The Death of an Alliance, Part 19

This morning, the sun rose, flowers opened, the earth rotated, and South Korea offered North Korea yet more money to do something its fertile and depraved minds had not even thought of scant months ago. Then, it publicly pretended that there was nothing to worry about in any event.

In other news, waves continue to lap against the shore and glaciers are still crawling downhill.

And the day after the U.S. warned North Korea not to test a bomb (or if you believe my speculation, dared it to test the damned thing), South Korea is saying there’s nothing to worry about:

“Our government has made it clear there is not any evidence that North Korea would make a test in the future,” said Lee Kyu Hyung, the spokesman for the South Korean Foreign Ministry.

Never mind the fact that North Korea’s moutpieces are either making absolutely nothing clear or affirmatively stating that a bomb test is . . . inebbitable! South Korea goes blithely on, denying every dangerous contingency, rewarding the most dangerous behavior imaginable, and undercutting United States, with which it apparently never discussed this “important proposal” before discussing it with the North. The Times continues:

On Monday, in the first bilateral talks involving the two Koreas since summer, the South said it was prepared to offer a new proposal if the North returned to the six-party talks. But South Korea did not provide details.

No details? Can past events be any sort of guide? Or can we just take the off-the-record words of a South Korean official who whispered this to the Chosun Ilbo this week:

[O]ne government official said it was a “Marshall Plan” for North Korea including massive economic aid if the North gives up its nuclear program.

Yes, I’m sure that the Marshal probably has a bottomless pit that he’s not using for nuclear testing. It should hold the contents of South Korea’s treasury quite nicely. Which leads to this Sherlock moment from the Times:

The offer underscored the fact that South Korea, though an ally of the United States, shares China’s softer approach toward North Korea. . . . For Seoul, managing its growing ties with the North and its alliance with an American administration hawkish on North Korea has become increasingly delicate. South Korean officials tend not to criticize Washington openly, as the Chinese do, but privately express some of the same frustrations over American tactics. . . . Seoul’s divergence with Washington has disclosed some of the strains.

This led the Times to the issue of Seoul’s “balancer” concept, which appears to have been a completely half-baked political statement, complex post-hoc justifications notwithstanding. Chris Hill, who’s sounding increasingly annoyed with trying to talk to the North, gave the Times a blunt quote:

“I would think if I were a South Korean,” Mr. Hill said, “there is logic to saying that we’re in a neighborhood that in the past – in the past, maybe not now – has certainly qualified as a high-crime neighborhood. You know, a lot of invasions, a lot of battles, even, at times through the centuries, wars of annihilation – serious stuff, especially on the peninsula. . . . If I were a South Korean looking into the future, I would be saying to myself, ‘I want a special relationship with a distant power.’ ”

A final note on the resumption of bilateral talks: it’s a story only because of how well it illustrates North Korea’s success at driving wedges between the United States and a nation it longs to believe is still an ally. Otherwise, it’s a complete non-story. As before, it will result in no unmonitored family reunions, and perhaps no monitored ones either. It will result in no fundamental opening of North Korean society. It will not result in food aid going to those who are starving because their government is willingly starving them and South Korea isn’t attaching any strings to its aid. As with all of the government-to-government engagement, it will come to nothing but payoffs.

I’m a strong believer in engagement with North Korea that opens its people to foreign ideas and influence; I just don’t happen to believe that any such engagement can possibly include the government of North Korea.