North Korea set to challenge new leader

North Korea’s Unha-3 rocket takes off on Dec. 12 in this photo released later by Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency. / Yonhap

President-elect Park Geun-hye will use her international profile and experience to deepen ties with Washington and improve those with China, while making security the bedrock of relations with North Korea, analysts say.

Her pledge to test dialogue with Pyongyang is seen as a referendum on incumbent Lee Myung-bak’s tough line on the North, which critics said was too passive.

The stance is part of a platform that will tweak Lee’s approach, which has prioritized relations with Washington, some say at the expense of those with China.

“Park will follow mostly what Lee has pursued in foreign policy,” Korea University professor Yoo Ho-yeol said. “While she will try to be more active on North Korea, her position is conservative and she will pay more attention to security and the alliance with the United States.”

The North in 2010 killed a total of 50 South Koreans in two separate provocations, opening the door for a greater presence in the region by Washington, who has urged for greater trilateral cooperation involving Japan. Detractors believed this caused players to fall back onto Cold War postures.

Though Park has proposed a strategy of trust-building with Pyongyang that is seen as a step forward from Lee, analysts say she will have to clarify the approach.

Dubbed “trustpolitik,” the approach proposes, among other measures, that the two Koreas build “cooperation centers” in each other’s capital to build up trust on the Korean Peninsula. It calls for “assuming a tough line against North Korea sometimes and a flexible policy open to negotiations at others,” she says.

On humanitarian aid, she says large-scale aid depends on the North’s denuclearization steps but would approve smaller packages targeting infants and children while working for more transparency to ensure that deliveries reach the needy.

Park says she will meet young North Korean leader Kim Jong-un but only if it is clear it would advance relations.

However, like Lee’s approach, it remains conditional, hinging on Seoul’s ability to “first demonstrate” a robust deterrence posture and establish that the North “will pay a heavy price for its military and nuclear threats.”

It remains to be seen how Pyongyang, which recently rattled the region with the successful launching of its Unha-3 rocket, will react. Seoul and Washington are lobbying support for international punishment for the move, saying it was a cover for a missile test.

Pyongyang, sensing the possibility of consecutive conservative administrations earlier this year launched a tirade of criticism at Park. But in recent months it has backed down, keeping the door open for talks.

The launch has altered the security landscape because it shows Pyongyang is apparently well on its way to long-range nuclear weapons capability that could threaten the United States.

While that prospect is expected to force Beijing and, eventually, the United States to test engagement with Pyongyang, some believe Park will have to weigh domestic concerns first as the election focused on economic and social welfare issues not foreign policy.

Some believe it is conceivable that the North could try to test the new administration with a bold move such as offering to send a high-ranking official to the South.
Such a move could force the hands of the allies. Washington has yet to veer from its approach of “strategic patience” that puts the onus on Pyongyang to change ahead of resumption of multilateral negotiations.

Any moves on the North are expected to be tightly coordinated with Washington. In this respect, Asan Institute analyst Bong Young-shik said Park was likely to be even more conservative than Lee, who fostered the tightest-ever bilateral ties with the main ally, citing a “deeply entrenched pro-U.S. element in Park’s foreign policy.”

Many of her advisors, he pointed out, have spent time in the United States and are experts in bilateral ties. “If she listens to these advisors it will be only natural for her to be more bent in favor in continuously maintaining the bedrock of U.S.-Korea partnership, both economic and security,” he said.

The question is if this will come at the expense of relations with China, the nation’s top trading partner, as many said it did under Lee.

Despite having consolidated economic relations, bilateral relations with China lag behind, with issues such as Beijing’s poor treatment of South Korean detainees, its repatriation of North Korean defectors and claims to Ieodo continually threatening to flare into diplomatic spats. Analysts suggest that the new generation of Chinese leaders led by Xi Jinping have a deeper understanding of South Korean affairs, possibly opening the door for warmer ties.

On the campaign trail, Park took a more cautious approach than Moon, stressing that the alliance with Washington and the strategic partnership with Beijing, were different relationships and should thus be approached differently.

Watchers said this implies that she will not seek to rebalance relations but simply deepen ties with Beijing, which her camp believes have not reached their potential. Chinese analysts note that Park has met Xi and has a large network of colleagues in China, raising hope there for pragmatic engagement under her leadership. She also proposes to establish a “Northeast Asia Peace and Cooperation Initiative,” a process to help overcome imbalances in economic and security cooperation.

Bong said Japan remained a wild card, despite concerns that a conservative swing there could make issues such as South Korea’s Dokdo Islets, which Tokyo also lays claim to, more difficult.

But the analyst noted that incoming Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have a longer track record of decision-making than the outgoing Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), led by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.

“There are concerning elements with Abe. But one of the big problems of the tenure of the DPJ was there were no decision makers in Tokyo for Seoul to discuss and move along on thorny bilateral issues. Abe may show flexibility in striking deals with Beijing and Seoul because he has credentials among supporters,” he said. <The Korea Times/Kim Young-jin>