[News analysis] Come to the friendly South? Pres. Park’s fixation on North Korean collapse

Posted on : 2016-10-23 08:53 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Unlike previous South Korean presidents, Park has openly speculated about the end of the North Korean regime
Come to the warm South!
Come to the warm South!

There’s a scene in the film “Gyeongju” by director Zhang Lu (released in June 2014) when a university professor surnamed Park is having a drink with a guy he met randomly. When Park learns that his drinking partner (named Choi Hyeon) is a professor of international relations at China’s Peking University who is well-versed in issues in Northeast Asia, he asks how much longer the Kim Jong-un regime in North Korea will last. At first, Choi smiles broadly without answering. But after Park presses him, Choi at last responds: “100 years.”

Being quite drunk at the time, Park loses his temper. “Are you mocking me because I’m a professor at a backwater university? If someone asks a serious question, you ought to give a serious answer instead of just blowing it off with a joke,” Park says. At that, the smile slips from Choi’s face and he answers once more: “I’m being serious. 100 years.”

Zhang Lu is the director of “Dooman River,” a film that candidly depicts the harsh lives of ethnic Koreans in China and North Koreans, who sometimes help each other and sometimes squabble, with the Tumen River between them (spelled “Dooman” in the film’s title).

If “100 years” is the conclusion reached by Zhang Lu, a third-generation Chinese Korean and a former professor and novelist, then Park’s question about how long Kim Jong-un regime will last could be described as the dark side of the theory of North Korean regime collapse that pervades South Korean society. It is fair to see Choi and Park’s dialogue as Zhang Lu’s satire on this narrative of regime collapse.

Over and over again, like a broken record

Two years have passed since I watched this movie, but I was suddenly reminded of the scene by South Korean President Park Geun-hye. During her address on Armed Forces’ Day on Oct. 1, Park urged North Koreans to “come to the land of freedom in the Republic of Korea at any time.” Park made similar remarks on Oct. 13 during a conversation about unification with the overseas members of the National Unification Advisory Council: “An increasing number of North Koreans are coming to the South, and defections are even occurring among the North Korean elite and army, where there is despair about the current situation in the North. We will open up every route and welcome the North Korean people to the Republic of Korea so that they can freely achieve their dreams and pursue happiness.”

There has been a rapid increase in the frequency and intensity of propaganda that amounts to ‘defect to the South, and we’ll treat you well.’ That’s something that none of the five previous presidents (Roh Tae-woo [1988-1993], Kim Young-sam [1993-1998], Kim Dae-jung [1998-2003], Roh Moo-hyun [2003-2008] and Lee Myung-bak [2008-2013]) said since North and South adopted the basic agreement in Dec. 1991 in which they promised to acknowledge and respect each other’s governments and not to meddle in each other’s internal affairs.

“We must be completely prepared to make an institutional response even to unexpected situations that could occur inside North Korea,” Park said during her Armed Forces’ Day address. There is also no precedent for a South Korean president simultaneously mentioning “rapid change” in North Korea and urging North Koreans to “come to the South.”

Park’s recent comments appear to reflect a disturbing combination of the ideas that the North Korean regime will collapse and that unification will occur through the sudden absorption of the North into South Korea. This is a violation of Article 66, Paragraph 3, of the South Korean Constitution, which obligates the president “to pursue sincerely the peaceful unification of the homeland.”

Most importantly, Park’s assessment that defections have rapidly increased is not factual. According to the latest statistics from the Unification Ministry, 894 North Koreans have entered the South between January and August of this year. This is certainly not comparable to 2009, when the number of defectors peaked at 2,914, and it is even less than 2013, the first year of Park’s presidency, when there were 1,514 defectors. This is evidence that Park’s attitude toward North Korea is based not on the facts but rather derives from her attachment to the idea of regime collapse.

There is nothing new in that. Park frequently revealed this attitude even before North Korea’s fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6. She compared unification to a “jackpot” during her New Year’s press conference on Jan. 6, 2014, and she instructed the government to “be fully prepared” since “unification might happen even in the next year” during a meeting of the Unification Preparatory Committee on July 10, 2015.

