Korea's Two North-South Summits and the Future of Northeast Asia: Back to the Future
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Volume 6 | Issue 9 | Article ID 2873 | Sep 01, 2008 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Korea's Two North-South Summits and the Future of Northeast Asia: Back to the Future Bruce Cumings Korea’s Two North-South Summits and the Today we also have the spectacle of a new Future of Northeast Asia:Back to the Korean administration trying to cozy up to the Future United States by invoking a hard line on North Korea, even as President Bush himself has Bruce Cumings given up that hard line, and talking about “ten lost years” as if this will sound good in This is a revised version of a paper that was Washington, but without a lot of apparent prepared for the Conference inthought given to Bush’s unpopularity (the Commemoration of the June 15 South-North lowest rating of any president since modern Joint Declaration, Kim Dae Jung Peace Center polling began), or the likelihood that the next Seoul, June 12, 2008. American president will not be a Republican. This will sound like a partisan statement, but A major purpose of this conference is to take sometimes one political leader has a grip on stock of the June 2000 summit with the benefit realities and another one does not, and I think of eight years of hindsight, also to examine the this is one of those cases. Everywhere else in achievements of the October 2007 summit, and the world people are counting the days until to assess where we are today in relations with this failed Bush administration leaves North Korea. My perspective is obviously an Washington—but not in the Blue House. Newly- American one, and I am deeply interested in inaugurated President Lee Myung Bak could where Korean affairs might go after the barely contain himself in his haste to meet inauguration of a new American president only Bush and confront Pyongyang—and meanwhile eight months from now. But I am afraid I Bush had turned away from his hard line on sometimes overestimate American influence on North Korea. Korean affairs. I think recent years have demonstrated that when Korean leaders want The 2000 Summit something badly enough, and stick to their policies and principles, they can directly or We are here to commemorate President Kim indirectly influence American leaders toward Dae Jung’s far-reaching changes in North adopting similar policies. And so I want to Korea policy that culminated in the Pyongyang make one major point that I will come back to Summit of June 2000, where the two Korean in the end: Presidents Kim Dae Jung and Roh heads of state shook hands for the first time Moo Hyun persisted with their engagement since the country’s division in 1945. In my policy toward Pyongyang through five years of judgment as an historian President Kim did intense American pressure, criticism, and more to change policy toward the North than provocation, and ultimately were vindicated any previous South Korean or American when the Bush administration turned 180 president, in spite of Seoul facing a far greater degrees and also adopted an engagement immediate threat than anyone else. At his policy. Why this happened is still something of inauguration in February 1998 President Kim a mystery, but it certainly did happen. pledged to “actively pursue reconciliation and 1 6 | 9 | 0 APJ | JF cooperation” with North Korea, and declared foreign troops on its territory—unlike most of his support for Pyongyang’s attempts to better the East European communist regimes in 1989; relations with Washington and Tokyo—in (2) because the North has always been an anti- complete contrast with his predecessors, who colonial or anti-imperial nationalist entity as chafed mightily at any hint of suchwell as a communist state, and the indigenous rapprochement. Kim Dae Jung explicitlyor Korean nationalist elements of the regime rejected “unification by absorption” (which was have been particularly strong since the 1960s; the de facto policy of his predecessors), and in and (3) because the two Koreas fought a war effect committed Seoul to a prolonged period of against each other, unlike the two Germanys, peaceful coexistence, with reunification put off and this makes their relations very different, for twenty or thirty more years. He became the and makes the conflicts between them very first Korean president to call for an end to the hard to resolve. Asian communism in Korea, many American economic embargos against the China and Vietnam was fertilized with the North in June 1998, during a visit toblood of anti-colonial nationalism, as the Washington. literateur Chong In-bo often told American 60 years ago, and that is the basic reason why the North Korea waited a year to test Kim Dae Asian communist governments of North Korea, Jung’s resolve, and a couple of submarines and China and Vietnam remain in power. several dead infiltrators washed up on the South Korean coast—suggesting that hardliners Nick Eberstadt of the American Enterprise might be trying to disrupt North-SouthInstitute has distinguished himself by getting relations. But by mid-1999 it was apparent that this exactly backwards for the past eighteen Pyongyang viewed President Kim’s “sunshine years, ever since his June 25, 1990 Wall Street policy” as a major change in South Korea’s Journal editorial titled “The Coming Collapse of position. Its attitude toward Washington also North Korea.” But he is hardly alone: this has began changing. Long determined to get the been a Beltway consensus through three U.S. out of Korea, it appeared that at least administrations. So far the North has not some North Korean leaders want American collapsed, and so I must have been right about troops to stay on the peninsula, to deal with North Korea. But history has a way of changed international power relationscontradicting everyone's favorite beliefs; that’s (especially a strong Japan and a strong China), why Hegel wrote of the cunning of history. The and to help Pyongyang through its current point is that President Kim’s policy effectively economic difficulties. dealt with this reality: nine years after the Berlin Wall fell, the North had not collapsed, The Sunshine Policy came from President Kim’s and had to be dealt with “as it is.” After a major long study of the North-South problem, and reevaluation of U.S. policy toward the North in from a recognition that NK wouldn’t collapse 1998-99, William Perry’s report on this process and therefore had to be dealt with “as it is,” said the same thing. rather than as we would like it to be. One of the few virtues of getting older is to see whether A second element of realism was this: Kim Dae one's predictions are any good or not. Since the Jung came to believe that North Korea does not East European regimes fell in 1989-90, many oppose a continuing U.S. troop presence in experts have predicted the collapse of North Korea if Washington were to pursue Korea. Since that time I have argued that North engagement with Pyongyang rather than Korea will not collapse for three reasons: (1) confrontation (U.S. troops would continue to be the primary reason is its independent army of useful in policing the border, i.e. the DMZ, in great numerical strength, and the absence of assuring that the South’s superior armed forces 2 6 | 9 | 0 APJ | JF don’t swallow the North, and in keeping Japan dictatorships that afflicted the ROK from 1961 and China at bay). At the summit Kim Jong Il onward, and second because the presence of confirmed this view, telling Kim Dae Jung these troops made any real change in North- directly that he did not necessarily oppose the South relations impossible. But the ROK is now continuing stationing of U.S. troops ina democracy, the Sunshine Policy has been Korea—what is required is for the US to play successful, the US opened many-sided talks the role of “honest broker” between the two with the North, and so Koreans in both South Koreas. and North can look upon the U.S. as a guarantor of Korean security vis-à-vis China, Russia and Japan. Anyway, this is not a question of right and wrong, but a question of whether the current situation is preferable to the endless conflicts and divisions of Cold War policy--and I think it clearly is much more preferable, and from a realpolitik standpoint, this is a security strategy that works to satisfy both American and Korean security concerns. It is also a strategy that could envision or accommodate a reunified Korea without requiring major changes in security structures. Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, August We could not say that about previous South 2000 Korean or American policies. Whether Koreans will want American troops to remain for many In this sense, President Kim’s proposalsmore decades is another question, of course, constituted the first serious attempt in 50 years but it is a question for Koreans to decide. In to achieve North-South reconciliation within any case, these two principles constitute the the existing Northeast Asian security structure. realpolitik core of “sunshine,” a strategy often They also envisioned a way for the U.S. to derided as naïve. retain its security commitment even after unification (Secretary of Defense William The sharp changes in North Korea policy Cohen said in June 1998 that the U.S. wanted accomplished by Kim Dae Jung and the Clinton to keep troops in Korea after unification), and administration were immediately challenged by thus maintain a balance of power between George W.