[KSM-CINAP Joint Column 3] Security Concerns and Ethnic Reconciliation

🚩The Catholic Institute of Northeast Asia Peace and the Korean Sharing Movement jointly publish a regular column as part of our work to improve inter-Korean relations and establish peace on the Korean Peninsula. We welcome your continued interest and support.

 

Security Concerns and Ethnic Reconciliation

Jang-Hyun Paik (Operational Research Committee Chairman, Catholic Institute of Northeast Asia Peace)

Ideology or people? The administration of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has chosen to prioritize ideology. President Yoon mentioned “freedom” 35 times in his inaugural speech, and in various commemorative speeches since then, he has repeatedly emphasized values and ideology. In his speech on this year’s March 1st holiday, celebrating the Korean independence movement from Japanese colonialism, he boldly asserted that the spirit of the liberation movement was “liberalism.” In foreign affairs, Yoon’s government is biased toward the US and Japan, pursuing “values-based diplomacy” of freedom, human rights, and the rule of law. Although President Yoon defines Japan—a nation at odds with Korean society over its colonial history—as “a partner that pursues common interests, cooperates for world peace and prosperity, and shares the values of freedom, human rights, and the rule of law,” he chooses to confront his own ethnic people in North Korea as the main enemy that “will stop at nothing to maintain a hereditary totalitarian regime.”

Consequences of Prioritizing Ideology

This June, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) announced that North Korea has assembled 50 nuclear warheads and possesses enough fissile material to make 90 warheads. Considering that the institute’s report last year estimated 30 nuclear warheads and the capability to assemble 50-70 nuclear warheads, the North Korean nuclear threat is growing rapidly. Moreover, on June 20th, North Korea and Russia signed the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which is effectively a military alliance including provisions to provide each other with rapid military aid in the event of an armed invasion. This significant event has changed the geopolitical landscape for the Korean Peninsula. The “Freedom Edge” joint military exercise conducted in the East China Sea last month by South Korea, the United States, and Japan added fuel to the fire. That trilateral partnership threatens China, which currently distances itself from North Korea-Russia military cooperation, and pushes China toward the North Korea-Russia camp. The Korean Peninsula is becoming a battleground for confrontation between South Korea-US-Japan and North Korea-China-Russia.

Hostility and military conflict is also intensifying through inter-Korean actions and reactions. Late last year, at the Central Committee Plenum of the Workers’ Party of Korea, rather than using North Korea’s former term for inter-Korean relations—“relations between compatriots”—North Korean leader Kim Jong-un redefined the inter-Korean relationship as “two hostile states” and “two belligerents at war.” He also enacted the Nuclear Force Policy law, which increases the possibility of using nuclear weapons. Article 6 of the Nuclear Force Policy authorizes preemptive use of nuclear weapons in the event of an attack or presumed imminent attack on North Korean leadership. This year, North Korea has been conducting a number of short-range missile tests, which, in conjunction with the development of small nuclear warheads, have been interpreted as a threat to the South.

South Korea is also responding with a show of military force. Minister of National Defense, Shin Won-sik, has ordered military commanders to “immediately and forcefully retaliate to the end,” and has been conducting military exercises and live-fire drills near the Northern Limit Line and the Demilitarized Zone. The current situation on the Korean Peninsula is such that an accidental military clash could easily escalate into nuclear war. All hotlines between the two Koreas have been cut off, including between military authorities, making crisis management impossible. Furthermore, there are competing distributions of propaganda leaflets into North Korea and trash balloons into South Korea, making it routine for South Koreans to receive emergency alert text messages in the middle of the night.

Reasons for Ideological Excess

South Korea is vulnerable to inter-Korean hostility and rising military tensions. As an open society, highly dependent on the outside world, any destabilization in the security environment is bound to have a major impact on the economy. How long will South Korea engage in such wasteful hostility and confrontation? South Korea’s economy is 59.7 times larger than North Korea’s (as of 2022), and it spends more on the military (KRW 54.6 trillion in 2022) than North Korea’s gross national income (KRW 36.7 trillion in 2022). So, why does South Korea continue to engage in this war of attrition? It seems incomprehensible when one considers the national interest.

The Yoon Seok-yeol government markets its foreign and security policies—centered on antagonizing North Korea and strengthening US-Japan relations—as “values-based diplomacy.” In reality, these policies are nothing more than sadaejuui [사대주의/ sah-day-ju-ee; concept of sycophancy, flunkyism, or servility to a greater nation as defined by early 20th century Korean nationalists, derived from teachings of Chinese Confucian philosopher Mencius]. Sadaejuui can be defined as “a state of mind in which one serves, admires, and follows the power of a larger or more advanced country, despising one’s own; a political ideology in which relations with great countries determine the fundamentals of domestic and foreign policy.” The Yoon government’s policy orientation fits this definition. Yoon’s Korean version of the “Indo-Pacific Strategy” implies the exclusion of continental powers, such as China, and adopts the term for the region used by the maritime powers, the United States and Japan, not the language of a country that must engage with both the ocean and the continent. It seems that key figures in the Yoon administration lack the capacity to think in terms of the national interest. Even though it is objectively necessary for South Korea to conduct balanced diplomacy between the US and China, these officials seem to believe that any policy out of line with the United States’ intentions is inconceivable. They have even taken the initiative to provoke China in the Taiwan Strait by stating their opposition to changing the status quo by force.

A Way to Resolve Security Concerns

Crisis management should be the first priority in resolving the nuclear concern with North Korea. Responsible authorities from the South and the North should meet and find a way to reduce tensions. The idea of bending North Korea through force will only entrench a vicious cycle of escalation and an arms race that will not resolve shared security concerns. We must overcome hostility and distrust to find a way for the South and the North to reconcile.

Germany and France were enemies—partners only in wariness and distrust—for hundreds of years, but in the process of creating and operating the EU, they have developed a cooperative relationship. Since they no longer feel threatened by each other, they do not even compete militarily. There is no reason why South Korea and North Korea cannot do what Germany and France did. Instead of becoming the frontline of confrontation between alliances (US-Japan-South Korea / North Korea-China-Russia) there is no reason why the Koreas cannot cooperate toward achieving shared security and building an economic community in Northeast Asia. South and North Korea are the same ethnic people and have much in common. They should find and implement small projects based on their commonalities—while preserving their differences—and gradually increase the level of their cooperation.