hankyoreh

The Northeast Asian climate around the Korean peninsula is changing rapidly. Something happened today that seemed impossible yesterday, and yesterday’s enemies are shaking hands today. It’s all very disorienting - especially when it has everything to do with South Korea’s own security.

Pyongyang and Washington appear to have started looking for a way to improve ties as soon as the US midterm elections were over. On Nov. 8, North Korea surprised everyone by releasing two long-term American detainees, Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller. They join Jeffrey Edward Fowle, another detainee who was released last month. But the big news was President Barack Obama’s decision to send Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as a special envoy to escort Bae and Miller home. Clapper is the highest-ranking sitting US official to visit North Korea since then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2000. It also drew notice when the State Department’s welcome statement referred to North Korea by its official English-language acronym, “DPRK” (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea).

Seoul is now saying that Clapper’s visit doesn’t mean any change in Washington’s policy on North Korea, such as a resumption of the six-party talks. South Korean officials note that Clapper is in charge of intelligence, and the US keeps its policy decisions strictly separated from its intelligence ones. But there are a few aspects that suggest things might not fall in line with Seoul‘s wishful thinking. First, a senior US official visited North Korea with a personal letter from President Obama at a time when Seoul is just coming off the cancelation of a second round of high-level inter-Korean talks. And second, Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush was coming off a 2006 midterm defeat much like the Democrats’ when he relaxed his hard-line stance on North Korea and worked to resume the six-party talks instead.

Adding to the diplomatic burden on Seoul is China and Japan’s plan to use the APEC Summit on Nov. 11 as an occasion to speed up the normalization of their ties, which have been strained in recent years over the disputed Senkaku Islands (called Diaoyu in China) and historical issues. Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida held their first official meeting in two years and two months in Beijing on Nov. 8, agreeing to gradually resume economic and strategic dialogue between the two sides. This comes after an earlier agreement between senior authorities to hold a first summit in two years and five months at the APEC Summit, with the two countries agreeing to four terms, including one “agreement to disagree” on the Senkaku Islands. While South Korea hasn‘t exactly coordinated with China on the Japan issue, it now finds itself suddenly stranded now that China has broken its united front of criticism against Japan. Meanwhile, Tokyo continues to communicate with Pyongyang, sending the head of its Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau chief to North Korea to address the abductee issue.

The problems just keep piling up for Seoul. It may have gotten an indefinite postponement on the return of wartime operational control (OPCON) from its allies in Washington, but it’s also fanning disagreements at home by failing to explain its decisions. Meanwhile, it’s facing a harsh response from China over the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system the US wants to set up with USFK.

Diplomatically, South Korea has painted itself into this corner with its pretty but substance-less foreign policy: the “Korean Peninsula trust-building process,” the “vision for Northeast Asian peace and cooperation,” the “Eurasia initiative,” and so forth. It’s not too late. It’s time to start again with something the Seoul can do, an area where it can take the initiative. Improving inter-Korean relations would be a good place to begin.

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