DPRK-ROK Relations at The Olympics

Over the past year and a half, South Korea has undergone a tumultuous period of transition, resulting in the impeachment of its previous president, Park Geun Hye, over charges of corruption as well as the ushering in of a new, remarkably liberal government. Moon Jae-In, the incumbent president, ran on a platform of total reformation, and one of his areas of focus, alongside curbing the power of Korean conglomerates and boosting welfare-led development, was foreign policy. As expected of a Republic Of Korea (ROK) president, Moon came in with a host of proposals for the management of relationships with the country’s hostile, communist neighbor, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).  

Since Kim Jong-Un became North Korea’s supreme leader in 2012 as the second heir of his grandfather’s Communist dynasty, the sheer number of missile tests in this country has increased tenfold compared to the days of Kim Jong-Il. Though many still snicker at the North’s nuclear capabilities, in the later half of 2017, it launched three different Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) with a potential range of 8,000 miles each. Aside from nuclear initiatives, the regime has also invested in building a cyberwar command to keep up with modern military technologies. It is a sad irony that hackers from the DPRK, a country where most rural areas do not even have enough electricity for lights, are advanced enough to hack into the ROK’s military intranet and steal the US-backed nation’s top-secret missile response systems.

It is under such conditions that talks between the ROK and DPRK were once again renewed. The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, dubbed the “Peace Olympics,” showcased an astounding amount of diplomacy and good will from the North, who not only sent a delegation of twenty-two-athlete delegation, but also an incredible team of over 200 cheerleaders, all decked in the national color of red, photographed with flags of a unified Korea. Most surprising of all, however, was the appearance of Kim Yo-Jong, Kim Jong-Un’s sister and one of the top-twenty high-ranking members in the Politburo. Being the first Kim family member to visit the South since the war, Yo-Jong appeared on headlines across the globe for her elegant delivery of Kim Jong-Un’s warm invitation to the ROK president to visit North Korea.

Historic as this may seem, it is not the first time that a South Korean president has been invited to come to Pyongyang; Moon Jae-In is preceded by Kim Dae-Jung, who headed the Southern democracy from 1998 to 2003. Relations between the North and South have gone through multiple periods of freeze and thaw; a time when surface tension between the two nations seemed to decrease was during the turn of the 21st century, marked by the Inter-Korean summit held in the North. Kim Dae-Jung’s government stayed true to the sunshine policy throughout its rule, focusing on dialogue with North Korea. Sometimes, this discourse occurred even at the expense of the South Koreans’ safety. Though the liberal president eventually garnered a Nobel Prize for his efforts to establish peace on the peninsula, the end of his term was marked by discontent as citizens came to regard his promises as “pie in the sky.” The famous June 15th agreement, which had been the cause of so much excitement between stakeholders on both sides, did not even mention the growing concern of nuclear developments in the North. Unsurprisingly, there were no signs of the DPRK reconsidering its nuclear program; on the one hand, they were conducting “peaceful talks” with South Korea and benefitting from more lenient business regulations and investment from large chaebols like Huyndai, while still refusing to sign on to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

This example showcases how futile it is to engage North Korea in diplomatic negotiations. Throughout the sixty-five years of armistice, only the South has recognized the possibility of coexistence—two governments ruling as legitimate sources of authority in two distinct countries on the same peninsula, sectioned off by the 38th parallel. Meanwhile, DPRK still maintains that they are the sole representative of the Korean people and conducts underground movements not only in the South, but also with other developed neighbors such as Japan and China. Kim Dae-Jung betted the success of his government on the advancement of North-South negotiations; in fact, so eager was he for progress that he extended a reciprocal invitation for then-president Kim Jong-Il to visit Seoul on ten different occasions over the span of two years. The invitations remain unaccepted. At the same time, the DPRK boosted its espionage network and shipped terrorists alongside cheap labor to developing countries, mostly the former East European bloc.

Unification, under the Southern democracy, would be a beautiful day. For thousands of Korean families with relatives on either side of the Demilitarized Zone, it would be one they have waited for ever since 1953.

However, it is imperative that the ROK does not let down its guard. For the state to survive the next five years, Moon Jae-In’s liberal tendencies need to be offset by a strong conservative voice advocating for further US-ROK military presence and a hard, firm stance against the DPRK. Talks might be part of the solution, but not the main one; as we have seen, the North’s regime could never be trusted, being concerned solely about the preservation of their power rather than the betterment of the country and people they are supposed to lead.