Center for International Policy

As printed in The Korea Times

February 22 2005

[Letters to the President] Alliance Vital to Economy

The following is the ninth in a series of commentaries and analyses on Roh’s performance, and suggestions how he should approach his third year in office. - ED.

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Dear President Roh:

I am well aware of the daunting obstacles that you have faced during your first two years in office both in the domestic and the international environment. I know that these obstacles have limited your freedom of action in fulfilling your election pledges to accelerate the improvement of North-South relations and to reshape the South Korean relationship with the United States.

Nevertheless, while making allowances for the difficulties you have faced, especially in dealing with an unsympathetic Administration in Washington, I am disappointed that you have not provided more purposeful leadership in building on the legacy of the June, 2000, Pyongyang summit.

The principal challenge facing you in the final three years of your tenure will be to define in specific terms a long-range vision of North-South relations that transcends the nuclear issue.

Your ``Policy for Peace and Prosperity’’ has been set forth so far in deliberately vague terms. Its declared aims are modest: to ``lay the foundation’’ for peaceful unification through the promotion of peace, and to promote ``substantial cooperation and military confidence-building between the two Koreas’’ to set the stage for a ``peace regime.’’

Why have you shunned any mention of the transitional goal of a confederation prior to eventual unification? This omission is conspicuous against the background of the summit declaration, which explicitly endorsed this goal, referring to the ``common factors’’ in the confederation proposals put forward by Kim Dae Jung and Roh Tae Woo in the South and by the late Kim Il Sung in the North.

Why have you failed to address the goal of a peace treaty to end the Korean War, which is the necessary prelude to a ``peace regime’’? An unprecedented opportunity for such a treaty has opened up since North Korea signaled on May 4th, 2004, that it no longer insists on a bilateral accord with the United States, excluding South Korea, but is now ready to conclude a trilateral treaty (the United States, North Korea, and South Korea).

The obvious reason that you have not pushed for a peace treaty until now is that the United States does not want one, fearing as it does that a formal end to the Korean War would mark the beginning of the end of the U.S. military presence in the peninsula. During the remaining years of your term, the peace treaty issue will be a litmus test of your seriousness about improving North-South relations.

Until a peace treaty is concluded, progress toward a meaningful ``peace regime’’ will be impeded by the anachronistic Military Armistice Commission and U.N. Command machinery left over from the Cold War.

Offering to open discussions on a trilateral peace treaty would make a summit in Seoul or Cheju-do more attractive to Kim Jong Il and would improve prospects for the resolution of the nuclear issue. Such discussions should, in my view, be initiated simultaneously in Washington and Pyongyang. Don’t let the Bush Administration dissuade you from pursuing this critical issue. Don’t let them tell you that resolution of the nuclear issue should come first. Your answer should be that a peace treaty would greatly facilitate a nuclear settlement. It would be a major step toward ending the ``hostile’’ U.S. posture that Pyongyang constantly cites as the reason for its nuclear weapons program.

The cooperation of the United States would, of course, be necessary not only for the conclusion of a treaty, but also for its presentation to the U.N. Security Council for action leading to the dissolution of the U.N. Command. Therefore, you should remind the United States that the presence of U.S. forces is governed by the U.S.-R.O.K. Security Treaty, which would continue even after a peace treaty. A peace treaty should open the way for a long-term reevaluation of the U.S. military presence, but not for its early removal.

Although I have advocated a U.S. force withdrawal linked to North Korean pullbacks from the DMZ, I recognize that the status quo is beneficial to South Korea economically.

The U.S. alliance creates a climate of stability favorable for foreign trade and investment and for preferential treatment by international financial institutions. The U.S. force presence also provides an economic subsidy to South Korea by giving the South a more formidable defense posture than it could afford on its own. Since the rationale for the U.S. presence has more to do with economics than with security, however, you can safely prepare the way, now, for an eventual U.S. withdrawal, carried out gradually without economic dislocations.

The foundations for a ``peace regime’’ have already been established in the 1991 North-South agreement. The 1991 accord set forth in detail the modalities for a North-South Joint Military Commission that would negotiate mutual force pullbacks and, above, all, mutual force reductions. Now that the U.S. has pulled back its forces from the DMZ, it is time to activate the Joint Commission and to move ahead with a meaningful thaw in the North-South military confrontation _ whether or not Washington likes it.

**The Writer is director of the Asi Program at the Center for International Policy, a senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and director of the Center for Scholars and director of the Century Foundation's Project on the United States and the Future of Korea