Negotiating with the North: The Political Stakes
John Park describes how North Korea, South Korea, the United States, and China are approaching negotiations.
Now that the date and location of the historic summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un has been set, the only thing left to do is negotiate a solution to one of the most intractable conflicts of the last century.
While high level meetings like this are traditionally reserved for after the details of an agreement have been hammered out, the circumstances that led to the summit have been anything but traditional. And as such, it would be difficult to predict their outcome. But we can at least prepare ourselves by understanding the perspectives and political realities facing each major party as it heads in to negotiations.
In this second part of an ongoing series on the upcoming negotiations, HKS Lecturer John Park, director of the Korea Working Group at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, describes the social and economic factors motivating North and South Korea, as well as the United States and China.
Each week on PolicyCast, Host Matt Cadwallader (@mattcad) explores the ways individuals make democracy work by speaking with the world’s leading experts in public policy, media, and international affairs about their experiences confronting our most pressing public problems.
Transcript
Note: This transcript was automatically generated and only lightly edited.
Matt C.: You just returned from Seoul just a few days ago. What is the mood there? How are people feeling about these ongoing negotiations or discussions?
Dr. John Park: Compared to where we were just a few months ago, I think there’s a great sense of relief on the Koran peninsula. In Seoul, the idea that there was now a game plan to move away from the heightened tensions of last year and get on track for processes leading to a permanent peace mechanism to denuclearization and also an improvement in inter-Korean relations were all greeted with a lot of enthusiasm. I think the poll numbers are most convincing in terms of the shift. Prior to the summit, the overall South Korean mood was still skeptical, the hope that there would be a breakthrough, but still a healthy dose of skepticism. The latest poll numbers show that almost a direct shift in terms of that skepticism to a sense that there might be a plan here, that this could be a way out of the cycle that we saw last year of elevated tensions.
Overall, I would say the mood in Seoul, in particular, is one where we’re seeing the unveiling of the different pieces with the number of high-level summits but also the outlines of a game plan that could put us on a path that is very different from what we saw recently. There are a lot of risks involved, but I think we’re going to see South Korea’s executive put out more details in terms of how they’re going to try to hedge and mitigate some of these risks.
Matt C.: Obviously, the meeting between Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in was historic in that there was a crossing of the 38th parallel, and there was a lot of symbolism. Shortly thereafter, there was an announcement of shared intentions. That is not so historic in that those kinds of announcements have been made in the past. Do you get the sense that people feel like that was still a positive step even if it was kind of … they’d seen that before?
Dr. John Park: There are a lot of details that have to be worked out, and in terms of some of the language of the goals laid out, aspirational goals, they mirror very closely the language and terminology that we’ve seen in previous inter-Korean summit agreements and declarations. What I think is different now is that there’s a greater emphasis on these inter-Korean infrastructure development projects, essentially railways and roads, also things that have been mentioned in previous accords, but the details related to this part of it, we’re seeing more come out in the South Korean press, and this is the area that feels different. There is much more by way of preparation and consultation to make these projects take off in a way that they’ll happen quickly and on a scale that we really haven’t seen before. There is much that we have to wait and see, but in terms of the movement so far, I think this is an area that tends to be de-emphasized when it comes to analyses about, particularly, this summit.
Matt C.: I often hear people talk about North Korea as being very disconnected. Obviously, there’s a tremendous amount of propaganda and not so much access to the outside world, but I’m not so sure if that’s an accurate portrayal of the average North Korean’s understanding of their position relative to, say, their southern cousins. I’m curious for your perspective on this because when we’re talking about building roads between them, you hear people say, “Well, once the North Korean people see how much poorer they are, then they’ll surely overthrow the Kim regime.” Do you think that’s true?
Dr. John Park: The way that the developments on the Korean peninsula have been broadcast internally are very much within the formula of Pyongjin. This is the Kim regime’s … Kim Jong-un’s strategy, the game plan. The first part of it is building nuclear weapons for self-defense, minimal nuclear deterrent. The second is prosperity, economic development leading to improvement of the overall economy, and so, from that perspective from a domestic audience, you look at that formulation of Pyongjin and, through the statements from the regime and through the state media, the message is quite clear. North Korea has become a nuclear weapons state, not in terms of another member of the nuclear weapons club, but the P6, essentially the sixth within the group of great powers that have this type of weaponry, the nuclear weapons that can go across continents, so from that perspective, the idea of economic development projects now coming online in coordination and cooperation with South Korea, I think, is slotted under that second heading of economic development leading to prosperity.
