Published : Sept. 6, 2015 - 20:36
A former diplomat opined recently that inter-Korea relations will significantly improve on account of the Aug. 25 agreement reached by the high-ranking officials from the respective governments. The agreement came at the conclusion of a 44-hour negotiation session, staving off the crisis that seemed to escalate to the point of no return. The agreement is a good thing, to be sure. But I am not ready to share the rose-colored glasses the veteran diplomat is wearing.
On Aug. 25, Hwang Pyong-so, the director general of the Political Bureau of the North Korean People’s Army, returned to Pyongyang after the session and made the following statement on the state television. He said: “South (Korean) authorities will have learned a grave lesson: That in the event they make up a groundless incident, thereby undertaking unilateral actions based on unilateral judgment about unilaterally evolving crises and thereby agitate the other side, these actions will only lead to a tense situation and invite a military collision that should not occur.”
Kim Jong-un himself made a statement on Aug. 28, where he credited his nuclear weapons program for making the “landmark agreement possible” and averting a certain crisis in the Korean peninsula.
Interpretation of these two statements may vary, but together, they give clues to the latest thinking in the halls of the Workers Party Central about their approach to the North-South relations. I suggest that their latest thinking is not too different from what it has been over the last 65 years. The motivation that led Kim Il-sung to invade the South in 1950 appears to have trickled down through the Kim family’s DNA. “Liberating our Southern brethren from the iron shackles of the U.S. imperialists” has been the general theme or their modus operandi. The spirit behind the “war of unification” that Kim Il-sung initiated is still in force.
Claiming victory over the South in the recent marathon session surrounding the land-mine-cum-loudspeaker incident illustrates their need to show that they are the main protagonist in the North-South conversation, which often includes words like “sea of fire” and “obliteration.”
There was no exception this time, either. Fiery words flew about during the August ruckus that was triggered by the explosion of land mines by the fence at the south side of the DMZ. The South accused the North of planting the mines and demanded an apology. The North denied involvement in an attack that maimed two southern infantrymen. Then the South dusted off giant boom boxes from the old days and began blasting away news items from inside and outside North Korea much like a regular radio broadcast, including information on Kim and even K-pop music. The North demanded termination of the broadcast by 5 p.m. Aug. 22 with a threat of military response.
The South refused to turn off the boom box until the North apologized. They exchanged rounds of rocket fire in the meantime. Kim Jong-un declared a “quasi-state of war” and ratcheted up tensions.
What was surprising, Kim Yang-gon (Director of the Information Department of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea) contacted the South via the Panmunjeom channel with a message for a talk a short time before the 5 o’clock deadline. The South accepted the invitation and requested they include director of the North military’s General Political Bureau Hwang Pyong-so. The North accepted.
Now, these two gentlemen (along with Choe Ryong-hae) had shown up unannounced for the closing ceremony of the Asian Games held in Incheon last October, shocking the South Korean leadership to no end. There was much speculation about a major thaw in the frozen relations, but it turned out that they were there to get the South Korean government to stop the balloon launching activists who had been sending anti-Kim messages en masse.
Once again, Hwang and Kim made their appearance to stop the anti-Kim messages: this time, focusing on those boom boxes capable of penetrating 6.2 miles, well within the hearing range of 1 million-plus troops deployed around the DMZ. According to Chu Sung-ha, a North Korea expert reporting for Dong-A News, the Party is very sensitive about exposing the young troops to the broadcast that has been designed to broaden the horizon for young minds who have had little contact with the outside world.
The current age group stationed along the DMZ belongs to the “Jangmadang” generation (in reference to North Korean black markets), according to Chu, which means that their allegiance to the Party is not as significant as those before them. Therefore, they are thought to be more susceptible to the anti-Kim propaganda from the South.
There is another group of troops the Party is concerned about. These troops generally hail from upper elites and they get special treatment, the best rations and best clothes, while also being assigned to light police duty. They have been exposed to hallyu, and are already familiar with K-pop songs and southern drama. They would not find the southern broadcast strange. Rather, they would be thankful for the music and news from the well-to-do neighbor to the south.
Thus, the boom box had to go. Exposing these young men to the southern propaganda over the 10-year period of military service would foster affinity toward the South and cause them to reject the Party and the Kims. They have been taught to worship the Kims from the day they were born, and anything contrary would shake the very foundation of the entire governing system.
It is no wonder that top Party leaders were dispatched so quickly to get the boom boxes turned off. They intensified the pressure to their southern counterparts by edging their artillery equipment closer toward the boom boxes, and put fifty or so submarines out to sea adding to the threat. These threats coupled with something just short of an apology for the land mine explosion prompted the South to turn off the boom boxes. Oh, yes, and Kim Jong-un’s threat of a quasi-state-of-war was on the table, too. The August crisis seems to be over now, with Kim Jong-un’s grand reminder that his nukes are the deterrence necessary for keeping peace in the peninsula.
I wish that the diplomat would be right about the rosy future in the inter-Korean relations. A close analysis of the statements by Hwang Pyong-so and Kim Jong-un suggests otherwise. They are following the same Party line that has been consistent throughout the years, which is: We are here to save you, but we will destroy you if you don’t cooperate with us. Looking at the positive side of this incident is fine, but excessive naivete about its hidden meaning will only compound the problem.
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