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Gun barrels of an artillery unit in Yeoncheon County

The Park Geun-hye administration’s decision to resume loudspeaker broadcasts into North Korea as of noon on Jan. 8 in response to the country’s fourth nuclear test is being blasted as a strategic blunder.

The key charge is that Seoul is only complicating the international response instead of focusing its energies on stronger coordination through United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions and other international means.

The misstep charges hinge on two related aspects of the loudspeaker broadcast decision. First among them is the South’s status as party to the conflict as one half of a divided Korea. The resumed broadcasts run a major risk of escalating military tensions between the two sides past the breaking point. When the Park administration resumed its first loudspeaker broadcasts in 11 years last August, North Korea responded by declaring a “quasi-state of war” and opening fire. Many experts are now saying the new broadcasts also present the risk of further fire or other localized conflicts. This could shift the current battle lines from being between North Korea and the rest of the international community to being between the South and North. Inter-Korean military frictions and clashes would also result in South Korea’s status slipping from organizer of international coordination on North Korea to a party to the conflict itself, sapping its bargaining strength in the response to the North’s nuclear testing.

“The resumption of loudspeaker broadcasts is a strategic misstep that shifts the focus from a response to the North’s nuclear program to a crisis of antagonism between South and North,” said one former senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Indeed, the international community is already voicing concern. While meeting with reporters after visiting the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier at the US Seventh Fleet’s Yokosuka Base during a recent Japan visit, British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Philip Hammond urged South Korea and “other like-minded countries” in the region to “exercise restraint” and “be bigger” than North Korea.

A second concern is complicating in the international response. If the broadcasts do lead to military clashes between South and North, the result would be an inevitable loss of focus in the international response to the latter’s fourth nuclear test. In particular, South Korea’s sole military ally – the US - and Japan are likely to come out attacking Pyongyang and ratcheting up sanctions, while China and Russia would be inclined to take the opposite course. A situation that could potentially raise frictions between the US and Japan on one side and China and Russia on the other is of no benefit to South Korea.

The Chinese government has consistently responded to the North Korean nuclear issue according to three core principles: denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, peace and stability on the peninsula, and a peaceful resolution through dialogue and negotiation. While Beijing had previously stated its “firm opposition” to North Korea’s nuclear test, its reaction in the immediate wake of the latest test on Jan. 6 did not include wording about “calls for all parties to remain cool-headed and exercise restraint.” It’s a demand that it could start making openly if inter-Korean military tensions do end up increasing.

“If the crisis in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) starts escalating, China and Russia are likely to push for a less harsh UNSC resolution in order to manage the situation on the peninsula,” predicted Inje University professor Kim Yeon-chul.

“Resuming loudspeaker broadcasts is a self-defeating strategy that is certain to have a negative influence on discussions toward UNSC-level sanctions,” Kim added.

A former senior government official similarly predicted the broadcasts would “throw the landscape of UNSC discussions into serious disarray.”

“In particular, they’re going to make it much more difficult to elicit cooperation from the Chinese government,” the former official said.

Many are also calling the broadcasts a “checkmate move” that leaves no way out in terms of inter-Korean relations. In resuming them, Seoul referred to the North’s fourth nuclear test as a “grievous violation” of an agreement previously reached with Pyongyang last Aug. 25. According to that line of reasoning, it has no reason to stop them unless it receives at the very least the North’s apology for the test - and with North Korea claiming such tests as a “self-defensive right,” the likelihood of that is essentially zero. In that sense, the situation is fundamentally different from last August, when, in an agreement forged later that month, Pyongyang was able to have the broadcasts halted by expressing “dismay” over the DMZ mine explosion that triggered them.

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter

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