Why Kim Jong-il is Meeting a Lame-Duck President
The North and South Korean governments announced jointly that their leaders will hold a summit in Pyongyang on Aug. 28. The summit was widely expected. It is a well-known fact that South Korean officials, from the former prime minister to a close aide of the president and even lawmakers on his side, traveled to Pyongyang and China, begging North Korea to agree to a summit. Recently, there were even forecasts that the summit would take place in August.
Given the Roh Moo-hyun administration’s obsession with a summit with North Korea, it may have been a foregone conclusion that a visit to Seoul by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, as promised during the 2000 inter-Korean summit, would never happen. President Roh said he would pave the way for regular summits between North and South Korea. But as long as every South Korean leader goes cap-in-hand to Pyongyang to seek an audience with the North Korean leader, the value of regular summits will diminish.
It is highly desirable for the leaders of North and South Korea to meet and talk. There are hopes that the summit could have more impact than any other meeting to help North Korea dismantle its nuclear program. At present, the six-country nuclear talks face the crucial stage of reporting North Korea’s fissile materials and disabling its nuclear facilities.
But until now, North Korea has strictly excluded South Korea from discussion of its nuclear program. North Korea has been saying that issue is something it wants to discuss with the United States. For North Korea, its nuclear program is its main bargaining chip in getting the U.S. to open diplomatic channels and normalize relations. It has been North’s consistent policy to demand only financial concessions from South Korea depending on the results of talks with the U.S. There is no evidence that North Korea has changed this policy, and it may think of this summit as another means of opening a path to the U.S. If North Korea sticks to the policy, then the U.S. and North Korea will play the key roles in bringing about changes in the Korean Peninsula, while South Korea may risk seeing itself relegated to a supporting role. If that happens, then this summit would merely be a venue for lip service to the grand unity of the Korean people, while all South Korea ends up with is a huge bill.
In an interview with the Hankyoreh Shinmun daily in June, Roh said the incoming CEO is the one who pays for the bills drawn by the outgoing CEO. He said regardless how few months he has left in office, if he makes agreements with the North Korean leader, his successor would not be able to reject them. In other words, he’s saying that nobody can mess with the things he does during his final months in office. This is how Roh thinks. If the summit is held this way and sidesteps the nuclear dilemma, whose resolution would mark the beginning of normalization in the Korean Peninsula, then the meeting could end up causing great harm for South Korea.
Realistically, President Roh has about three months left in office when he attends the summit. This goes against common sense. It is highly suspicious that the North Korean leader has now agreed to a summit he had been turning down over the past four years at a point when the lifespan of the Roh administration has almost run out.
The summit was announced at a time when the opposition Grand National Party is in the midst of a primary to select its presidential candidate. The summit will take place exactly eight days after the GNP announces its presidential candidate. And after that, the liberal ruling camp will hold its primary and then the presidential election will take place. The timing is perfect to pour cold water on the GNP’s momentum, while supporting the rise of the ruling camp. The previous summit in 2000 was announced just three days before Koreans hit polling stations to vote for National Assemblymen. It is impossible not to point out the political nature of the summit, considering how their announcements took place so close to South Korean elections.
Starting this year, North Korea appeared notably impatient about the results of South Korea’s presidential election, even warning that a war would break out if the GNP came to power. Even South Korea’s progressive ruling camp, whose mass defections and name change failed to boost its popularity, has been betting everything on the summit.
North Korea will inevitably demand repayment for helping the South Korean government by agreeing to a summit. Pyongyang collected US$500 million under the table for agreeing to hold the 2000 summit. When the next administration steps into office, it will get the lowdown on the events that led to this summit. There is a strong possibility that massive aid for North Korea has already been offered and incredible amounts of money will end up coming from South Korean taxpayers. This administration cannot unilaterally strike deals that could burden the next administration.
After the inter-Korean summit was announced, a majority of South Koreans expressed apprehension, as postings in cyberspace show. They saw right through the true intentions of the North and South Korean governments. In a survey by Gallup Korea on June 23, only 20 percent of Koreans felt an inter-Korean summit should take place during President Roh Moo-hyun’s term in office, while 69.8 percent said it should happen after the presidential election considering its impact on voters. Roh must remember when he travels to Pyongyang that Korean people are watching him.
