Left Flank

My father-in-law reacted scornfully to a passage in President Lee Myung-bak's Inaugural Address about obeying the law.

But the fanfare of traditional horns could not drown out the fact that South Korea's bitterly partisan politics have barely paused for breath.

Lee's speech urged an end to "wasteful political disputes" that are alienating voters. But the two months since he won the presidency by a wide margin were shadowed by an investigation of his business ties to an alleged felon. The inquiry ruled last week that there was no evidence to implicate Lee in financial fraud.

He also assumes office amid a political storm over the wealth of his nominees to the 15-member Cabinet.

"Two-faced!" both my father-in-law and wife shouted.

The most quoted passage is "We must move from the age of ideology into the age of pragmatism." Yet, President Lee is a throwback to the previous generation of South Koreans striving for economic development. His model is former dictator Park Chung-hee, and Lee's goals are broadly macroeconomic: average GDP, average income, yearly growth. Another sign of this first-generation approach is Lee's oft-lampooned canal project, linking Seoul with Busan. Lee still talks about "sacrifice". He calls for a leaner government, but not leaner family-owned corporations. He's called the "Bulldozer", but ROK needs a fine-tuner.

The new President played to his business background by campaigning largely on an economic reform platform. Touting the "747 economy" -- shorthand for raising economic growth to 7%, doubling per-capita incomes to $40,000, and lifting Korea's world GDP rankings to 7th, from its current 13th -- Mr. Lee has set the bar high. Over the past five years, Korea's growth averaged around 4.5% annually, lagging its Asian peers. Foreign investors have shied away from burdensome regulations, an inflexible labor market and a perception that foreign capital isn't welcomed.

Mr. Lee says all that will change on his watch. He wants to cut taxes, clinch the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement, and institute a "small and efficient" government. He needs to move quickly. While Mr. Roh presided over an economy buoyed by a flood of Fed-supplied money and a global upturn, Mr. Lee is walking into a much tougher external environment. He seems to understand the urgency. His transition team negotiated the elimination of three government ministries before Mr. Lee even took office.

President Lee will fine tune DPRK policy.

Though Lee has vowed to broadly continue Seoul's policy of detente with the North, he has said he will approach the country with a more critical eye.

His predecessors — Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung — were accused of showering unconditional aid and concessions as part of reconciliation efforts while getting little in return.

Lee said he is willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Il whenever necessary.

Fortunately, Lee is discussing strengthening ties with Japan and the US. GI Korea calls it, "business as usual". K-Bloggers are still arguing as if Lee is different, but NK Monitor phrases it best: "I'd say the question is not whether things are changing, but which way they are changing." We might all return to this moment again in five or ten years.

This is my third inauguration in ROK, and I'm less optimistic every time. In 1997, the acute crisis of the 1997 currency debacle opened a space for radical reform that was squandered in consumer gold sacrifices and xenophobia. Bureaucratic directives war against one another every season or so, only to confront a buzz of entrenched opposition. The same hot air is repackaged for a newer goal, like education or public infrastructure. The Dong-A Daily does as best it can to suggest more.

If, in the form of a Korean saying I have heard said, Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun represented two steps back, then at least President Lee is the one step halting the slide.

Scott Snyder sets the stage for Lee Myung-bak's inauguration on February 25 with a well-balanced introduction. One small detail: the Sunshine policy really is not dead.

In some respects, the inter-Korean relationship will be starting over again under Lee Myung-bak, who has been willing to publicly criticize the North on human rights grounds—a taboo under the Roh administration—and has demanded the North's denuclearization as a precondition for his Vision 3000 policy that offers a generous financial and technical support package for North Korea's development. However, food and fertilizer assistance have already been declared exempt from this requirement, in contrast to the Roh administration's decision to withhold fertilizer assistance in 2007 until the North finally began in June to implement the February 13, 2007 agreement.

Thus far, signs are that while Lee Myung-bak supports continued inter-Korean engagement, the priority attached to North Korean issues will be lowered considerably compared to predecessor administrations that had elevated inter-Korean relations as a policy priority. Cuts in the budget for inter-Korean cooperation and the envisioned government reorganization that abolishes the Ministry of Unification suggest that Lee Myung-bak does not intend to make relations with North Korea a policy priority. North Korea more than anything does not like to be ignored.

Aside from undermining the Unification Ministry (but not abolishing, probably due mostly to partisan pressures, not pro-Sunshine sentiments) and some rhetorical flourishes about human rights, what has really changed? Kaesong and humanitarian aid are as much a part of the Sunshine policy as President Roh's rhetorical support and policy prioritization.

Indeed, as NK Econ Watch reports, that as ROK investment continues to flow north, "…some DPRK factories appear to returning to normal manufacturing operations." It seems as if hot air is as much a habit of the South Korean left, gnashing its teeth about the end of Sunshine, as of the conservatives, thumping their chests indignantly. The Lee administration might become the ablest practitioner of the Sunshine arts.

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.

It's process:

«Negotiations for a peace regime should start when the disablement process is under way and its plutonium is disclosed,» Foreign Minister Song Min-soon told parliament.

