The question of how to respond to North Korea’s recent nuclear test has attracted world-wide attention. But the South Korean administration’s response to the North’s nuclear adventurism, while less noted, has been just as important. The South’s actions have exposed serious strains in its half-century long alliance with the United States—at a time when strengthening this relationship is important to both nations, and indeed, to all of Northeast Asia.
As security concerns mount, misplaced priorities during the past two South Korean administrations have defied the lessons of the peninsula’s own history. Surrounded by global superpowers, the Korean peninsula is often compared to a shrimp caught among whales. A century ago, the Chosun Dynasty lost its sovereignty and independence when it failed to pursue a path of openness and undertake skillful diplomacy coupled with strategic alliances.
Now, as it shares the peninsula with a regime that poses a nuclear threat, South Korea once again stands at a crossroads and needs to strengthen its alliance with the U.S. more than ever before. Yet, the last two administrations in South Korea have opted to put the South-North brotherhood ahead of ties with Washington.
North Korea’s nuclear detonation last month should have spelled the end of the sunshine policy driven by former President Kim Dae Jung and perpetuated by the current government in Seoul. Although engagement—without reciprocity—may have seemed to improve inter-Korean relations, the harsh reality is that the sunshine policy has increased the likelihood of war. For it has given Pyongyang enough time and financial breathing room to develop their nuclear weapons, exacerbating tension without changing the North in any positive way.
Of course, the primary responsibility for the current crisis belongs to Kim Jong Il, the mastermind behind the North’s nuclear schemes. And despite accusations of anti-American polemicists, it is a bizarre leap in logic to blame the U.S. for the current nuclear troubles.
Serious as it is on its own, North Korea’s nuclear ambition is emerging as the eye of a bigger storm that could disrupt the power balance and fragile stability on the Korean Peninsula and in all of Northeast Asia. Because South Korea stands to bear the full brunt of the North’s force, it must now reexamine its past policies on how to handle Pyongyang, and design new ones.
The first thing South Koreans, including the government and political parties, must do is join together to strongly urge North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. This is the most serious crisis South Korea has faced since the Korean war, and our citizens must unite across political and ideological lines.
Second, all forms of aid and cooperation with North Korea should be halted. In particular, the Mt. Kumgang tourism project and the Kaesong Industrial Complex must be suspended. Losses by businesses with stakes in these ventures will be unfortunate, but allowing these projects to continue providing Pyongyang with cash that can be directly used for developing nuclear arms cannot be an option. Although they have brought some benefit to inter-Korean cooperation, on the whole, these overtures have been exploited as just another means to achieve the North’s nuclear ambitions.
Next, South Korea should further heighten the pressure on the North to give up its nuclear program by taking an active part in international sanctions led by the United Nations and the U.S., and participating in the Proliferation Security Initiative.
But the key to addressing this crisis and the broader challenges looming in the region must be Seoul’s maintenance of watertight collaboration and cooperation with its chief ally, the U.S. Accordingly, as a policy matter, Seoul and Washington should put the brakes on planning the transfer of wartime military operational control to the South in the name of Korean autonomy. The surest guarantee of Korea’s future autonomy is to reinforce, not unravel, its security alliance with the U.S.
Such reinforcement should begin by recognizing that South Korea has undergone seismic changes during the five decades since the alliance was formed. No longer an impoverished nation, South Korea has emerged as a vibrant democracy and formidable economic power. Consequently, the unsymmetrical and patron-client alliance of the Cold War era is no longer desired or sustainable, and the two countries must transform their alliance to one that fulfills each other’s needs in a more voluntary and reciprocal manner. Furthermore, we have to streamline the alliance to reflect the priority given to the current strategic goals of terrorism prevention and regional stability. South Korea should eagerly seize such a change in strategic objectives.
On the U.S. side, the strategy pursued by Washington appears to be based on the present-day relationship that is friendly enough for the U.S. to call China its partner, rather than on an outlook that forecasts changes in Northeast Asia far into the future. It is obvious that a power struggle between rapidly growing China and Japan will intensify. If China emerges as a global superpower rivaling the U.S., as many predict, Japan alone may not be enough of a counterweight, and the strategic value of South Korea in balancing power in the region could be priceless for the U.S.
In short, Washington and Seoul must carefully examine such short and long-term possibilities and update the bilateral alliance accordingly. In South Korea in particular, the administration that wins power in the 2007 elections should right the course of North Korea policy, and reinvigorate the South Korea-U.S. alliance to ensure continued freedom and prosperity for the Korean people.
Mr. Lee, a former prime minister and supreme court justice for South Korea, was the Grand National Party’s presidential candidate in 2002.