Contentious Activism and Inter-Korean Relations

CONTENTIOUS ACTIVISM & INTER-KOREAN RELATIONS

Contemporary Asia in the World

CONTEMPORARY ASIA IN THE WORLD

David C. Kang and Victor D. Cha, Editors

This series aims to address a gap in the public-policy and scholarly discussion of Asia. It seeks to promote books and studies that are on the cutting edge of their respective disciplines or in the promotion of multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary research but that are also accessible to a wider readership. The editors seek to showcase the best scholarly and public-policy arguments on Asia from any field, including politics, history, economics, and cultural studies.

Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia, Victor D. Cha, 2008

The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online, Guobin Yang, 2009

China and India: Prospects for Peace, Jonathan Holslag, 2010

India, Pakistan, and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia, Šumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur, 2010

Living with the Dragon: How the American Public Views the Rise of China, Benjamin I. Page and Tao Xie, 2010

East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute, David C. Kang, 2010

Harmony and War: Confucian Culture and Chinese Power Politics, Yuan-Kang Wang, 2011

Strong Society, Smart State: The Rise of Public Opinion in China’s Japan Policy, James Reilly, 2012

Asia’s Space Race: National Motivations, Regional Rivalries, and International Risks, James Clay Moltz, 2012

Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations, Zheng Wang, 2012

Green Innovation in China: China’s Wind Power Industry and the Global Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy, Joanna I. Lewis, 2013

The Great Kantō Earthquake and the Chimera of National Reconstruction in Japan, J. Charles Schencking, 2013

Return of the Dragon: Rising China and Regional Security, Denny Roy, 2013

Contemporary Japanese Politics: Institutional Changes and Power Shifts, Tomohito Shinoda, 2013

Security and Profit in China’s Energy Policy: Hedging Against Risk, Øystein Tunsjø, 2013

CONTENTIOUS ACTIVISM & INTER-KOREAN RELATIONS

DANIELLE L. CHUBB

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

PUBLISHERS SINCE 1893

NEW YORK   CHICHESTER, WEST SUSSEX

cup.columbia.edu

Copyright © 2014 Columbia University Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chubb, Danielle L.

Contentious activism and inter-Korean relations / Danielle L. Chubb.

pages cm.—(Contemporary Asia in the world)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-231-16136-7 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-231-53632-5 (e-book)

1. Korea (South)—Foreign relations—Korea (North).    2. Korea (North)—Foreign relations—Korea (South).    3. Korea (South)—Politics and government.    4. Korean reunification question (1945–)—Political aspects—Korea (South).    5. Kwangju Uprising, Kwangju-si, Korea, 1980.    6. Democratization—Korea (South)—History—20th century.    I. Title.

DS910.2.k7C457 2014

327.0519505193—dc23

2013022232

A Columbia University Press E-book.

CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at cup-ebook@columbia.edu.

Book & Jacket Design: Chang Jae Lee

Jacket Image: © Noh Suntag, Red House I, North Korea in North Korea #2, Pyungyang, North Korea, 2005; State of Emergency #25, Pyungtaek, South Korea, 2006

