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Suggestions of pacific unions for South Korea: to pave the way ahead after the Korean Summit

First registered: 2018-07-02;     since, no change    
The latest Korean Summit may be monumental because it may turn Korea into an era of peace and cooperation from that of antagonistic confrontation. However, since it is also naive to anticipate such a dramatic transition to unfold smoothly, the author wants to analyze the consequence of the Summit not only as opportunity but also threat, which will help to take a balanced position and he suggests an idea of pacific union that would buttress South Korea on its path ahead externally and internally as well. 1. Korean Summit as both opportunity and threat The Korean Summit, or the Summit of two Koreas, on April 27 of 2018 set a milestone of peace process in the Korean peninsula. Though they had two previous Korean summits, each in 2000 and 2007, the degree of attention to the latest is so much higher than those for the previous two that the huge exhibition hall for press conference was packed with a number of media reporters from all over the world. For the tension between North Korea and the US around the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons has been so high that it had not been inconceivable for a military action to happen on the Korean peninsula. The place of the latest summit, Panmunjeom, or Military Armistice Commission Joint Security Area is very symbolic too. It is in the demilitarized zone and reserved only for talks regarding military matters, but for the first time it was used for the Summit to talk on peace. Two leaders, MOON Jae-in of South Korea and KIM Jon Un of North Korea, came from each side to share hands with each other first and then produced a scene of crossing the border line north and then south. The event hints on a thawing relation between the two Koreas and a peaceful resolution of the issue on North Korea's nuclear weapons. In contrast, the former two summits were held in Pyungyang, capital of North Korea, which implies a hesitant or reactive attitude of North Korea on talks. The distinctiveness and significance of the latest Korean Summit comes both from the escalated military tension between North Korean and the US and from the sudden U-turn of North Korea toward talks. North Korea, which successfully tested a ICBM missile late last year, suddenly turned the steering wheel toward talks right before the winter Olympic games held by South Korea in February. North Korea, not only participated in the winter Olympic games, albeit at a small scale (including a united team in women's hockey), but also sent its high level representatives including KIM Jong Un's younger sister, KIM Yo-jong. The appearance of KIM Yo-jong was first ever and, given the high status of KIM's family in North Korea, was interpreted as a genuine expression of North Korea toward talks. Soon after the winter Olympic games, South Korean special envoy commissioned by MOON Jae-in went to see KIM Jong Un officially and came back with the surprising message of KIM Jong Un that he is willing to give up nuclear weapons and in order to do so he wants to have summits with MOON Jae-in and with Donald Trump, president of the US. Right after returning from North Korea, The same Korean special envoy also made a vist to president Trump and his security team at the White House and also surprisingly, delivered Trump's announcement that Trump is also willing to see KIM Jong Un soon after the Korean Summit. Then the Korean Summit had been taken into action and that of the summit between North Korea and the US awaits to be scheduled now (in writing of this article, the schedule of the summit was announced to be held in June 12 in Singapore). The Korean Summit was by and large declarative, confirming again the will of North Korea to give up nuclear weapons and to resume the economic cooperation with South Korea which was cut amidst the security crisis due to North Korea's nuclear weapons by the former South Korean president PARK Geun-hye. The detailed and binding agreement about the disarmament of North Korea's nuclear weapons and the anticipated lift of economic sanctions on North Korea will be addressed by the Summit of North Korea and the US. The Korean Summit had a role as a trailer for the North Korea-US summit. However, the accommodating gestures of KIM Jong Un at the summit, which had not shown ever, was impressive enough to express the sincerity of the North Korean leader toward peace process. It is first ever that South Korea has ever initiated to affect not only the Korean peninsula but also the world to such a high degree. South Korea was a victim of the Korean (1950-1953). The Korean war was the first international war after the World War II and is interpreted as the beginning of the cold war. South Korea was not even an official party of the ceasefire agreement; for Korea yielded the operational control to the United Nations and in fact to the US during the war.[1] The Korean war made Korea subject to almost unilateral influence of the US, both politically and economically. While threatened by North Korea or then the communist block South Korea preferred and more or less had to accept what the US or the international society prescribed for South Korea rather than to try to wield its own foreign policy. Against this background, South Korea's effort to navigate between the two hard nosed sides, North Korea and the US, has been a departure from the past familiar practices. And South Korea is believed to have made a contribution to the sudden change of North Korea's policy or at least to provide North Korea with a suitable excuse for such a change. It was a very touching moment for South Koreans to watch the Korean special envoy successfully bridge between North Korea and the US. Such an active role of South Korea in international politics had never seen or even imagined before. If Korea can be an active and helpful member of the