Moon Jae-in’s problem: his mode of North Korean diplomacy is incompatible with South Korean democracy

The South Korean leader’s strategy for bringing North Korea to negotiations has included silence on Kim Jong-un’s ruthlessness and rights abuses, which could jeopardise South Koreans’ hard-won rights

Donald Kirk

Published: 10:00am, 18 Apr 2019

Why you can trust SCMP

South Korea's President Moon Jae-in faces a problem of enormous proportions. He is committed to reconciliation and dialogue with North Korea but is in no position to destroy the historic alliance with the United States. Rather, he sees himself as a go-between, an intermediary, bringing the US into an era of peace and friendship with North Korea, even though Kim Jong-un shows no willingness to give up his nuclear warheads and the missiles for firing them at distant targets.

In his eagerness to bring about North-South reconciliation, Moon also hopes to persuade the US and UN to give up or at least ease up on some if not most of the sanctions imposed after the North’s missile and nuclear tests. Trump has professed his great relationship with Kim but is holding back on abandoning the sanctions essential to pressuring him. Without the sanctions, Kim would obviously feel no need to engage in more than superficial shows of agreement on any deal on his nuclear programme.

In Moon’s anxiety to persuade the American public, and the American president in particular, that Kim will actually deal in good faith, he has gone out of his way to praise North Korea’s leader. He has spoken as if Kim were really a benevolent fellow who would love to form normal relationships not only with South Korea but also with the US and other Western nations.

Moon talks about coming to terms with Kim as if North Korea were a “progressive” country with which South Korean “progressives” such as himself should get along. Moon may think of himself as “progressive” in view of his career on behalf of social reform, workers’ rights and his desire to overhaul the economic system under which the conglomerates, known as chaebol, control most of the wealth, either directly or indirectly through suppliers and investors.

Yet Moon and other self-styled progressives do not want to recognise that North Korea is far from a progressive state and Kim is the opposite of a progressive leader. Moon and his advisers fail to acknowledge that Kim represents a throwback to the worst days of the Joseon dynasty, when all Korea was ruled by kings with vast unquestioned power.

In his daily lifestyle, in his demand for unquestioned subservience, in the impunity with which his vast security apparatus imprisons and executes those suspected of disloyalty, Kim behaves as a dictator whose values are the mirror opposite of those South Koreans have come to respect since adoption of the democratic constitution in 1987.

One might argue that Moon has to get along with Kim and his regime to eventually inculcate democratic values in North Korea. That is a fantasy. In fact, the opposite may be true. Kim, by making a pretence of a “wonderful” relationship with Trump, by restraining his propaganda machine from attacking Moon, is expecting the South Korean president to simply go along with whatever he wants, beginning with dissolution of the alliance with the US.

Moon, however, cannot yield so easily to Kim’s will. One reason is that South Korean conservatives, although divided, are a powerful force. Moon has to recognise the power of patriotic South Koreans, whether the flag-waving crowd that marches through central Seoul on Saturdays, chaebol leaders or simply a large middle class that is not often involved in politics but definitely opposes North Korean influence.

South Korean conservatives, and many members of Moon’s own Minjoo (Democratic) Party, would not be happy with a severe break in the US alliance. Although South Korea’s armed forces are tough and well equipped, the special relationship between South Korea and the US represents the ultimate guarantor of the survival of the South as a vibrant democracy in need of defence against the aggressive aims of the totalitarian North. The alliance with the US would be especially important if China came to the rescue of the North, as it did during the Korean war.

Perhaps what’s really at stake here is Moon’s core belief in South Korea’s vibrant democracy. Yes, he and his cohorts held high the banners of democracy during the Candlelight Revolution that resulted in Park Geun-hye’s impeachment, but their faith in democracy faces a severe test in their calls for warm ties with Kim.

Their zeal for a deal with the North is so intense that they are afraid to mention the entire question of human rights abuses routinely perpetrated by Kim and the system that he represents and leads. Nor do they say a word about hundreds of South Koreans held captive in the North, not only fishermen whose boats were captured in or near North Korean waters but also ageing prisoners from the Korean war, people kidnapped off South Korean beaches and the entire crew and some of the passengers of a Korean Air plane hijacked in 1969.

Moon’s reluctance to raise these issues in talks with Kim shows his eagerness to make concessions to the North. He would argue that now is not the time, that we need to wait, but we may be sure Kim will never try to come to terms on these issues. The time to press these demands is now. The future of South Korea’s hard-won liberal democracy is at stake.

Donald Kirk is the author of three books and numerous articles on Korea

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