References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

For my parents, Carmel and John

CONTENTS

Preface

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

Note on Romanization and Citations

Introduction

Understanding Inter-Korean Relations

Political Activism and Inter-Korean Relations

1. Political Activism, Discursive Power, and Norm Negotiation

Traditional Approach

Alternative Accounts of Inter-Korean Relations

Inter-Korean Relations and North Korean Human Rights

Political Activism and Inter-Korean Relations

Conceptual Framework

Historical Case Studies

2. Political Activism Under Yushin and the Kwangju Uprising, May 1980

First Republic: Rhee Syngman

Second Republic: Chang Myŏn

Third Republic: Park Chung Hee

Yushin: The Fourth Republic

Anticommunism and Nationalism Under Park Chung Hee

Political Activism Under Yushin

The End of Yushin

3. From Kwangju to Democracy, 1980–1987

Dominant Discourses of the Fifth Republic

Political Activism in the Fifth Republic

Democratic Transition

4. South Korea in Transition, 1987–1997

Roh Tae Woo, 1987–1992

Kim Young Sam, 1992–1997

Post-1987 Political Activism

The North Korean Famine

5. A New Era of Inter-Korean Relations, 1998–2007

Kim Dae Jung, 1998–2002

Roh Moo Hyun, 2003–2007

Political Activism Under the Sunshine Policy

Transnational Advocacy and South Korean Discourses

Conclusion: Inter-Korean Relations from a South Korean Perspective

A New Age of Conservative Politics: Inter-Korean Relations Under Lee Myung Bak, 2008–2012

Future Prospects

Notes

References

Index

PREFACE

I first came upon the idea for this project through an interest in the North Korean human rights campaign. I was drawn in by the passion of the North Korean human rights advocates, and by the transnational alliances and sometimes incongruous coalitions that had been built around the issue. However, it was not until I really started to delve deep into the micropolitics of North Korean human rights activism, the hushed tones with which the subject was treated in South Korea, and the stereotypes that I found applied to people who had taken up the cause that I realized that, for me at least, the more interesting tasks were not to examine those who had become involved, but rather those who had not, and to understand why this is such a challenging issue in South Korea. Most South Koreans have an intuitive understanding of what it is that is difficult about the issue of North Korean human rights. This is an understanding, however, that is little appreciated outside the peninsula, and it is to an expansion of this understanding that I ultimately hope to contribute. Tackling this subject, I quickly realized, would require a historical perspective that went right to the heart of the beliefs and ideas informing the South Korean progressive sphere. And thus began my foray into South Korean politics and the history of the democratization, human rights, and unification movements that have helped make the country the vibrant democracy it is today.

A wise Korean proverb counsels that one can build a mountain by collecting specks of dust (t’ikkŭl moa t’ae-san). This book is built from specks of dust, gathered lovingly and painstakingly across years of researching and writing. It is with great pleasure that I now acknowledge those who have accompanied me on this journey. Thanks must first be extended to all of those in South Korea who helped me navigate the difficult and emotive terrain of inter-Korean relations, and especially North Korean human rights. They opened my eyes to a Korean perspective, helping me understand that the question of how to deal with North Korea goes far beyond strategy and economics to the heart of what it means to be Korean in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

My institutional base in Seoul was the Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES), Kyungnam University. Many thanks to Ryoo Kihl-jae, who sponsored my stay and acted as my fieldwork supervisor. Andrei Lankov also acted as a de facto supervisor during my time in Seoul, and his insights into both North Korean and South Korean society are without parallel. It would be impossible to list here the names of all those individuals who were generous enough to give me their time in interviews, many of whom prefer to stay anonymous.

I spent much time with the North Korean human rights community, which comprises activists from a diverse range of political and ideological backgrounds. Many of these activists gave me their time on more than one occasion, and a special acknowledgment must be made to Joanna Hosaniak, An Kyounghee, Rev. Tim Peters and Erica Kang in Seoul, and Suzanne Scholte in Washington, D.C.: five extraordinarily committed and busy individuals who, despite their own commitments, provided me with a great deal of support and encouragement in sometimes difficult circumstances and over an extended period of time. I gratefully acknowledge the material support for this fieldwork that was provided by the Korea Foundation, the Australian government’s Endeavour Program, IFES, Kyungnam University, and the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University (ANU).

