*The Korean Peninsula Peace Symposium is being held in Seoul in June 2022. We must protect peace on the Korean Peninsula and overcome the economic crisis together. ⓒOhMyNews
Il Young Jeong
Research Professor_Institute of Social Sciences_Sogang University
The diplomatic war in Northeast Asia has begun in earnest. This "diplomatic war" began in earnest at the end of China's 20th Party Congress in October 2022 and the end of the U.S. midterm elections in November of the same year. In this article, I analyze what Korea's national interests are in the midst of this volatile situation and whether our government is responding appropriately.
What is the nature of the crisis?
The crisis is repeated on the Korean Peninsula. What is the nature of these crises?
First, strategic competition between the US and China is raising tensions on the Korean Peninsula and making it difficult to leverage multilateral cooperation to solve regional problems. Competition between the US and China has long been detrimental to peace on the Korean Peninsula. Conversely, improvements on US-China relations has often opened the door to dialogue and cooperation between the two Koreas.
The U.S.-China strategic competition can be understood as a preventive war on the economic front. In fact, in recent years, this preventive war seems to have spilled over from purely economic to include issues of national security. South Korea, which desperately needs US-China cooperation for peace on the Korean Peninsula, can only be forced into a weaker position as a result of US-China competition.
Secondly, the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine has caused globalization and free trade between nations to regress into trade protection and “my country first” style nationalism. For example, the United States - despite being closely allied with Korea - passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is expected to deal a blow to Korean auto exports.
On top of that, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has led to rising energy and grain prices, exacerbating global inflation. With the rise in US interest rates strengthening the US dollar, a global economic recession seems likely to be on the horizon. This situation clearly poses a serious threat to Korea, which has high dependence on foreign energy resources and relies on foreign trade as a large portion of its GDP.
Third, the security competition on the Korean Peninsula is intensifying. It has been quite a while since the last time the two Koreas came together for inter-Korean dialogue. North Korea's armed provocations are escalating to unprecedented heights, and the ROK-US alliance has not held back from responding militarily.
With the security competition between the U.S. and China negatively affecting peace on the Korean Peninsula, Japan is seeking to transform into a "normal state" capable of participating in armed conflict and, in result, possibly opening a new front in the security competition. The stormy atmosphere of the first North Korean nuclear crisis in 1993 and the armed conflict between the U.S. and North Korea in 2015 has once again returned to the Korean Peninsula again.
Korea's national interests lie in peace and a strong economy
The current crisis on the Korean Peninsula is a complex crisis borne of overlapping security and economic crises and the heightened geopolitical risks borne of the US and China’s strategic competition. So, let's discuss our choices. First, our choice must be based on our country’s national interests. What, then, are Korea’s national interests?
Korea’s national interests always have been and always will be "peace" and "a strong economy”. What will it take to establish peace and revitalize the economy on the Korean Peninsula against the backdrop of US-China competition? I think the best options lie in leveraging multilateral negotiations to create peace on the Korean Peninsula and develop our economy.
First, we need to re-start the peace process on the Korean Peninsula. I have argued in the past that creating peace would require declaring the Korean Peninsula as a ‘peace zone’ and getting the support of both the US and China. To this end, it is necessary to simultaneously freeze both North Korea's nuclear testing and the ROK-US joint drills (For more, see Let's Freeze North Korean Nuclear Testing and R.O.K.-U.S. Joint Drills). By doing so, we can restore a cooperative system for peace on the peninsula that includes both the US and China.
Second, our response to the global economic crisis will be as important as working towards peace on the Korean Peninsula. We must look to create space for multilateral cooperation to work together to overcome the global economic crisis. While the current economic crisis has led to a mass retreat from globalization, different regions have found success in responding to the crisis through regional economic cooperation. Korea should also seek ways to overcome the crisis through multilateral cooperation, especially through Asian regional groups. We will overcome this crisis not only through Korea-China-Japan cooperation, but also through Korea-ASEAN and Korea-India joint efforts.
We need to strengthen the role of the private sector in multilateral spaces
When it comes to protecting peace and the economy on the Korean Peninsula, how well has the South Korean government responded to challenges? Unfortunately, my answer is ‘not so well.’ The government has failed to properly generate national strategies to respond, consistently carry out those strategies, and - as a result - has no results to show for it. The government has left China out of the picture, despite the country’s critical role in multilateral cooperation on the Korean Peninsula and has failed to find a way out of the escalating military competition with North Korea.
The crisis ahead of us is unprecedentedly dangerous. Yet, there is opportunity to be found on the far side of this crisis. This is why the South Korean government's diplomatic endeavors are more important than ever. In order to turn crisis into opportunity, we need to move away from the “zero-sum” game on the peninsula and think instead in terms of a “win-win” game. Korea should create space for multilateral cooperation on the Korean Peninsula with a focus on our national interests: peace and economic cooperation.
Lastly, our national interests are not political interests. The state’s interests should be in the best interests of the Korean people. In the face of a national crisis, our civil society must protect its own peace and economy. More than ever, this is the time for civil society across East Asia to communicate and cooperate to overcome this crisis together.
*IL-Young Jeong is a research professor at Sogang University in Seoul. His key research interests include North Korea's social control system, inter-Korean relations, and peace on the Korean Peninsula.
*This article is a column published in OhmyNews. https://omn.kr/21682
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