Flutter of Korean peace doves?

Press, 31 January 1984, Page 18

Flutter of Korean peace doves?

From “The Economist,” London

When a terrorist sends a peace package, it needs examining for ticking parts, not tossing away.

North Korea's latest proposal for detente on the Korean peninsula comes frpm the same coldblooded people whose explosion in Rangoon in October killed a large part of the South Korean Government plus four Burmese. International disgust at this attempt to murder the South Korean President seems to have induced a change of strategy, if not of heart, in Pyongyang. This year the North Koreans recast their familiar peace ploy to include an important concession: that the “South Korean authorities” should be admitted to the peace talks North Korea has long wanted with the United States. It is a straw worth building on.

President Reagan did so in his meeting with the Chinese Prime Minister, Mr Zhao Ziyang, on January 10. He suggested bringing China into the Korean act through a four-way meeting with the two Koreas. The Japanese, who have been acting as conduits for peace feelers on Korea, then tentatively proposed a six-way meeting, including themselves and the Russians. China has since endorsed the North Korean plan without rejecting President Reagan’s; Russia has simply reported it. The South Koreans say they prefer their own plan for a one-on-one with the North, but would go along with a wider conference. So far nobody has put down a veto. The Japanese notion of a sixway conference including Russia is the best, on one condition. Peace will come most solidly to Korea if

it is underwritten by the big powers on both sides'. The one condition is that the terms of the peace should not give Russia an advantage in the area which it does not possess now. And that, it seems, can probably be arranged.

For once, all four Pacific powers have parallel interests in a peace that could leave South Korea safe. For years Russia and China have lived in fear of being sucked by their erratic North Korean ally into a war against a heavily armed southern adversary, backed by American troops with nuclear weapons. An end to this anxiety would be worth a lot, especially since the 71-year-old Kim II Sung looks like being succeeded as leader of North Korea by his even wilder-eyed son. If pushing peace on the North Koreans leads to the withdrawal of the American forces in Korea, the Russians and the Chinese will have achieved something both have sought since 1953.

The lure of trade with one of the world’s fastest-growing industrial powers provides another reason for Russia and China to want to get out of the Korean confrontation.

South Korea has been conducting a camouflaged trade with the communists across the water for several years — television sets in exchange for Chinese coal, for example. Now China and Russia want to expand this trade to bigger items, such as South Korean steel processing methods, which the Russians have been eyeing. South Korea has developed technology that is especially suitable for use by a disciplined and fairly cheap labour force, which is exactly what communist countries want. To get it they must come

out of the closet, which in turn requires at least the beginnings of a peace process in Korea. North Korea, too, wants more access to Western goods and technology. and maybe to start picking up some industries for which South Korea's wage rates are growing too expensive.

In 1945 the North was the richer half of the peninsula, but today its income per head is only a fraction of South Korea’s — and its defence budget eats up nearly a quarter of it, compared with 6.4 per cent in the South. Economic frustrations have led the North Koreans to smuggle drugs, default on debts and rent out terrorist trainers. Now they are pushing for an opening to the West.

President Kim II Sung’s most potent motive for wooing the United States is his determination to get the American troops out of South Korea before he dies. Like the north wind, he first tried huffing and puffing; now he has shifted to sunnier ways. He probably realises that it takes a big man to make a big strategic shift. As North Korea’s living god, he could do it. If he does not, his son is likely to be stranded.

In a few years time, South Korea will be stronger than the North militarily as well as economically, even without American troops.

Like Russia and China, Japan and the United States have similar though not identical interests for ending the Korean stand-off. The biggest bonus for both would be the lowering of the risk of war. Trade with that bad debtor, North Korea, is not a big come-on, even to Japan. For President Reagan, though,

in an election year. Korea otters an opportunity that could be the next best thing to Mr Nixon's in China or Mr Carter's at Camp David: a peacemaking breakthrough involving four great powers and the last divided country still untouched by detente. And it would hold the promise of bringing the boys home — 37,000 of them, compared with fewer than 2000 in Lebanon.

Mr Reagan cannot seem to be abandoning an anti-communist ally (shades of' Taiwan). So he has to take the South Koreans with him every step of the way. Their desire for communist markets and wider diplomatic fields is not enough. They have to feel secure enough to see the Americans leave.

The first stage of a Korean peace conference could offer something for everyone. The great powers would agree to recognise each other’s Korea and to trade with it, in exchange for pledges of peaceful intentions and perhaps a formal treaty belatedly ending the 1953 war.

The sticky bit begins when the conference turns, as it must, to a non-aggression pact between the

commanders of the world's sixth and seventh biggest armed forces in the two Koreas. North Korea has proposed mutual cuts of forces after, not alongside, an American withdrawal. This would not do. Plainly, the two would have to proceed in step, and any evidence of violation in the North would have to permit an American return to the South.

The disarmament stage of a Korean peace process could last for years. This would not matter, so long as the talks were not diverted into the fatal fairyland called unification.

The impossibility of communism and capitalism coming together under one roof killed the shortlived negotiations between the two Koreas which began, under the influence of Chinese-American de- ■ tente, in 1972. It should be the responsibility of the four overseeing powers to prevent this happen.ing again. ' Let Koreans on both sides cherish their dream of unification. But let their rulers first produce a supervisable agreement that they will not try it by force. Copyright — "The Economist.”