BUSAN: Unsurprisingly, North Korea played a major role at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore over the weekend, as the focus of the event’s second…
BUSAN: Unsurprisingly, North Korea played a major role at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore over the weekend, as the focus of the event’s second main panel, and cropping up in discussion throughout.
North Korea, of course, did not attend, and China lamentably insists on sending only mid-level People’s Liberation Army staff to the Dialogue, so the formal governmental presentations on North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme were dominated by demands for what is known as complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament (CVID) from Western participants, South Korea, and Japan.
This is unfortunate, as many analysts think Pyongyang will reject CVID.
Two major observations struck me in the various panels: the distance of the current liberal government of South Korea from its partners on North Korea; and the stubborn refusal to admit how unlikely CVID is, and therefore to consider other alternatives.
SOUTH KOREA OPTIMISM – A STARK DIFFERENCE FROM JAPAN, US
The most noticeable intervention on North Korea came from the South Korean Defence Minister, Song Young-moo.
The broad tone of the Shangri-La Dialogue is realist and hawkish, as was the North Korea panel generally. But Song reflected South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s dovish, generous interpretation of the North.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was cast as a Swiss-educated reformer who wanted to open his country to the global economy and relink it to the world more generally.
Song insisted that we must trust North Korea yet again, because otherwise progress is impossible.
He returned to the idea that US President Donald Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize; pushed for a final status deal (normalisation, a peace treaty, liaisons); and argued that complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament could happen, because North Korea might join the international community and no longer fear it.
The differences between the South Koreans and Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera and US Secretary of Defence James Mattis were stark. Both were far more hawkish and tough on North Korea, emphasising its missile threat, sanctions, abductees (in the Japanese case), previous bad behaviour, and so on.
US and Japan’s hawkish line was unsurprising. It was the South Koreans who broke from just about every other comment on North Korea at the Dialogue, and my general impression of the delegates’ response was enormous scepticism.
Moon is putting tremendous faith in a sudden conversion of Kim Jong-un to better behaviour. This reflects South Korea’s remarkable optimism about the current summitry.
When I speak on panels in South Korea now, I am the lone hawk or sceptic.
