Experts say rushed approach bandied by Park leaves Pyongyang out of equation, and neglects necessary steps 

President Park Geun-hye’s “unification diplomacy” remarks are raising questions about the current priorities of South Korean foreign affairs.

Park has recently been drawing praise for showing new possibilities for balanced diplomacy with the US and China following her recent attendance at a military parade in Beijing. But strange signs began to emerge almost immediately in that sense of diplomatic equilibrium with remarks about reunification with North Korea being the direct aim of Seoul’s diplomatic efforts. Many are now asking if the administration’s high hopes for an “upheaval” in Pyongyang have left it unable to perceive the situation clearly - raising the changes of Seoul being left adrift diplomatically and inter-Korean relations being destabilized.

Speaking with reporters on her return flight home from China on Sept. 4, Park said that peaceful reunification was the “fastest, ultimate and definite way of resolving” the North Korean nuclear issue. She also said she and Chinese President Xi Jinping had “agreed to cooperate on the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula.”

Park went on to say that “various diplomatic discussions” would begin on “how to achieve peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula in the near future.”

Her remarks show two things: a belief that the complex issues affecting the Korean Peninsula can be solved in one fell swoop through reunification, and a vision for discussing reunification as soon as possible with China and other countries. Experts are now calling the approach unrealistic, hollow, and even dangerous.

To begin with, Park’s emphasis on diplomatic efforts with other countries, while leaving Pyongyang out of the reunification discussions, is being called “out of nowhere” and ineffective. In particular, experts point out that it is impossible to even formulate an approach to unification diplomacy that does not include a methodology for reaching an agreement with the North based on improved relations and dialogue - a key element for peaceful reunification.

“While it certainly is important to have dialogue with other countries to achieve reunification, the most important thing is direct dialogue between the North and South Korean governments,” said Cheong Seong-chang, Director of Unification Strategy Studies at the Sejong Institute on Sept. 6.

“It‘s not clear to what extent other countries will agree to efforts to draw their support for unification when North and South Korea can’t even escape their adversarial relationship - never mind achieving a ‘low-level confederation,’” Cheong argued.

Former Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said unification diplomacy was a matter of “picking away one by one the countries that could function as centrifugal forces against reunification once inter-Korean cooperation has deepened and reunification is imminent.”

“That‘s the sequence we should be planning for. It makes no sense to talk about doing with China what needs to be agreed upon between North and South,” Jeong said.

Experts also said the likelihood of Beijing and other governments responding well to such an approach to unification diplomacy was slim to none. Indeed, when Park mentioned “achieving reunification as soon as possible” during the recent South Korea-China summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping merely reiterated Beijing’s position supporting “autonomous and peaceful reunification at some future date.”

“By ‘autonomous,’ they‘re talking about unification between North and South without the US being involved,” explained a former senior diplomatic official on condition of anonymity.

“So when President Park talks now about discussing reunification with China, it’s totally unclear whether she means having the autonomous discussions on reunification that Beijing wants,” the former official added.

Chang Yong-seok, a senior researcher at the Seoul National University Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, said China’s failure to clear the air may be based on strategic considerations.

“The reason they aren’t officially disputing Seoul’s interpretation that Beijing is ’on board with unification discussions’ - even when they’re saying two very different things - is because of general considerations about US-China relations and the possibility of trilateral coordination with South Korea and Japan,” Chang argued.

Park’s emphasis on unification diplomacy without mentioning inter-Korean relations may be a signal that the administration is focused too much on the possibility of an absorption scenario following an upheaval in Pyongyang.

“In President Park’s remarks about reunification at the South Korea-China summit, the emphasis was on the ‘as soon as possible’ part,” said Dongguk University professor Koh Yu-hwan.

“During the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations [1998-2008], they used words like ‘peaceful’ and ‘gradual,’” Koh added. “The use of the words ‘as soon as possible’ show a way of thinking where they‘re considering other possibilities such as instability in North Korea.”

The ideas for unification diplomacy based on this mind-set are raising serious concerns for some.

“North Korea has shown itself to be positively allergic to talk about ‘absorption scenarios’ in the past, and the danger here is that this could trigger a backlash and have a negative impact on improvements in inter-Korean relations and our ability to manage the political situation on the peninsula,” said Dongguk University professor Kim Yong-hyun.

Chang Yong-seok agreed that Park’s remarks were “dangerous.”

“If Pyongyang begins questioning Seoul‘s sincerity, it could sink the August 25 agreement we fought so hard to achieve,” he said.

Some argue that making the most of both the hard-won opportunity for inter-Korean dialogue and what would have been a difficult decision to attend the Beijing parade will require a swift adjustment to Seoul’s diplomatic priorities.

“They need to use the inter-Korean agreements as a basis for improving relations rather than hanging their hopes on an unlikely ‘upheaval’ in Pyongyang and focusing too much on how we need to be ‘prepared’ for reunification,” argued Korea National Strategy Institute director Kim Chang-soo.

“Laying the groundwork for that should also be the focus in our diplomacy with other countries,” Kim advised.

A former senior diplomatic official said the unification diplomacy approach is meant to send a message to South Korean conservatives.

“They’re trying to communicate that ’we‘ve been discussing the unification issue with China our way, which means we’ve got the upper hand diplomatically,‘” the former official explained.

“Getting away from this approach of trying to use unification and diplomacy as tools for domestic politics should be our top priority,” the source added.

By Son Won-je and Kim Ji-hoon, staff reporters

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