hankyoreh

Coincidentally enough the summit in Pyongyang between South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il came on the same day last year that North Korea’s foreign ministry said Pyongyang was going to test a nuclear device. The political situation surrounding the Korean peninsula almost went as bad as it could have. Things began a rapid turn around earlier this year, to the point where we are already talking about a new order, one of peace, for the Korean peninsula and the Northeast Asian region. It makes you realize how true the expression “the land grows firmer where the rain has come and gone” really is. It is clear that the summit will contribute in a major way to accelerating this trend.

Defining moment for denuclearization

The change is well evidenced in the results of the latest round of six-party talks in Beijing, where the United States has announced its intention to sign an agreement, one that includes North Korea’s concrete pledge to, within the end of the current year, disable its major nuclear facilities and declare the details of its nuclear programs. There will be greater confidence in the disablement process for involving large numbers of American site inspectors. The North’s declaration of its nuclear programs will include all of them, whether involving plutonium or uranium, and will then go through a process of international verification. If the agreement is carried out smoothly, next year will mark the beginning of the North’s denuclearization. It would essentially be the decisive progress in the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula that until only very recently would you have had a hard time imagining.

The way the U.S. looks at Pyongyang has also changed noticeably. In announcing the signing of the six-party agreement, chief U.S. delegate Christopher Hill said his country is just hostile toward North Korea’s nuclear weapons and not toward the North Korean people. His statement confirms that America’s inclusion of North Korea on its list of state sponsors of terror and its invocation of the Trading With the Enemy Act is not part of an overall “hostile policy” towards Pyongyang and instead something that can be worked out as Pyongyang carries out the agreements from the six-party talks. It also hints that the U.S. will work toward normalizing ties with North Korea in pace with progress on the nuclear issue. Pyongyang and Washington are moving to put half a century of hostility behind them.

The central topic of conversation at the summit was of course denuclearizing the peninsula. North and South Korea both know quite well that resolving the nuclear issue is the precondition for peace on the Korean peninsula and in the Northeast Asian region. They share the view that resolving it is something that should move forward simultaneously with the process of building a peace regime for the peninsula and the region. The upcoming six-party foreign ministers’ talks will declare the beginning of discussions on a peace regime that will replace the existing order, and this latest summit precedes it as an event that functions to promote an amicable atmosphere and affirm the desire of both sides for peace.

Peace, however, will need more than just resolving the nuclear issue. The abnormal armistice regime that has been maintained for over half a century is a serious obstacle to peninsular prosperity, and the area around the demilitarized zone (DMZ) is packed tight with more military might than anywhere else on the globe. It was out of a desire to overcome this situation that the summit talks included linking the DMZ and the West Sea’s Northern Limit Line into a “peace belt.” It is also what makes building mutual confidence between the military authorities, including advance notification of large troop movements and exercises as well as exchanges of information and personnel, so urgent. And the sooner we establish a joint body for gradual arms reductions, to get rid of weapons of mass destruction and offensive capabilities, the better.

Working for peace will also significantly promote inter-Korean economic cooperation. There have been considerable achievements since the summit of 2000, including the “big three” economic cooperation projects: the Gaeseong Industrial Park, the Mount Geumgang tourism project and linkage by railroad. This is not going to be enough, however, for North and South to prosper together. A synergistic effect can be had only if, in addition to trading for what each other needs, there is the free integration of each sides’ human and physical resources. The extra-economic obstacles need to be removed quickly, even if building up the economic conditions for this is something that is done gradually over time. It is at this point at which you would see the coupling of peace and prosperity. It is encouraging that wide-ranging discussion of this was part of the summit.

While in Pyongyang, President Roh made several proposals that could promote peace and mutual confidence. The North Korean side, meanwhile, talked about reunification and acting “between us Koreans” (uri minjok kkiri), just as they did at the last summit. The South has been scheming to find substantial ways to advance inter-Korean relations, but the North talked about the principle of minjok, of Koreans and Koreanness. Maybe this is only natural given the difference in the national strength of each Korea, but you would want to see the North be more actively interested in reform and opening up.

A leading role for the two Koreas

What North and South need to be remembering together is a stance that is independent. Four world powers are positioned around the Korean peninsula, and the political situation in Northeast Asia is one that will not permit any one nation to move unilaterally. It is a structure in which, unlike during the Cold War years, neither North nor South can guarantee their futures with national strategies that involve holding on to one or two of the big powers. They will have to forge the peninsula’s destiny for themselves, and this summit was very significant in that it was a point of departure for that. A new skyline of Northeast Asian peace is opening. This summit will be of great utility in having the two Koreas play the leading role in fulfilling that call.

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