A Make-Or-Break Presidential Election for the Two Koreas

Tension is rising as North Korea launched its second missile test in a week, days before the South Korean presidential election on March 9, 2022. Lee Sung-yoon, a North Korea expert at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, commented that North Korea has often in the past attempted military provocations to influence elections in South Korea, including launching a rocket a week before the December 2012 presidential election, thus “[now], with all eyes on the Ukraine crisis, is an opportune time for North Korea to create more problems for the U.S. and meddle in South Korea’s election.”

CURRENT POLITICAL CLIMATE

While domestic and other economic issues dominate the campaign, North Korea’s ongoing missile activities and foreign policy matters are also expected to weigh on public sentiment. After a month of missile testing in January with 10 launches and despite a series of high profile engagements with South Korean President Moon and former U.S. President Trump respectively, Kim Jong-un’s regime is reported to own around 60 nuclear bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of destroying any U.S. city.

In preparation for South Korea’s administration change, Pyongyong’s aggressive foreign policy is speculated to serve as an assurance against any possible result in the election. In particular, an aggressive policy provides a strong guarantee for North Korea’s national security in the event the conservative candidate wins and potential engagement between the two Koreas becomes highly unlikely. With an objective to strengthen national security, North Korea’s military capabilities would prove its power to overcome political and economic sanctions imposed by the international community, as well as the pandemic and natural disasters within the nation. On the other hand, if the progressive candidate wins, North Korea’s aggressive foreign policy would place it at an advantageous position with bargaining power to push the newly elected president to reduce tensions arising from the escalating inter-Korean crisis by adopting diplomacy more similar to the current Moon administration.

President Moon Jae In at his inauguration. (Korea.net)

THE 2022 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

The front-runners for the 2022 election are Yoon Seok-youl of the Conservative People Power Party and Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party. Polls revealed that Yoon and Lee are running neck and neck, with Lee’s public approval rating at 38 percent and Yoon’s at 37 percent in a survey of 1,000 adults conducted on February 25, 2022, and a tie at 35 percent in another survey from early February 2022.

Yoon stands firm with his conservative predecessors in demanding North Korea’s denuclearisation as a prerequisite for peace talks and economic engagements between the Koreas. In late November 2021, Yoon stated that he would consider cancelling the symbolic inter-Korean 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement, a critical diplomatic legacy of President Moon, if North Korea does not change its attitude, as he would not seek a summit with Kim Jong-un “just for show.” In January 2022, Yoon alarmed many by advocating a pre-emptive military strike to stop North Korean hypersonic attacks. His emphasis on resuming joint military exercises with the U.S., which have been scaled down since 2018, is likely to anger Kim Jong-un. Khang X. Vu, East Asian politics specialist at Boston College, commented that Yoon’s position is “harsh enough to make North Korea abandon diplomacy altogether, as it was the case during the tenures of Lee and Park.”

In contrast, Lee supports Moon’s gentle approach in forming diplomatic relations and engaging in economic cooperation with the North as a means of initiating denuclearisation, promising to ease existing sanctions upon North Korea’s compliance. In view of Yoon’s stance on a pre-emptive strike, Lee opined that “[a] lot of wars broke out not because of national interest, but because of such heated, emotional exchanges…[it is] important that we should not have any kind of unnecessary stimulation…that could escalate military tension.” Although Lee adopts a similar stance in trying to end the long-lasting Korean war in order to bring Pyongyang back to the negotiating table, Jenny Town, senior fellow at Stimson Centre told CNBC that Yoon is unlikely to copy Moon’s policies, “[while] Moon was personally heavily invested in engineering an inter-Korean summit, and trying to build sustainable, cooperative relations with North Korea, Lee is more likely to uphold the principle of peaceful coexistence while being reluctant to expend too much political capital on trying to achieve it, especially if Pyongyang is uncooperative.”

LESSON FROM UKRAINE

It is interesting to note that Ukraine was the world’s third largest nuclear weapons state and its scientists actually helped Pyongyang develop its missiles during the fall of the Soviet Union. From North Korea’s perspective, Ukraine made a mistake of trading its opportunity to have a nuclear deterrent to ensure its national security against attacks from Russia and the West. Following the Ukrainian invasion, “[the] chance of North Korea believing in U.S.-offered security assurance in return for nuclear disarmament—lock, stock and barrel—is now close to zero,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at Sejong Institute think tank. Since the U.S. is siding with Ukraine and it is now extremely unlikely to seek Russia’s consent for new U.N. Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang, Cheong noted that Kim’s regime would use this time to further develop nuclear weapons.

