SOUTH KOREA: No Gain in Painful US-Pyongyang Deal

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ahn Mi-Young

SEOUL, Feb 1 2006 (IPS) - Brokering peace between Washington and Pyongyang is no easy task and experts here say that the South Korean government has not made things any easier for itself by being deliberately ambiguous.

In his annual ‘State of the Union’ speech on Tuesday, President George W. Bush cited North Korea as one among several countries that do not have democracy.

Bush, however, steered away from mentioning stalled six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. The talks, involving the two Koreas, the U.S., Japan, China and Russia, were last held in November.

But on Tuesday, Pyongyang warned in a statement that U.S. spying flight over its territory – it alleged 90 in January alone- left the communist country ”with no other option but to bolster its nuclear deterrent for self-defence” .

”There is an old Korean saying that if you try to chase two rabbits running in different directions, you risk losing both,” said international affairs analyst at Korea University, Prof.Yoo Ho-Yeol. ”Trying to please both sides, Seoul seems to be ending up displeasing everybody,” he told IPS.

One of Washington’s beefs is that Seoul has turned ‘ambiguous’ to charges levelled against the North Korean regime that it has a hand in counterfeiting U.S. dollar bills, top-selling cigarette brands and in money laundering operations.

”Why should we mess up the ongoing international drive to bring North Korea back to the six-way talks by taking sides with Washington over an issue that has almost no prospect of being easily and quickly resolved?” a senior official explained, but declined to be named.

Despite such reserve, last week, Pyongyang accused South Korea of bowing to pressure from Washington by accepting ‘’strategic flexibility” with the U.S.

”Seoul government allowed the U.S. to exploit Korean peninsula as a logistics outpost from which the U.S. could launch attack not only to North Korea but also the rest of Asia,” said North Korea’ s state-run committee for reunification of the Korean peninsula.

The government of President Roh Moo-Hyun is said to have waken up and moderated its initial outspoken attitude towards Washington in the better interests of the nation – but at the cost of breeding suspicion across its northern border.

Seoul’s participation in joint military exercises involving U.S forces is a sore point and bound to come up on Friday when the two Koreas sit down at the ‘cold war’s last frontier’ to resume stalled military talks aimed at easing tensions.

Technically, the two Koreas are still at war and North Korea’s demand that South Korea stop joint military exercises with the U.S. is not entirely unjustified.

What Seoul finds hard is the U.S. approach of trying to economically contain an already impoverished North Korea, especially because it runs counter to its own strategy of engaging the North with generous assistance.

In recent months, Seoul has taken a number of steps to please the U.S. such as removing trade hurdles. Despite strong opposition from its farmers, Seoul promised to increase rice imports and resume acceptance of U.S. beef. Local theatres will also soon show more Hollywood films.

However, Seoul is left vexed at the U.S. policy of trying to cripple its communist neighbour by reducing its ability to trade. Roh warned, at a press conference last week, of frictions arising if the U.S. continues to put economic pressure on North Korea.

”I do not agree with the stance of some Americans, if they wish for its (North Korea’s) collapse,” Roh said. ”If the U.S. government tries to resolve the problem in that way, there will be friction and disagreement between South Korea and the U.S.”

Washington’s hardline policies towards North Korea have worried many South Koreans who do not want to see the sudden collapse of their impoverished neighbour.

”If only South Korea could benefit from economic and political cooperation with the U.S. and still be able to stay away from troublesome obligations like the U.S. request to join in actions that could provoke the feelings of North Korea,” said Cha Doo-Hyon, researcher of the state-run Korea Institute for Defence Analyses. ‘’Now we are facing a new harsh reality, where the rule of reciprocity governs us, and South Korea is only one strategic spot for Washington in its global map.”

Washington’s position does not match the relaxed attitude of South Koreans who no longer see North Korea as a security threat. A survey by the state-run Korea Institute for Defence Analyses, involving 1,000 adults in mid- 2005, found 57.0 percent of those polled saying there was little chance of North Korea launching a military attack into South Korea, and 73 percent of them supporting the government’s policy of assisting North Korea.

U.S. hardliners argue that the world has too long tolerated North Korea’s illegal sources of income. According to U.S. government estimates, North Korea pockets up to one billion dollars a year from counterfeiting U.S. greenbacks, trafficking illicit narcotics, smuggling contraband smokes and even peddling fake Viagra.

For its part, Pyongyang has declared that it does not allow ”bad treatment of e people, counterfeiting and drug trafficking,” and warned that it viewed military ties between Seoul and Washington as a sign that “dark clouds of a nuclear war are hanging low over the Korean Peninsula.”

South Korean analysts suspect Washinton’s timing in bringing up issues that date back two decades and at a time when North Korea has agreed to dismantle its nuclear weapons in return for meeting simple demands like energy and food assistance.

North Korea has already become dependent on the international aid to finance its fledgeling economic reforms that started in 2002. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il visited China early January to learn from its giant neighbour’s successful economic reform.

‘’North Korea is trying to learn from China how it has successfully opened up the economy without changing its communist regime,” said Chung Hyung-Geon, a researcher at the state-run Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP). ”But, we must be aware that the more North Korea becomes dependent on China for its economic reform, the less leverage South Korea would be able to exercise commercially and politically towards the North Korea.”

South Korea and China have been the two major business partners and aid donors to North Korea in recent years. North Korea still needs support from Japan and the U.S. if it is to secure energy resources and financial aid needed to improve its industry.

The six-way talks stalled over details on how to implement the general agreement that negotiators entered into last year after Pyongyang agreed, in principle, to dismantle its nuclear weapon programme in return for security guarantees and aid.