You can’t buy love

OPINION:

The recent inter-Korea summit requires damage control, not praise, due to its low potential for developing mutually respectful inter-Korea relations and facilitating constructive engagement with North Korea. Moreover, the cool, cautionary responses of senior U.S. officials reveal concerns regarding the summit’s impact on the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

Constructive engagement by the allies requires wisdom, patience and courage to wean North Korean autocrats away from their internationally threatening and internally dysfunctional methods. What distinguishes constructive engagement from appeasement or exploitation is insistence on such important principles as transparency, verifiability, and mutual benefits.

Assessing mutual benefits is tricky. North Korea’s weak economy and noncompliance with sound international business practices makes it tough for private investors to calculate return on investment. Consequently, U.S. and South Korean government policies should promote measurable North Korean movement toward internationally accepted economic, business and political standards — including transparent audits.

Engaging the North under such principles will promote North Korean learning over time, reduce the risk of moral hazard, and assure South Koreans and Americans that their governments are not inadvertently funding unacceptable North Korean programs. Given the vast gap in North Korean understanding of modern economics and business practices, for example, it will also help lay a foundation for better social harmony that will be essential for a unified Korea.

Unfortunately, the recent summit produced no plausible evidence of such an approach. In part, this is because South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun had an “epiphany” that North Korea’s Chairman Kim Jong-il hates lectures by outsiders about his country’s need for political and economic reforms. So, he declined to explain the importance of such reforms for the functioning of free markets and also, to be frank, for a sustainable, mutually respectful inter-Korea relationship. Instead, Mr. Roh committed South Korea to provide “preferential” (apparently unconditional) economic assistance to the North.

How is North Korea ever going to change for the good if South Korea doesn’t lead by example? For those who embrace unconditional “engagement” on North Korean terms, here’s another epiphany — from The Beatles, no less: You can’t buy love.

More troublesome is the agreement’s language (in Article 4) to end the 1953 Korean War “armistice agreement and build a permanent peace regime.” These important goals must be addressed in consideration of historical truth: North Korea invaded South Korea, making them the major combatants of the Korean War. Sixteen U.N. member countries, including the United States, subsequently formed a United Nations Command to help South Korea. Russia secretly and China overtly helped North Korea.

North Korea, however, still asserts that “U.S. imperialists” started the war. Some South Koreans parrot this propaganda.

Mr. Roh obligated South Korea to work with North Korea in “having the leaders of the three or four parties directly concerned to convene on the peninsula and declare an end to the war [emphasis added].”

Much is wrong with what this ambiguous language says and implies:

(1) Who are the “three or four parties?” We can safely assume the four parties are Pyongyang, Seoul, Washington and Beijing. Turning to the three parties, two most certainly would be Pyongyang and Washington. But who would be the third? Excluding either Seoul or Beijing would exacerbate — not facilitate — resolution. The ambiguity of this important part of the summit declaration is a major red flag regarding the prospect for achieving the stated goal.

(2) Why are Koreans asking foreigners to end their war? To be sure, the United States and China will have supporting roles once the two Koreas resolve the “Korea question.” Since the 1940s, this question essentially has been which Korean government will govern Koreans.

To resolve this question by force, North Korea invaded the South in 1950. An armistice agreement ended hot war in 1953 with the signatories stipulating that the agreement remain in effect until the Korea question is peacefully resolved. Sixty-plus years later, the existence of two competing Korean governments suggests some sort of cross-recognition and normalization as pre-unified Korean governments could be an appropriate solution.

Given that only Koreans can resolve the Korea question, a better but harder approach in the recent summit would have been for the two top Koreans to acknowledge their countries were the major combatants of the Korean War; establish a plausible inter-Korea process to resolve the Korea question (ideally in coordination with their allies); and thus create the conditions to end the armistice agreement. Rather than courageously take this difficult route, however, Mr. Roh linked arms with Mr. Kim to imply that foreigners — i.e. the United States — caused the Korean War. Unbelievable.

To placate Kim Jong-il, South Korea’s president tacitly blamed the one country that did the most to prevent North Korean victory in 1950. How many other Koreans agree with this disturbing perspective? What are the implications for national security and the U.S.-South Korean alliance?

Mr. Roh’s failure to insist on certain reforms to facilitate constructive engagement and his decision to fundamentally substantiate North Korean propaganda prompt the conclusion he is willing to pay any price and obligate his successors for the illusion of better relations with North Korea.

Thus, the summit raises serious concerns that Seoul needs to clarify if it wants approval from objective observers.

Paul Chamberlin is a former U.S. military attache to South Korea and U.S. Army Foreign Area (political-military) officer specializing on Northeast Asia and U.S. relationships with both Koreas. He is business consultant and adjunct fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.