This project started as an idea for a Ph.D. dissertation, which I went on to undertake in the Department of International Relations at ANU. There I worked with a group of extraordinary academic staff and graduate students, who were pillars of support at various stages. Many thanks to those I worked most closely with, especially Katherine Morton. I am particularly indebted to Kathy for encouraging me to invest time in my fieldwork and for providing me with challenging feedback on drafts, as well as for her wise and gentle support that extended far beyond the role of academic adviser. Roland Bleiker read the first iteration of the completed manuscript in detail and offered lengthy challenging and insightful comments and criticisms, which helped me to rethink my approach not just to this subject but to future academic endeavors as well. Thanks also to other colleagues who challenged, inspired and supported me, especially to Chris Reus-Smit, Ken Wells, Leonid Petrov, Tessa Morris-Suzuki, James Hoare, Heather Rae, Greg Fry, Paul Keal, Jacinta O’Hagan, and Mary Louise Hickey. Special mention goes to those whose personal support have also made this project possible, especially Kate Sullivan, Claire Granata, Michael O’Shannassy, Andrew Phillips, Jennifer Mason, and Sandra Fahy. I completed the final touches to the manuscript as a faculty member at Deakin University, where I have found an academic community that is both collegial and supportive of new research.

My thanks go to Columbia University Press for supporting this project, especially Anne Routon for her patient and wise support, and to the anonymous reviewer for CUP whose deft insights into the subject helped improve the final product. While all these people have undoubtedly made the book better than it would have been otherwise, any shortcomings are of course my own.

My family, of course, deserve the greatest thanks. Bret Harper, my daily inspiration, shares my home and my heart and has traveled across the world for me to help me realize my dreams. Jarrah, our son, kept me company with encouraging wriggles during his gestation, through the final months of editing. My little sisters, Melissa, Claire, and Jennifer, are always on my side—thanks girls, I love you enormously. Finally, my parents taught their daughters that the world is bigger than each of us individually. Without their support over the years, I would never have conceived of such a project, and I dedicate this book to them.

ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

NOTE ON ROMANIZATION AND CITATIONS

Throughout this book I employ the McCune-Reischauer (MR) system of romanization, except in cases where words or names have their own divergent, widely used spelling, such as Seoul or Park Chung Hee. In these cases I provide the MR version in parentheses at the first appearance. In the main text the Korean names of individuals have been transliterated according to the MR system and with the last names first, according to Korean tradition.

Some of the identities of the political activists interviewed for chapters 4 and 5 have been hidden to protect their anonymity. Where interviews have been cited, they have generally been paraphrased rather than quoted directly. Additionally, the interview information has been coded.

INTRODUCTION

UNDERSTANDING INTER-KOREAN RELATIONS

The Joint Security Area (JSA) lies within the ambit of the truce village P’anmunjŏm, just 55 kilometers north of Seoul and 215 kilometers south of Pyongyang. Here South Korean and North Korean soldiers stand, face to face, guarding their respective territories. These young men share a common language and a common history yet represent two societies whose ideological structures seem to inhibit the creation of a shared future. So here they are stationed, as enemies in a war that ended not with peace but with the signing of a temporary armistice that has yet to be replaced with a more permanent solution.¹

This highly militarized encounter playing out daily in the isolated (and inaptly named) Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) seems a long way removed from the realities of everyday life in economically advanced and technologically dynamic Seoul, just a one-hour drive down Freedom Road. Yet this dichotomy defines the very real security situation that holds together a tentative peace along the DMZ. That the Korean peninsula represents the last existing Cold War frontier is an assertion that has taken on the character of a truism, so often is it repeated by International Relations (IR) scholars and security practitioners. It is on this divided Asian headland that historic Cold War identities endure and the leaderships of two opposing systems of government seek to survive: nuclear politics and diplomacy remain dominant, made all the more dangerous by the unpredictability of the DPRK regime. The tense relationship between the two Koreas continues to be of great interest to the international community. Strategic studies pundits, in particular, see peace and stability on the peninsula as axiomatic to regional security, and much scholarship has been dedicated to analyses of inter-Korean relations, with this endgame in mind.²

Inter-Korean relations continue to be characterized by antagonism, suspicion, and a distinct lack of mutual trust, and the social and economic gulf between these two countries, which were formerly one, has deepened with the continuation of the division. Inter-Korean dialogue, which has long been a professed policy priority for successive South Korean presidents, continuously breaks down. These impasses are generally brought on by military tensions, disagreement over the US–South Korean relationship, or other ideological battles.

