Even for people who are physically and politically thousands of light years away from the problems of North and South Korea, the historic summit of the leaders of the two countries was a sight worthy of pause.
Banner headlines told a story of stunning developments. Heady pronouncements were made by the North’s Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in of South Korea after talks at the border, where one step either way of the demarcation line symbolically put the pair into the nation of the other. Until now, that dividing line was enemy territory for each leader. On Friday, Kim and Moon decided to venture both ways in lockstep holding hands.
It was an extraordinary reversal from where these two countries were just a few short months ago after nuclear war rhetoric from North Korea and the US put the world on edge, with South Korea in the line of fire.
The speed of the North-South bromance has been lightning quick, begging the question as to who is the party who should take the credit for how this point of time has been reached so soon. US President Donald Trump will say it was his tough talk and approval of an unprecedented set of sanctions against Pyongyang at the UN that did the trick. There had been economic pressure on North Korea under the Obama administration. But the Trump administration accelerated it, made the sanctions more stringent and most importantly got the Chinese, just about the only ally of the North Korean regime, to put pressure economically on Pyongyang. In return for Beijing’s help, Trump just might exempt China from his tariffs and trade war.
Then there is President Moon who could bag the Nobel Peace Prize for getting Kim to the table. Moon has adopted the “Sunshine Policy” aimed at promoting inter-Korean economic and political communication to bring peace to the region. There was hardly any mention of the policy by successive Seoul governments ever since the end of the 1990s as South Korean political leaders were more conservative, adopting Washington’s hard line towards Pyongyang. Most of them refused to hold talks with North Korea. Moon, though, moved the Sunshine Policy from theory to reality.
But behind Friday’s ceremony, there were few concrete details. Kim and Moon steered clear of specifics regarding Pyongyang’s denuclearization, the one single issue that will set up the much bigger stage when Trump and Kim supposedly meet soon. How the sides define denuclearization has long been a sticking point, especially between North Korea and the US. Is Kim seriously ready to give up his nuclear arsenal and all the money he has poured into it, or will he simply freeze some elements of the program? And, should he go all the way, will his terms be accepted by the US? An issue for the North is the security guarantee extended by the US to South Korea and Japan and its military presence in both countries. Pyongyang wants that deal scrapped but Washington will certainly not acquiesce.
Previous inter-Korean agreements have included similar pledges to denuke but were later abandoned after the North resorted to nuclear and missile tests. Thus, there is much mistrust between North and South and between the North and the US. All the parties will seek assurances to verify whatever they agree on, an issue which in itself is hugely problematic.
The questions left unanswered by Friday’s summit perhaps weren’t meant to be addressed in full anyway. What seemed to matter for the time being were the optics, that the leaders of North and South Korea could set aside decades of animosity and sit down and talk was, regardless of tangible achievements, a scene worthy of a place in history.
