hankyoreh

By Kim Kyu-won, staff writer

“Game changing.”

This was the word North Korea experts used to describe the recent volley of hard-line statements between Seoul and Pyongyang. Analysts suggested the situation may be a replay of previous instances where the Lee Myung-bak administration took a hard line on North Korea in an effort to “change the game,” only to have a concerned Pyongyang come back with even more provocative statements.

The barrage of strong words from Lee began with a radio broadcast on Apr. 16, shortly after the general election. At the time, Lee said, “the US$850 million spent on the missile launch could have bought 2.5 million tons of corn, the North Korean food shortfall for the past six years.” He also said, “In preventing itself from receiving 240,000 tons of nutritional aid by backing out of the North Korea-United States agreement [reached on Feb. 29], it basically took food away from its people.”

He followed this up with remarks made on an Apr. 19 visit to the Agency for Defense Development in Daejeon, where he said South Korea “can deter enemy provocations when it is strong. Then [North Korea] can’t behave rashly.”

Coinciding with the visit was the Ministry of National Defense’s sudden unveiling of the latest Hyeonmu-2 and Hyeonmu-3 missiles, which had been under wraps until then.

Lee continued his strong remarks at an Apr. 20 special talk for the Institute for Unification Education’s advanced unification policy program at the inter-Korean talks headquarters in Seoul’s Jongno district. There, he referenced last year‘s popular uprisings in the Arab world while speaking about freedom and human rights for North Koreans, saying, “A long-term dictatorship cannot be sustained as you enter the information age.” This was the first time since the Kim Dae-jung administration that a South Korean president explicitly used the term “dictatorship” in connection with North Korea.

Pyongyang responded with a flurry of vehement denunciations. An Apr. 19 statement by a spokesperson for North Korea’s Korean Committee of Space Technology referred to Lee as a “rat” for the first time. On Monday, the Korean People’s Army Supreme Command mentioned the policy of military provocation with an announcement that “special actions by revolutionary military forces will be initiated shortly.”

Senior government figures chimed in with their own hard-line rhetoric. A senior diplomat from the South Korean embassy in Washington DC said on Apr. 16 that “the situation so far has been one of South Korea and the US reacting to a game scripted by North Korea, with the nuclear programs and missiles, and we’re looking into changing this.”

The diplomat made reference to the “game change” theory reportedly used by Barack Obama in his 2008 presidential run. Analysts interpreted these remarks as meaning that Seoul would be seizing the initiative in inter-Korean relations and speaking out actively on North Korea’s problems. Senior presidential secretary for foreign affairs and national security Chun Young-woo, who assists Lee with his North Korea policy, said at an Institute for National Security Strategy round table Monday that North Korea had a “theocratic and hereditary regime where Kim Il-sung is the religious leader.”

Chun also said, “At some point, North Korea will arrive at a critical point where it has no choice but to change.”

Speaking in a telephone interview with the Hankyoreh, Chun said, “Judging from what [North Korea] has done as soon as it had a new leader, with the missile and whatnot, there don’t appear to be any signs of a change.”

“We’ll have to watch how things go, but if North Korea doesn’t change and engages in additional provocations, we’ll have fewer and fewer choices available,” he added.

Experts voiced concern about the situation. Yonsei University professor Moon Chung-in said, “Not only has there been no change from the thinking the Lee administration showed when it first began, but it’s gotten more intense.”

Moon said it was likely the administration would stick to its hard-line policies for the duration of its term, owing to domestic political factors such as corruption scandals implicating associates of the president.

"Even the US and China, which could potentially check the intense confrontation between North and South, would have a hard time taking action because of North Korea’s rocket launch,” Moon said.

“There doesn’t appear to be any solution in sight,” he added.

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