As tensions across the demilitarised zone escalate, a conservative win for South Korea’s presidential election could potentially ignite new frictions between the two Koreas. In the meantime, North Korea, China, and the U.S. are closely watching as South Korea unfolds its geopolitical fate on March 9, 2022.

North Korean Refugees Now – Part 3: Reunification

If you ask those around the world who work on behalf of North Korean refugees and North Korean people, there are differing opinions on what should be done in North Korea to alleviate the suffering in North Korea. Some say that all the North Korean people need is an open economy. Others say they need political freedom. Some say that reunification is the only path to lasting peace and happiness.

Reunification is an intriguing option that can bring many changes to the North Korean peninsula and even greatly benefit the 200,000 refugees in China. It can erase the border that has divided the peninsula for 70 years. It can join the vast mineral resources in North Korea with the industrial might of South Korea. It can bring the tens-of-millions of people in the North vital resources like food and medicine. It can bring the gospel into the country.

In today’s post we will explore the status of reunification and spell out how it can affect the 200,000 North Korean refugees in China, the peninsula and the region as a whole.

South Korea’s youth grows increasingly wary of their neighbors to the North and their interest in reunification is waning. This generation has only read about a united Korean peninsula in history books and have heard about it from their grandparents. They have no personal ties to cousins, aunts and uncles they may have in the Hermit Kingdom.

The chart above depicts the shifting sentiments of the Korean people. In 2011, 41 percent of South Koreans in their 20s polled said that reunification was necessary.

In 2014, the Asan Institute for Policy Studies asked South Koreans what words they would use they would associate with North Korea. The results (shown above) depict a population in South Korea that does not use the word “family” or “one nation” in their descriptions of their neighbors to the North. And why would they?

The once united Koreas are yin and yang today. One is rich. The other is poor. One is a democracy. The other is a totalitarian dictatorship. To reunite, many experts say that it will cost South Korea an estimated $2 trillion and disrupt the surging economy of South Korea.

South Korea’s president, Park, Geun-hye has made reunification a key component of her presidency. Some experts say that it’s the country’s last-ditch effort as interest in her country wanes.

In light of the decreased interest of the South Korean people to reunify, Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University, Sue Mi Terry spelled out three likely scenarios for reunification in Foreign Affairs magazine.

The first is what she describes as the “soft landing” in which North Korea improves their economy, engages with South Korea and willfully dissolves under democratic rule. The second involves an implosion of North Korea under economic pressures, in which case South Korea assumes control of the peninsula. The third is a military conflict in which the South and its allies gain control of the North by force.

The most likely, according to Terry, is the second scenario. North Korea implodes due to economic failure or political in-fighting and is absorbed into South Korea.

However, an implosion would send North Korean refugees into China and South Korea, creating an unparalleled humanitarian crisis. Such a scenario, though possible, is unlikely in the status quo as China, North Korea’s largest benefactor, will not allow this to happen for many reasons we discussed in an earlier post.

China sees North Korea as a key, strategic partner for many reasons, namely, to keep the US army far from its borders.

North Korea, on the other hand, has embraced isolationism. Its “rogue state” status has left the dictatorship no choice but to hold onto power in their failed state. They are keen to the fact that any scenario in which the regime topples would mean trials in international courts and possibly execution at the hands of its own citizenry.

The US and its allies have little time to devote to a meaningful solution to the problem of North Korea with wars in the Middle East and its dependence on Chinese imports. Reunification, to world leaders, will likely be an expensive if not bloody process and one which would require too much political will.

But this is, to many, is a short-sighted view. If there is no North Korean dictatorship, the largest destabilizing force in East Asia would be eliminated. 25 million North Korean people would be free from their imprisonment and add South Korea’s dwindling workforce. South Korea would eventually prosper with access to the rich mineral wealth North Korea cannot afford to extract on its own.

Reunification will likely mean that the 200,000 North Korean refugees caught in limbo in China can return home and will not have to live in fear of forced repatriation for the “crime” of their escape.

It sounds almost too good to be true. There are many variables in this process that can harm North Korean refugees. A simple misstep by either of the Koreas, China or the US can cause irreparable damage for this population and the millions of people living on or near the peninsula.

It is a risky and expensive proposition, which politicians do not like. But the alternative is, arguably, even riskier. North Koreans are still hungry. There are tens of thousands in political prison camps. They have no freedom. And they are at the whim of the few at the top who live in opulence and care little about those they oppress.

The real risk isn’t in doing something to free these people, it’s if the world, with all its riches and bounty, does nothing.

We are not saying reunification is the ultimate answer but, in light of the suffering, we believe that something needs to be done.