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Posturing has long been a staple of North-South relations, and the South is often as guilty as the North. But Lee Myung Bak’s recent offer, outlined while on his recent trip to Germany, has a particular irony that has gone unnoticed.
Some elements of the invitation, as elaborated by a government spokesman,are sensible. The summit would be a component of an elaborate dance to get back to the talks that mirrors in some respects the three-step Chinese proposal. Bilateral talks between North and South and between Pyongyang and Washington would be a prelude to the resumption of the Six Party Talks. The North would not be required to give up its nuclear program immediately—in any case a non-starter—but would show commitment to Lee’s “grand bargain,” an idea floated in late 2009 that would trade large-scale economic support and security assurances for denuclearization.
Fine. But as before, the precondition is that the North apologize for the sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeongpyeong Island; as we pointed out, that “preconditions” issue has stumped a lot of people, including President Carter during the Elders’ recent visit to Pyongyang.
Pyongyang’s always-colorful Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea was sent out not only to throw cold water on an apology, but on denuclearization more generally (“raising someone's ‘dismantlement of nukes’ as a precondition for dialogue are no more than a ridiculous attempt to disarm the DPRK and realize the ambition for invading it in collusion with the U.S.”) (We posted earlier on current thinking about prospects for a resumption of the talks).
But wait a second. What is this summit exactly that Kim Jong Il is being invited to attend? It turns out to be none other than the second Nuclear Security Summit (NSS). The NSS was an outgrowth of President Obama’s Prague speech and according to its useful propaganda page at State, is devoted to highlighting “the global threat posed by nuclear terrorism and the need to work together to secure nuclear material and prevent illicit nuclear trafficking and nuclear terrorism.”
Of course, LMB wants KJI to attend having publicly renounced his commitment to nuclear weapons. But perhaps Kim Jong Il should rethink his regrets and attend as a “responsible nuclear power," ready to "work together to secure nuclear material and prevent illicit nuclear trafficking and nuclear terrorism.”
My colleague, Marc Noland, thinks that the idea is not as crazy as it looks. The idea that Kim Jong Il would attend such a gathering is laughable. But the action is not in the summit itself; its in the opening the LMB government has provided for Pyongyang to make a move. The Noland theory has some support: President Lee noted that the response of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea was not official, suggesting he sees it as a gesture. According to Noland, KJI's refusal is thus yet another example of the "greater fool theory."
Even were the North Koreans to respond, we are quickly entering lame duck time in both South Korea and the US, with National Assembly elections coming up in Seoul in April and presidential elections in both countries in late 2012. We have a long history of late-administration blitzes (Clinton 2, Bush 1 and 2, Roh) that the North Koreans failed to exploit or waited out. The window for even pretending to talk is narrowing.
