North Korea

This post is co-authored with Brad Glosserman, deputy director of and visiting professor at the Tama University Center for Rule Making Strategies and senior advisor for Pacific Forum. Scott A. Snyder and Brad Glosserman are co-authors of The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States.   A series of incidents have driven relations between Japan and South Korea to new lows. Frustration has mounted as each government has blamed the other for the sorry state of affairs. Though domestic politics is partially to blame, the real problem is more deeply rooted. Each country sees the other as the cornerstone of its own national identity, and their respective self-images make conflict inevitable. While the U.S. can help the two countries address this problem, only courageous and inventive leadership in Tokyo and Seoul can resolve it. Recent incidents that have roiled the Japan-ROK relationship include: encounters between military aircraft and naval vessels that violate standard operating procedures and indicate hostile intent, such as turning on fire-control radars; ROK court rulings that disregard provisions of the 1965 treaty that normalized relations between the two countries and allow laborers forced to work for Japanese companies during World War II to sue for back pay; the Seoul government’s decision to shut down the foundation established in December 2015 to provide financial support for women forced into sexual servitude during the war (the “comfort women”); the Seoul government’s decision to revisit and ultimately abandon the 2015 agreement between the two governments that purported to “permanently resolve” the issue. Other longstanding issues include: the territorial dispute over islands called Dokdo by South Korea (which occupies the islands), Takeshima by Japan, and the Liancourt Rocks by those who don’t want to take sides; the name of the body of water between the two countries: it is generally recognized as the Sea of Japan, but Koreans want it to be called the East Sea; the suppression of Korean culture and the appropriation of cultural artifacts by the Japanese during their occupation of the peninsula. For most observers, the source of tension between the two countries is the legacy of Japan’s occupation and colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. Imperial Japan was a brutal occupier and that period’s lasting impact continues to sour relations, despite the 1965 agreement to normalize relations and geopolitical factors—alliances with the U.S., shared values and interests, and common threats (North Korea in particular)—that seemingly ought to force the two countries toward closer relations. The real cause of strained relations, however, lies less in past disputes than in the present and the future—that is, each country’s conception of itself. The Republic of Korea has established its nationhood narrative in opposition to the experience of Japanese colonial rule. The occupation inflicted extraordinary pain on the Korean people and ended with a division between North and South Korea that persists to this day. Despite South Korea’s extraordinary successes—overcoming authoritarian rule, building a vibrant democracy, and creating the world’s 11th largest economy all in the shadow of an existential threat from North Korea—the core of modern South Korean identity is the struggle against Japan. Korea is also central to Japanese national identity, but in a different way. Korea is a direct challenge to the national narrative that Japan is a peaceful nation and was also a victim of World War II. The Korean perception of Japan as a predator that has not rectified the harm it inflicted and cannot be trusted to not repeat that history clearly contradicts the post-war Japanese self-image as a peaceful state, and belief that in 1945 there was a profound break with the past. Both national identities cannot be true at the same time, and therein lies the problem: the assertion of one identity undercuts the legitimacy of the other. Fortunately, national narratives are constructed. They are built by elites through storytelling and the writing of national histories and the symbols and ceremonies are used by contemporary governments to build and sustain support of their publics. In a nation-first era, both governments intentionally emphasize the discord in their relationship rather than the positive elements. But leaders in Seoul and Tokyo can overcome this narrative with courage and imagination. They can adopt a different perspective that emphasizes common values and concerns. A more long-term outlook would acknowledge the difficulties the two countries face and affirm that they will be better able to surmount these challenges by working together, rather than by using the other as a foil or scapegoat. The U.S. can help this process along and, in the past, Washington has been instrumental in facilitating better relations between its allies. This problem requires attention from the highest levels of the U.S. government, and so far that effort has not been forthcoming. That is a mistake. The U.S. should do more not only to align its allies as they attempt to deal with critical security concerns, but also to help lay the foundation for a stable and genuinely cooperative trilateral relationship. This post originally appeared on Forbes.

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun's first public speech provides a useful status report, only three weeks before Trump and Kim meet for a second time.

Trump must put his affairs in order to strengthen his hand going into a second meeting with Kim Jong-un.

