[Column] The failure of the U.S. hard line

Jeong Seong-Jang, researcher at the Sejong Institute

South Korea’s policy of engagement toward North Korea has encountered a crisis since Pyongyang claimed it tested a nuclear explosive device. On October 9, the day North Korean state media announced the test had been successful, South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun said that he will not be able to continue with the engagement policy. For the first time ever, half of the respondents in a poll on South Korea’s citizens called the policy mistaken, and a mere 10 percent credited it with having achieved something. A full 35.9 percent said the current policy has to be halted completely, and 36 percent want it downscaled.

It makes full sense that when North Korea went ahead with a nuclear test opposed by neighboring countries like South Korea and China, the South Korean people would become extremely angry. However, is there really a close correlation between the North’s nuclear test and the engagement policy towards Pyongyang? Is it, as some are claiming, the "result of the governments of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun and their Sunshine policy ‘pouring generosity’ on the North"?

If you take a cool-headed, thorough look at the circumstances surrounding the nuclear test, you discover that there is no basis to claim engagement has anything to do with it. There is nothing about the North’s declaration on February 10, 2005 that it has nuclear weapons, or its announcement on October 3 that it was going to perform a nuclear test, that can be linked to the engagement policy. What both events have most in common is that they are hard-line North Korean responses to hostile U.S. policy towards Pyongyang. The North Korean foreign ministry, in its October 3 statement, said "The U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure compel the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test, an essential process for bolstering a nuclear deterrent as a corresponding measure for defense."

Looking at it this way, the North’s declaration that it has nuclear weapons and its recent test are not the result of the South’s "pouring on the generosity," but the Bush administration’s policy of rejecting the North’s entrance into the international community and its attempt to keep it isolated and make it collapse. On October 10, Le Monde noted in an editorial that there are serious problems with the U.S. approach of pressure and sanctions, saying that "a policy designed to keep the North Korean regime from having nuclear weapons has brought about the opposite result, which raises questions about that policy."

The policies of the governments of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun have, in fact, produced results that previously would have been unimaginable. In the years up to 2000 there had only been one cross-border family reunion event. Between June 2000, when the summit in Pyongyang was held, and June 2006 there were no less than 14 such events. The same period represents an unprecedented era of active exchange and cooperation. What needs to be fundamentally reconsidered and amended at the current juncture, therefore, is not the South Korean government’s engagement policy but the U.S.’s slanted North Korea policy.

Of course, now that North Korea has said it tested a nuclear device despite the opposition of the nations concerned, the South Korean government needs to take resolute action that would make Pyongyang pay a price for its actions. Its response must not, however, be one that follows along with the Bush administration’s one-sided policy of sanctions and pressure, which has been proven a failure. It needs to convince the U.S. to commence on a second "Perry Process" and formulate a more flexible policy of engagement towards North Korea, one that is a fitting combination of hard-line and moderate approaches.