Abstract
The Korean desire for national reunification entails thought about the course and political form of the unified Korea that could be achievable under the current international security architecture provided by those stake-holding powers – China, Japan, the United States, and Russia in the region. A stable international institution is still uncertain or absent with no credible mutual deterrence mechanism to speak of, in particular when a big bang occurs on the peninsula.
Sapiens qui prospicit (the wise sees the future)
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Notes
- 1.
“To man belong the plans of the heart but from the Lord comes the reply of the tongue” (Proverbs16:1)
- 2.
Russian U.N. Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said on June 11, 2009 that Moscow shares “the frustration and concern of all U.N. Security Council members over North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests. He said, “We are clearly facing a situation which poses clear proliferation risks. We are doing it (sanctions talks in U.N. against North Korea’s May 25th second nuke test) with a very heavy heart,… because having sanctions is not our choice. But some political message must be sent.” (Quoted from AP report in The Japan Times, Friday, June 12, 2009, p. 1.)
- 3.
Roh Moo-Hyun, 62, who served his five-year term as South Korea’s president from February 2003 to February 2008, reportedly killed himself by leaping off a cliff behind his rural home early dawn on May 25, 2009. He left a note in his personal computer: “Don’t blame anybody. Please cremate me. And please leave a small tombstone near home.” He was under prosecutors’ investigation on suspicion that his family took about $6 million in bribes from a company CEO, tarnishing a reputation he tried to nurture of being a reformer who insisted to a clean Korean society. As president, he pushed political changes that sought to harmonize Southern politics with those of the North. He initiated without success an attempt to abolish the South’s draconian National Security Law, which the North consistently wanted to abolish. He went to Pyongyang in October 2007 for talks with Kim Jong-Il, a second summit meeting of leaders of the divided peninsula.
- 4.
At the very moment when Seoul was in mourning, Pyongyang staged its second nuclear bomb experiment at the same location where the first nuclear test was made on October 9, 2006. In response to the North’s provocative action, South Korean government announced on May 26, 2009 that South Korea will immediately participate in the PSI (Proliferation Security Initiative) pact (proposed by President George W. Bush on May 31, 2003), which aims at stopping international trafficking and the transfer of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
- 5.
Zbigniew Brzezinski advocated in early 2009 the development of a G-2, comprising China and the United States that could address the international financial crisis, limit the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, tackle climate change, and help resolve ongoing international conflicts.
- 6.
The Soviet Union was responsible with the United States for the division of Korea at the wake of the World War II and had provided more than $2 billion in foreign aid and credits to North Korea up to 1984, as well as an increasing quantity of oils, gas, weapons and other materials along with advanced military technologies up until 1989, a year of dramatic change in the external relations of the Soviet Union.
From that time on, ideology gave way to pragmatism and internationally accepted standards of external deals.
- 7.
As of June 2009, the Obama administration is reportedly becoming impatient with the North’s fireworks, and seeks tough measures like redesignating North Korea as a country that sponsors terrorists.
- 8.
It is still a question if both Russia and China would follow up with a new U.N. Security Council binding resolution. But Russia, once a key backer of North Korea, condemned the North’s second nuclear test. Moscow’s U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, who is also the Security Council president in 2009, said the 15-member body would begin work “quickly” on a new resolution. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu also said Beijing “resolutely opposed” the nuclear test, urging North Korea to return to negotiations under which it had agreed to dismantle its atomic program. This time, North Korea’s reckless test made it difficult for Russia and China to shy away from international move to impose new sanctions against the isolated communist nation. In the end, the U.N. Security Council’s sanctions committee imposed a new set of sanctions on North Korea in accordance with the Resolution of 1874, which the council adopted on June 12 in response to the North’s second nuclear test on May 25, 2009. But North Korea seems unfazed by both the move of U.N. Security Council resolution and the would-be effect of limited sanction, which will put the North in a tighter corner. China continues to supply food and oil to North Korea despite the North’s provocative behavior.
- 9.
The North’s saber-rattling in April – June 2009 was believed to be part of its succession campaign. According to outside rumors, Kim Jong-Il’s youngest son, Kim Jong-Un, 26 years old, has the best chance of succeeding the authoritarian leader. He is known to have studied at the International School of Bern in Switzerland until 1998 under the pseudonym, Park Chol, learning to speak English, German, and French. Among his classmates, largely consisting of children of foreign diplomats, he was known as timid, humble, and introverted but an avid skier and a big fan of the NBA basketball star Michael Jordan.
- 10.
Blumenthal and Kagan (2009), p. 16..
- 11.
“Extended deterrence” refers to the idea that the United States would retaliate if its allies are attacked.
- 12.
Such an idea of holding a trilateral framework among Japan, the United States, and China was first floated by China to the former US President George W. Bush. But it was shelved due to Washington’s concern that such forum might trigger a negative reaction from South Korea if the issues on North Korea were included in its principal agenda.
- 13.
Neutralism means a condition for a state to stand aloof from surrounding powers while accepting the balance of power around the state. This condition can be secured through a legal or binding pact agreed by the powers of stakes on the particular state. Neutrality could be used as a protective political and military umbrella for the state from all concerned powers without fears that the balance of power in the region would be tipped against any of them. The 1968 Princeton study defined a neutralized state as follows: A neutralized state is one whose political independence and territorial integrity are guaranteed “permanently” by a collective agreement of great powers, subject to the conditions that the neutralized state will not take up arms against another state, except to defend itself, and will assume treaty obligations that may compromise its neutralized status… . . Neutralization is a special international status designed to restrict the intrusion of specified state actions in a specified area. The status of neutralization is often referred to as “permanent neutrality to signify that it is valid in times of peace as well as war. (see Cyril E. Black, Richard A. Folk, Klaus Knorr, and Oran R. Young, Neutralization and World Politics, Princeton University Press, 1968, chapter xi.)
- 14.
“Neutral Korea” is not an official position of the South Korean government, nor is it yet fully supported by majority of South Korean residents. It is just one of the pilot options that would meet fewer objections from all the stake nations.
- 15.
It has not yet been determined if every country that has a stake on the Korean Peninsula would be willing to accommodate a unified Korea in form of neutrality. We simply assume this system will face the least resistance to a reunification opportunity, assuming a bang occurs soon.
- 16.
The Kim Dae-Jung administration supplied $ 2,488.4 million and Roh Moo-Hyun’s administration provided $ 4,471.1 million to North Korea.
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Hwang, EG. (2010). International Politics and a Search for Unified Korea. In: The Search for a Unified Korea. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1562-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1562-7_8
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