international society, then it surely will be good for the world as well as for Korea and such a role deserves to be sought after, which leads to a motivation for the suggestion of this article. However, in spite of the bigger appearance of South Korea in the international society, it should be noted that South Korea is now as vulnerable as before, or even more than before, to any external or internal shocks. Although South Korea has made a great job of bridging North Korean and the US, the role of bridging also reveals the contingent position of South Korea. South Korea have had and still has to wait for North Korea and the US to make decisions each on its own respectively and mutually with each other. If the peace talks between the two parties are not going smoothly or in danger of break-up, South Korea does not seem to have any carrot or stick in its hand to put together both sides. In addition to such an externally inability, South Korea may also face internal disruption as well. South Korea reached a electroal democracy only in 1987, just a generation ago. Although since then South Korea has experienced three turnovers of ruling parties, surpassing Huntington's endurance test of democracy as two turnovers,[2] Korea cannot be said to be legitimate in its ruling to a high standard. The former president PARK Genu-hye was impeached for her illegitimacy and corruption in her office and is in prison now under the sentence of more than twenty years. The tragic ends of former presidents were more of rule than of exception in Korean politics with no break yet. Although the opposing two dominant parties have had chances of ruling the country alterantively, the antagonism between the two sides is so huge that it is regarded as 'legitimate' to overturn the previous opposing party's policies. Two sides regard the chance of ruling more as a trophy won from the other rather than as a legitimate and responsible success of ruling. The dovish approach toward North Korea is the disposition of the leftist or democratic party of South Korea in ruling now. The previous two Korean Summits were held each during the leftist rulings. Contrarily, the rightist party has a hawkish disposition. The former two presidents of the rightist party had reduced and eventually had shut down economic cooperation programs between North and South Korea. Although the rightist party has waned after the impeachment of president PARK Gen-hye, still it is the second largest party and has more than a third of seats of the National Assembly, only slightly smaller than those of the ruling party and large enough to block any constitutional reform.[3] While the Huntington's turnover criteria is met in Korea, but in the sense that the criteria is a minimum thresh hold, the struggle for legitimacy, or otherwise saying the lack of legitimacy, is a huge burden on Korean politics. As long as South Korea stands supportive of North Korea, there might be rows over North Korea's inadequate practices over human rights, ongoing as well as past, and suspicions over North Korea's military threat are unlikely to disappear at least on the rightist side. Economic concerns may also be an inhibitive or at least possible dragging factor. Although South Korea has achieved very much in economic development, South Korea is already at its mature stage. That means the current rates of growth is not enough to mitigate the insufficiency of the institutional depth and width of South Korea. Unemployment rates of youngsters are very high and the status quo of working conditions such as long working hours deos not meet the expectation of the youngsters whose three quarters graduate collage. So cynic complaint such as 'hell Korea '(originally 'hell Chosun', for the name sake of the last kingdom of Korea colonized by Japan, probably connoting more degraded emotion) are prevalent. It may not be difficult to predict that, if the reconciliation with North Korea turn out to be more burden than gift even in the short term (which is quite likely as shown in Germany re-unification), the supporting ground may be shaken. It is sure that the peace process is enlightening and may pay off at least in the long term in the Korean peninsula and beyond. But because of such a precious opportunity lying ahead, it is unquestionably imperative to put forward ideas to pave the way. In this reasoning, this article wants to suggest an idea of pacific unions for Korea as follows. 2. Concept and possibilities of pacific Unions for Korea Fukuyama put the phrase of pacific union as a chapter title (ch. 26) of his book The end of History and the Last Man (1992),[4] but does not give any explicit definition in the chapter or elsewhere in the book. Instead, he by and large draws on Kant's concept of federation of free states in Kant's book Perpetual Peace (first published in 1795) and An Idea for a Universal History (first published in 1784).[5] Fukuyama mentioned examples of such federations of free states, that is, pacific union, as the NATO, the European Community (now the European Union), the OECD, the G7, the GATT, and others as those international unions require their member states of liberalism as a precondition to join. Fukuyama judge the United Nations (UN) as failure from the beginning because it did not put the criteria of 'free state' to join. Fukuyama gives the League of Nations, typically known as the precedent of the UN, a credit of Kantian federal idealism but judges it as an eventual failure because its two members, Germany and Japan, let alone the Soviet Union becoming a member in 1933, were not liberal states on their own and not willing to follow the League's rules. Given Fukuyama's introduction of Kantian federation and his judgment on cases, it is not an over-stretch to conceive of Fukuyama's pacific union as Kantian federation of free states. Both for Fukuyama and for Kant, only liberalism put together people peacefully within a country and so liberalism is an essential element for a union of states to be a pacific union. This article adopts Fukuyama's pacific union via Katian federation of free states. As for the aforementioned unions of states as close to the Kantian federation via Fukuyama, South Korea belonged to the GATT (which later expands to the WTO) even during military dictatorship and have joined the OECD since 1995. South Korea made a FTA agreement with the US, dubbed KORUS, in 2007, and with the EU in 2011.