A History of Korea (111 page)

On 14–16 November 2007 the prime ministers of both Koreas met in Seoul to discuss implementing the broad agreement reached in the October inter-Korean summit. The two sides came up with comprehensive agreements during their meeting. The two Koreas also held the defense ministers’ meeting in Pyongyang on 27–28 November to discuss measures to implement the agreements concluded in the prime misters’ talks. In particular, the North and South Korean militaries agreed on ensuring cross-border security to boost business in the Kaes
ŏ
ng Industrial Complex and tourism to K
ŭ
mgang-san.

Meanwhile, presidential candidates from the conservative and progressive camps suggested sharply different approaches toward North Korea. The front runner Lee Myung-bak of the conservative Grand National Party called for more reciprocity from North Korea, putting top priority on denuclearization before economic aid. But a hard-core advocate of the sunshine policy, Ch
ŏ
ng Tong-y
ŏ
ng of the pro-government Grand United New Democratic Party, stressed that inter-Korean economic cooperation and the resolution of North Korea’s nuclear problem should be handled simultaneously. The election of Lee Myung-bak as president, on 19 December 2007, signaled the strong possibility that North–South Korean relations would enter a new phase.

The Lee Myung-bak administration determined to end its predecessors’ engagement policy toward North Korea. For a decade, that policy had soothed nerves on the Korean peninsula by giving the truculent but poor Kim Jong-il regime large amounts of food, fertilizer, and trade concessions, all without conditions concerning nuclear weapons, missile proliferation, or human-rights abuses. The Lee government emphasized more reciprocity in its relations with North Korea and tied economic aid to North Korea’s nuclear disarmament.

North Korea reacted with exceptional harshness. It clearly decided to teach its southern neighbor a lesson, demonstrating that engagement was possible on its own conditions, regardless of any offers of aid or concessions by the South. As a result, chronically hungry North Korea received virtually no food or fertilizer from the Lee government. An angry North Korea called Lee a “national traitor,” a “sycophant of the United States,” the leader of a “fascist regime,”
and an “anti-North confrontation advocator.” The North Korean response included the expulsion of most South Korean officials from the Kaes
ŏ
ng Industrial Complex, the launching of short-range missiles into the Yellow Sea, and the deployment of MiGs and army units provocatively close to the
DMZ
. North Korea also raised the stakes in the escalating tension by threatening to suspend all dialogue. In South Korea, Lee’s critics argued that his new strategy would only antagonize the North Korean regime and undermine progress in inter-Korean relations.

In mid-July 2008 a South Korean female tourist was shot dead by a North Korean soldier at the K
ŭ
mgang-san resort. South Korea demanded an official apology and a security guarantee from North Korea, suspending all tours to K
ŭ
mgang-san. North Korea expelled all South Koreans from the mountain resort and imposed additional restrictions on South Korean passage through the Military Demarcation Line. North Korea further antagonized South Korea in mid-November 2008, when it declared that from 1 December it would shut down all overland passage through the Military Demarcation Line, close the Red Cross liaison office and all direct telephone lines between the two Koreas, and refuse nuclear sampling by the inspectors. The gamble could close down the Kaes
ŏ
ng Industrial Complex entirely and jeopardize the six-party talks. North Korea’s severing of inter-Korean relations, which was aimed to pressure the South to alter its conservative policy, stemmed from the belief that it would soon have the upper hand in relations with South Korea, as U.S. president-elect Barack Obama was open to direct talks with the communist regime. In January 2009 North Korea threatened to take an all-out confrontational posture against South Korea by declaring all military and political agreements between the two Koreas to be void.

With nearly all major cooperative projects stopped, the Kaes
ŏ
ng Industrial Complex became the only surviving North–South Korean economic venture. In late March 2009, however, North Korea protested the 12-day joint South Korean–U.S. Key Resolve and Foal Eagle military exercises by blocking passage to the industrial complex several times. It also detained a South Korean worker in the economic zone for allegedly criticizing the communist regime and encouraging North Korean employees to defect to South Korea.
¹⁰
In May North Korea declared all contracts and regulations on the joint economic project invalid and asserted that if South Korea was not willing to accept new rules, then it was free to leave Kaes
ŏ
ng. North Korean demands included raising wages of North Korean workers to levels paid to workers in China, shortening
the lease period for the land from 50 years to 25 years, and requiring South Korean businesses to pay rent starting in 2010, instead of the previously agreed date of 2014. The communist regime, with this act of brinkmanship, used the industrial complex as a bargaining chip to force the Lee Myung-bak administration to make a choice—continue its North Korea policy or risk losing the Kaes
ŏ
ng industrial project.

Under these circumstances, and angered by North Korea’s second nuclear test, South Korea announced, on 26 May 2009, that it would fully participate in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (
PSI
), a multinational effort begun during the George W. Bush administration to intercept shipments of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction by countries such as North Korea. For nearly six years South Korea had declined a U.S. invitation to take part in the PSI. Condemning South Korea for joining the global anti-proliferation effort, North Korea warned that it was no longer bound by the 1953 Korean War armistice and threatened military action against South Korea. But the Lee administration declared that it would not compromise in the face of North Korea’s heightened threats.

In August 2009 North Korea suddenly made a peace offering to South Korea. It lifted the restrictions on overland travel across the border which it had imposed in December 2008, and it sent a delegation to South Korea to pay respects to the late former president Kim Dae-jung, who died on 18 August. These reconciliatory moves came after the Hyundai Group chairwoman’s visit to North Korea in mid-August. When he met her, Kim Jong-il agreed to resume stalled inter-Korean projects, including tours to K
ŭ
mgang-san.