From that angle, when you look at, also, the zones in which they’ll be doing the railways and the roads, predominantly they’re going to be on the coasts, on the west and east coasts. You look at the connection of the South Korean economy, which is, frankly, an island economy because it has been cut off from the land mass of Asia with the security and the division of the Korean peninsula, essentially connected and, with that, I think the activity that goes through and eventually spreads to other parts of North Korea becomes a part of the Pyongjin formulation as it’s mentioned internally. On that front, it’s going to be phased and controlled from the North Korean side but certainly with this type of cooperation and partnership on the South Korean side.
Matt C.: Obviously, this is something that the Kim regime would like to do but, at the same time, it does seem to represent a threat to the very nature of their regime. When people are a little bit better off, they’re more likely to ask questions about their political system. Is that part of the [inaudible 00:06:53]? How is North Korea thinking about that?
Dr. John Park: This isn’t going to be the opening of the gates totally. This is the type of controlled cooperation in terms of what comes through that, I think, will enable to North Korean regime to frame these type of developments as achievements under the Pyongjin game plan. From that perspective, the concerns from a North Korean regime angle that this is a Trojan horse of some kind, this is, I think, something that’s more structured and framed in terms of the broader Pyongjin and progress long the lines of the Pyongjin game plan.
Matt C.: Is this all an indication that the reason we’re seeing these negotiations, this nascent detent emerge, is it because of the sanctions that have been levied by the United States and, especially, China?
Dr. John Park: That’s definitely a dominant interpretation right now, and we hear a lot of that coming out of Washington as well. The view on sanctions is something that tends to be oversimplified in many respects. There is a role. There is an impact. These sanctions under the Trump administration go much further than other sanctions in previous administrations. However, if you look at where the North Korean regime is in terms of its development and also, most importantly, its relationship with China … If you think of it, North Korea really doesn’t function like a country. It’s a 1%, 99% phenomenon, and the 1% elites, a lot of them are embedded in the Chinese marketplace doing this type of business and procurement on behalf of the North Korean regime. This offers something of a coping mechanism for the regime. I think, even during some of the more stringent applications and implementation of these new types of sanctions, there still was this pressure relief valve function.
Matt C.: For the elite, at least.
Dr. John Park: For the elite, at least, exactly. For the 99%, there’s more access to low-level trading activities, setbacks that have connections to the sanctions and the increasing sanctions, but overall, the type of situation, I think, that has a type of resiliency that can last longer. It’s not to say indefinitely this won’t have a debilitating impact. It’s just that the coping mechanism from smuggling for the export of North Korean coal in limited but still in substantial quantities and also this idea of smuggling in oil gives a sense of how the smuggling networks do provide this coping mechanism.
On the other front, though, if you look at the sanctions implementation as well, this is a function of all the countries involved. When you look at it from the dynamics between North Korea and China, the onslaught of diplomacy and these diplomatic off-ramps and summits, I think, has created some opportunities for a little bit of easing up on sanctions, not the lifting of sanctions, but easing up on some of the implementation of sanctions in some areas of China. These are areas where I think we have to look a little elsewhere in terms of where the influence and the factor that led to these type of summits came from.
When you pursue that line of analysis, you look very squarely at Seoul and the South Korean approach to trying to move away from the heightened levels of tensions last year and the opportunities to use whatever diplomatic means possible to get the different countries around the table, first to the bilateral and then, eventually, what would be larger types of implementation venues as well. That’s the game plan, at least. For the time being, the diplomatic off-ramp has been working because there has been greater focus on these concrete actions.