After the North’s fourth nuclear test, Park shifted her focus from vague expectations to aggressive action. One characteristic remark was when she said “the government and I will certainly change the North Korean regime” during an address to the National Assembly on Feb. 16. Park has also shown that she regards dialogue and negotiations as improper. She said that “engaging in dialogue right now only buys time for North Korea” during a meeting between representatives from the ruling and opposition parties at the Blue House on Sep. 12 and that “clinging to dialogue endangers the public” during a cabinet meeting on Oct. 11. This too is a violation of Park’s constitutional obligation to “pursue sincerely the peaceful unification of the homeland.”

Speculation about regime collapse began after the death of Kim Il-sung

The theory that the North Korean regime will collapse is a very old joke with a long history. The theory was initially formulated under quite dire circumstances: the heart attack that ended the life of Kim Il-sung, the “eternal leader” of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (that is, North Korea), on July 8, 1994. Then South Korean President Kim Young-sam compared North Korea to a “broken airplane” and declared that “North Korea was on the verge of collapse.”

The hopeful prediction that Pyongyang’s broken plane would crash “within three days at the earliest and three years at the latest” was frequently on the lips of senior officials in the Kim Young-sam administration. But North Korea did not disappear from the map. Instead, Kim’s term in office is remembered as a “five-year hiatus” in inter-Korean relations.

The idea of a North Korean regime collapse had been broached in some segments of South Korean society even prior to this while regimes in the socialist world were toppled one after the other during the late 1980s and the early 1990s, but the idea did not gain widespread credence. This was because the administration of former president Roh Tae-woo adopted the basic inter-Korean agreement after a long period of negotiations with North Korea. According to this agreement, Seoul and Pyongyang promised to recognize and respect each other’s governments (Article 1), not to meddle in each other’s internal affairs (Article 2), not to criticize or slander each other (Article 3) and not to attempt to bring down or overthrow each other’s regimes (Article 4). This was the path not to regime collapse but to coexistence.

During the five years of the Roh Tae-woo administration, there were 164 meetings between officials from North and South Korea, which was more than any other regime save the Roh Moo-hyun administration (which had 169 meetings). In other words, not all conservative administrations in South Korea have been obsessed with the idea of regime collapse.

The second collapse argument took some time to emerge. The Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administration attempted to pursue reconciliation, cooperation, and coexistence. Two inter-Korean summits were held. Mt. Keumgang and Kaesong offered two corridors, respectively through a tourism venture on the eastern front and an industrial complex on the western one.

The second collapse argument also emerged on the occasion of a death - just after the passing of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Dec. 17, 2011. Numerous predictions raged at the time. The Lee Myung-bak administration had already been fanning collapse predictions since before Kim’s death. At a talk with local Koreans in Malaysia in Dec. 2010, Lee pronounced that “unification is drawing nigh.” It was a year when inter-Korean relations had been driven to the edge with the ROKS Cheonan sinking on Mar. 26, the North Korean shelling of Yeonpyeong Island on Nov. 23, and the Lee administration’s May 24 Measures, sanctions cut off most forms of inter-Korean exchange.

President Park Geun-hye salutes after making introductory remarks at a commemorative ceremony for the 67th anniversary of the armed forces
President Park Geun-hye salutes after making introductory remarks at a commemorative ceremony for the 67th anniversary of the armed forces

Surfacing with Kim Jong-il’s death and Jang Song-thaek’s execution . . . Unsteady leadership from Kim Jong-un plays a part

Yet North Korea didn’t drop off the map. According to the Bank of Korea, its economy has not experienced negative growth even once since 2011. The Chinese customs service noted that trade between North Korea and China rose 162% in 2011 from the year before, when the May 24 measures were imposed. It was a so-called “balloon effect.” Yet Lee continued to hold on to his illusions about Pyongyang’s imminent collapse, declaring at an invitational reception for National Unification Advisory Council overseas advisory committee members on Sep. 25, 2012, that unification would “come like a thief in the night.”

It was in the fall of 2013, the first year of Park’s presidency, that the third collapse scenario struck South Korea. The fuel for it was the execution of second-in-command Jang Song-thaek - Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law and Kim Jong-un’s uncle - on Dec. 12 of that year. At a year-end National Intelligence Service event on Dec. 21, then-director Nam Jae-joon predicted that “the homeland will be unified under a liberal Republic of Korea regime by 2015.” In her New Year’s press conference the following Jan. 6, Park trotted out her “unification as jackpot” scenario. We all know what happened next.

