With the historic meeting of the two Korea's leaders just a few days away, summit fever is upon us.
Everyone is talking about unification. And so they should be, for it is about time peace broke out.
But clearly a formal peace and unification are some way off. If so, what can we reasonably expect to come more immediately out of this summit?
In many ways, the medium is the message. The meeting itself is success enough. We should not expect much more than some historic pictures. What the two men talk about over their ginseng tea is secondary to the fact that they are talking in the first place.
Lest we forget, North and South Korea's top leaders have never met before. We have come along way from the late 1950s when a South Korean politician, Cho Bong-am, was executed for suggesting that it might be a good idea to talk with North Korea.
In those days, the threats of the founding president, Syngman Rhee, to 'march North' so alarmed the United States that there were contingency plans to replace him.
Washington eventually realized that Rhee was speaking rhetorically. But, nevertheless, his idea of 'marching' into the enemy capital characterized the way North and South felt about each other for decades. It indicated what re-unification was really all about in the minds of leaders on both sides - recovery of the rebel - held territory.
The fact, then, that a South Korean President is about to kiss the tarmac in Pyongyang is indication that this belligerence has, at least on the southern side, changed.
The point has been turning slowly, through the 1990s, but can be symbolized in the historic memory by the images that come out of this summit.
What would really constitute success would be if North Korea could signal that it, too, has changed. We know that its previous determination to communize South Korea has been replaced by a determination to simpply survive the collapse of global communism. But has it ttturned from belligerence as a means to survive? Maybe. But its willingness to host Kim Dae-jung is of itself insufficient evidence. Pyongyang may be doing it for the money.
It may be too much to expect North Korea to agree to formally drop the clause in the Workers' Party constitution that calls for the communization of South Korea by whatever means possible. It may also be too much to expect North Korea to freely allow reunions of the millions of families separated by the DMZ. When that happens, the myth of the Workers' Paradise will be well and truly dumped and you have to do these things carefully to avoid being hung from a telegraph pole by the newly liberated masses.
Gentling North Korea in from the cold will take time. So, perhaps the best we can hope for next week is for Kim Jong-il to indicate a willingness to continue in the new direction. If, in short, a second round summit were agreed upon and, preferably, if he were to accept an invitation to visit Seoul, we should be happy.
Internationally, the main concerns about North Korea are its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and its sale of missiles to the enemies of Israel. Not much is being said publicly, but it must be obvious to ll parties that the United States wants Seoul to use the summit opportunity to reinforce these concerns.
This poses a deeper dilemma for South Korea than we might think. After five decades of rivalry, the ascendancy of South Korea is clear in all aspects - except one. Its weak point is that its alliance with the United States is still often perceived by South Koreans themselves as the dependence which it once was. This contrasts with North Korea's emphasis on self-reliance, which better suits Korean pride.
South Koreans have found themselves simultaneously feeling secure in the U.S. embrace and resenting doing the U.S. bidding. As a result of this dependent mentality, there is a rather odd attitude in South Korea that North Korea's massss destruction weapons and its missile sales are not our problem. They're a U.S. problem so why should we bother with them?
Still, the issues need to be raised and, hopefully, will be addressed over the longer term, as the two Koreas reconcile. But we can't expect North Korea to give them up easily. They have little else to bargain with.
(Michael Breen)
Korea times
2000.06.08
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