South Korea’s ties with North Korea and Japan remain as tense and frayed as ever 70 years since the peninsula’s liberation from Japan’s colonial rule and subsequent division into two parts along the 38th parallel.
Tension is escalating along the heavily guarded inter-Korean border in the wake of explosions on Aug. 4 of land mines planted by the North on the southern side of the Demilitarized Zone, which severely injured two South Korean soldiers.
Seoul is also watching with unease for a statement to be issued by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday, which is expected to backpedal on his predecessors’ remorseful stance on Japan’s past wrongdoings.
President Park Geun-hye’s government is criticized for having remained inflexible and passive in handling relations with Pyongyang and Tokyo. Its initiative of building trust between the two Koreas while coping sternly with provocations by the North has gone nowhere since Park took office 2 1/2 years ago. Some critics say her refusal to hold bilateral summit talks with Abe before the settlement of historical issues has held back South Korea-Japan relations.
Attention is being drawn to how Park will address Seoul’s troubled ties with Pyongyang and Tokyo in her Liberation Day speech Saturday.
The North should certainly be made to pay for its latest provocation at the risk of further straining inter-Korean relations. Based on a firm defense posture, however, Park is asked to be more proactive in inducing change in the reclusive North Korean regime by both applying more pressure and offering more incentives.
Her repeated emphasis on the benefits of the unification of the two Koreas may sound hollow, with Pyongyang showing little interest in holding dialogue with Seoul on mutual cooperation and reconciliation. Park now needs to focus on getting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who is seen to have consolidated his grip on power, to realize it is unviable to pursue the development of nuclear weapons and the economy in parallel.
Many pundits here advise Park not to allow Abe’s statement — which is certain to disappoint her — to affect Seoul’s approach of decoupling historical disputes with Tokyo from practical cooperation in security and the economy. South Korea should avoid being riveted to criticizing Abe’s historical revisionism and pay attention to conscientious and rational voices in Japan to help create a friendly partnership between the two sides.
It may be fairer to the Park administration to say that China’s rising power has put Seoul in a more difficult position to handle matters with Pyongyang and Tokyo. The North Korean nuclear issue is being pushed back and Abe is finding more leeway to push for his nationalist agenda as confrontation is intensifying between China and the U.S. over hegemony in the region.
Given this situation, South Korea needs to seek a greater role in promoting security and peace in Northeast Asia. In the context of this broader approach, Seoul could find more effective ways of healing its strained ties with Pyongyang and Tokyo.
Paving the path toward peace and coprosperity in Northeast Asia may be an ultimate task that should be assumed by South Korea, which has suffered through a harsh colonial rule and an onerous division of the peninsula to achieve an industrialized democracy.
From this viewpoint, the country could contribute — in a more creative, flexible and practical manner — to replacing confrontation with collaboration among regional powers.
To carry though this task, South Koreans are required to first form a concerted position among themselves on the strategic course their country needs to take. If they continue to remain split on how to handle the North, South Korea may have no cause to ask for effective international help in enhancing security and peace on the peninsula, let alone its unification.
