Should Kim Jong-un be invited to ASEAN-Korea summit?
This is the third in a series of interviews with ASEAN ambassadors on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of ASEAN-South Korea relations. — ED.
With a little more than three months left before the ASEAN-ROK Commemorative Summit in Busan, the question of inviting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is becoming trickier to answer than last year.
The prospect for peace on the Korean Peninsula was brighter in November 2018 when Indonesian President Joko Widodo brought up the idea of inviting Kim during his meeting with President Moon Jae-in.
The 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) still “have no objection to the idea,” according to Thai Ambassador to South Korea Singtong Lapisatepun.
“That’s something we agreed upon at the foreign ministerial level,” he told The Korea Times recently, in reference to the discussion among ASEAN foreign ministers in June when they were at the 34th ASEAN Summit held in Bangkok.
But North Korea’s return to missile tests this year is reminiscent of its choreographed cycle of charm offensives then provocations, calling its commitment to denuclearization into question.
The Thai ambassador regarded Kim’s three summits with U.S. President Donald Trump from June 2018 to June 2019, plus the three KimMoon meetings last year, as inadequate to justify Kim’s possible invitation to the Busan summit.
“DPRK still has many things to prove when it comes to denuclearization,” Lapisatepun said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “And we (ASEAN and South Korea) don’t want to send a wrong signal by inviting its leader and make DPRK think ‘Oh, everybody welcomes us so we don’t have to do anything.’
“If the situation was going on the right track, it would be the case (to invite Kim). But we don’t really know. It’s not easy to understand the DPRK leader.”
He reckoned it is appropriate for South Korea to finalize the decision on extending an invitation to Kim, as the host of the summit with ASEAN.
The Busan summit is scheduled from Nov. 25 to 26, inviting all 10 ASEAN leaders to celebrate 30 years of ASEAN-South Korea relations.
Thailand, according to Lapisatepun, finds the 30th anniversary especially meaningful because it coincides with the country’s ASEAN chairmanship for a rotating, oneyear term since November 2018.
The two sides held summits in 2009 and 2014 to mark the 20th and 25th anniversaries of their relations.
“This summit will provide the Republic of Korea (ROK) and ASEAN member states an opportunity to review their past accomplishments and also to exchange ideas and visions in order to set the tone and direction of our dialogue relations going forward,” Lapisatepun said.
He speculated ASEAN will have more to cooperate with South Korea over the North’s denuclearization than any other cooperative regional bloc around the world.
He underlined all 10 ASEAN countries have diplomatic relations with the North, share a “similar way of Asian thinking” and, because of regional proximity, are more sensitive and more cooperative in tackling Pyongyang’s military threats.
The interests of each ASEAN country and South Korea are intertwined with the U.S. and China.
Lapisatepun reckoned this accordingly makes the two former groups work more closely together as they strive to maintain a balanced relationship amid the Washington-Beijing rivalry.
“(South) Korea as a dialogue partner of ASEAN could take into account the similarity of our situation and perhaps enhance cooperation in areas which are needed to mitigate the effects,” he said.
Sustainability partnership
Regarding the 30th anniversary, the ambassador speculated the third commemorative summit will help address the theme for 2019 ASEAN chairmanship — “Advancing Partnership for Sustainability” — and how ASEAN and South Korea can enhance cooperation accordingly.
The theme is aimed at propelling ASEAN into a digital, seamless and sustainable bloc, by enhancing partnerships with other countries.
“And South Korea can fit into our theme,” Lapisatepun said, adding its capacity in the digital and IT sector as well as its commitment to sustainable development “perfectly complement ASEAN’s efforts.”
“I am confident that (South) Korea will continue to be ASEAN’s valued partner in the future for much longer than the next 30 years,” he added.
Among the notable achievements so far are inclusion of the ASEAN Centre of Military Medicine (ACMM) in Thailand as a subsidiary body under ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting, launch of the Disaster Emergency Logistics System for ASEAN (DELSA) Satellite Warehouse, also in Thailand, and adoption of the Bangkok Declaration on Combating Marine Debris in ASEAN Region.
The ACMM is to foster practical and effective cooperation among the military medical services of ASEAN and its dialogue partners.
The DELSA warehouse in Thailand is a part of ASEAN’s plan to better respond to disasters in the region by building corresponding facilities across Southeast Asia.
The Bangkok Declaration is to combat marine debris by strengthening relevant laws and regulations as well as by promoting the principle of the so-called 3Rs — reduce, reuse and recycle.
Lapisatepun noted such achievements were made possible by building on last year’s achievements led by Singapore’s chairmanship under the theme — “Resilient and Innovative.”
He also thanked Brunei, as a country coordinator for the ASEAN-ROK Dialogue Relations, for helping forging closer relations between ASEAN and the ROK.
In relation to President Moon’s signature New Southern Policy, Thailand has been trying to woo South Korean investment in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC).
The EEC is an axis of industrial estates southeast of Bangkok. It is also Thailand’s flagship project in line with its ambitious 20-year strategy introduced in 2018 — Thailand 4.0 — to transform the Southeast Asian kingdom into a tech-centric economy.
The latest cooperation with South Korea was a partnership between Kamnoetvidya Science Academy (KVIS) — a secondary school in the EEC nurturing students for mathematics, science, engineering and technology — and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), one of the top engineering schools here.
A delegation from the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation also visited South Korea.
The ministry was formed in May 2019 to focus on post-secondary education exclusively in relation to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The delegates met with executives from Hanyang University and other schools with strong engineering programs and explored their interests toward opening campuses in the EEC.
The primary targets of the EEC are still the Korean enterprises. And those affiliated with next-generation technology, such as electric cars and autonomous vehicles are welcomed regardless of their sizes, according to Lapisatepun.
To cope with South Korea’s ASEAN investment heavily concentrated in Vietnam, Lapisatepun underscored a need for “two-way efforts” for promotional campaigns.
For instance, South Korea can diversify programs to raise investment opportunities for each of the 10 ASEAN members on hand while the Royal Thai Embassy in Seoul, jointly with the Seoul branches of the Department of International Trade Promotion and Thailand Board of Investment, can introduce more investment destinations in the kingdom.