Ominous signs from the north

Kim’s attention should turn inside, not southward

There has always been the so-called North Korean factor or risk in major economic and political moments in South Korea. The upcoming presidential election seems to be no exception.

President Lee Myung-bak held an emergency national security meeting at Cheong Wa Dae Wednesday to discuss two issues: the repeated, possibly intended, crossing of the maritime demarcation line by North Korean fishing vessels in the West Sea, and no announcement of major economic reform in the communist regime’s annual parliamentary session.

We hope the frequent violations of the northern limit line (NLL) by North Korean fishermen are just for maximizing blue crab catches during the peak season, and the failure to come up with bold changes in the socialist economic system reflects their insufficient preparation.

If the two moves are correlated and aimed at confusing and influencing the South in its election season, however, Pyongyang is gravely mistaken.

On the premise that this undesirable assumption is right, the North’s intentions may include the incapacitation of NLL as the sea border, cementing internal unity by creating external troubles, and reviving the political, or electoral, “north wind,” aimed at helping the most pro-North Korean candidate among the three major presidential hopefuls in the South.

In any case, Pyongyang’s perceived attempts are bound to fail.

It cannot deceive South Korean voters twice with the same trick. Any renewed tension along the frontline will show the Lee administration’s failed inter-Korean policy. But few can tell for sure whether it would help the doves or hawks more. The North’s preference among the three candidates may be in the order of liberalist Moon Jae-in, centrist Ahn Cheol-soo and conservative Park Geun-hye. All of them have one thing in common, however: a vow to break away from Lee’s hard-line policy.

That means it’s up to the North to correspond to their new policies. Far more importantly, this is a time for the isolationist regime, whose survival itself is at stake, not to seek an exit from provocations against the South but to find a solution from genuine reforms within itself. Pyongyang must know it is neither Washington nor even Beijing but Seoul that will be its eventual economic savior. The next U.S. government, Democrat or Republican, will be even harsher against the nuclear blackmailer. China is too busy to care about anything other than itself and the U.S.

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un must know 2013 will be the most crucial year for him and his country. Much is up to this young leader as to which of his two counterparts he will resemble: Burma or Syria. We hope for much better than that, envisioning Kim will become the Deng Xiaoping of North Korea.

The geopolitical situations in Northeast Asia indicate any further inter-Korean tension or conflict will lead to the destruction of the Korean Peninsula. This is why Lee’s North Korea policy ended up a total fiasco. The next president should have firm convictions for inter-Korean reconciliation and ultimate unification to lead North Korea in this direction without spoiling it or giving it false illusions.

Now that the candidates’ economic and social platforms are resembling one another’s, voters can consider their diplomatic and security policies as meaningful criteria. <The Korea Times>

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