|
North Korea has recently started a rhetorical offensive on South Korea¡¯s new, conservative government, apparently after completing its assessment of the just-inaugurated Lee Myung-bak administration. There had been no mention of Lee¡¯s election in the official media, prompting observers to think that the North was exercising mature restraint. But since early this month, a string of statements in the North Korean media have slammed South Korea, pegging their commentary on annual South Korea-U.S. joint military exercise and Seoul¡¯s reference at the UN to the North¡¯s dismal human rights record.
Has North Korea given up its hope that it can work with the Lee administration, or is this just another example of the familiar brinkmanship?
 |
A U.S. Marine uses his wireless telegraph set as a U.S. Marine helicopter readies to land during a combined arms live fire exercise at Rodriguez Range in Pocheon, north of Seoul on Saturday. About 27,000 American troops, the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier, and an undisclosed number of South Korean soldiers were participating in the drills, dubbed Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, according to the U.S. and South Korean militaries. /AP
|
 |
|
¡ß Fiery rhetoric
Until mid-February, Pyongyang refrained from a direct denunciation of the new government in Seoul. It only reiterated the importance of implementing the agreement reached at the inter-Korean summit of 2007. But on Feb. 29, the Chosun Shinbo, a mouthpiece for Pyongyang published by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan or Chongryon, wrote Lee's denuclearization-opening-3,000 plan -- offering help to the North in achieving a per-capita income of US$3,000 there in a decade premised on the first two conditions ¡°is an unrealistic suggestion based on ignorance of the reality in the North."
The start of Key Resolve, the annual South Korea-U.S. joint military exercise, on March 2 prompted further harsh criticism. The North Korean Website uriminjokkiri.com said, "Dark clouds of nuclear war hang over¡± the Korean Peninsula. And a spokesman for the North Korean Army in the truce village of Panmunjom said, "At any cost the KPA will... counter positive retaliatory strikes by any means necessary."
When the South Korean representative to the UN Human Rights Commission on March 3 urged the North to improve its human rights record, the North Korean Committee for the Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland, the agency handling business with the South, was scathing. "The conservative South Korean leaders are successors to the fascist dictatorial regimes,¡± it said. That was the North¡¯s first formal criticism of the Lee administration.
¡ß Why is the North talking tough?
Many pundits regard the latest North Korean attitude as an attempt to tame or daunt the new government here before the new inter-Korean relationship is established on a different footing. Whenever a new government is inaugurated in the South, the North has sown tension in the inter-Korean relationship by provoking an incident.
The early days of the Kim Young-sam and Roh Moo-hyun administrations saw the first and second nuclear crises. In the early days of the Kim Dae-jung administration, the North test-fired missiles. Each time, North Korea achieved what it wanted by maximizing the sense of crisis.
Right after Lee was elected last year, North Korea took a wait-and-see attitude. At an event at the joint Kaesong Industrial Complex on Dec. 21, North Korea's Senior Cabinet Counselor Kwon Ho-ung reportedly told a South Korean government official, "I don't think (Lee) can change the trend in inter-Korean cooperation, can he?"
In mid-January, North Korea informally proposed to a Lee aide a meeting between responsible officials from both sides but was turned down.
Now it is becoming gradually clearer that the Lee administration will take a tougher line with the North, Pyongyang is cranking up the rhetoric. Lee has vowed to review existing inter-Korean cooperation projects and tell North Korea ¡°what must be told.¡±
Ryu Dong-ryul, a researcher at the Police Policy Institute suspects the change in attitude in North Korea has something to do with the disappearance of officials advocating talks with the South, including Choe Sung-chol, deputy director of the United Front Department of the North Korean Workers' Party, from the scene.
¡ß Prospects for inter-Korean relations
Pundits predict that inter-Korean relations will come to some kind of watershed between late March and mid-April. Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University, said, "Variables will be North Korea's (annual) request for rice and chemical fertilizer, the six-party nuclear talks, the general election in South Korea slated for April, and the Seoul-Washington summit.¡± The North will then make a final decision on its South Korea policy depending on the results, he added.
The worst-case scenario, from the North¡¯s point of view, would be that the new administration wins an overwhelming victory in the general election and Seoul-Washington ties are further consolidated at a time when the U.S.-North Korea conflict continues over the North¡¯s failure to declare its nuclear programs and stockpiles.
A South Korean intelligence officer said, "The North is resorting to a method of heightening crisis on a step-by-step basis. If it¡¯s driven into a corner, no one can rule out the possibility that the North will take provocative action in the West Sea." But other experts say things can still change, given that North Korea has not yet attacked Lee by name.
A government official said the new administration ¡°has already clarified that it will continue humanitarian aid, including rice and fertilizer, to the North as before. But we won't be dragged along (by the North) as the previous governments were."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
|
