When the new president takes office in two days, he will face a host of pressing tasks. Among the main challenges will be the division of the Korean Peninsula, which still festers more than 70 years after fighting ended.
As we have seen more than a few times, the North-South divide is often used for political gain. Ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol was the latest high official to employ a “Red Scare” strategy to stifle political opponents.
In his declaration of martial law, Yoon said he would eliminate the “anti-state, pro-North communist sympathizers threatening to overthrow the constitutional order of our liberal democracy and plundering the freedom and happiness of our people.” Yoon didn’t realize that claiming "communist infiltration" had grown so deep as to imperil the nation, provokes skepticism and questions about judgment and leadership, not fear.
Nevertheless, Yoon’s clumsy self-putsch once again highlighted the fact that the ideological divide in South Korea has little chance of ending without addressing problems derived from territorial division. Besides peace on the peninsula, political and social progress within the South is at stake.
Considering the geopolitical backdrop, this task has taken on more urgency. The new South Korean president will be under instant pressure to finesse a high tariff threat from US President Donald Trump. And he must be mindful that Trump will likely resume his “bromance” with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sooner or later to strike a deal. There will be no time to spare in the first months of the new administration.
North Korea is clearly in a different place now than it was in 2018, when Kim wanted Seoul to lay a bridge to Washington for summit talks with Trump in his first presidency. While the Biden administration remained idle and Yoon indulged in belligerent rhetoric, Kim’s rogue regime has grown stronger and more dangerous, demonstrating stunning resilience to endure even the harshest difficulties. It has continued to advance its nuclear and missile technologies, stealing cryptocurrency, earning billions of dollars from troop commitments and arms sales to Russia and learning battleground lessons in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is providing North Korea with security guarantees, as well as food and fuel, under a mutual defense treaty. The UN sanctions against North Korea have effectively been invalidated, with neither Moscow nor Beijing abiding by UN Security Council resolutions. Total bilateral trade between North Korea and China, which accounts for most of the North’s foreign trade, has also increased remarkably.
Now, with an estimated 50 nuclear weapons and enough material for some 40 more, Kim has a lot more cards and leverage than ever before. It is unrealistic to expect Kim to surrender his entire nuclear capabilities in return for lifting sanctions or in response to heightened pressure. In this light, the only plausible way to bring Kim to the table appears to be dramatically enlarging the scale of incentives.
There is speculation that Trump, the dealmaker, will likely make huge concessions in his fourth summit with Kim to yield tangible results. He has probably realized that the tough, conventional pursuit of genuine denuclearization has become pointless, and therefore will likely seek a “small deal” based on arms control.
Under the “America First” agenda, the agreement may focus on more realistic goals, such as North Korea’s commitment to a moratorium on further nuclear tests and provocative ICBM launches, stopping the transfer of weapons of mass destruction technology to third parties, ending aggressive cyber operations against Western targets, and withdrawal of offensive weaponry deployed near the Korean DMZ.
In return, the agreement may include an end-of-war declaration, or even a peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula and formal diplomatic relations between the United States and North Korea. These provisions would help alleviate security fears on the part of South Korea and Japan, while having important benefits for the United States, such as reducing defense spending and redeployment of troops.
Trump may further expand the deal to link peace in Northeast Asia with that in Ukraine. North Korea may be asked to stop sending troops and ammunition to Russia, which would push Putin to stop fighting and help Trump cut US spending in Ukraine. Since North Korean supplies have accounted for 50 percent of Russian artillery fires in Ukraine, a ceasefire could be made sustainable.
South Korea’s new administration should be prepared to smartly position itself in the negotiation process, while seeking separate dialogue with Pyongyang to discuss bilateral issues, including humanitarian assistance and cross-border economic cooperation. No less crucial would be clarifying its stance with Washington concerning possible reductions in US Forces Korea and enhancing deterrence by securing nuclear latency through renegotiating provisions in the Korea-US civil nuclear agreement banning South Korea’s enrichment and reprocessing of nuclear fuel.
The new administration will need to think outside the box to lead the nation through a challenging time toward common prosperity on the divided peninsula, even if reunification remains a long-term goal. Mold-breaking thinking and brave moves are required in times of crisis. The new president needs to show extraordinary leadership by listening to different public views and crafting a suprapartisan consensus regarding inter-Korean issues across a polarized divide.
Lee Kyong-hee
Lee Kyong-hee is a former editor-in-chief of The Korea Herald. The views expressed here are the writer's own. -- Ed.
koreadherald@heradcorp.com