It is enormously difficult task when it comes to denuclearization. There clearly are stated differences in terms of understandings of what denuclearization means, but when you look at it through what looks like, essentially, a blueprint from the Panmunjom Declaration, you see three areas. One is the focus on denuclearization, the inter-Korean relationship and improvement of that relationship, and the third the idea of building out a permanent peace mechanism. With that as the blueprint, I think you see this effort. There is no certainly of outcome but the investment of a tremendous amount of political capital and the effort to link it to some of these inter-Korean development projects on the transportation infrastructure side where the two features that I think will be important to monitor going forward is how quickly we’re going to see some of the implementation of these nascent processes. The other piece of it is the high-level engagement among the three core countries. This is basically the United States, South Korea, and North Korea.
Matt C.: Along those lines, Kim Jong-un recently made a trip to China to meet with Xi Jinping. Is China feeling left out of all of this?
Dr. John Park: One thing that we did notice is that, even at the height of tensions last year, there was no substantial change in terms of the engagement by the Communist Party of China with respect to their North Korean counterparts in the Workers’ Party. If you look at the whole phenomenon of what we call North Korea Incorporated, the elite state trading companies affiliated to the top branches of the regime, their officials, their procurement officers embedded in the Chinese marketplace, they continue to operate as they did before. From that perspective, I think it gives you a sense of a type of party-to-party relationship between the Chinese and North Koreans that is something of the institutional level.
With that, the meeting that took place between Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un very recently took everyone by surprise but from that perspective of party-to-party institution building. I think it gives you a sense that it is ongoing and, going forward as North Korea makes these steps towards denuclearization, that there will be an acceleration of the party-to-party connection in that sense as well and, perhaps, even more easing up of sanctions.
Matt C.: One thing that came out just in the last few days was there was some confusion about South Korea’s thoughts regarding the US troop presence. Obviously, North Korea says that it needs nuclear weapons to defend itself, and part of that is because there are 30-some-odd thousand American troops on its border, but now is that up for grabs in these negotiations and does South Korea want that?
Dr. John Park: There has been a lot of discussion about the role of US troops in South Korea if we go to the full fruition of this process where we see a denuclearized and a verified denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. We see a peace treaty and we also see this type of integral economic development project blooming in the North as well. There are a lot of ifs, and I think, with that, having this as a point of discussion at this early stage is one more of exploring the possibilities, as it were. To have it formally on the table, I think it’s still early, but it really, I think, is dependent upon what kind of progress we have, and it’s not the marginal progress but this idea of very advanced stages if the process does move to those advanced stages.
Matt C.: I can imagine having that number of troops is an economic boon to some areas in South Korea. Are there political reasons why Seoul may be slow to move on removing their presence?
Dr. John Park: There are economic benefits to local areas, but what we’re seeing in South Korea is an advanced economy and an economy that is more focused on trade. That’s a clear part of the dynamics of the overall economic composition. However, within the US military presence in South Korea, there is something of a centralization of their locations to a facility called Camp Humphreys. That’s in Pyeongtaek just south of Seoul, so we’re moving away from all these US military camps spread across South Korea to this central location in Camp Humphreys. From that perspective, there’s a lot of construction. There’s a lot of benefit to the local economy there, but the main reason, I think, is related to what’s called burden-sharing negotiations. It’s always a contentious exercise. In this particular cycle, the US side is expecting more of the South Korean contribution. South Korean view is that they’ve already been quite generous in terms of their contribution to the covering of expenses for housing and hosting US forces on the Korean peninsula in South Korea.
However, the main determinant, though, isn’t really on the economic side. I think it’s broader, the political and the security landscape. Under this current South Korean government more on the left-leaning side, there is an effort to accelerate what’s called OPCON control. There’s wartime OPCON control. In the event of war, operational control would come under the South Koreans and, as a part of this process, you would have more and more capabilities and command under the South Korean side rather than the US. Progressive government would like to see acceleration of this process, and so with this I think you will see, on this separate timeline, more of the military modernization on the South Korean side and this idea of relying less and less on the US part of the alliance here. That is something that is happening in a simultaneous fashion but with respect to the broader configuration. Again, this is going to be primarily dependent on how far we move on these processes related to denuclearization and the permanent peace mechanism.
Matt C.: Moon Jae-in was elected as president last year. He is obviously a progressive, a marked difference from his predecessors, and he has expended a fair amount of time and capital to bring North Korea to the table to find some kind of diplomatic solution. At the same time, the US president has been, well, aggressive, primarily on Twitter. They seem to be coming at this from different directions. Are they on the same page as they enter these negotiations?