[6] South Korea is surely liberal enough particularly in economic terms to those areas of highest standards on free trade. However, South Korea is yet a small economy which is only connected to the world via goods, services, and capital. Quite an important production factor, people, are by and large confined within the southern half of the Korean peninsula which makes South Korea an island of fifty million people. The surrounding neighbors of South Korea are not quite liberal or at least not kind of Western liberal. Not to mention Russia and China, Japan is described as a different kind of western civilization by Huntington in his famous book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (1996 in origin)[7]. And all the three states are defined each as the core state, meaning most significant influencer of each civilization.[8] And each neighbor state has a population of more than one hundred thirty million (that of Japan as the minimum). Korea's only and western ally, the US, is far away overseas. This geography implies an uneasy situation of South Korea in geopolitics. It may be such a geopolitical position that made split the Korean peninsula and brought about the Korean war and made South Korea always threatened by its northern strong states during the cold war. And still the geopolitics does not seem to to be working very favorably. One such an instance is that when South Korea accepted the SAAS (anti-missile system) of the US amidst the escalation of North Korea's development of nuclear weapons, China imposed implicit economic embargo on South Korea which severely strained Koreans companies residing in China, trading with China, and depending on Chinese tourists into Korea (China began to lift the embargo only after the summit between South Korea and China of the late last year). Outstanding model cases of the pacific union is the European Union and the European Economic Area where not only goods, services, or capital but also people move free: the free movement of people being a distinctive feature in comparison with WTO or FTAs. The European Economic Area is a similar regulatory system as the European Economic Area except for the sector of agriculture and fishery. Most member states of the EU and EEA are overlapped, with a notable exception of Norway being only a member of the EEA, not of the EU. The formation and evolution of the ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community, the progenitor of the EU) serves well as realization of the pacific union. For the ECSC was based on the Council of Europe or an European Union (originally phrased) envisioned by many European leaders, including Winston Churchil, prime minister of the UK, who provided a concept of the Council of Europe, right after the second world war to prevent any atrocity in the future. Schuman, French prime minister and commemorated as the father of the EU, suggested a High European Authority, to pool together coal and steel resources particularly in the Ruhr area which had been the source of dispute between Germany and French. Although the French side initially wanted to weaken Germany by excluding it from the resources, Schuman's suggestions turned the potential source of dispute into that of common prosperity. The ECSC allowed for the area's workers to freely seek their job in the sector of coal and steel and Italy got a big help in lowering their unemployment rates. The EEC (European Economic Community, later becoming the EC), the expansion of the ECSC in membership, extended the freedom of movement to all the workers. The freedom of movement extended further to workers and their families and eventually led to the concept of European citizenship enshrined in the Maastricht treaty underlying the EU. As people move freely across boarders, people's rights on their residence followed as a natural consequence and induced further rights, political and social ones, which also shows an evolution of a pacific union eventually bearing its own citizenship.[9] Except the geographical condition for states to belong to Europe codified in the underlying treaties of the EU and the EEA, Korea seems to be an eligible to the membership of the EU or the EEA, though the conventional geographic concept of Europe easily blurs since Russia, conventionally belonging to Europe, shares its far eastern borderline with North Korea. For the membership requirement of the EU reads just as liberal democracy [10] and South Korea seems to be eligible for that as shown by many democracy rankings which award Korea for free or democratic status.[11] Considering that the OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) was formed to implement the Marshall plan (American and Canadian Aid) over Europe and its original membership was only European countries plus the US and Canada (now all over the continent including South Korea)[12], it is not absurd to suggest that the EU may enlarge its geographic territory. But the joining the EU or EEA does not have to a unique way for Korea to a member of pacific union. If the EU or EEA may be the unique existing option for the pacific union but South Korea may not be allowed to join any of them, South Korea may envision to build a new kind of a pacific union. There seem to be many states around the world that may qualify for the EU or EEA except for geographic location: Australia, New Zealand, Canada and so on. Although Austria is western in its cultural origin and ethnicity, its geographic location made its prime minister Keating from the labor party in the 1990s wish to join Asia (For soccer, Australia became a member of FIFA's Asian division) by joining the EAEC (East Asia Economic Caucus). The EAEC was proposed by Mahathir, as the enlargement of the ASEAN by including three East Asian states China, Japan, and South Korea, while firmly excluding western state like Australia. Mahathir's idiosyncratic negative stance toward western states repelled Japan as well as other ASEAN states, which drove the idea of EAEC to fall apart. The antagonistic stance of Mahathir in culture line is highlighted by Huntington as an evidence of cultural breach between civilizations.