The fragile nature of the peace between the two states, technically still at war, was brought into stark relief in 2010. In May the Cheonan (Ch’ŏnan), an ROK warship, sank off the South Korean coast, killing forty-six South Korean personnel. Despite an international investigation finding the cause of the incident to be a North Korean torpedo, the DPRK has denied responsibility.³ Most ties and communications between the two Koreas were terminated in the aftermath of the event, and the North publicly abrogated the nonaggression pact between the two countries. In September of the same year, the world’s attention turned again to the Korean peninsula, as North Korean forces fired artillery shells and rockets at the South Korean territory of Yeonpyeong island (Yŏnpyŏngdo), resulting in both military and civilian casualties.

While tensions characterize relations between the two countries more often than not, impasses are punctuated by moments of optimism, with the two Koreas meeting together for negotiations over various issues. Yet, even on those occasions, progress is frustratingly fleeting, and the achievement of a permanent peace and security regime on the peninsula repeatedly fails to reach fruition. At the historic height of cooperation between the two countries, when leaders Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong-Il met in Pyongyang at the June 2000 Summit, great hopes were held for the creation of a more lasting peace. Yet military tensions continued shortly thereafter, with North Korea resuming its game of brinksmanship with the South.⁴ While much may have been achieved in advancing economic and cultural relations, hopes that this would lead to a more stable security situation were quickly dashed. The death of Kim Jong-Il in late 2011 and the rise of his son, Kim Jong-Un (Kim Chŏngŭn), whose military and political intentions are largely unknown, have served to further increase the level of uncertainty surrounding inter-Korean relations.

At the heart of these relations lie very real, existential interests. Reflecting as they do the security dilemma that sits at the center of international politics, it is no surprise that it is the rationalist, materialist concerns of the traditional IR agenda that dominate analysis of the complex relationship between the two Koreas. The serious security threat posed by North Korea’s aggressive stance toward South Korea as well as its professed nuclear proliferation intentions have shaped both academic and policy responses. Relations between these countries, still officially at war, are usually seen to be driven entirely by the security-seeking concerns of each party. And there is no doubt that this rationalist approach to policy analysis has some merit: for much of South Korea’s history, its approach to inter-Korean relations has been dictated by a series of dramatic events that have forced policy makers to formulate and articulate their responses in realist, security-maximizing terms. As South Koreans continue to discover by virtue of experience, the North Korean threat does indeed hold very real, materialist consequences.

The virtue of a structural, rationalist approach that seeks to delineate factors driving conflict between states lies in its capacity to hone in on some of these immediate, material concerns. In many cases, by acknowledging the survival motives driving state policy and the limitations for variety in this regard, this type of rationalist approach to scholarship abstracts from the complexity of political life enough to identify and explain significant patterns of state behavior. These explanations are often compelling and are powerful in their parsimony. In the words of Kenneth Waltz, rationalist, structural approaches to international politics are meant to tell us a small number of big and important things.⁵ They are not designed to provide a full explanation of events. However, as I argue in chapter 1, when it comes to inter-Korean relations, the narrow focus of rationalist theories renders them unable to shed light on some of the biggest and most important things. The case of inter-Korean relations, by its very nature, requires a broader lens that is better able to deal with the nuances that lie at the intersection of domestic and international politics, as well as the nonmaterial factors driving state policy.

For all its strengths, then, the narrowly focused analytical lens that is typically applied to conflict between Koreas in the same way it is applied to conflict between all states (differentiated only by material capabilities) has its limitations. An analyst who focuses purely on a rationalist version of security maximization from the perspective of narrowly defined self-interest would find many of South Korea’s policy decisions puzzling and counterproductive. He or she might argue, for example, that the approach that characterized a decade of South Korean policy from 1997 to 2007, emphasizing engagement and conciliation over conflict and competition, failed to yield any tangible security benefits. Lack of reciprocation by the North and the continuation of military tensions, this critic would conclude, indicate the failure of the engagement-focused Sunshine policies.⁶

