Left Flank

Jamestown Foundation calls it a "new starting point" for PRC and ROK, with diplomats shuttling already between PRC President Hu Jintao, ROK President-elect Lee Myung-bak, and Kim Jong-il. Scott Snyder lays out future bilateral relations as a contest between Seoul's efforts to keep business and trade in proportion and Beijing's efforts to "cast its shadow" over the Lee administration's relations with DPRK and Japan. But, Lee appears determined to privilege security relations with Washington and Tokyo at the expense of Beijing.

Lee's willingness to speak publicly about North Korean human rights shortcomings suggests that Lee is less likely to go out of his way to avoid offending North Korea's leaders—and for that matter raise themes that his Chinese counterpart may not find helpful. For instance, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman was pressed to respond to Lee's comments on North Korean human rights in a press conference the day after Lee Myung-bak's election. Another sensitive factor that may influence the pace and direction of developments in inter-Korean relations is that Lee's Grand National Party has never participated in inter-Korean dialogue activities organized by previous South Korean governments and was even excluded from some «non-governmental» exchanges by the North, so the official inter-Korean relationship itself will be under new management. These factors suggest the possibility that a downturn in inter-Korean relations might sidetrack progress in implementing the Six-Party Agreements, resulting in renewed tensions and renewed pressure on China to exert pressure on North Korea. Based on these concerns, China has pursued an intensive dialogue in an apparent effort to keep the new South Korean president from making a rapid shift away from the current track of engagement efforts with North Korea.

Secondly, Lee Myung-bak has clearly indicated that his top priority in foreign policy is to improve strategic relations with the United States, while efforts to improve Sino-South Korean relations will focus primarily on upgrading economic cooperation. Although Chinese Party School specialist Zhang Liangui argues that «the development of economic ties is bound to bring closer Sino-ROK political, cultural, and even military exchanges and cooperation,» Lee's top priority remains the reinvigoration of U.S.-ROK security ties (Shanghai Dongfang Zaobao, December 20, 2007).

Third, Lee Myung-bak's visible efforts to improve relations with Japan have caught Chinese attention, especially since an improved South Korea-Japan relationship may lead to strengthened trilateral coordination among the United States, Japan and South Korea (South China Morning Post, January 30). Although this sort of coordination was promoted in the late 1990s as a response to ongoing concerns about North Korea, the resurgence of bilateral textbook, territorial, and historical and political disputes between South Korea and Japan made continuation of such trilateral coordination both unstable and perhaps unsustainable. Now that the Beijing-led Six-Party Talks have been established, Chinese analysts may consider renewed U.S.-Japan-ROK trilateral coordination efforts as incompatible with those talks since it may be perceived by North Korea as threatening. Such security coordination also invites concerns in China that it might be used to encircle China or to strengthen coordination in response to any potential cross-Strait crisis. Chinese scholars have unofficially discouraged South Korean counterparts from renewing such coordination even though a purely North Korea-focused precedent exists from the late 1990s. South Korea's outgoing Foreign Minister Song Min-soon has also warned that re-establishment of trilateral policy coordination might have unanticipated negative effects.

Lee's emphasis on human rights is both convenient and well-received, although, until the Roh administration is sent packing, incidents like on February 8 are still likely to be common.

South Korea returned a group of North Koreans to the communist nation after they strayed into southern waters on fishing boats earlier this month, the Defense Ministry said Saturday.

The 22 people drifted into the South off the divided peninsula's west coast in two motorless boats Feb. 8 and were repatriated later in the day because they wanted to go home, the ministry said in a statement, released amid media speculation the North Koreans attempted to defect.

The Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported the weather on Feb. 8 was not bad enough for the boats to stray, suggesting the group intended to defect to the South and were returned against their wishes.

The report also noted the government did not make any public statements about the incident at the time, even though it normally does so.

Obviously, I'm elated about the prospects of improved trilateral relations between Japan, ROK, and US, especially since Six-Party negotiations offer scant hope for improvement in this year.