[13] However, eventually Australia became a founding member in the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) recently. The TPP is an FTA comprising states around the Pacific Ocean covering East and South-east Asia and all of the American Continent. also seem to be a pool of candidates for the pacific union (alluding its coincident double meanings). Some of the TPP members are also OECD members: Japan, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico and Chile. The US and South Korea are reported to join soon (The US founded the TPA in the former Obama administration but the succeeding Trump administration opted out). South Korea had already had FTA or EPA (Economic Partnership Agreement) relationship with many of them: Canada, Mexico, Chile and the US (in case the US joins the TPP). [14] South Korea has reached a number of FTA or similar trade-centered mutual agreements all over the world including major areas or countries such as the EU, the US, and many of the TPP members to mention a few. Thus at least in the sense of goods, service, and capital, South Korea is open enough. What South Korea lacks is free movement of people. If some of those countries or areas that are liberal and willing to form a pacific union that allow for free movement of people, South Korea can join it or South Korea can initiate such a pacific union. Although the concept or possibilities of pacific union for South Korea is yet just a sketch as shown above, the inception of the EU was not very different. If rationales for the pacific union are further articulated in the next section, then the picture of the pacific union will be more convincing. 3. Rationales of the pacific union and its foreseeable effects on Korea. The rationales for pacific unions can be put in the perspective for the world peace in general on the one hand and for the Korean peace process in specific on the other. The former rationale of pacific unions for the world peace is in line with the Kantian federation of free states where peace is possible by mutual agreements and this contractual peace between free states is far more sustainable (so 'perpetual peace' as in the title of Kant's book) than the peace enforced by the imperial center.[15] And this idea was eventually enshrined in the ECSC and in its expanded and sophisticated version the EU. And the EU accepted eight former communist countries in 2004 in spite of some concerns on possible water-down of existing integration. For the eastern Europe's peace, prosperity, and democracy were give prime importance to Europe as a whole according to Ziolenka (2006)[16]. Then it is quite natural to ask why not more liberal states to make contract to pursue mutual interests. In particular, given that recently Britain had to exit the EU based on its referendum (the reason is widely believed the anti-immigration sentiment of the British people), it may not be absurd that the EU may consider a new entry such as South Korea as a non-absurd. South Korea manages a prudent economy and its population is neither too large (to be weighed) nor too small (to be insignificant). Since the Brexit, the rationale and influence of the EU may be in defensive position. Then inclusion of suitable countries in the EU may help to recover the loss. Although South Korea is not presumed to be an European country, but because of that if South Korea joins the EU, then it will help the non-Western or non-European world to unload the preoccupation of Euro-centrism or Western-centrism which is unavoidable legacy of the Europe's imperialist past and may still lie as a source of hatred from non-Western people. Of course there might be a trade-off between the coverage of the union and easiness to reach consensus between the members. Of course there might be trade off between the benefit of enlargement of the EU, in particular to presumably non-European state, and the easiness of consensus reach between members. So any decision of inclusion of more states outside EU may have to weigh the benefit and cost but at least be worth to do so. Forming a new pacific union outside the EU share the same rationale as the expansion of the EU and can serve as an alternative. That may bring about liberal states together and enable to deepen common interests which may make solid the relations between them. Currently, most liberal states outside the EU are already in agreement of free trade, mutually or on multi-party, and pursing common interests. One thing obviously lacking in comparison with the EU is the free movement of people. Of course, the free movement of people is much difficult to reach but once done, the overall and mutual benefits will be tremendous. Particularly prevalent job mismatches amidst rapid technical changes will be reduced by the free movement of people in a larger economy area than in a single country, which are proven by the inter-EU movements of people. Although there are anti-immigration sentiments as revealed in the Brexit, many economic analyses show overall positive effects in the EU states.