🇰🇵🇰🇷 Acute Stability: Lessons from the Korean Confrontation

On July 27, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion dedicated to the situation on the Korean Peninsula and timed to coincide with the release of the Valdai report titled “The Return of History. The Cold War as a guide to contemporary international crises”. 

Andrey Sushentsov, programme director of the Valdai Club, moderated the discussion. He noted that after the end of the Cold War, the state of affairs on the Korean Peninsula was perceived by many as a relic of the past, but now, “when history has returned,” it seems to be a possible model for the future situation in Europe.

💬 Gleb Ivashentsov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Korea (2005–2009), RIAC Vice President, stressed that the Russian special operation in Ukraine coincided with the emergence of new tensions around the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula. “In recent years, North Korea has significantly increased its nuclear potential,” he explained, adding that there were statements from the DPRK about the possibility of using nuclear weapons against South Korea in the event of a military confrontation, although Pyongyang had always denied that it would do so before. In Seoul, in turn, the idea has firmly established itself that now North Korea will definitely not give up nuclear weapons.

💬 Andrey Kulik, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Korea, noted that almost seventy years ago, the Korean War took the lives of 2.5 million people, before it escalated into a frozen conflict - but a very peculiar one. On the one hand, the situation on the peninsula has remained generally peaceful all this time. On the other hand, in the 21st century, the DPRK acquired nuclear weapons, which brought the destructive potential of the conflict to a new level. “In recent years, the Russian Federation has made great efforts to find a way out of this situation,” the ambassador said, recalling the road map proposed by Russia in 2017 for the settlement. However, the United States turned towards denuclearisation instead of a comprehensive solution to the problems of the Korean Peninsula, and this only led the situation to a dead end.

💬 Gu Ho Eom, Director of the Asia-Pacific Center, and a professor of the Graduate School of International Studies at Hanyang University, suggested that military tensions between North and South Korea would increase. Speaking about the broader international context, the scholar emphasised that inter-Korean relations are now hostage to a new Cold War, in which the United States, China and Russia are involved. Nevertheless, he sees certain prospects for a settlement within the framework of an international approach, and he would consider it useful at the first stage to conclude a so-called low-level nuclear agreement as soon as possible.

💬 Ilya Dyachkov, Associate Professor at the Department of Japanese, Korean, Indonesian and Mongolian Languages, MGIMO, Russian Foreign Ministry, and RIAC expert, noted that although the situation on the Korean Peninsula has long been characterised by a certain degree of stability, “this stability is acute and rather turbulent.” This is exacerbated by the practical absence of channels for political communication between the parties. “It is imperative to change the interactions in the region, but this is a very difficult task,” he believes. Dyachkov denied linking the dynamics of the DPRK's nuclear missile programme to external factors, pointing out that North Korea intends to continue its nuclear developments in any event, considering them a guarantee of the state's survival.

#ModernDiplomacy #SouthKorea #NorthKorea #ColdWar

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🇰🇷🇰🇵 Military tensions between the two Koreas will increase and the process of resolving denuclearization will become more difficult.

South Korea has alternately pursued an engagement policy and a pressure policy in successive governments, but both policies failed.

The Yoon Seok-yeol administration is in a position to pursue ’peace through strength’, such as warning a strong response to North Korea’s military threat. President Yoon also put forward the principle of keeping the door open for dialogue, but resolutely responding to North Korea’s unreasonable actions. It is evaluated that the threshold for the inter-Korean summit has been further raised as the denuclearization negotiations are pursued according to the “principle of reciprocity”.

In addition, there is a possibility that the Yoon administration will raise the issue of human rights in North Korea.

From a geopolitical point of view, since the US-China relations and the US-Russia relations are likely to deteriorate further after the Ukraine crisis, the structure of the new Cold War between Korea, US, Japan, and North Korea, China and Russia will become clear over the Korean Peninsula. Inter-Korean relations are also locked in the structure of the new Cold War, so it will be difficult to expect any progress in relations.

Since North Korea has said that it will not give up its nuclear weapons even if the sky falls, it is a situation that requires a creative policy that will surprise the sky, writes Gu Ho Eom, Director of Asia-Pacific Center, Professor of Graduate School of International Studies at Hanyang University.

📍The article is devoted to Valdai Club's expert discussion dedicated to the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

#ModernDiplomacy #SouthKorea #NorthKorea

@valdai_club