The collapse scenarios envisioned by the Kim Young-sam and Lee Myung-bak administrations were both linked to deaths, Kim Il-sung’s and Kim Jong-il’s. The vague hope was that without its sole supreme leader and dictator at the helm, Pyongyang would come tumbling down. Park’s collapse predictions also appeared tied to Kim Jong-il’s death and distrust in the leadership abilities of Kim Jong-un, who rose to become the country’s supreme authority while still in his twenties. But it is worth noting how aggressive Park’s collapse predictions have become over the course of the North’s fourth and fifth nuclear tests, the latest on Sept. 9. They could be the result of both frustration with the lack of viable policy means of controlling and stabilizing the situation and a strategic determination to distract the public’s attention from the administration’s policy failures.

US-hating China can’t abandon North Korea

Let’s turn to the last questions. First, is North Korea going to fall any time soon? And second, will South Korea direct the unification process if it does?

In answering the first question, there’s no way around China. China accounts for over 90% of North Korea’s foreign trade and supplies most of the crude oil it consumes. If China did attempt an economic blockade like the US, the regime in Pyongyang wouldn’t last long.

But China’s emphasis has been on three principles: achieving denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, protecting peace and political stability, and dialogue-based problem-solving. It’s a message it has stated and restated, as when Foreign Minister Wang Yi declared on Jan. 27 that “not one of these [principles] can be omitted” and that the policy “would not change according to our feelings.” It means Beijing will not alter its three principles no matter how angry it gets with Pyongyang’s antics.

It’s not a matter that requires much thought. How would China react to having US Forces Korea stationed on the 1,500 km-long border on the Amnok (Yalu) and Duman (Tumen) Rivers? It’s the reason it can’t abandon North Korea: even a nuisance like the North is better than staring at US troops over its border.

China has traditionally seen the Korean Peninsula as a buffer region against naval invasions. It’s the reason the Ming Dynasty sent a large force to counter Hideyoshi Toyotomi’s invasion of Joseon (Korea) in 1592. It’s the reason China waged the First Sino-Japanese War with Japan in a collapsing Joseon in 1894 and 1895. It’s the reason Mao Zedong sent in a large army after North Korea was pushed to the Amnok River during the Korean War in 1950. After the Qing Dynasty’s resounding defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan staged the Mukden Incident in 1931 to invade the Chinese mainland. This is the lesson China has taken from its history: once the buffer is gone, the mainland is imperiled.

German reunification — the result of East-West negotiations . . . Absorption following NK upheaval not an option

The second question needs to be considered in international law terms on one hand, and in realistic terms on the other. First of all, the UN rejects the South Korean government’s authority to govern regions north of the armistice line. On Oct. 1, 1950, UN forces advanced north of the 38th parallel during the Korean War. (This is why Oct. 1 is honored as “Armed Forces Day.”) The following Oct. 7, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 376(V), which decided that the UN Command would assume regions north of the 38th parallel, while the UN Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea would be responsible for relief and rebuilding on the peninsula. The decision was based on Resolution 195(III) from Dec. 12, 1948, which limited South Korea’s sovereignty to regions where general elections had been held under UN scrutiny - i.e., south of the 38th parallel.

Supposing the Kim Jong-un regime does collapse in an “upheaval” scenario - will North Korea’s power elite and public want to be absorbed and annexed by South Korea?

Germany’s reunification did not happen through an East German collapse. The East and West German governments held negotiations after the East German people elected a majority party that had called for reunification with the West. The East German public had been won over by the Ostpolitik consistently pushed by West German governments since Willy Brandt.

Among human beings, there is a view that is shared regardless of nationality, heritage, skin color, gender, or age: A true friend is one who helps us when we are in need. During a refugee summit held in New York on Sep. 20 for the 71st UN General Assembly, South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se pledged to provide “over US$230 million over three years” in support to address the refugee issue. Yet the Park administration remains willfully unconcerned with its North Korean brethren suffering from the effects of massive flooding. Never mind providing its own government-level support - it has banned any direct support to North Korea by South Korean civilians. Who will believe it now when it says, ‘Come on over, we’ll treat you well’?

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter

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

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