By SHI YONGMING

Road to Reconciliation

By SHI YONGMING

Reunification, maritime borders and nuclear concerns continue to strain inter-Korean relations

COURTESY OF SHI YONGMING

Relations across the 38th Parallel recently sank to a record low since the Cold War ended. On March 26, the South Korean corvette Cheonan exploded while on patrol near the contested sea border with North Korea. After a multinational investigation, Seoul announced that the warship was torpedoed by a North Korean submarine. Regarding the incident as an offensive attack, it vowed to take “resolute measures”against North Korea. Pyongyang, however, rejected the charge, saying the incident was a plot orchestrated by Seoul.

The complex relationship between North Korea and South Korea is a legacy of the Cold War. Despite their strong aspirations for reunification, the two sides recognized the status quo as they joined the UN simultaneously when the Cold War ended. Their relationship has since become a relationship between two equal states from a legal point of view, but neither side is willing to accept separation in the long term. As a result, achieving reunifcation and getting along with each other before reunifcation have become critical questions for both sides. These two questions, coupled with the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, have greatly affected Pyongyang-Seoul ties during past years.

Years of change

After the end of World War II, the Korean Peninsula, which had long been colonized by Japan, faced the crucial task of establishing an independent state. Against the backdrop of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union intervened in the process, with each backing one of the two conficting political forces on the peninsula, which led to the peninsula’s separation. At that time, both sides intended to achieve reunifcation by force. In this sense, the Korean War in the 1950s was almost inevitable. The war ended with an armistice instead of a peace agreement, partly because the two sides did not recognize each other’s legitimacy.

In the 1970s, the idea of peaceful re-unification gained currency on the Korean Peninsula. Following secret contacts in 1971, the two sides issued the South-North Joint Communiqué on July 4, 1972, establishing three principles for reunification—independence, peaceful reunification and great national unity.

Although the principles paved the way for rapprochement between North Korea and South Korea, mistrust remained. South Korea, most notably, has always been swinging between reconciliation and a hard-line policy, and between equal reunifcation and reunifcation led by South Korea, rendering its relations with North Korea unstable.

South Korea’s policy adjustments led to the two warmest periods for bilateral relations. The frst came at the end of the Cold War when South Korea started to move toward democracy. Roh Tae Woo, the first democratically elected South Korean president, adopted the Nordpolitik, or “northern policy,” while pledging to achieve reconciliation and reunification on the Korean Peninsula. This positive gesture ushered in a new era of bilateral relations, marked by the signing of the Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-aggression, Exchanges and Cooperation in December 1991.

The second was during the administrations of Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun from 1998 to 2008. The two presidents’policies toward North Korea demonstrated continuity, with both focusing on reconciliation. While Kim Dae Jung advocated the Sunshine Policy, Roh pursued a “policy for peace and prosperity.” Each held a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Both summits produced historic agreements that reaffrmed the three principles of 1972.

During the administration of Kim Young Sam from 1993 to 1998 between the two warmest periods, however, Pyongyang-Seoul relations underwent fluctuations. On the one hand, the planned South-North summit failed to materialize because of the death of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung in 1994. On the other, Kim Young Sam proposed a three-stage formula for reunifcation. Despite its merits, the formula calls for “democratic reunifcation,” causing suspicion from North Korea.

On taking offce in 2008, South Korean President Lee Myung Bak put forward a new vision for inter-Korean relations: South Korea was willing to provide economic assistance to help North Korea to achieve a $3,000 per-capita income if Pyongyang gave up its nuclear weapons and offered greater transparency. He held reservations about the South-North Joint Declaration signed at the 2000 summit, while rejecting the Declaration on the Advancement of South-North Korean Relations, Peace and Prosperity adopted at the 2007 summit. He also vowed to review a series of agreements reached between North Korea and South Korea. As a result, intergovernmental exchanges between the two sides were suspended, giving rise to tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Lee later adjusted his policy by stressing “mutual benefts and co-prosperity,” while pursuing “reunifcation on the basis of free democracy.” Considered as revisiting Kim Young Sam’s policy, it was met with strong opposition from North Korea.

Lee Myung Bak’s policies have led relations between North Korea and South Korea from strategic reconciliation to sus-picion and confrontation. In this context, little wonder then the Cheonan incident proved a highly sensitive issue.

SPEAKING UP: Pak Rim Su (center), head of the Policy Bureau of North Korea’s National Defense Commission, says at a Pyongyang press conference on May 28 that North Korea did not have anything to do with the sinking of Cheonan

Points of contention

SALVAGING: A floating crane lifts the stern of the sunken warship Cheonan to place it on a barge on April 15

Forging a consensus on the political principles on reunifcation is one of the basic preconditions to peaceful relations between North Korea and South Korea. Without this, disputes would easily escalate into severe conficts.

Take the demarcation of the sea border off the west coast of the Korean Peninsula for example. The 1953 armistice, while establishing a land military demarcation line between North Korea and South Korea, failed to delimit the sea border. Since islands in this area, including the Baengnyeong Island, are under South Korean control, the United States unilaterally drew a Northern Limit Line near Baengnyeong Island. North Korea did not accept the line. It instead proposed another sea borderline.

Following the adoption of the Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-aggression, Exchanges and Cooperation in 1991, the two sides went on to sign an annex to the agreement that included a provision about the Northern Limit Line. It said the two sides should not cross the line until a new sea border is established. Based on this provision, South Korea assumes North Korea has accepted the Northern Limit Line.

But the agreement reiterated in its preamble the three basic principles of reunifcation set forth in the 1972 Joint Communiqué, while “recognizing that their relationship, not being a relationship as between states, is a special one constituted temporarily in the process of unifcation.”

In the chapter on reconciliation, it said the two sides should recognize and respect the political systems of each other, should not interfere in each other’s internal affairs and should not slander or defame each other.

Given North Korea has accused Lee Myung Bak’s policies of violating these central provisions of the agreement, the annex, of course, no longer makes sense to Pyongyang. That’s why North Korea has reacted by nullifying the agreement.

The nuclear issue has been one of the major issues straining relations between North Korea and South Korea. While the two sides sought reconciliation after the Cold War, the United States, however, used the nuclear issue to hinder progress in inter-Korean relations.

Former George W. Bush administration scrapped the U.S.-North Korea Framework Agreement signed in 1994 to address the latter’s nuclear program as well as the normalization of bilateral relations. It attempted to force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program in a thorough and irreversible way with a tough policy. The policy, however, prompted North Korea to conduct a nuclear test in 2006.

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak also took a hard-line stance, only to be rewarded with another nuclear test by North Korea in 2009.

Since the outbreak of the Cheonan incident, the United States and South Korea have almost ignored the nuclear issue. They instead engaged themselves in deliberating retaliation measures and sanctions and showing off military clout—actions that can only aggravate tensions. To date, the parties have yet to come up with any viable solutions. South Korea, moreover, has turned down North Korea’s demand to examine evidence collected in the multinational investigation.

At the Asia Security Conference in Singapore in late May, defense ministers called on the parties not to resolve the current crisis on the Korean Peninsula through confrontation. To avoid new conficts, leaders of both sides should continue to seek reconciliation—an approach that not only serves the interests of the two countries but also is conducive to the resolution of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue.

The author is an associate research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies