Observers say President Lee Jay Myung of South Korea pledged in his inauguration speech in June this year that he would keep open the “channels of dialogue” to establish peace on the peninsula. He seems to be following former South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s policy towards the North. Since communist North Korea invaded the South way back in June 1950, the successive governments in Seoul perceived any increase in Pyongyang’s military strength as an existential threat and sought to contain it. President Moon adopted somewhat a different policy. He wanted to promote an ever-increasing exchange with North Korea so that the latter could see the benefits in seeking a closer relationship with the economically advanced South.
President Moon also held three summits with Kim. In 2018, when former US President Donald J. Trump threatened the Kim regime ‘with fire, fury and frankly power… ’ and Pyongyang retaliated by increasing its nuclear tests, Moon did not sway from his policy. He persuaded the Trump administration in Washington to reach out to Pyongyang.
In tune with both Moon’s North Korea policy, President Lee has rolled back the hard-line policies toward the North under his ousted predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol. He has suspended military propaganda loudspeakers along the inter-Korean border, authorized a resumption of humanitarian outreach by several nongovernmental organizations and urged civic groups to stop launching any anti-North Korean leaflets. But all this seems to be falling on deaf ears in the North. North Korea’s supreme leader Kim has long turned his back on his father’s goal of seeking unification with South Korea. North Korea under him treats South Korea as the “principal enemy.”
The Kim regime seems to think Lee’s peace gestures cannot be trusted. The United States continues to station about 28,000 troops in South Korea this is aimed against the North. In tune with the tradition of his predecessors, Kim believes in a militarily strong state. The North under him has witnessed a lot of modernization of its conventional military forces. It has advanced its nuclear and missile technologies too.
Given this background, the observers counsel, President Lee could turn to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and solicit his advice on how to go about in his mission of establishing peace and reconciliation in the Korean peninsula. President Lee would surely find the wisdom of India meaningful in this regard. India has been a friend to peace the world over. New Delhi has played a very constructive role during and after the Korean War in the 1950s. India has also chaired the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission (NNRC) after the armistice of 1953.