Dr. John Park: There has been a great deal of coordination at the highest levels, so we’re looking at President Trump and President Moon in regular contact. Most recently, after the Panmunjom Declaration and the inter-Korean summit, you had President Moon debriefing President Trump right after that, and President Moon will be going to Washington for consultations with President Trump as we see the preparations for the US-North Korea summit coming up as well, so from that perspective, we see this close consultation. With respect to the priorities, there are some differences, but I think the game plan that we see incorporates, essentially, what the US wants to get out of this and what South Korea wants to get out of these type of deals and arrangements with North Korea.
In terms of the pace of development and how things move along, that’s an area where I think Washington and Seoul will have to increase the coordination and look at the details in a closer fashion but, overall, I think what is remarkable is the high-level coordination that began between South Korea and the United States and then South Korea and North Korea, and then we also saw that type of interaction happen at very high levels between the United States and North Korea. Over Easter weekend, we heard the revelation that then-CIA director Pompeo was in Pyongyang meeting with Kim Jong-un directly, so we’re seeing a lot of these types of interactions where, in order to move forward, certain understandings in place being an important prerequisite and the fact that we are moving forward, that gives a sense that there’s a lot that’s been happening under the surface that we haven’t been able to piece together directly now but we’re getting to see as these steps are being unveiled very quickly.
Matt C.: As we enter these negotiations, there are all sorts of risks, a tremendous amount of distrust. What do you see as some of the bigger barriers to finding a deal?
Dr. John Park: As you mentioned, the distrust is extremely high. There is a lot of legacy memory of previous accords that never got to fruition, so already in those precious cycles some cautious optimism effort to give those processes a chance and then, ultimately, the fizzle and that leading to the type of even elevated distrust. We’re definitely in that atmosphere where there is a game plan, and there certainly is this cautious optimism again, but the level of mistrust is extremely high on all sides, so that clearly remains as a big hurdle.
The second hurdle, though, is that, in this complex implementation that we’re about to enter in after this phase of high-level summitry and laying out the game plan, if there are planned or unplanned pauses of some kind, there are many in the wings who will view that as more than sufficient to pull the plug on this effort. While the goals are lofty, we do see a credible game plan, at least, embedded with a lot of risk as well, but this is something that is going to require quite a bit of work in terms of the key countries involved, but particularly South Korea’s, and I think this is South Korea’s role and the work of South Korea where there is a much more focused approach to realizing some of these key goals in the sense that they can manage the risk. Time will only tell if that really comes to full fruition, but we’re seeing a level of planning and implementation and the pace of implementation, overall, that’s being envisioned as well that we really haven’t seen in previous cycles.
Matt C.: What do you personally expect to see over the next few months?
Dr. John Park: With respect to the way that these different agreements are coming out with the focus on the implementation and more of the details coming up, my expectation is that we’re going to see a lot of these high-level top-down type of approaches to getting these statements and declarations out. We’re going to see more emphasis on what these processes entail. Their core processes mentioned denuclearization process. They’re framed as mechanisms, so denuclearization mechanism, permanent peace mechanism, and this idea of, essentially, ways to improve the inter-Korean relationship. Those are the areas that I expect to see more details. The idea that we’re also going to see some tangible signs along the way is another area that I expect to see in greater fashion, and the one that’s coming up very quickly is dismantlement of the nuclear test site at Punggye-ri. This is one that is going to be done with international observers, with journalists and also, as it looks right now, some UN inspectors as well.
Also, imminently, we’re expecting the release of the three US detainees in North Korea as well, so these type of movements happening very quickly, particularly before the summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, gives you a sense of the differences as we compare it to other cycles of trying to engage North Korea, and so, overall, this is a type of process that is taking many by surprise. One thing, though, I would put out as a caveat is that it’s important to see it through the context of this broader game plan and these three critical mechanisms as opposed to single events and single summits and then trying to read the tea leaves. There’s a lot at play right now, and so trying to keep track of how these different pieces are moving forward is a big part of the research and analysis going forward.