(...)

«The start of the talks must be in parallel with the disablement process,» Song said.

...vs. results:

Do I go into this thing saying, Well, you know, gosh, the process is more important than the results? I don't. What matters most, you know, to me ? or whether or not we can achieve the results that I've said we're hoping to achieve.

And, if not, there will be consequences to the North Koreans.

And this, after Beijing weighed in on the results side? Seoul again does its best to scuttle another deal by allowing Pyongyang a chance to stonewall and split the parties in the Six-Party process. Victor Cha points this out (and tries to find a silver lining for South Korean conservatives to exploit):

The inter-Korean declaration offered no surprises. It represents a good statement of Korean aspirations, not unlike the tone expressed in the July 1972 and June 2000 inter-Korean declarations. Two things however are noteworthy.

First, the document absolves South Korea from intervening in the North's internal affairs. This statement runs completely counter to the 2005 Bush-Roh Joint Declaration at Gyeongju where the Roh government expressed for the first time its concern for the well-being of the people of North Korea. This was a major statement by Seoul that I personally took painstaking hours to negotiate. How can Seoul have two inconsistent positions on North Korea human rights abuses in arguably the two most important joint declarations the Roh presidency has overseen?

Second, South Korean officials de-briefed in Washington the week after the summit, and made a clear push to get the American president to agree to a three- or four-way summit to end the Korean war. Not surprisingly, this request is being met by strong resistance by both Republicans and Democrats because they all follow the same logic: A peace treaty signed by a U.S. president before North Korean denuclearization will ensure that North Korea will never denuclearize.

The key driver of any peace treaty process has and will remain the full denuclearization of the North. Until all the nuclear weapons are removed from North Korea, there will be no end to the Cold War in Asia. The estimated US$11 billion in South Korean economic assistance that will go north as a result of the joint declaration should have given Seoul the leverage to negotiate better language to take into account Seoul's equities with the U.S. and other partners.

But the bottom line is that this is a document negotiated by Roh, but implemented by his successor, who is likely to be a conservative. A future South Korean government will still seek engagement with the North but will seek to coordinate any inter-Korean aid with progress in six-party talks. If the next South Korean president does this, then the carrots offered by Roh Moo-hyun will become very powerful bargaining chips in the final phase of the six-party negotiations to achieve nuclear rollback in North Korea next year. That is a finish line worth crossing.

It's the Roh administration's failure to press its advantage in Pyongyang, not the failure of the Bush administration's diplomatic approach, that keeps Northeast Asia a dangerous place.

ROK President Roh Moo-hyun has his own word: nomhyun surupda. Basically, according to City (sorry, no link), a local Busan paper, this means to be like the president, or, in other words, to expect to be disappointed. The coinage comes from a new book that the Blue House criticized today.

Two major events concerning the Korean peninsula hit the public in the last few days, the Second DPRK-ROK Summit and the latest installment of the Six Party talks in Beijing. As usual the ball is in Pyongyang's end of the court, and even I won't place bets, at least not on one prediction.

In Pyongyang, not even ROK President Roh Moo-hyun can get respect (and, who's really complaining?). During the course of the media bomb, I was concerned about the inordinate attention on economic issues. Seeing Chung Mong-koo in Pyongyang on South Korean TV made me wonder if the entire reason the ROK Supreme Court exonerated him was, so he could grab his share of loot from the North Koreans.

Among the top three business topics expected for discussion - natural resource developments, roadway and railway distribution system expansions and dockyard construction - Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group is said to be interested in building railroad cars through its shipping affiliate Glovis, and also measure the feasibility of SOC businesses, while POSCO showed interest in forestation.

Although company officials said forestation is just a possibility, as the steel maker has shown its interest in securing carbon credit overseas, industry insiders say the opportunity will be advantageous for POSCO if cooperation comes through.

And as speculations rose that SK Group may be considering communication and energy projects in the North, company officials said plans are open for review if the right offer is made.

LG and Samsung, which are said to be mulling over their specialty areas of electronics, seem to be in the same scouting stages as others.

I think the first piece I wrote on Korea was about Samsung turning the DPRK into a giant industrial park. If Graph 5 of the «Declaration for Advancement of South-North Korean Relations, Peace and Prosperity» are any indication, it seems Chairman Chung's time was wasted.

From what can be gleaned of their substance, talks between the two leaders on October 3rd only emphasised the distance still to travel. Mr Kim may be willing to squeeze the outside world for aid?but on his terms. So Mr Roh?s offer of what amounted to a Marshall Plan to transform North Korea?s economy in pursuit of Chinese-style liberalisation met with blank dismissal. Mr Kim does not even like a showcase industrial park at Kaesong, where South Korean manufacturers employ cheap North Korean labour, to be described as a model of successful ?reform?. Once again, Mr Kim showed how he puts his own survival over that of the North Koreans he brutalises.

