hankyoreh

President Yoon Suk-yeol delivers an address on the lawn of the presidential office in Yongsan District, Seoul, as part of an event marking the 77th Liberation Day on Aug. 15. (pool photo)

The “audacious initiative” that South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol unveiled for North Korea in his celebratory address for National Liberation Day on Monday included six visions for economic cooperation, including a “large-scale food program,” meant to “significantly improve North Korea’s economy and its people’s livelihoods in stages if the North ceases the development of its nuclear program and embarks on a genuine and substantive process for denuclearization.”

The announcement came 97 days after Yoon declared plans to prepare an “audacious plan” in his inaugural address on May 10.

His “audacious initiative” amounted to a proposed tradeoff between the economy and security — the idea that South Korea would offer economic gains in exchange for security concessions.

The six visions in his initiative involve a large-scale food program; assistance for power generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure; modernization of ports and airports; assistance with technology to enhance agricultural productivity; modernization of hospitals and medical infrastructure; and international investment and financial support initiatives.

The presidential office referred to the initiative as an “upgraded economic assistance item,” stressing that it would be different from the Lee Myung-bak administration’s “Vision 3000” framework, which involved supporting North Korea in achieving a per capita income of US$3,000 within 10 years if Pyongyang abandoned its nuclear program and implemented openness.

Contrasting the “audacious initiative” with “Vision 3000: Denuclearization and Openness” and its precondition of concluding an agreement on denuclearization, Kim Tae-hyo, the first deputy director of the National Security Office, said that it represents a “bold proposal in the sense that we would be actively guaranteeing economic support measures starting in the early stages of denuclearization negotiations.”

“If a comprehensive agreement can be reached on North Korea’s denuclearization, we will establish and operate a joint inter-Korean development committee to respond to gradual denuclearization measures that progress from reporting a freeze of nuclear facilities to inspections and dismantlement,” he explained.

A senior official in the National Security Office said, “The idea is that we would be engaging in nuclear negotiations while operating a resource and food [aid] program [with the North] even while the comprehensive nuclear agreement is being reached.”

“We would also be discussing which of the UN economic sanctions to partially ease as needed,” they added.

But the proposal represents the kind of asymmetrical approach that the North has never once agreed to in the more than seven decades of Korea’s history of division. Also, the “audacious initiative” is a step backward from what the Yoon administration has previously declared, as it does not include provisions related to security.

After an operational report to Yoon on July 22, Minister of Unification Kwon Young-se said the “audacious initiative” would include items reflecting “the security concerns and demands that North Korea has raised.” But none of that was mentioned in his Liberation Day address.

The scope was also narrow in comparison with the course that predecessor Moon Jae-in’s administration presented for “dismantling Cold War structures on the Korean Peninsula and establishing a permanent peace regime” — a framework that involved economic cooperation along with inter-Korean military trust-building measures based on the two sides’ military agreement of Sept. 19, 2018; disarmament; normalization of North Korea-US relations; and a declaration officially ending the Korean War.

Nor did Yoon’s address make any mention of the three key inter-Korean economic cooperation projects that had been pursued in the wake of the first inter-Korean summit in June 2000, namely tourism at Mount Kumgang, resumed operations of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, and the linkage of South and North Korean railways and roads.

A senior official in the National Security Office said, “We’ve also prepared plans for the military and political areas,” adding that the administration would implement the plans while observing North Korea’s response.

But the likelihood of Pyongyang agreeing to Seoul’s “audacious initiative” is slim.

In a speech at a July 27 event commemorating the 69th anniversary of “the great victory in the [Korean] War,” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un stressed the “anti-US spirit and approach to the south and the enemy,” decrying “Yoon Suk Yeol and his military gangsters’ misdemeanours and blind bravery” and stressing that they would “pay dearly for it.”

At a national meeting to review emergency anti-epidemic measures on Aug. 10, Kim Yo-jong, the sister of Kim Jong-un and a senior Workers’ Party of Korea official, said, “The south Korean puppets are, indeed, the invariable principal enemy of us,” while warning of a “deadly retaliatory” response.

Crucially, while Yoon may have officially proposed his initiative to Pyongyang, he did not propose any talks between authorities to discuss it, let alone a summit.

Instead, he indirectly equated North Korea with totalitarianism, declaring that the “aim of the [Korean] independence movement was never to build a totalitarian state that represses freedom and human rights.” Additionally, the idea of establishing an inter-Korean joint development committee was not a proposal for dialogue, but an approach premised on North Korea taking part in negotiations.

Numerous former senior government officials referred to the “audacious initiative” as being tantamount to the administration declaring a break with North Korea policies, while scoring political points domestically by attributing the sorry state of inter-Korean relations to Pyongyang. They also stressed the risk that this approach would only breed controversy and conflict, rather than encouraging a positive response from North Korea or achieving wider support at home.

The former officials further stressed that there was almost no chance of Pyongyang agreeing to an initiative that is fundamentally no different from “Vision 3000,” which it rejected outright in the past as “anti-nation sophistry, anti-unification rashness, and unacceptable provocation.”

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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