Summit will rebalance power dynamics around Koreas

Analysis

In a media-driven world, the Panmunjom summit, made for television, has at a stroke transformed Kim's image, not least in South Korea. For both Koreas it was a masterpiece of public relations.

More importantly, it produced an accord which in effect restores the 'sunshine' policy (1998-2007) after a frosty decade of conservative rule in Seoul. This has long been Moon's goal: he went to North Korea in 2007 for the second intra-Korean summit, as chief of staff to then-President Roh Moo-hyun.

The declaration's provisions include fully implementing all past intra-Korean agreements. This is a tall order.

The first was in 1972. A major accord signed in 1992 was stillborn as nuclear concerns grew. The 2007 summit agreed on numerous joint ventures, but Roh's conservative successor Lee Myung-bak nixed these.

Other provisions include:

• a permanent liaison office in Kaesong, just north of the intra-Korean border (this may presage reopening the joint-venture Kaesong Industrial Complex, abruptly closed by Moon's conservative predecessor in 2016);
• resuming reunions of separated families (a key South Korean demand), starting on August 15;
• joint participation in sports events, such as the Asian Games in Indonesia in August;
• pursuing economic projects agreed in 2007 but never implemented, starting with relinking and modernising two cross-border railways;
• cooperation, exchanges, visits and contacts at all levels, including joint events on June 15 to mark the anniversary of the first summit, held in Pyongyang in 2000; and
• regular meetings and discussions between Moon and Kim, including on their newly installed hotline. Moon will visit Pyongyang in the autumn.

Almost all this is ground trodden before, albeit not recently. What is new is an emphasis on reducing military tensions, barely addressed in the sunshine era. Stipulations here include:

• a complete end to all hostile acts, including border loudspeakers and propaganda leaflets;
• turning the West Sea border into a peace zone, as agreed in 2007 (this area has seen four fatal naval skirmishes, plus the 2010 sinking of a Southern frigate and the shelling of an island);
• all this to be facilitated by frequent military talks, including of defence ministers, starting with a meeting between generals in May;
• phased disarmament, as tension is alleviated and military confidence-building proceeds;
• creation of a peace regime that formally ends the Korean War, including trilateral or quadrilateral talks involving Washington and Beijing; and
• ultimate denuclearisation of the peninsula (though no concrete steps were specified).

Deja vu?

Hitherto the two Koreas have made no cumulative progress in any field, with Pyongyang repeatedly reneging on agreements (see NORTH KOREA: 'Satellite' plan sets back US accord - March 21, 2012).

Perceptions in Seoul of Kim Jong-un as human after all directly echo how views of his late father altered. Kim Jong-il too was seen as darkly mysterious, until he suddenly emerged in 2000 as an affable host to South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, Madeleine Albright and others.

There are also new notes. Kim Jong-il never came South, nor exposed himself to global media scrutiny. Though the full Northern team numbered nine, for the morning's summit talks, Kim fielded just himself, his influential sister Kim Yo-jong and one other official.

A major change from the sunshine era is that UN and other sanctions, including South Korea's own, now severely restrict economic relations with the North. Reopening the Kaesong zone and much else would require exemptions from UN sanctions, or their lifting. The latter is unlikely without tangible progress or commitments on denuclearisation.

Touchstones

Many concrete new commitments -- conveyed to North Korea's citizens in full by the Workers' Party newspaper in a four-page colour spread -- make rapid retreat unlikely.

Kim's aim is a new peace process on the peninsula, or the semblance of one, reckoning this will ease pressure on him on the nuclear front.

That calculation appears correct. If six months hence the two Koreas are getting on well, with manifold exchanges and cross-border rail links, Washington and Tokyo can hardly demand that all this stop unless there is fast progress on denuclearisation. The sunshine approach, as in the Aesop fable that inspired Kim Dae-jung, was always to create warmth as a prelude to disarmament.

Current Western policy is the reverse, with Trump reviving former President George W Bush's slogan 'CVID' (complete, verifiable, irreversible [nuclear] disarmament). This is unrealistic. Pressure alone has not worked.

If the two Koreas do start a substantive and meaningful peace process, those more exercised by Kim's global nuclear threat can hardly try to stop this without seeming hostile to intra-Korean reconciliation. If Kim proves more adept and less recalcitrant than his father and grandfather, he and Moon can plausibly claim that what everyone seeks is under way but will take time (see NORTH KOREA: Washington may eventually compromise - July 24, 2017).

With nobody keen to revive the tensions of 2017 -- though Trump remains a wild card -- then diplomacy and engagement may once more predominate on the peninsula.