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PYONGYANG WATCH
Why sunshine is not
moonshine
By Aidan Foster-Carter
My last column (A diss-service by self-righteous
know-alls, February 8) took exception to the sneers
and smears of know-it-all American right-wingers, whose
idea of progress in Korea is to bad-mouth not only Kim
Jong-il but also anyone who believes, as I do, that
there is no feasible alternative to engagement with
Pyongyang. With the US-ROK (Republic of Korea) alliance
in poor shape currently, I suggested that a more
conciliatory tone would be wiser, as well as better
manners, toward the people whose country this is - and
who are in the front line should it all go horribly
wrong.
If these guys get my goat, it's because a
desperately difficult and dangerous situation can't be
solved by simply reading from an ideological script. Nor
do insults help. The A-word, "appeasement", is freely
hurled at those who would engage North Korea (or Iraq,
for that matter); with its overtones - shades of Munich
1938 - of moral and analytical failure alike, in not
recognizing or resisting an evil aggressor.
Munich does, of course, remind us that a wrong
call in matters of threat perception can be disastrous.
Yet no two cases are alike. And it was not the appeaser
Neville Chamberlain, but the warrior Winston Churchill,
who famously stated that "to jaw-jaw is always better
than to war-war". He said this in 1954 - at the White
House. The present occupant would do well to take heed,
and not only regarding Korea.
South Korea has
tried, and wants to go on trying, another way. Kim
Dae-jung's "Sunshine Policy" derived from an Aesop
fable. Sun and wind bet on how best to make a man take
off his coat. Warmth worked.
From the start,
critics at home and abroad attacked this as hopelessly
naive: moonshine, some called it. These days they are
crowing. Far from disarming, North Korea is more
menacing than ever. Moreover, it now looks as if Seoul
secretly paid Pyongyang at least US$200 million for June
2000's inter-Korean summit.
No one could deny
that this is deeply depressing, and leaves a nasty
taste. Yet I would still defend the broad Sunshine
strategy, both in its conception and results, from the
Wall Street Journal's charges that it was nothing but a
"security-destroying peace charade", and Kim Dae-jung "a
false prophet of peace".
For a start, remember
how things used to be. The Cold War division of Korea
looked set in stone. Each side hated and feared the
other. Contacts were minimal; several false starts at
dialogue all foundered on mutual mistrust. By the
mid-1990s this was a global anachronism. South Korea's
then president, Kim Young-sam, veered erratically
between hard and soft lines - not unlike the Bush
administration today.
We really needed to move
beyond this frozen stalemate into a new and more
positive game. That was what Kim Dae-jung tried to do.
So his first and abiding virtue was sheer policy
consistency. Unlike with Kim YS before him, or George W
Bush now, we all - not least North Korea - know where we
are with DJ.
He also recognized that decades of
enmity cannot be overcome overnight. To win Pyongyang's
trust would need incentives, sweeteners, even
loss-leaders. This was bound to be risky. As I've said
before, the kindness went too far. North Korea has
treated this as an endless gravy train, giving little in
return.
The new allegations of underhand deals
show a further moral hazard. Like a supermodel, it seems
Kim Jong-il wouldn't even get out of bed for less than a
million dollars. The cynicism is depressing. But I still
don't buy the suggestion that Seoul was cynical too: a
mere show to win Kim DJ the Nobel prize.
Rather,
I believe Kim was and is sincere. Without defending
underhand deals, he's not the only one. In Afghanistan
the Taliban were defeated, it transpires, less by US
military might than by wodges of cash. The US Central
Intelligence Agency spent tens of millions of dollars
bribing warlords to change sides. Hey - if it works, it
works.
Did it work? If North Korea is now in
dangerous nuclear defiance, whose fault is that? Kim
Jong-il's, to be sure. Clearly Pyongyang has not
disarmed. But its threat was checked, and was being
dealt with, by South Korea's and (under Bill Clinton) US
engagement. Who pulled the plug on this, preferring
"axis of evil" rhetoric and threatening preemptive
strikes? That I call "security-destroying" with a
vengeance.
As for Kim Dae-jung being "a false
prophet of peace": Despite the missteps and
disappointments (a pioneer's lot, always), Sunshine has
at least one huge, concrete, irreversible achievement.
North and South Korea may still be foes - but they are
no longer strangers. Seoul is now Pyongyang's No 2 trade
partner. Half a million Southern tourists have visited
the North's Mount Geumgang resort. Provinces,
businesses, non-governmental organizations and private
citizens are forging their own links. Last Saturday, a
106-strong team of Southern doctors and agricultural
experts flew to Pyongyang, to visit hospitals and farms
and plan further aid projects.
This kind of
thing was unthinkable before. Thanks to the Sunshine
Policy, it is now routine. True, North Korea still has a
foul and obtuse leadership, who may yet - abetted by
George W - fulfill their threat to turn the peninsula
into a sea of flames. But at the grassroots, healing has
begun. It might seem crazy to help someone who may yet
kill you. Yet, as the United States should know, civil
wars have their own conflicted logic, and a difficult
aftermath.
Korea needed someone with the courage
and vision to make a definite break with the old
self-perpetuating cycle of isolation and hostility. Kim
Dae-jung did that. Whatever else he may or may not have
done, history will give him credit that the sun, at long
last, began to shine.
(©2003 Asia Times Online
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