One does not have to dig very deep into the raucous political scene of South Korea’s young liberal democracy, however, to find that these conclusions do not reflect the complexity of the ideas and arguments that frame debate over inter-Korean relations. While many pages of this book explore the dynamics of political activism in South Korea, I hope to contribute some new ideas and insights into analysis that seeks to understand the options available to South Korean policy makers, as well as help explain and predict South Korean responses to North Korean provocations. In the book’s conclusion I argue that the conservative Lee Myung Bak government did not seek to fundamentally reconceptualize the engagement-focused turn that inter-Korean relations policy had taken over ten years of progressive rule. This suggests that traditional, materialist explanations of how the world looks from Seoul’s perspective do not adequately account for the shift in dominant discourses that had occurred since conservative politicians last held power in South Korea.⁷ The case of the two Koreas opens up the possibility that self-interest, even in the hard case of ongoing posturing and lingering nuclear threats, may be constituted by more than zero-sum conceptions of power. A nuanced account of the factors driving inter-Korean relations requires that these material arguments be supplemented with a more social view of the political realm.

The North Korean threat to South Korea’s territorial integrity has not disappeared. It continues to exist, and yet, despite this, South Korean policy for ten years (1998–2007) sought to downplay the threat posited by North Korea and apply an approach that seemed to fly in the face of rational, security-maximizing behavior. In the chapters that follow, I argue that the democratization of the ROK brought into the policy arena a range of norms and new ideas that came to shape the policy agenda, even in the case of inter-Korean relations. These normative concerns did not spring up overnight but rather evolved as part of a complex intermingling of dominant and dissident discourses that had characterized the South Korean political scene over the previous decades.

The battle for political control in Seoul was never separated from the broader issue of the division of the Korean peninsula. The very existence of the ROK, after all, was the direct result of a Cold War–era juxtaposition of ideas. Activists who sought to overturn authoritarian rule had to contend with the strong anticommunist, anti–North Korean identity that enabled the South Korean government to justify its heavy-handed approach to governance. As such, debates in South Korea over democracy, unification, and inter-Korean relations are closely intertwined, and it is within this historically constituted context that policy making today takes place. At those times when decisions regarding how to deal with an aggressive North Korean neighbor appear puzzling—and often inconsistent—from a rationalist viewpoint, a more comprehensive explanation of inter-Korean relations that seeks to supplement materialist explanations with a more normative, social account is required. I thus commence my examination of inter-Korean relations by rejecting an assumption lying at the heart of these structural theories: that actors are presocial and enter the political realm with their interests and identities already formed. Having done this, it becomes immediately clear that, in the case of divided Korea, a great deal more is at stake than simple cost-benefit calculations.

The ontological shift suggested above, toward an approach that takes seriously the processes through which actors’ identities and interests are constructed, has two key methodological implications. First, it points toward the need for an explanation that takes social factors into account. Second, because taking a social approach in the Korean case requires paying attention to domestic factors such as political activism (as I explain immediately below), any persuasive explanation will also look beyond IR theories that seek to understand state-level interaction and draw insights from other disciplinary areas.

This book thus first seeks to provide a more complete explanation of inter-Korean relations by examining the nature of South Korean domestic political debate over the issue. Inter-Korean relations are strongly influenced by the peninsula’s history of division, and if we wish to better understand how to achieve peace and security in Northeast Asia, a stronger comprehension of South Korean domestic political debate over inter-Korean relations is required as a fundamental first step. While classic power politics considerations play an important role in the South Korean policy-making process, they alone do not adequately explain why certain South Korean approaches to inter-Korean relations have been privileged over others. South Korea’s policy making vis-à-vis North Korea is better explained by the fact that, in the official discourses of both Koreas, unification is still treated as an inevitable future reality.⁸ This immediately influences threat perceptions, adjusting the cost-benefit calculations that may normally be taken against an aggressor.

