Left Flank

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.

One of many problems I have with what Song Min-soon (mp3 file: a rush transcript is also available), the ROK Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade says at the Council of Foreign Relations is his definition of a «bold and strategic move» or a «first move». And then, there's just the lie of omission about the Roh administration's, and, generally, progressives' concept of joint economic community.

What is a «first» or «bold» move other than a carrot the US offers to the DPRK? The moderator, Stephen Bosworth does a good job at the end trying to pin down Song's vacuous rhetoric when he asks how does Seoul account for the fundamentally different nature of the two Korean regimes. Song advocates contact, as if talking and disclosure is enough to change the situation. As alluded to in Bosworth's question, replying to Don Oberdorfer's preceding question (actually when I stopped actively listening to Song or trusting him), about the difference between an armistice and a peace regime, Song calls for free movement of goods and more contact and DPRK-US diplomatic normalization. Earlier still, Song removes the conditionality of this peace regime on denuclearization, instead calling the relationship between the Six Party talks and the DPRK-ROK summit «mutually reinforcing». Just because Seoul is enabling Pyongyang with carrots, and that the process is failing, doesn't mean Washington has to give Pyongyang more carrots. Perhaps, someone has to wield more sticks? Perhaps, Seoul needs to join that team?

And, as Song's responses reveal, why is it so beneficial for the world, that Seoul has untrammeled access to Pyongyang? Economic prosperity requires security, which would favor denuclearization over Seoul's contacts. Even if the DPRK were to develop, what guarantee is there that trade will not cause political violence leading to regime change in Pyongyang? That's seems to be a destabilizing development Seoul does not want to occur precipitously. Are Seoul and Pyongyang going somehow going to modulate and suppress North Korean political dissent as economic contact fostered development? That seems to be a prospect just as troubling as an authoritarian state with nukes.

ROK Minister Song needs to come cleaner on his ideas.