hankyoreh

chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

By Ha Eo-young, with reporting from Hankyoreh correspondents in Washington, Beijing and Tokyo

Controversy is raging over a change to South Korean missile guidelines that puts all of North Korea and parts of China, Japan, and Russia in firing range.

Some have said the decision should be subject to National Assembly controls as a sovereign act by the government. There are also lingering fears that South Korea is being pulled into the United States missile defense system. Washington, Tokyo, Beijing, and Russia have been divided in their responses to the decision.

Independent lawmaker Park Joo-sun provided access to a database of internal legislative materials provided by the National Assembly Research Service. A four-page report on the South Korea-US missile issue from May 18, 2000, states, “The guarantee that [South Korea] will abide by the 180 km limit on firing range and 500 kg limit on warhead weight, and that it will engage in prior discussions with the US when it is necessary to exceed the standard, is a missile agreement or memorandum.”

The report also cited the contention, made at the time of the 1995 ROK-US Security Consultative Meeting, that the missile agreement between the two countries was a violation of the South Korea government‘s sovereignty over missile development.

“At first, the US disregarded this, but the two countries later agreed in principle to scrap the missile agreement,” it continues.

The content of the report conflicts with a statement made on Oct. 6 at a briefing by senior presidential secretary for foreign affairs and national security Chun Young-woo, who said, “These are not missile guidelines between South Korea and the United States, but a unilateral declaration of autonomous regulation by our side without binding legal force, and we have the right to discard it if we judge it unnecessary.”

Park called this a “petty ploy to handle the matter without any parliamentary oversight.” Because missile guidelines effectively constitute an agreement limiting citizen rights and obligations, he argued, they require ratification and other forms of control by the National Assembly.

Park requested in 2001 that the guidelines be disclosed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has refused, classifying them as confidential.

But the rationale has been called into question by the fact that South Korea-US Free Trade Agreement, also confidential, was made available to National Assembly lawmakers for a full year.

Maj. General Shin Won-sik, Policy Planning Director of the Ministry of National Defense, said in a briefing that the missile guidelines bore no connection to missile defense, but did involve sharing missile-related intelligence.

“If our Yulgok Yi I destroyer is picking up precise readings on a North Korean missile launch, does that make it part of missile defense?” he asked.

The question may have been rhetorical, but military experts agreed the answer was ‘that’s the real missile defense’. Defense 21+ editor-in-chief Kim Jong-dae said the Lee Myung-bak administration has used South Korean participation in missile defense and talks on the missile firing range as a negotiation strategy.

“If we’re sharing information and intelligence on signs of missile activity that we’ve picked up with our Aegis destroyer, or what have you, then that’s missile defense in a nutshell,” Kim said.

A former foreign affairs and security team official said the move could be taken as a sign that the push to bring the South Korean military into the missile defense system is well under way.

“I think there needs to be a concrete explanation on this idea of it not being missile defense participation,” the official said.

A clear division has taken shape between Washington and Tokyo on one hand and Beijing on the other over the US and South Korea’s agreement to extend the firing range.

On Oct. 6, the White House called the agreement a “prudent, proportional and specific response” to North Korea. Spokesman Jay Carney said that the agreement was a response to the North Korean ballistic missile threat and that the new guidelines “are designed to improve the Republic of Korea’s ability to defend against DPRK ballistic missiles.”

Responding to arguments that the agreement could increase tensions on the peninsula, Carney said it was “absolutely legitimate for the Republic of Korea to take actions in consultation with the United States to respond to a threat posed by the DPRK’s ballistic missile program.”

Meanwhile, the Japanese government was reported by the Yomiuri Shimbun as taking the view that the decision was unrelated to increasing tensions in East Asia. Regarding possible objections from Pyongyang, the newspaper reported a Japanese defense ministry official as saying the guidelines would “have ultimately increased the deterrence effect, making it less likely for North Korea to engage in provocations.”

The Chinese government has yet to issue an official response, but state-run news outlets hinted that it was uncomfortable with the decision. In an Oct. 8 English-language article, the Xinhua news agency expressed consternation over the extension, saying it went against the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

Analysts attributed the alarm to two factors: the fact that part of China’s east coast and its three northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning now fall within firing range of South Korean ballistic missiles, and the possibility that the new guidelines could provoke a backlash from Pyongyang and increase tension on the Korean Peninsula.

The country’s CCTV television network also said on Oct. 8 that the agreement came at a “delicate time” when the US has declared a “return” to the Asia-Pacific region and is positioning vertical takeoff and landing equipment on Okinawa.

In Russia, where the old Soviet-era Far East Fleet base of Vladivostok now falls within firing range, state-run news agencies like Itar Tass were quick to report the news, Moscow had not stated any official position as of Oct. 8.

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