The Chosun Ilbo notes the Roh admin hasn’t given up on Sunshine, describing the main supporters as the, “addlebrained so-called 386 Generation.” Right on cue, the Hankyoreh has two editorials, one on the dangers of PSI and the other touting engagement (and blaming the U.S.). The pro-engagement piece asks if engagement had anything to do with North Korea’s recent nuclear test, but fails to ask if it did anything to stop the programs and misses the possibility of having actually funded the programs (two points for the Chosun). The Dong-a Ilbo faults the policy of engagement and notes the monetary amount lost in the process. Finally, the Joongang Ilbo speaks about the ramifications of the UNSC sanctions on the Kaesong and Kumgangsan joint projects.

Chosun Ilbo: What’s Wrong With a Nuclear Armed N.Korea?

The president on Thursday told the National Unification Advisory Council, “There are two ways of dealing with North Korea’s nuclear test — sanctions and dialogue. Depending on what they think, some call for strong sanctions and others for dialogue. What is clear is that both are effective and that neither can be chosen alone.”

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…what that means when the rest of the world is going for sanctions is that he favors dialogue. Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok, well aware of the president’s mind, told the National Assembly Thursday, “North Korea is not a country that responds well when pressured and sanctioned.”

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The government has persistently maintained that South Korea will persuade the North to give up its nuclear programs through dialogue under its leadership. Once Pyongyang scraps its nuclear development programs, it proposed, Seoul will pay it over W1 trillion (approximately US$100 billion) in the form of heavy oil, power transmission and perhaps building a light-water reactor. In the nebulous “comprehensive approach” toward resolution of the nuclear standoff, it may have promised an even larger sum to the North.

Yet North Korea pushed ahead with a nuclear test, regardless, demanding more U.S. carrot without paying any attention to South Korean carrot. Presumably getting the North to abandon its nuclear program now that it has tested a nuclear weapon will be rather more difficult than before that. Insisting on a formula that so signally failed when it was easier now that it is hard, then, is tantamount to giving up on a resolution of the nuclear standoff altogether.

On Monday, right after the North announced a nuclear test, the president said North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons is “intolerable.” But without offering any specific plan for getting North Korea to give up its nuclear program, the president now mutters that some UN sanctions are unacceptable and puts conditions on others. Going a step further, the administration is said to have tentatively decided to continue package tours to Mt.Kumgang and business at the Kaesong Industrial Complex irrespective of a UN resolution. Koreans and the world are fed up with this administration’s hypocrisy. It might as well say frankly, like the addlebrained so-called 386 Generation of former student activists who support it, that there is nothing wrong with a nuclear-armed North Korea because the bombs will be ours once unification comes. (emphsis added)

Hankyoreh: The GNP’s dangerous PSI drive

In the wake of North Korea’s nuclear test, the opposition party is calling for the government to participate fully in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). The reason the Grand National Party wants Korea to participate is simple: it wants to teach Pyongyang a lesson, which is also why it wants to call off the Mt. Geumgang (Kumkang) tourism project and the joint Korean Gaeseong (Kaesong) Industrial Complex.

That kind of thinking is unrealistic, very irresponsible, and dangerous. You wonder whether the Grand Nationals have any idea of the dangerous consequences that would come with South Korea fully joining the PSI, something the U.S. has been pursuing since 2003. If we fully participate in a program in which ships suspected of transporting material related to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are searched on the high seas, that means we have to formally dispatch our warships and military personnel. It would essentially amount to a sea blockade, a scene imaginable only in war.

There is absolutely no reason to expect North Korea to submit to such searches. If North Korean naval vessels are sent to escort Northern cargo ships, a situation could unfold in which there is a direct clash between the North and South Korean navies.

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It is for this reason that many experts have taken the view that South Korea needs to be extremely careful about participating in the PSI, since we are still officially in a state of confrontation with North Korea, unlike the U.S. and Japan.

Hankyoreh: The failure of the U.S. hard line

South Korea’s policy of engagement toward North Korea has encountered a crisis since Pyongyang claimed it tested a nuclear explosive device. On October 9, the day North Korean state media announced the test had been successful, South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun said that he will not be able to continue with the engagement policy. For the first time ever, half of the respondents in a poll on South Korea’s citizens called the policy mistaken, and a mere 10 percent credited it with having achieved something. A full 35.9 percent said the current policy has to be halted completely, and 36 percent want it downscaled.

It makes full sense that when North Korea went ahead with a nuclear test opposed by neighboring countries like South Korea and China, the South Korean people would become extremely angry. However, is there really a close correlation between the North’s nuclear test and the engagement policy towards Pyongyang? Is it, as some are claiming, the “result of the governments of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun and their Sunshine policy ‘pouring generosity’ on the North”?

