Uriminzokkiri, the state-controlled North Korean website, recently criticized South Korean President Park Geun-hye for planning to go to Washington in the middle of this month instead of commemorating the 15th anniversary of the inter-Korean summit, which falls on June 15th. Park is scheduled to meet President Obama on June 16th.
There was never much possibility of a joint celebration of the now-maligned summit in 2000, but North Korean propagandists are correct to point out that Park has traveled abroad to great powers. And as she does so, she is controversially changing Seoul’s outlook toward the world.
At one time, South Korea was tightly anchored to the US, the guarantor of its security, but those bonds weakened starting in the late 1990s during the administrations of two “progressives,” Kim Dae Jung and his successor, Roh Moo-hyun. Roh’s successor, Lee Myung-bak, then rebalanced South Korean foreign policy toward Washington after taking office in 2008.
Park, who was the more conservative of the main candidates in the 2012 presidential campaign, is seeking a middle path. This became clear at the end of March, when her foreign minister, Yun Byung-se, spoke to diplomats in a public setting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “The current situation in which we are getting ‘love calls’ from both the United States and China because of our strategic value should not be considered a headache or dilemma,” he said. “Rather, it is a blessing.”
His controversial remarks echoed those of President Roh, who believed his country should play a “balancing role,” switching sides on an issue-by-issue basis between the “northern alliance” of China, Russia, and North Korea and the “southern alliance” of the US and Japan. “The power equation in Northeast Asia will change depending on the choices we make,” he said in 2005.
Ten years later, Roh’s cocky approach has powerful adherents in Seoul, even if today’s supporters are somewhat more cautious in their phrasing. As Yun sees it, South Korea, with a policy now known as “strategic ambiguity,” can benefit from playing China and the US against each other, with each great power, in the words of analyst Sukjoon Yoon, “ambiguously accommodated.”
Yoon, a former South Korean naval officer and now at the Korea Institute for Maritime Strategy, sees great potential in the foreign minister’s approach. “He believes that Seoul’s strategic cooperative partnership with Beijing is strong enough to withstand disturbances arising from Seoul’s attempts to nurture its security relationship with Washington, so that a dangerous crisis is unlikely,” writes Yoon. “He also assumes that South Korea can and must remain on good terms with both great powers; it should pursue South Korea’s own interests, and scrupulously refrain from any partisan alignment.”
That sounds like a workable plan, especially because Washington, which by treaty is obligated to defend South Korea, has generally accommodated the “balancing act” played by past governments in Seoul. Yet this benign period may not last. China’s increasingly belligerent territorial claims in the South China Sea have inevitably pressured countries in East Asia to seek closer political and military ties with the US.
Likewise, Beijing’s claim on Ieodo, a submerged rock in the East China Sea, is viewed by Seoul as an infringement on South Korea’s sovereignty. And the increasing presence of Chinese fishing fleets in South Korean waters, along with Beijing’s support for Pyongyang, which has never abandoned its effort to absorb the South, represents growing tension that will make Seoul’s balancing act increasingly difficult.
Park could find out how difficult in the next few weeks because the first real test of Foreign Minister Yun’s approach comes when she arrives in the American capital. Her initial visit as South Korea’s leader, in May 2013, was considered a great success by Washington. This time, however, there could be tough questions for her from American policymakers also hard-pressed by provocative Chinese actions.