"Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government does it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy." 
- P. J. O'Rourke 

"A strong, unwavering relationship between the U.S. and its allies Japan and South Korea is necessary for the national and economic security of all three countries."
- Lois Frankel

"The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom." 
- Voltaire

Moon Chung-in is part of the blame America for north Korea crowd.  He is no friend of the ROK/US alliance and what he says should be taken with a grain of salt.  But we have to listen to what he says because he has the ear of President Moon.  He has no understanding of OPCON Transition. He says the ROK has "to recover wartime OPCON from the US" - this is pure BS - the ROK has co-equal operational control of the ROK/US Combined Forces Command right now and will have the same when the OPCON transition process is complete and there is a ROK general in command of the ROK/US CFC.  On the other hand, I am somewhat happy to see he recognizes  the importance of exercises to the OPCON transition  process.  He goes on to parrot Joseph Nye's viewpoint of a post-COVID world.



[Interview] Inter-Korean dialogue needs to restart when National Assembly convenes in June
Posted on : May.25,2020 16:45 KST Modified on : May.25,2020 16:45 KST

Moon Chung-in of Yonsei University discusses inter-Korean relations and the post-corona world order
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/946390.html

Moon Chung-in, professor emeritus at Yonsei University, during his interview with the Hankyoreh on May 20. (Baek So-ah, staff photographer)
The COVID-19 pandemic is cranking up the conflict between the US and China. Countries around the world have shut their borders, severely restricting the flow of people and goods. Dialogue on the Korean Peninsula stalled out following the second summit between North Korea and the US in Hanoi in February 2019 and has been spinning its wheels ever since. During a time of uncertainty with no endpoint in sight, Moon Chung-in, professor emeritus at Yonsei University, sat down with the Hankyoreh to talk about the urgent issues affecting inter-Korean and international relations. The interview with Moon, who was recently named chairman of the Hankyoreh Foundation for Reunification and Culture, was held at the office of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN) in Seoul, on the afternoon of May 20. Hankyoreh (Hani): Since there are only two years left in the presidency of Moon Jae-in, there doesn't seem to be much chance of a breakthrough being reached in inter-Korean relations. What lessons from the past three years do you think the president ought to reflect upon for the remainder of his time in office? Moon: Many of our current problems began with the second North Korea-US summit in Hanoi in February 2019. North Korea thought that the US would accept its Yongbyon offer [that is, to close the nuclear complex there], but the US rejected that offer and demanded that North Korea needed to dismantle its nuclear program before receiving any compensation. That led to the negotiations breaking down. Looking back, there's an obvious reason - obvious to North Korea at least - that we aren't seeing progress in inter-Korean relations. The North wants to know why South Korea hasn't kept the promises it made in the Apr. 27 Panmunjom Declaration and the Sept. 19 Pyongyang Joint Declaration. South Korea seems to be under the thumb of the US, which is apparently why North Korea isn't interested in talking with the South.
Moon Chung-in, professor emeritus at Yonsei University, during his interview with the Hankyoreh on May 20. (Baek So-ah, staff photographer)
Lost opportunities to progress inter-Korean relations The problem as I see it is that I proposed immediately resuming operations at the Kaesong Industrial Complex and tours to Mt. Kumgang when I was appointed special advisor in May 2017, but that wasn't done. And then about a month and a half later, North Korea started launching ballistic missiles. I get the sense that we missed an opportunity there. Our second opportunity was the Pyongyang Joint Declaration on Sept. 19, 2018. We ought to have immediately reopened inter-Korean relations in areas that aren't restricted by UN Security Council sanctions, but once again we didn't do so. For the third opportunity, we need to look at the Sept. 19 Pyongyang Joint Declaration, in which North Korea said that it was willing to completely and permanently shutter its Yongbyon nuclear facility if the US took measures in the spirit of the June 12 Singapore Declaration. North Korea accepted the offer we'd made, and Kim Jong-un presented that to Donald Trump in Hanoi. When the North Koreans made that offer, they must have thought we'd persuaded the US to accept it. But we hadn't managed to do that. We lost momentum at those three crucial junctures. There are some matters that North Korea has trouble understanding. In order for South Korea to gain more autonomy, we have to recover our wartime operational control (OPCON) from the US. To do that, we have to go through a three-phase assessment process that involves joint military exercises between South Korea and the US. But North Korea seems unable to understand that. If North Korea really wants peace on the Korean Peninsula and wants to ease tensions and build trust, it needs to make a greater effort to understand our position. The reality is that inter-Korean dialogue is needed, if only to discuss these sensitive issues, but North Korea regrettably won't take part. Hani: President Moon Jae-in said he intends to promote inter-Korean cooperation on disease control several times during his May 10 speech on the third anniversary of his inauguration. There's considerable interest about when North Korea will engage in that. Moon: It's meaningless to predict when North Korea will engage, but I do think that North Korea