[17] And once people are freely moving, then as mentioned above, there arises the need to establish a common regulatory system for human rights, which will more strongly bind the member states and help enhance some states from lower to higher standards, which will definitely help solidify and expand liberalism. Now, the main rationale for Korea's peace process regarding the pacific union in specific is to provide a governance umbrella for South Korea. Though South Korea has been a successful democracy since the 1987 constitutional reform (which allowed people directly to vote for the presidency), its history of democracy is yet over only a generation and reveals many dysfunctional institutional aspects aforementioned. One of such is that the succession of ruling by the opposing party is regarded more or less as a revolutionary turnover. That is, the succeeding party feel like to or feel obligated to overturn many policies including foreign ones, in the belief that the former ruling party lacks legitimacy. And such discontinuous changes have been happening frequently even in the relation between North and South Korea. Reserving any judgment of their merits, inconsistencies of South Korea, in domestic as well as foreign matters are sources of uneasiness to predict the future. Any international governance or policy that South Korea commits itself to is much more binding than Korea's own policies only applied within South Korea. Thus, the participation of South Korea in a pacific union may bind Korea in more good than bad sense and help South Korea's policy toward North Korea more consistent and responsible, making Korea's decision not on its own, but as a member state of the pacific union. For as a liberal state respects the rights of its own people, it also does those of its partner states. As long as South Korea is consistent on its stance toward North Korea regardless of the change of the ruling party, policy uncertainty will be much lowered, which definitely help to lesson the bumpiness of the road ahead. ⚹: This article's Korean version was sponsored by Korea Social Science Institute (KSSI, http://kssi.jinbo.net/) and published in its quarterly journal 'Trends and Prospects' (Korean)(Summer, 2018, no. 103). KIM Seokhyeon, partner of Intelligencekor, has written this article in representation of the company. The Korean version of this article is also available: Korean version. 1: The official parties of the ceasefire agreement are United Nations on the one side and North Korea and China on the other. 2: The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late 20th Century (The Julian J. Rothbaum Distinguished Lecture Series), Huntington (1991). 3: The constitutional change requires at least two thirds of votes in the National Assembly. 4: Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition. 5: The full name of the title is Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose or The Idea of a Universal History on a Cosmopolitical Plan. 6: The years are those each when the final sign-up between negotiation parties are made. 7: 1996 is the year of first publication. This article refers to the publication in 2011 by Simon & Schuster (Kindle Edition). 8: Huntington (ibid) provides several civilizations; among them, Russia is the core state of Slavic; China, that of Sinic; Japan, that of Japanese. 9: Willem Maas, in his book Creating European Citizens (2007), p. 4 in Chapter 1 Introduction, describes in detail the interwoven development of economy and citizen rights; As of the time of this writing, Wikipedia's entry of 'ECSC' and 'Schuman Declaration' and 'History of the European Coal and Steel Community (1945–57)' gave the underlying initial motivation and the development of the ECSC. 10: As of the time of this writing, Wikipedia's entry of 'Copenhagen criteria', which serves as the membership condition, shows an excerpt as follows: Membership requires that candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, respect for and protection of minorities, the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union. Membership presupposes the candidate's ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union. 11: As of the time of this writing , Wikipedia's entry of 'List of freedom indices' shows a table of three kinds of democracy ranking for countries, all of which rank South Korea as a free state with a certain extent. 12: As of the time of this writing, Wikipedia's entry of 'OECD' shows well the underlying motivation and the development of the OECD. 13: Huntington, in his book clash of civilizations (op. cit.), provides Australia as a torn country whose inherent cultural line is in conflict with its longing scope of regional economic integration in the section of its heading Torn Countries: the Failure of Civilization Shifting. However, he seemed to overemphasize the stance of prime minister Mahathir, that does not seem to be a consensus of ASEAN and East Asian countries, in particularly Japan, although Huntington already well accounted the position of Japan and eventual dissolution of the idea of the EAEC. And the late development of the TPP where Australia is a founding member even further weakens the postulation of Huntington's culture dominating world order. 14: As of the time of this writing, Wikipedia's entry of 'Trans-Pacific Partnership' shows the current membership status the TPP and its possible expansion to other countries such as South Korea 15: As in Herfried Münkler's book Empries: The Logic of World Domination from Ancient Rome to the United States (p. 82; 2006; originally 2004); Fukuyama (ibid, chapter 26. Toward a Pacific Union) also provides an excerpt from Kant's book An Idea for a Universal History. The End of History and the Last Man (Kindle Location 7628). Their message is that peple of liberal states are likely to prefer mutual prosperity to war because war simply wastes commonwealth. 16: Jan Ziolenka, in his book Europe as Empire: The Nature of the Enlarged European Union (2006), at p. 25 in chapter 1. Return to Europe, delivers this explanation. 17: For example, an article from The Economist introduces the EU's calculation that the two enlargements of the EU in 2004 and in 2007 increased the EU's GDP by €40 billion: https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21631130-fall-berlin-wall-closed-question-communism-it-reopened-question


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