hankyoreh

In the context of relations between North and South Korea over the past few years, the agreement reached during high-level talks on Aug. 25 represents a notable change.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye exhibited flexibility inside the policy framework of a conservative establishment that takes a hard line on North Korea. One can conclude that various factors played a role, including the fact that inter-Korean relations remained stagnant even after half of Park’s term in office had passed and that she needed more latitude in external relations.

But the even bigger question is what North Korea‘s intentions are. During the nearly four years that Kim Jong-un has been in power, this was the first notable agreement that his government had reached, with South Korea or some other country.

This agreement served both to keep a crisis in check and to pursue strategic goals. The ramifications of the agreement will probably have a significant effect on North Korea’s choices in the future.

North Korea is in some ways a weak country, the weakest in its vicinity. And from North Korea’s perspective, most of its neighbors are somewhat hostile.

Generally speaking, there are four ways that a weak group can respond to a strong group that continues to challenge its identity.

The first way is assimilation: treating the strong group as the standard and adapting to it. While a weak group could deliberately choose this as a strategy, it is more common for the weak group to have no choice in the matter. This is because strong groups have a tendency of directly or indirectly pursuing the assimilation of weak groups.

The second way is resistance: engaging in a struggle with the explicit goal of counteracting the influence of the strong group. This is bound to be a difficult course of action, and there is no guarantee of success.

The third way is compromise: finding the middle way between assimilation and resistance. This can sometimes devolve into opportunism, but careful moderation can be a practical means of maintaining one’s own identity while forging a cooperative relationship with the strong group.

The fourth and last way is dissimilation and withdrawal. Dissimilation is the exact opposite of assimilation in the sense that it means extricating oneself from the system led by the strong group and pursuing a new identity. When successful, this results in withdrawal.

Since dissimilation generally provokes pressure from the strong group, it is often accompanied by resistance. The best example of dissimilation in the contemporary world is the Islamic State (IS).

North Korea has also followed a course of dissimilation, though not to the same degree as the Islamic State. The North Korean regime refers to this as “our own way.” The North regards its nuclear weapons program as the means of defending its course.

When it is not a small community but an entire country that is at stake, dissimilation is extremely difficult. Since it means pursuing a separate course of isolation at a time when the whole world is inextricably connected, it is harder than resistance by several orders of magnitude.

This is even more the case for a country like North Korea that is located at a geopolitical crossroads. The more time passes, the greater its contradictions will inevitably become.

This is illustrated in how the Soviet Union - the best example of dissimilation in recent history - ultimately failed to maintain its regime.

This is why North Korea needs alternatives. Without anywhere else to turn, North Korea has been persistently seeking to improve its relations with South Korea since last year. The culmination of those efforts was the Aug. 25 agreement.

In and of itself, that agreement will not serve for long. After a certain point, exchange and cooperation between North and South Korea will begin to conflict with international sanctions against North Korea and collide with the issue of North Korea‘s nuclear program.

North Korea is fully aware of this. That is why, if North Korea faithfully pursues the Aug. 25 agreement, it cannot help changing its course of action. North Korea will have to choose the way of compromise. That’s also the way of cooperation. Another way of saying this is opening the doors to the world.

Inter-Korean relations will provide the leverage for North Korea to open up in more significant and diverse ways. There has already been a significant amount of internal reform, which goes hand in hand with liberalization. Most recent visitors to North Korea say that the North Korean people and regime are becoming similar to other parts of the world.

This is not the first time that North Korea has attempted to reform and open up. This attempt was even clearer in the first half of the 2000s during the regime of Kim Jong-il. But it could not overcome the resistance of powerful vested interests and made little progress until the death of Kim Jong-il, which rocked the entire regime.

At the same time, a new generation was growing up in North Korea, a generation that had experienced the market economy and had opened its eyes to the outside world. This was the generation of the jangmadang, a North Korean word for unofficial marketplaces. This is the generation that backs Kim Jong-un’s brand of reform and liberalization.

North Korea is anxious about where to go, how to get there, and how long it will take. South Korea needs to support North Korea so that it can throw open the doors and come outside. Similarly, the way of compromise and cooperation may not always be the right way, but it is the most practical choice for South Korea.

If North Korea locks the door once again, the terrible vision hovering before my eyes is the Islamic State.

By Kim Ji-suk, editorial writer

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]