How Seoul can break peninsula logjam
The beginning of 2018 ushered in an easing of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and relations between stakeholders are rapidly improving, with frequent highlevel interactions between the countries involved in the flashpoint region. However, the ties between North Korea and the US have hit a logjam due to differences on denuclearizing the peninsula. North Korea is expecting a war-ending declaration from the US in return while it works toward denuclearization, yet the latter insists on comprehensive, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization first. Considering the stalemate, the peninsula is likely to convulse with more tensions.
In fact, the push-pull between North Korea and the US comes as the two attempt to gain the upper hand in negotiations. Both sides have realized that there is a price to pay if they are drawn into a confrontation again. For North Korea, failure to denuclearize would result in tougher sanctions and even military actions from the US. While for US President Donald Trump, he could no longer take denuclearization as a diplomatic victory to flaunt domestically and internationally. At a time when North Korea is trying hard to develop the economy, and Trump is taking advantage of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons to shift domestic public attention, both sides are careful in addressing the denuclearization issue.
Yet South Korea, which has been active in easing tensions on the peninsula, now is in two minds. At the very beginning, South Korea indeed played a significant role in bringing the US and North Korea together. But gradually when Washington and Pyongyang started direct communication, South Korea found itself to be merely a passive passenger in the journey.
Worse still, to maintain ties with the US, South Korea had chosen to ignore North Korea’s demand that the joint military exercises between Seoul and Washington be suspended, whereas not long after that the US declared a unilateral moratorium, demonstrating that Washington is the dominant player in US-South Korea relations.
That’s not the only instance when South Korea is caught in a dilemma. South Korea once attempted to exclude China over the issue of war-ending declaration, trying to reach an agreement between the US, North Korea and South Korea. Such measures are all rooted in its fears about the US, which also points at South Korea’s military and diplomatic plight.
How to deal with the US’ reluctant attitude toward the North Korea issue has become an important issue in South Korea’s diplomacy, which needs to be handled with carefully redesigned diplomatic strategy.
Above all, inter-Korean cooperation and consensus are the basis and starting point for Seoul to create new diplomatic opportunities. Currently, the most urgent task is to maintain peace on the peninsula, and it is most crucial to prevent the peninsula from falling into military confrontation again.
Second, it is important for South Korea to balance relations with big powers and inter-Korean ties. The Korean Peninsula issue, to a large extent, reflects the relations between major powers and geopolitics. It is neither realistic nor possible for South Korea to exclude any party concerned. Seoul had better maintain ties with major powers and meanwhile try its best to detach such relations with inter-Korean ones. For instance, if the US were to restart joint military exercises with South Korea, all the improvement made on the peninsula would come to naught. In that case, South Korea should play the role of a firewall, confining the joint military exercise to US-South Korean cooperation and preventing US military intervention from impacting inter-Korean relations. South Korea should also balance relations with major powers and maintain peace through cooperation to avoid taking sides.
Moreover, South Korea needs to work out a better way of communication. Since the beginning of 2018, exchange of opinion over the peninsula issue has been driven by interactions between heads of states. The top-down approach has played an extremely significant role in breaking the stalemate and formed a thinking pattern in addressing the issue. But in addressing detailed problems, a bottom-up approach works better. How to coordinate the two approaches is one of the important issues in South Korean diplomacy.