Park’s drive for unification faces headwinds

In the wake of President Park Geun-hye’s much-hailed visit to China, Seoul is poised to speed up its groundwork for a future unification with North Korea by intensifying diplomatic efforts with key neighbors and expediting humanitarian exchanges across the border.

South Korea will initiate various discussions “in the near future” on how to bring about the peninsula’s unification, Park said, adding that the issue was also the focal point of her summit with President Xi Jinping last week. “We agreed to work together for a peaceful unification of the peninsula,” she told reporters on her return flight Friday from China.

Rallying behind China for its unification with North Korea is imperative to the South, given Beijing’s “blood” ties with Pyongyang forged during the 1950-53 Korean War, its still formidable sway over peninsula issues, and persistent concerns about a sudden contingency that may spark a refugee crisis along their border.

By taking part in the war victory celebration -- where North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was conspicuously absent -- and the massive military parade that Western powers particularly shied away from, Park may be able to help secure Xi’s support for her unification drive, some experts say.

“Park’s presence alongside Xi (during the military parade) is less about Park being snared by Beijing than it is about Park pressing to consolidate China’s support for Korean unification in the context of unprecedentedly weak ties between Beijing and Pyongyang,” Scott Snyder, director of the U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, wrote in his commentary.

“To fill the space left by Kim Jong-un’s absence is, for South Korea, an important step toward gaining Beijing’s blessing for the holy grail of Korean unification that Seoul has sought for over two decades. In this respect, Park’s presence may be perceived less as a big catch for Xi than a lure through which Seoul hopes to finally hook Beijing.” 

Another apparent booster for her unification campaign is a recent breakthrough in rare high-level inter-Korean talks that pulled the old foes from the brink of an armed clash. Among the major feats are their agreements to hold formal talks to improve their relations in Seoul or Pyongyang “at an early date” and working-level dialogue Monday to arrange reunions of separated families in time for the upcoming Chuseok holidays.

Park is also expected to raise the issue and solicit support during a planned summit with U.S. President Barack Obama next month.

Yet Park’s “unification preparation” plan has hardly fleshed out nearly two years after its introduction, with a fresh, realistic vision lost, and priorities and action plans remaining in the shadow.

The drive was unwrapped in Park’s New Year address last year as the centerpiece of her second-year presidency. Unification would bring a “bonanza” to all Koreans and an opportunity for the nation to take a great economic leap forward, she said.

In the former East German city of Dresden two months later, she laid out a three-point proposal that was supposed to be a guideline for her agenda -- to the dismay of many observers who had anticipated out-of-the-box ideas she had been trumpeting.

The Park administration has since been ramping up the initiative, ratifying a unification law to set up a legal and institutional framework and launching a presidential panel on unification preparation.

The North, nonetheless, gave the cold shoulder to most of her Dresden offers, including the establishment of inter-Korean cooperative offices and greater expansion of humanitarian, financial and infrastructure support.

Seoul, for its part, triggered controversy after dealing poorly with the remarks early this year by a vice president of the presidential committee that the organization had installed a team to work for unification by absorption.

Though Park may be credited with ensuring China’s support for unification, their consultations will likely be confined to fundamental reaffirmations, rather than in-depth planning, at least for the time being, experts say.

The Kim Jong-un regime could also upend the burgeoning reconciliatory mood, such as by staging major provocations for next month’s anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers’ Party.

“Red Cross talks scheduled for next week may break down, if they are held at all. Inter-Korean family reunions could be upstaged by a future North Korean provocation, in the form of a missile launch or a nuclear test,” Snyder at the CFR noted.

To attract a security-anxious Pyongyang to the negotiating table, Seoul should focus on ways to rev up economic cooperation instead of “hasty discussions” on unification, said Cheong Seong-chang, head of unification strategy research at the Sejong Institute.

“As the Kim regime has condemned Park’s North Korea policies as being confrontational aimed at isolating and crushing it to death through collaboration with outside forces, it may likely view Park’s latest remarks in the same frame and break down the dialogue,” he said.

“While talks with other countries remain crucial for a future unification, the first and foremost thing is direct, formal dialogue between the two Koreas. When they are struggling to escape the standoff, I doubt how much understanding and support for unification it will be able to draw from neighbors.”

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)