Korea White Paper: Peaceful Unification on the Korean Peninsula

Schoni Song

Korea White Paper: Peaceful Unification on the Korean Peninsula

Schoni Song

2019, EastWest Institute

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Drafted by Schoni Song EastWest Institute Asia-Pacific Program Last updated in July 2019 Korea White Paper: Peaceful Unification on the Korean Peninsula Introduction Northeast Asia faces no greater challenge in the 21st century than arresting the rapidly increasingly threat of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles that cause instability across the region. The countries that have the capacity to address this threat of instability are the United States, China, South Korea, and Japan. The cooperation of these four countries is essential if there is to be a solution to the daunting challenges of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. If Washington can be an active catalyst in securing a trustworthy regional environment in Northeast Asia, the surrounding nations will have more incentives to strengthen their economic and political cooperation. By improving regional ties, Pyongyang will also edge closer to protect its economic interests and thus assure greater prosperity for its people. Equally important, Northeast Asia will also succeed in building a far more stable ecosystem for inter-Korean relations as a whole. While engagement and diplomacy are not without challenges, they are key mechanisms underpinning the transformation required to move the Korean Peninsula from perennial provocation to détente and eventually to lasting peace. The objectives of this White Paper are three-fold: 1. To address and resolve the issue of human rights violations in North Korea, which are critical to Washington and Seoul’s engagement and negotiation strategy. 2. To develop a more stable geopolitical environment in the Korean Peninsula upon which the United States, China, South Korea, North Korea, and Japan can address their linkages in trade relations and strengthen economic cooperation. 3. By reaffirming common economic interests, inter-Korean relations can follow a more stable path toward peaceful reunification, after which a unified Korea may secure existing WMD programs and pursue complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement (CVID). Human Rights The United States and South Korea will not realize their goal of seeing North Korea trade its missile program for sanctions alleviation unless the regime’s human rights abuses are addressed. For instance, containing Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs means blocking the hard currency flows that finance them. Much of its resources come from the regime’s illegal business activities and the 50,000 North Korean workers—mainly in the mining, textile, and construction—who are forced to feed the regime from abroad. Highlighting human rights issues can strengthen U.S. legitimacy and add leverage in their discussions with Pyongyang. For example, when the international community put a spotlight on North Korea’s human rights abuses in 2014, Pyongyang quickly dispatched diplomats to lobby against punitive resolutions at the UN. Until there is certification that the country is in compliance with international labor standards, it is difficult for private-sector companies or international financial institutions to engage freely with North Korea given the current U.N. Security Council resolutions as well as U.S. and South Korean sanctions. An engagement policy grounded in human rights issues will make the North Koreans more receptive to dialogue which can include discussions about international monitoring standards for health and food assistance. Drafted by Schoni Song EastWest Institute Asia-Pacific Program Last updated in July 2019 China-Japan-South Korea semiconductor trade Japan produces about 90% of fluorinated polyimides, 70% of etching gas worldwide, and it produces around 90% of photoresists (PR). This makes it difficult for South Korean chipmakers to find alternative sources of supply. South Korea imported $114 million of the three materials from Japan in the first five months of this year, accounting for 94% of is fluorinated polyimides, 44% of its etching glass, and 92% of its photoresist. South Korean tech giants such as Samsung, SK, and LG are all expected to be hit. Semiconductors exports account for 20.9% of South Korea’s $126.7 billion exports. In other words, economic relations between the two countries are deeply embedded, and the ongoing trade tensions are only hurting the economic security of both of these countries. Moreover, these bilateral tensions have the potential to spill over into the wider region due to economic interconnectivity. In 2017, China imported $46.3 billion worth of South Korean memory chips, which accounted for 52.3% of the country’s overall imports. The figure increased by 51.3% due to a growing demand of memory chips for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In short, China, South Korea and Japan have a reliance on each other for the supply of semiconductors. Any negative impacts on the semiconductor sector of one country can create a domino effect and create issues for trade partners. Engagement vs. Maximum Pressure Previous attempts at using maximum pressure did not fundamentally alter Pyongyang’s behavior. Nuclear weapons are the only things keeping North Korea on the world stage; otherwise, they would not get any attention. For that reason, the North Koreans believe that denuclearization militates against their national interest and undermines regime survival. The tactic of sanctions enforcement has always been the responsibility of individual states and are difficult to maintain. U.N. Sanctions against North Korea get watered down in order to secure China and Russia participation in the Security Council. Tougher sanctions have often spurred North Korea to pursue nuclear advancement with greater urgency as demonstrated by Kim Jong Un, who has already conducted more nuclear and missile tests since he took power in 2012 than his father and grandfather combined. North Korea has also developed a tolerance for economic suffering and policies of maximum pressure are felt most by civilian North Korean families, not the ruling elites who are the intended targets. We disagree with engagement skeptics that Pyongyang sees engagement as a sign of American or South Korean weakness. We propose a policy of hybrid engagement that would prevent the crystallization of conditions under which the North Korean regime could calculate aggression as a feasible course of action. By putting human rights issues at the forefront of our negotiation strategy, and capitalizing on common economic interests of the region’s stakeholders, engagement policy is the bedrock of lasting sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula—linking North Korea to one of the most economically dynamic countries in the world. With major foreign business groups integrated into an open North Korean economy, this would increase the outside world’s influence over Pyongyang, reducing China’s predominant leverage over North Korean provocation.

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