Over the last few years, relations between North and South Korea have turned increasingly frosty. On the one hand, Pyongyang’s willingness to engage with the outside world has reached another low point during the Covid pandemic crisis which forced the country (woefully unprepared and vulnerable to the pandemic challenge) to close itself off from the rest of the world. Yet, on the other hand, the domestic political changes that took place last year in South Korea have added to the conundrum of the Korean Peninsula’s security.
To some extent, this situation is already changing. North Korea’s pandemic-imposed restrictions on contacts with the outside world may soon be eased, as signaled by recent developments like the invitation of foreign delegations for the commemoration of the Korean War armistice and the resumption of some cross-border railway exchanges with China. Yet, in the face of prolonged military brinkmanship coming from the North, the newest factor affecting inter-Korean relations is South Korea’s rapidly decaying goodwill to engage with the North.
A change in government and a change in policy
Public opinion regarding the attitudes towards North Korea within South Korean society has changed considerably in the last few years. Much of the good faith built up in 2018-2019, during the years of former progressive South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s summit diplomacy, has evaporated and the unfulfilled promises of that period have actually hardened public skepticism on the possibility of engagement with North Korea. Denuclearization talks made no progress and, as of today, Pyongyang looks as unlikely as ever to forego the development of its nuclear programme and dismantle its already existing nuclear arsenal.
The prime example of this fatigue has been last year’s election of Yoon Suk-yeol to the presidency of South Korea. The conservative candidate run an outspoken right-wing campaign, focusing on the failures of Moon’s policies toward Pyongyang and emphasizing the military threat represented by the communist regime. On the campaign trail, Yoon proposed a more muscular response to North Korean provocations and urged the South to refrain from any talks with the regime as long as Pyongyang won’t agree to denuclearize. Despite being confrontational and unrealistic, this principled position resonated with South Korean voters which in March 2022 elected Yoon into office.
Over a year has passed since Yoon assumed office in May 2022, and much has changed in terms of Seoul’s North Korea policy. In official documents, like the defense white paper released this year, North Korea and its army are described as the “enemy”, a reference that in the previous editions published under President Moon was dropped. More importantly though, the new conservative government is undertaking efforts to reform the organization of the Unification Ministry and redirect its priorities.
Central to this endeavour is professor Kim Young-ho, which has been appointed as the new Unification minister. Kim is known for his hawkish views on North Korea and has argued in favour of overthrowing the communist regime. Last year he wrote that it is “more important than ever to recognize that the only way to fundamentally solve the North Korean nuclear issue is through the destruction of the North’s totalitarian regime”. Since taking office, his ministerial focus has been primarily on scaling down efforts to reinstate dialogue and exchanges with the North. Kim in fact has advocated “principled-based and value-oriented policies”, aiming at pressure Pyongyang on issues like the regime’s appalling record on human rights.
Human rights have been front and centre in Yoon’s North Korean policy. While Moon avoided criticism of North Korean human rights abuses in order not to antagonise Pyongyang, Yoon has leveraged such abuses as part of his confrontational campaign against the North and as soon as last April he said that Seoul should think of the human rights situation in North Korea as closely intertwined with the national security of South Korea. Next year, Seoul will take a non-permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, and it is expected that the conservative government will make use of such position to further strengthen international pressure on the regime in Pyongyang.
Renewed military activism
Yoon has also resumed military drills with its traditional ally, the United States. Joint military exercises had been halted for almost 5 years under President Moon. Yoon is instead opting to double down on the strategic alliance with Washington, even seeking to expand such cooperation to other like-minded countries such as Japan – a policy which is politically not uncontroversial in view of the at times very tense relations with Japan.
A key milestone in this effort was the presidential visit to the White House last April. During this trip, Yoon and US President Joe Biden issued the so-called “Washington declaration”. In this document, the two countries agreed to boost military cooperation to counter North Korean aggressiveness and, in order to do so, established the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG). The NCG will allow Seoul to have more say in the nuclear decision-making process of the US military, and aims to assuage concerns among South Korean public opinion over the credibility of US commitment to defending the country. Furthermore, the declaration expresses the shared intention of enhancing “the regular visibility of strategic assets” around the Korean Peninsula (including nuclear submarines). US nuclear assets have been absent from South Korea for decades.
The renewed military cooperation between the US and South Korea appears to be the reason behind the latest spike in North Korean missile testing. In July Pyongyang launched its second Hwasong-18 ICBM explicitly warning its two enemies against threatening North Korean security. The launch took place few days before the inaugural meeting of the NCG and the scheduled of a US nuclear ballistic missile submarine to the South Korean port city of Busan.
Indeed North Korea seems to be deeply concerned by the revitalization of the US-South Korean alliance, according to the interpretation of official statements. Last month, before the US submarine docked in Busan, the North Korean Defense minister was reported saying that the “deployment of the strategic nuclear submarine and other strategic assets may fall under the conditions of the use of nuclear weapons”. This attempt to drive a wedge between the two allies, rather than a meaningful threat to the US forces, seemed more of an admission of concern for their military rapprochement.
An existential insecurity
As tensions in the Korean Peninsula increase, North Korea looks unlikely to abandon its typical defiant attitude. Even less so now that a staunchly confrontational and conservative government is in power in Seoul.
The fundamental source of North Korean insecurity lies in the contested legitimacy of its rule over Korea. As stated in the South Korean Constitution, the sovereignty of the regime in Pyongyang is not recognized and its control over the northern half of Korea is considered unlawful. Hence, to some extent, the very existence of South Korea represents a security threat to the North. The South Korean Constitution prescribes a “peaceful unification based on the basic free and democratic order”, a clause that the current conservative government in Seoul may be interpreting quite broadly to support its own confrontational approach towards the bellicose North.
Contested legitimacy and military capabilities are at the very core of the dilemma facing Kim Jong Un. North Korea itself labels the South as a puppet state propped up by the US to prevent the full unification of the peninsula under the rule of Pyongyang, but a takeover of the South would be a suicidal mission given the US nuclear umbrella extended over South Korea. For this reason, it is often believed that the North Korean nuclear programme was designed primarily to ensure the survival of the regime.
Yet, in the current situation of rising inter-Korean tension, lines may become blurred and developing defensive capabilities on one side may be interpreted as building up offensive capabilities on the other side. Especially given the increasingly blunt rhetoric exchanged between the two Koreas.
