Asia Times: ANALYSIS: A regional approach to Korean security



	January 13, 2000	atimes.com

The Koreas

ANALYSIS: A regional approach to Korean security
By Hwal-Woong Lee*

1 New overtures

Upon his inauguration in February 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung made new overtures to North Korea that are commonly referred to as the ''sunshine policy''. The policy would do away with the old one, long-followed by his predecessors, of confrontation with North Korea. Instead, the new president would transform the tense relation with the North to a relationship based on reconciliation and cooperation. Furthermore, the new policy would dismantle the Cold War mechanism in favor of a peace structure on the Korean peninsula. Despite anticipated criticisms from conservative elements, Kim's government swears that it will stick to the new policy.

Meanwhile, the United States, in the wake of a North Korean long-range missile test in August 1998, appointed former Defense Secretary William Perry as Special Coordinator on North Korea policy. After strenuous consultations with officials, pundits and experts in the US, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia and a trip to North Korea, Perry released a report in October 1999. His report recommends the following: (1) The US should negotiate with North Korea for its total renunciation of nuclear and missile programs; (2) In reciprocal fashion, the US should, in alliance with South Korea and Japan, gradually reduce pressures against North Korea, normalize relations with it, relax sanctions against it and take other positive steps; (3) If the negotiations fail to produce desired results, the US and the allies should take specific steps to contain the North Korean threat; and (4) The US must not withdraw any of its forces from Korea. Perry expressed his hope that the implementation of these measures, if met with North's positive responses, will result in a secure, stable and prosperous Korean peninsula after decades of insecurity.

2 Windy sunshine policy?

The North's reaction to the new US stand is cautiously responsive. At the end of the talks with the US in Berlin in September 1999, it agreed to refrain from taking any actions detrimental to the atmosphere of bilateral talks. It also formally announced, in response to Washington's partial lifting of decades-long economic sanctions against it, that it will withhold its missile tests as long as high-level talks with Washington are going on. When the first of such talks will take place is not clear yet.

Much to the frustration of Seoul, however, Pyongyang's reaction to the ''sunshine policy'' has been rather negative. After several months of initial silence, Pyongyang called the new policy the simple repetition of the same old one under different wrappings, with an ulterior intention to eventually absorb the North's socialist system into the South's ''corrupt capitalist system''. In a recent statement, Pyongyang demanded Seoul do the following three things as prerequisites for possible North-South dialogue: (1) disassociate itself from the alliance with foreign powers and discontinue conducting joint military exercises with foreign forces; (2) repeal the National Security Law; and (3) do not repress popular movements for national reunification.

Despite some applause and endorsement from within and without, the ''sunshine policy'' has a fundamental limitation. The idea of this policy originates from a story in Aesop's Fables: to make a man take off his coat, stop blowing winds and use sunshine instead. For the ''sunshine policy'' to be effective, therefore, the winds must stop blowing first. Now, what are the winds that are blowing against North Korea? South Korea's rancorous animosity against the North certainly is one. But by far the strongest of all the winds North Korea is afraid of is the threat coming from the perennial presence of the US military in South Korea. Yet, Seoul's ''sunshine policy'', while offering a relaxation of tension coupled with increased economic benefits, emphasizes that its security is to be guaranteed by the presence of US forces in South Korea. This means that the much-touted ''sunshine policy'' is at best a ''windy sunshine policy'' not even warm enough to make North Korea take off its coat of seclusion from the outside world. The Perry Report also unmistakably recommends that the US must not withdraw any of its forces from South Korea, based on the belief that the security in the Korean Peninsula has been safeguarded by the presence of American forces in Korea.

But, one must recognize that the Korean problem persists not because of North Korea's intransigence alone. The hegemonic US policy of keeping its military in South Korea, thereby causing incessant touch-and-go situations vis-a-vis North Korea, is the primary factor contributing to the tension in Korea. Regrettably, both Seoul's ''sunshine policy'' and Washington's Perry Report turn a blind eye toward this crux of the problem. Indeed, the question of US military presence in South Korea is the most crucial point of contention that has to be solved not only for the success of ''sunshine policy'' but also for the reconciliation and cooperation between the two Koreas and the eventual peaceful reunification into one Korea. In South Korea, however, the discussion of this most important subject has been effectively banned under successive authoritative regimes. And it still remains so even under the present Kim Dae-jung regime, although it claims itself to be democratic. The ruling elite in South Korea is still dead set against repealing, or even revising, the notorious National Security Law, which outlaws any expression of opinions sympathetic or analogous to North Korean views, such as demanding the withdrawal of US forces.

3 Positive vs Passive Security

When a country deems another country its adversary or potential enemy and chooses to take a confrontational stance against it, it becomes absolutely important to establish and maintain an adequate security system. Such a system will consist of either one or some combination of the following: (1) building up a military force stronger than the potential enemy; (2) securing strong retaliatory means, which would effectively discourage the enemy's will to strike first; and (3) forming a military alliance with another strong country or countries if the aforementioned two measures are either unattainable or insufficient. In the Korean peninsula, the position of the US is case (1), South Korea's position is the combination of (1) and (3), and North Korea's is case (2).

When such confrontation and the resulting arms build-up and formation of alliances are left unchecked, the tension between the two sides could escalate to the point of explosion. It is also possible, however, that such a tense situation arising from confrontation would be sustained for some time without developing into actual military engagements. In the case of Korea, for example, there have been no actual military conflicts, except for some minor skirmishes, for the past 46 years since the signing of the armistice agreement. There are people who consider such a situation as the maintenance of peace. Many US policymakers consider that the peace in Korea has been safeguarded by the presence of US forces in the South. Some South Koreans also share such a view.

The security maintained under such a setup is at best ''a security on a tinderbox''. It does not produce a genuine peace. It is a negative or passive security. Above all, people in North Korea are never able to live in peace under the constant threat from US soldiers in the South. The one-man or one-party dictatorship of the Pyongyang regime, under which North Koreans have been living with severe political, economic and social strains, is being enforced and persevered with allegedly in order to counter the menace from U.S. forces in the South. North Korea, therefore, has had to spend a substantial amount of money in order to build up and maintain its military strength, including weapons of mass destruction programs, even though its people were reportedly dying of hunger. This is a stark expression of Pyongyang's determination to defend its system, in which it believes even at the expense of the lives of many people.

The situation in the South is different but not much better. Although it has lately improved slightly, the people in the South have been living under inescapable constraints arising from the fear of the North. This made them keep American soldiers there at high cost and have an American general exercise wartime commanding authority over their own military forces, an act tantamount to the repudiation of their own sovereignty. They are even forced to tolerate the violation of their law enforcement system in which American soldiers can commit crimes against Koreans and leave the country unscathed as the US refuses to recognize South Korea's right to punish them. Also, the South Korean people have had to endure many decades of oppression and tribulations under military dictatorship, which tactically manipulated them by inflating the threat from the North. The seemingly incurable and widespread political corruption and social injustice in South Korea have been left uncontrolled and thriving in the hotbed of an absolute and irrational anti-North Korea policy. The recent IMF crisis was very much an inevitable outcome of the accumulation of such corruption and injustice. One cannot call such a situation ''peace''.

Security and peace in a real sense should be sought after and realized by reducing or eliminating the state of confrontation with the adversary that constitutes the source of fear. A security maintained chiefly by a predominant military strength by one side, therefore, is not a genuine security because it causes fear and insecurity to the opposite side. In a genuine security or positive security, both sides should feel secure. The best way of realizing a positive security is to materialize a situation where the enemy is no longer an enemy and the adversary has become a friend.

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