If you take a cool-headed, thorough look at the circumstances surrounding the nuclear test, you discover that there is no basis to claim engagement has anything to do with it. There is nothing about the North’s declaration on February 10, 2005 that it has nuclear weapons, or its announcement on October 3 that it was going to perform a nuclear test, that can be linked to the engagement policy. What both events have most in common is that they are hard-line North Korean responses to hostile U.S. policy towards Pyongyang. The North Korean foreign ministry, in its October 3 statement, said “The U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure compel the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test, an essential process for bolstering a nuclear deterrent as a corresponding measure for defense.”

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The policies of the governments of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun have, in fact, produced results that previously would have been unimaginable. In the years up to 2000 there had only been one cross-border family reunion event. Between June 2000, when the summit in Pyongyang was held, and June 2006 there were no less than 14 such events. The same period represents an unprecedented era of active exchange and cooperation. What needs to be fundamentally reconsidered and amended at the current juncture, therefore, is not the South Korean government’s engagement policy but the U.S.’s slanted North Korea policy.

Dong-a Ilbo: Nuclear Reunification?

Former secretary to the President for National Defense Kim Hee-sang (retired from the Army, Lt-general), who supervised the national policy in the early Roh administration, said, “Nuclear weapons development in North Korea is to establish the driving force for reunification through communization of the South.” He argued in an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo on the North’s announcement of the nuclear experiment, “It is a declaration of war in the long term,” adding, “We need to show our commitment for military sanctions.”

Such an analysis shows how the diplomatic and humanitarian efforts of the government and the international community to resolve the North Korean nuclear issues were ineffective, allowing the North to have more time to develop nuclear weapons. North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons implies the failure of the efforts, including the 1992 joint declaration of the De-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the 1994 Agreed Framework between the North and the U.S., and the six-party talks. In this aspect, Mr. Kim believes in the need to show the will for “military sanctions,” directly threatening the throat of the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

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Furthermore, the defense reform initiatives supposed to attract a total of 621 trillion won by 2020 must be re-examined because they contain nothing about measures against WMD. Even if the rogue regime possessing nuclear weapons makes a stupid mistake, it is extremely challenging to restrain it, so the fact that nuclear weapons could be a means to maintain the regime is a headache, experts say. Intensifying the ROK-U.S. alliance, including putting an end to the discussion on the operation control takeover, has become ever more important for the South’s survival. That is, securing the solid nuclear umbrella of the U.S. has become the only survival means.

Now it has become possible for the North to threaten the South with its nuclear weapons anytime. That is, this would increasingly give the North an upper hand, spreading the sense of defeatism throughout South Korean society, in turn spreading the pro-North forces ever more, and this would trigger indirect invasion tactics from the North to flourish, according to the former presidential secretary Kim. This remark should not be overlooked at all. North Korea’s efforts to achieve reunification through communization of the South (or its reunification strategy) can be divided into two steps. The first one is to encourage South Korean society to have its own mass uprising (or People’s Democracy Revolution) and the second one is to reunify by communizing the South (Liberation of South Chosŏn, or South Korea) via armed forces. Mr. Kim said nuclear weapons play a decisive role in both steps.

Unfortunately, it now feels that the ambience surrounding the first step is felt throughout the society. Even after the announcement on the nuclear experiment of the North, the government consistently maintains the engagement policy toward the North, some civic groups, the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions and the Korean Teachers and Education Workers` Union perform pro-North activities and advocating remarks for the North are made via broadcasting networks like KBS. Are we all living under the Kim Jong Il regime or what?

Joongang Ilbo: No profit in joint projects

The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution of sanctions on North Korea.

What is most noteworthy is the sanctions committee that is to control the sanctions. The member countries must report on the contents of the sanctions within 30 days of adopting the resolution. This committee reports the member countries’ performance every 90 days to the Security Council. The committee also holds the right to interpret the content of the resolution in parts where it is unclear.

In short, we can read the Security Council’s strong will that it will not take these sanctions loosely.

With the adoption of the resolution, all eyes are focused on what will happen to the Kaesong Industrial Complex and the Mount Kumgang Tour program.

The government announced clearly that it will continue with the two projects. It claims that there is no evidence that the money for these projects has been used for development of weapons of mass destruction. In addition, the government argues that these two projects are normal commercial deals and the resolution does not ban such projects.

However, this is just a short-sighted idea. More than $20 million has been transmitted to North Korea through these two projects. The government paid $12 million just to use the Kaesong site. The chances are very slim that the sanctions committee will take the South Korean government’s side, even if it proves the money was not used for weapons development.

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In the end, if the government continues these projects, there will be no real profit for them. It would instead bring conflict with the United States and raise criticism of not upholding the resolution. The company losses will also increase. Bearing this in mind, the government should drastically change its way of thinking.

The government also announced that it will not increase its participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative. Of course, a cautious approach is needed on this matter. However, if the government limits its participation in sending inspection teams, as it did before the nuclear test, does that mean that it will give up cooperating with America?

The government should first increase its participation and then look for ways to avoid tension escalating during the procedures.