While acknowledging that instrumental practicalities regarding nuclear proliferation, security, and economic well-being motivate most international policy approaches to the Korean peninsula, I argue that justice-related concerns, in addition to these more traditional questions of order, also play an important role, and that this is most visible within the South Korean domestic context. Here unification of the peninsula has long been understood as a morally desirable goal for inter-Korean relations, and South Korean political activists have played an important role in ensuring that considerations of justice remain at the core of all domestic discussions on inter-Korean relations. The current debate over North Korean human rights is illustrative of this, drawing heavily on beliefs about how South Koreans, as the privileged citizens of a wealthy, free, and democratic state, should act toward their less fortunate North Korean neighbors, with whom they share a common history, language, and familial ties. Throughout this book I thus situate the traditional, materialist explanation for South Korean policy against a normative understanding of inter-Korean relations that takes social factors seriously. I argue that the latter approach is more compelling, providing greater insights into the competing elements underlying the efforts of successive South Korean governments as they have striven to achieve peace and security on the Korean peninsula.

The second methodological implication for this approach requires us to look more closely at the nature of policy making within South Korea. In this regard, IR theories—formulated with the explicit intent of understanding relations between states—can take us only so far. In South Korea a range of actors have been involved, as normative entrepreneurs, in the formulation of the state’s identity and interests. The constructivist conceptual framework guiding this study thus requires some supplementation. The body of literature that best speaks to this task is the well-developed scholarship on new social movements, which explores the ways in which nonstate political activists seek to shape the dominant discourses and political practices that they oppose.⁹

POLITICAL ACTIVISM AND INTER-KOREAN RELATIONS

The initial motivation behind this research was the desire to better understand the nature of the debate over North Korean human rights in the South Korean context during the period 1998–2007. However, while I researched the subject, it soon became clear that internal debates over North Korean human rights and inter-Korean relations are rooted in South Korea’s turbulent political past. The human rights debate cannot be separated from broader debates over democracy and unification that have shaped South Korea’s political system and in turn influenced approaches to inter-Korean relations. This book looks at these broader debates and argues that current paradigmatic understandings of inter-Korean relations are inadequate owing to their neglect of domestic political factors. If we are to fully comprehend the evolution of South Korean political debate over inter-Korean relations, the role that actors beyond the state (such as political activists) have played in the evolution of the debate must be taken into account. Scholars have long recognized the centrality of political activists in the development of the South Korean democratic political system, yet studies have thus far failed to make the link between South Korea’s activist past and the evolution of debate over inter-Korean relations, a task taken up in this book, where I address the following central question: how do we explain the particular nature of South Korea’s approach to inter-Korean relations?

Three central aims motivate this book. First, I hope to provide a more nuanced account of policy making over security-related issues, such as inter-Korean relations, by uncovering the normative concerns motivating South Korea’s approach to the issue. Second, my approach places the spotlight on the role that political activists have played in the evolution of the norms surrounding debate over inter-Korean relations. Nonstate actors, traditionally assumed to have little influence in the arena of security policy, are thus shown to play an important role by ensuring that questions surrounding normative issues—such as that of justice—remain part of public debates over security-related issues. Finally, the research question goes to the heart of the policymaking process by examining these domestic political debates in terms of the arguments put forward by both state and nonstate actors, thus highlighting the centrality of discursive power relations to the evolution of norms over an extended period of time.

1

POLITICAL ACTIVISM, DISCURSIVE POWER, AND NORM NEGOTIATION

The pursuit of justice is at the very core of inter-Korean relations. South Koreans have long understood relations with their northern neighbor to involve far more than a simple security stand-off between two warring states. In a very real sense, the political is often the personal in Korea. Debates over inter-Korean relations must be understood in this context: there is a deep sense of responsibility and obligation that permeates the discursive realm, and policy arguments are rarely made in purely pragmatic terms. The goal of unification has for decades existed at the heart of all South Korean debate over how to deal with the often intransigent, unpredictable, and bellicose North Korea. If we step inside the discursive space of South Korean political debate, we need to understand that the process of argumentation over policy, security, identity, and justice is a