Yet a joint agreement was announced on October 4th, something Mr Roh will be able to take home with relief. Gone were his hopes for great involvement in the North, but there was agreement to allow freight trains into Kaesong. There was a recommitment to help families divided by the civil war to meet (though a word from Mr Kim is all it would take to solve that sad problem). Talks will be sought with America and China to put a formal end to the civil war (though peace on the peninsula, these countries are likely to argue, can only come after its denuclearisation). Steps were promised (as, fruitlessly, they were at the 2000 summit) to reduce military tensions: defence ministers would meet, while a disputed western maritime area would see its fisheries jointly mined.

And, it's even more disconcerting to read DPRK Vice Foreign Minister Choi Su-hon at the UN say, that «...there was no need for the UN as a go-between in inter-Korean affairs, as inter-Korean dialogue is 'going well.'» I hope dialogue is much more multi-voiced, and includes as many «go-between's» as possible.

Vice Minister Choi also called the latest agreement in Beijing, agreeing to the disablement of Yongbyon by the end of the year, a «courageous decision». It remains for Pyongyang to manifest its courage. But, there are plenty of other ways the enthusiasm could get punctured.

At the request of the other five parties to the nuclear deal, the United States will lead disablement activities and provide initial funding. It will lead an expert group to North Korea, probably next week, to prepare for disablement.

North Korea also reaffirmed its commitment not to transfer nuclear materials, technology or know-how, the statement issued in Beijing added.

But the statement skirted the issue of when the country would be removed from the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list, one of Pyongyang's key demands, saying only Washington would fulfill its commitments to begin that process in parallel with action on the ground.

Last week, Bush authorized $25 million in aid for the North, which would cover the cost of up to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.

China and South Korea have delivered initial fuel shipments and Russia is expected to do so too. But Japan has indicated it will not participate unless North Korea addresses the issue of Japanese citizens the North abducted in the 1970s and 1980s.

And, to be fair, there is substantive opposition to the entire process.

Nowhere, however, in the new agreement was what Reagan-era diplomats called a «third basket» ? a set of exchanges and commitments regarding how the communist regime treats its citizens, a feature of the Helsinki accords first signed in 1975 by 35 nations, including America and the Soviet Union.

A third-basket negotiation was the hope of a left-right coalition of human rights and religious leaders who on May 25 warned Secretary of State Rice that it «would oppose the provision of significant financial assistance to North Korea without progress on human rights issues.» The coalition included Human Rights Watch, the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Association of Evangelicals, Freedom House, and the George Soros-funded Open Society Institute.

One of the organizers of the coalition on North Korean Human Rights, Michael Horowitz, yesterday said the denuclearization agreement would lead to war. «This policy has increased the risk of war on the Korean peninsula. If we give Kim Jong Il money for his weapons programs, the future will bring more weapons not fewer weapons,» Mr. Horowitz said. «I fear that if this deal goes through, Kim Jong Il will seek to blackmail the world in less than two years with what may be the world's largest chemical and biological stockpile and missiles capable of delivering them.» Mr. Horowitz pointed out that when North Korea tested missiles last July, both Democrats and Republicans called for a military strike.

«It is sad and ironic that President Bush, the most forceful advocate of North Korean human rights, has signed off on a policy approach that seeks to legitimize and finance the Kim Jong Il regime in exchange for mere weapons promises on its part.»

Mr. Bush yesterday praised the agreement and said North Korea would provide a «complete and correct» accounting of «all its nuclear programs, nuclear weapons programs, materials, and any proliferation activity.» Mr. Bush also said the new agreement would «help secure the future peace and prosperity of the Northeast Asian region.»

Mr. Lefkowitz yesterday said human rights and national security are two complementary objectives in the administration's North Korea policy. «It is a false choice to say the United States policy should focus either on nuclear security or human rights; indeed, the two go hand and hand. We have very serious imminent interests in North Korea disarming,» he said.

There is also this choice Roh quote:

The talks left Roh with an impression that progress remains hindered by Kim's deep suspicions.

«North Korea still has some skepticism about the South and doesn't trust it enough,» the South Korean president was quoted as saying at a Wednesday luncheon after his first two-hour session of talks with Kim. «We need greater effort to demolish a wall of mistrust.»

Roh said the North Korean leader was suspicious about terms such as «openness» and «reform,» suggesting that he sees any rapid move toward Chinese-style economic reforms as a threat to his autocratic rule.

Mistrust also was evident in observers' reactions to the nuclear deal struck in Beijing. Many experts raised concerns over whether the deal would fully disable the North's nuclear facilities, or merely leave them easy to reassemble.

One can learn a lot through a child's eyes.

Alright, no Left Flank post would be complete without criticism of the Bush administration, even as it is praised. Ed Morrissey is refreshingly pragmatic, when he argues that «...A few million dollars to ensure security is a small price to pay, and besides, we can then ensure that the facilities really cannot be reused for a very long time.» Dilworth at KUS puts it a little more colorfully than I would, and Richardson is skeptical.

As my wife often says in these times, Korean events lurch two steps forward, and then one step back. Is this the progress, or the reaction? Let's meet again on December, 31!