Making history

For almost 65 years, North and South Korea have been each other’s sworn enemies. The Korean War, little known in our context, never ended despite the armistice. The cold war may have ended in the global context, but it never ended in the Korean peninsula. North Korea became an isolated socialist dictatorship – cherishing its role as an international pariah after the collapse of the Socialist Bloc. South Korea embarked on a heavily US funded path towards capitalist development to become one of the most developed countries in South East Asia. The US continued to maintain military bases in South Korea citing the threat from the North – but in effect continuing to maintain its strategic influence on politics in the region. This week saw a historic moment between the two neighbors when North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean leader Moon Jae-in crossed borders and shook hands before the inter-Korean summit on Friday. The question of why this has taken so long may seem irrelevant in the face of the optics of the meeting between the two leaders – but it remains crucial to why one must remain sceptical of what the future holds in the Korean peninsula.

Much of the credit goes to the current liberal South Korean government, which has pursued multichannel talks, despite nationalist opposition from within Korea and US President Donald Trump’s provocations. Trump has no doubt claimed the inter-Korean summit as a victory for his bullying tactics. This is not the case. The victory is once again of diplomacy. Coming only months after North Korean missile tests and warnings of starting a war, South Korea refused to take offence. Letting Trump and Kim Jong-un decide who has the bigger nuclear button, South Korean diplomats continued to push for a meeting between the North and South Korean leaderships. For his part, the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is now attempting to end the country’s status as international pariah – now that it has reportedly secured nuclear arms.

Meeting at the border, the two leaders promised to ‘write a new chapter’ – but key issues remain unresolved. A peace treaty has not been signed. South Korea would want the North to denuclearise first. North Korea wants an agreement to end sanctions with the US. With a meeting with Trump scheduled in a month, North Korea has shown it is ready to talk. The symbolism of the border meeting was powerful. But real peace is a much longer and complicated process. Talks will have to involve China and the US – and much of this has failed before. If memory serves us right, leaders of the two countries have held hands before in the past but no path forward has been found. Things have improved with an astonishing speed this time around but they could easily deteriorate if all sides are not willing to make compromises.