This year, renewed tension on the Korean Peninsula was included as a top tier priority in the Center for Preventive Action’s annual Preventive Priorities Survey.

Kim’s meetings with Xi are an effort to drive up the price in negotiations with the United States beyond what North Korea would be able to demand on its own.

Dressed in a finely-tailored suit and ensconced in his plush personal library, Kim Jong-un made the business of wooing Donald J. Trump a main theme of his New Year’s address, setting the tone of North Korea’s objectives for 2019. With pledges of no more nuclear and  missile testing and not a desk in sight (presumably to ensure that the nuclear button on that desk remained far from anyone’s mind), Kim reminisced about Singapore and referenced his 2018 conquest of South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in as evidence of how things could be, if only Kim and Trump would find their way into one another’s hearts once more. President Trump reciprocated Kim’s sweet nothings by tweeting: “I also look forward to meeting with Chairman Kim who realizes so well that North Korea possesses great economic potential.” Later that day, Trump declared that “we really have established a very good relationship.” Of course, Kim knows full well that the United States and South Korea are in a stable alliance marriage, and that to lure Trump away he must displace Moon. The first step was to convince Moon that Kim truly wanted to mend his ways, join the world, and accept Moon’s proposal to restore an economic and political union with South Korea. But, Kim has continued to insist that to expand the inter-Korean relationship, there can be no further military interference from foreign forces such as the United States. Kim may be trying to coax the United States and South Korea into an open marriage, but joint exercises are more than he can abide. Kim is counting on both Trump’s wandering eye and the accumulated burdens of the institution of marriage as he attempts to woo Trump over to his side. Trump has complained that the costs of marital obligation characteristic of alliances are too high. He argues that South Korea has taken advantage of U.S. military largesse by not sufficiently financing U.S. Forces in Korea,  and that South Korea should raise its contributions to mutual defense by at least fifty percent—or else.   Kim knows that Trump’s “what have you done for me lately” attitude toward Moon can be exploited and that accumulated grievances between Trump and Moon might even lead to a U.S.-ROK alliance divorce. The situation is all the more tragic because it was Moon who  worked so hard to bring Trump and Kim together in the first place, thinking that life would be better if only the “little rocketman” and the “dotard” could learn to get along. Since both Trump and Kim had been so focused on themselves for so long, who knew that each would see something so attractive in the other? Yet it is not clear that replacing the U.S.-South Korea alliance with a dalliance between Trump and Kim would be sustainable, much less that it would reduce the risk of war or the likelihood that either side, once aggrieved, would  pursue the nuclear option. So what next in 2019 for this dramatic Korean love triangle? With some healthy compromise, Moon and Trump should be able use their shared history and mutually-beneficial union to channel Kim’s apparent interest in establishing a peaceful environment for North Korea’s economic growth into an advantageous and hopefully denuclearized end-state. Rather than falling for Kim’s illusory promises by hosting him in Seoul or setting up another Trump-Kim dalliance in a third country, Moon and Trump must engage in a heart-to-heart of their own to resolve urgent differences and get on the same page regarding South Korea’s financial contributions to mutual defense. Pro-tip for Moon: throw in an offer for Hyundai construction to build a free wall and the asking price for keeping U.S. forces in Korea should go down dramatically. 

From testing intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs, Kim moved to testing diplomatic prospects for the normalization of himself as an international leader and of North Korea as a nuclear weapons state.

Ramped-up diplomacy in 2018 has eased tensions on the Korean Peninsula and led to a one-year halt in missile testing. But Pyongyang has not yet taken credible steps toward denuclearization.

Developments in conflicts across the world that you might have missed this week.

The biggest risk the United States and South Korea face is the apparent progress in inter-Korean conventional tension reduction measures without commensurate diplomatic progress on North Korea's denuclearization.

The United States and South Korea are reluctant to give North Korea a test that it might fail.

Developments in conflicts across the world that you might have missed this week.

One of the most challenging issues the Trump administration now faces is how to convince China to maintain economic pressure on North Korea in the midst of a simultaneously unfolding inter-Korean peace process and Sino-U.S. trade war.