President Park Geun-hye once again returned to her main foreign policy doctrine, the Northeast Asian Peace and Cooperation Initiative, and urged the leaders of the four powers and North Korea in Northeast Asia to join her initiative in her speech at the ceremony for the 50th anniversary of the Korean National Diplomatic Academy on Nov. 14. 

Few would dispute her characterization of the nature of the security environment in Northeast Asia: political and security relations and economic relations do not move in tandem. However, the political leaders and scholars in the countries involved do not seem to share a consensus view on the means to resolve the paradox. The debates at the seminar following the ceremony revealed this.

In order to find the most effective ways to solve the problem, it is necessary to find the causes of the paradox. There is no question that mistrust is the root cause of the problem. The next question is the cause(s) of mistrust.

Historically, the Northeastern Asian nations have gone through three stages of change: the pre-Cold War (the age of imperialism), Cold War (the age of ideology) and post-Cold War (the age of globalization) periods.

During the age of imperialism, China, Japan and Russia became deeply involved in a war of territorial expansion and protection in the Korean Peninsula and other parts of Northeast Asia. During the Cold War period the U.S. joined in the great power game in the region. The U.S. and the former Soviet Union formed alliances and alignments to contain each other’s sphere of influence. In this ruthless power struggle, Korea was victimized and divided into two political entities and placed in two separate spheres of influence. In both eras the great powers, involved in the military and ideological conflicts, had never officially settled on their conflicts except for the U.S.-Japanese war.

In the third era the four great powers find out that they can benefit from globalization for the rapid development of their economies and it is better for them to promote economic exchanges for continuing economic growth. On the other hand, the two Koreas have maintained the two-state system created during the age of ideology, accusing each other of the continued division.

The above shows that the legacy of the three periods has never been absolved and finally settled. In this sense, the three periods coexist in Northeast Asia. The Northeast Asian geopolitical environment has also remained basically the same throughout the three periods.

Another geopolitical characteristic is that the security environments of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia are not identical but mutually influential. This binary structure of Northeast Asia makes the security environments of Northeast Asia and the Korean Peninsula extremely complicated and vulnerable. This situation is evidenced by the coexistence of the whole range of inter-state relationships in Northeast Asia and the Korean Peninsula ― from enmity to detente to peaceful coexistence (neutrality) to entente and to amity (alliance).

Under the circumstances, there is a mismatch between economic cooperation and political-security cooperation. In the age of globalization, economic cooperation benefits every nation, but economic cooperation does not spill over into the political and security sphere, because the Northeast Asian nations are globalists in the nonpolitical sphere but extremely nationalistic in the politico-security sphere.

For this reason they resort to all kinds of balancing acts. They look at things through their respective lenses of nationalism and interpret each other’s remarks and actions through these lenses. This reinforces their mutual distrust which in turn leads to the suspicion that others use their economic capabilities to expand their military capabilities, and this suspicion finally spurs arms races.

When the U.S. believed that China pursued the anti-access and area denial strategy in the East China Sea, the U.S. declared its pivoting to the Asia-Pacific strategy and rebalancing strategy. This development in turn touched off the verbal war between China and the U.S. with the former accusing the latter of its hegemonism and the latter, the former of its superpower ambition. There is no objective way to confirm their assertions.

Territorial disputes among Northeast Asian states are quite natural because one country’s gain of another country’s territory, however small it is, is lessening of the latter’s military and economic capabilities.

The reason why the EU members can maintain peace among themselves is that they trust each other, and the reason why they trust each other is that through a long history of their experiences they have learned the hard way that peace is a precondition for everything. In contrast, Northeast Asian nations have not been able to overcome their historical legacy and geopolitical conditions.

After returning from her European tour, President Park seems to believe that the experience of the EU is more relevant to the trust-building process in Northeast Asia. Initially, she was more interested in the OSCE model.

Actually, the EU model is relevant to both Northeast Asia and the Korean Peninsula. The EU model is based on functionalism and neo-functionalism. The essence of functionalism is that through cooperation in the nonpolitical fields, political trust and integration can be built. Park was suggesting the functionalist and neo-functionalist approaches at the ceremonial occasion.

Initially, the EU started with cooperation in purely nonpolitical fields, believing that functional cooperation will automatically lead to political integration. Later, it discovered that unless politically relevant functional fields are chosen or nonpolitical fields are gradually turned into politically relevant by the joint and individual efforts of member states, political trust and ultimately political integration are not possible. After this discovery, EU members, through intensive intergovernmental contacts and discussions, have made efforts to transform functional issues into political and security issues.

Actually, trust building is the same as confidence building. There exist already many regional organizations, forums and networks in East Asia, and they all emphasize confidence-building measures. But confidence-building measures will not work well in political and security organizations, because the participants of these organizations are more interested in information gathering than confidence building.

I suggest three guidelines for trust building. First, the already existing Northeast Asian regional organizations, forums and networks that deal with the softer issues suggested by President Park should be strengthened and expanded, and the Northeastern nations should make efforts to transform Track 1.5 and 2 types of institutions into Track 1 organizations, while persuading North Korea to participate in all of them.

One caveat here is that the North Korean nuclear and human rights issues should be discussed in separate political and security forums. In addition, new organizations, forums and networks can be created to deal with the issues not covered by any of the existing ones. Second, the Northeast Asian model cannot be the same as the EU model. The goal of the former is a security community and that of the latter, political integration. But Northeast Asian states have many things to learn from the EU experiences. Finally, the Korean trust-building process should be separate from the Northeast Asian trust-building process, but they can be mutually reinforcing.

The road to the Northeast Asian Peace and Cooperative structure is a long and arduous one, but “a good beginning is half done.”

By Park Sang-seek 

Park Sang-seek is a former rector of the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies at Kyung Hee University, and the author of “Globalized Korea and Localized Globe.” ― Ed.