Amid this apparent thaw in inter-Korean relations, however, on 10 November 2009 a brief naval skirmish erupted between the two countries, again raising tension on the Korean peninsula. A badly damaged North Korean patrol boat retreated to the north in flames. There were no South Korean casualties. North Korea might have started the skirmish as a message to U.S. President Obama that he should not ignore the communist country during his first visit as president to Northeast Asia.

On 26 March 2010 the South Korean patrol ship
Cheonan
(
Ch’
ŏ
nan
) split in half after an unexplained explosion, leaving 46 sailors missing in the Yellow Sea off South Korea’s west coast. When the stern of the sunken warship was pulled out of the water, the 46 sailors were all found dead. On 20 May South Korea formally announced that a North Korean torpedo had sunk the warship, basing this claim on the report by an international investigative team that studied the
wreckage of the ship and other evidence collected from the scene. South Korea’s announcement underscored the continuing threat posed by its northern neighbor and the intractable nature of the dispute between the two Koreas. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed to take stern measures against North Korea, saying that his country would no longer tolerate North Korea’s provocations and planned to change its military posture from passive defense to proactive deterrence. On 24 May, South Korea requested the
U.N.
Security Council to take up the issue, and the Council received broad international support for
U.N.
sanctions against North Korea. The North might have conducted the attack to avenge the apparent defeat of its navy in November 2009, but, as expected, North Korea angrily denied any blame and threatened a “holy war” against South Korea. It said that it would sever all relations with South Korea and would not engage in any inter-Korean dialogue or contact during President Lee’s remaining tenure, thus heightening the risk of armed conflict. A month before, on 23 April, North Korea had confiscated real estate held by South Koreans at the Kumgang-san resort and declared that it would look for a new business partner unless South Korea resumed the tourist projects.

South Koreans had still not recovered from the bitter memories of
Cheonan
, when, on 23 November 2010, North Korea launched a deadly artillery bombardment on the South Korean island of Y
ŏ
np’y
ŏ
ng-do, near the maritime border of the Northern Limitation Line in the Yellow Sea, killing two South Korean marines and two civilians. South Korea immediately responded with artillery fire, bringing the two Koreas to the brink of a major conflagration. This highly calculated and premeditated North Korean provocation was intended to make the
NLL
a disputed issue and draw the United States to the negotiating table to formulate a peace treaty. It was also designed to pressure the terror-stricken South Koreans into urging their government to alter its hard-line policy toward North Korea. Both the sinking of
Cheonan
and the massive artillery barrage on Y
ŏ
np’y
ŏ
ng-do by North Korea displayed the stark reality of the Korean peninsula. Despite the death of Kim Jong-il on 17 December 2011, the prospects for improvement in inter-Korean relations seem hardly promising.

Since the early 2000s the South Korean–U.S. military alliance, which successfully deterred North Korean aggression for more than five decades, has been
reassessed in the light of the practicality. The North Korean menace has been the strongest bond between the two countries, and South Korean–U.S. relations have often been dubbed as “blood-forged,” referring to the vital U.S. help to the Republic of Korea during the Korean War. For more than half a century since the war, the United States has had no more stalwart ally in Asia than South Korea. Some 25,200 American troops are stationed in South Korea to protect against an invasion from North Korea, thus representing the continued unified purpose shared by the two nations. The traditional South Korean–U.S. allegiance has provided an indispensable security base for South Korea’s phenomenal economic growth and democratization over the decades.

As the 2000s dawned, South Korea and the United States increasingly found themselves with divergent perspectives vis-à-vis North Korea and other emerging challenges to Northeast Asian regional security. In particular, the two allies gradually diverged in their respective perceptions of North Korea and the intentions of its leadership, which interfered considerably with the idea of a rock-solid
ROK
–U.S. alliance and the success in preventing renewed military conflict on the Korean peninsula.

Following the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, a divergence emerged between the perceptions of South Korea and the United States regarding North Korea’s strategic intentions and the prospects for accommodation and reform. In the mid-1990s there was an apparent dispute between South Korea and the United States over aid to North Korea. To drive a wedge between South Korea and the United States, North Korea bullied South Korea and courted the United States. The overall situation on the Korean peninsula made South Korea feel that the United States acted more like a neutral arbiter between the two Koreas rather than a close ally to South Korea. This was a difficult notion for South Korea to accept, as it was accustomed to viewing the United States as a “blood-forged ally.”

As the Kim Dae-jung administration initiated its sunshine policy of rapprochement with North Korea starting in February 1998, South Korea did not dispute the Clinton administration’s engagement policy toward its northern neighbor. The Bush administration’s confrontational approach toward North Korea, however, dramatically changed South Korean perceptions of the United States and caused a policy and perception gap between the two allies over how to deal with North Korea. President Bush’s public insults toward Kim Jong-il and his characterization of North Korea as a member of the “axis of evil” came at the very time when South Koreans were poised to advance the cause of inter-Korean
reconciliation. Bush’s policy was widely criticized in South Korea and perceived as an obstacle to North–South Korean reconciliation.

South Korea’s tenacious pursuit of engagement profoundly transformed South Korean perceptions of North Korea and the United States. With feelings toward North Korea softened, South Korea’s affluent and self-confident population looked more in pity than in fear at its northern neighbor and yearned to help North Korea rather than punish it. Many South Koreans also did not view North Korea as a serious threat and believed that the United States exacerbated tensions on the Korean peninsula more often than North Korea did. Young Koreans, in particular, having grown up in an era where school textbooks no longer portrayed North Koreans as devils with horns and tails, voiced strong sympathy for North Korea and questioned the wisdom of their grandparents and parents in supporting close ties with the United States. They believed that North Korea was less of a threat to peace than their closest ally, the United States, which they described as an “evil empire” bent on dividing and weakening Korea.