how to handle the North, as has been apparent ever since he was
elected 30 months ago. The Cheonan makes everything harder, but Lee
faces a choice.
If he deems the North beyond all hope of salvation, then he must devote the
rest of his term to urgently preparing South Korea for the tumult, risk, and
costs of a Northern collapse - for which the South is absolutely not ready, on
any level. Alternatively, if he sees any chance at all of warding off that
calamity, then he and somebody in Pyongyang have to find a way to start talking
again, somehow.
In the wake of June 2's election defeat, Lee is expected to reshuffle his
cabinet before by-elections due on July 28. The portfolios slated for change
include Unification, where the incumbent Hyun In-taek, a hardline professor -
has little to show for his 18 months in the post.
An imaginative choice of a new helmsman at MOU - a ministry that Lee had at
first sought to abolish, tellingly - would send a signal to Pyongyang of a
readiness to try to move forward. The Cheonan must be atoned for, but if
North and South are to find a way out, then sooner or later this tragic crime
will also have to be transcended.
Notes
1. Subsequent to this article being written, on July 9 the United Nations
released a statement condemned the attack as a threat to regional peace and
called for "appropriate and peaceful measures" against those responsible. It
welcomed Seoul's restraint and called for direct talks to settle disputes on
the peninsula peacefully. The UN expressed deep concern at the findings of the
multinational investigation team, but noted the North's denial of
responsibility and did not apportion blame - a result hailed as a "victory" in
Pyongyang.
2. The summary is available
here.
3. For one example, click here.
4. The estimated can be accessed
here.
5. Further details, click here.
Aidan Foster-Carter is honorary senior research fellow in sociology and
modern Korea at Leeds University, and a freelance consultant, writer and
broadcaster on Korean affairs. A regular visitor to the peninsula, he has
followed North Korea for over 40 years.
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