ought to do so. [South Korea's ruling] Democratic Party won 180 seats in the National Assembly elections this past April, which makes it easier for the Moon administration to work with North Korea. If the North doesn't respond by June, when the National Assembly begins its session, and keeps waiting until August, the situation will get trickier and inter-Korean relations could grow chillier. That could bring about a change in public sentiment and could tie the Democratic Party's hands. That's why I personally think that June is the best time. For one thing, we'll be marking the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War (June 25, 1950) and the 20th anniversary of the June 15 Joint Statement in that month. North Korea needs to engage in dialogue with us in recognition of the significance of those dates so that the newly elected National Assembly can create momentum and energize inter-Korean relations. How will COVID-19 change the world? Hani: The emergence of the new security threat of COVID-19 is only aggravating the strategic rivalry between the US and China. Some are predicting that the coronavirus will fundamentally transform the international order. Moon: Generally speaking, there are four predictions about the post-coronavirus world. First, there are a lot of people - former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger among them - who think that the pandemic spells the end of globalization and that various countries will wall themselves off as we saw in the Middle Ages. There are concerns that we could see the international order splintered by nationalism, unilateralism, protectionism, and popularism. This is a rather pessimistic, and even nightmarish, scenario. Second we have the view of Harvard professor Joseph Nye, who thinks that the advent of the coronavirus doesn't necessarily mean that the international order will change. Adherents to this view think that the status quo will be maintained, with the US retaining overwhelming strength and China continuing to challenge it. But given the intensifying conflict between those two powers, it may become more difficult to maintain the status quo. The third prediction is that the countries that emerge victorious from the coronavirus pandemic may acquire a new kind of global leadership or hegemony. Kishore Mahbubani, a distinguished fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, believes that China will lead the global order. Others think that China faces structural limitations that will stymie its efforts and ultimately allow the return of a US-led global order. The fourth scenario is more of a prescription than a prediction, namely that we need to move toward a system of multilateral cooperation. Advocates of this view call for the empowerment of the UN and the WHO [World Health Organization]. The danger of a "clash of civilizations Hani: Which of these various scenarios do you agree with? Moon: My viewpoint is fundamentally the same as Joseph Nye's. While the coronavirus pandemic is a very serious problem that will bring economic difficulties, we will ultimately overcome it by developing treatments and a vaccine. But if the countries of Europe mistakenly join with the US in attacking China under the notion of a "Yellow Peril" and move against the "yellow race," the situation could become rather more difficult. That could lead not to a mere conflict between the US and China but to the kind of "clash of civilizations" spoken of by Samuel Huntington. This deserves our serious attention, since the worst possible outcome would be for China to try to create an East Asian coalition. Hani: While international cooperation is extremely important, there are concerns that neither the US nor China is exhibiting international leadership. Moon: Such concerns are inevitable. Trump has said that, if the WHO doesn't come up with an improvement plan within 30 days, he will permanently halt Washington's monthly contribution of US$40 million. That's a more serious issue than the US' withdrawal from the International Labor Organization or UNESCO. And if the US is correct in its claim that China lobbied the WHO to undercount COVID-19 cases and delay its announcement of a pandemic, China will also forfeit legitimacy as a global leader. Then you have the EU, which is itself rife with internal strife. As it happens, South Korea will soon be assuming the chairmanship of the WHO. I'm not sure how helpful we can be, but it's certainly an enormous diplomatic opportunity. At any rate, it's very important to adopt a new paradigm that redefines security as transcending military and economic matters and concerning the wellbeing of the entire globe, but I don't think we've reached that point yet. Hani: Since it doesn't seem likely that the entire globe will take action on human security issues, some are advocating as a preliminary step the creation of united fronts for action on new security issues in regions with a lot of internal movement, such as the EU, ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] and the countries of South Korea, China, and Japan. Moon: That's not an option - it's a necessity. President Moon himself has proposed that very thing. I understand that the health ministers of South Korea, China, and Japan will soon be holding a meeting. The fact is that it won't be easy to tackle this on a global level, where the WHO holds the reins. That's why various kinds of organizations in the EU, ASEAN, and Northeast Asia need to step forward. There could be any number of coronavirus mutations in the future, and I think that preparing for that will require public health cooperation at the regional or subregional level. By Lee Yong-in, director of the Hankyoreh Peace Institute Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
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FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.


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