The Death of an Alliance, Part 37: Seoul’s Scorched Earth Retreat on Human Rights

At a comment to an earlier post by James, I listed the following as one of the accomplishments of last week’s North Korean Freedom Week:

South Korea has never been more diplomatically isolated in regard to the aforementioned issues, plus on Kaesong, where it sounds increasingly desperate.

South Korea’s government is giving some preliminary confirmation of that analysis, in a characteristically disordered way.

The first reaction was a tantrum that almost merited a “Death of an Alliance” post. The Korean government lashed out at Jay Lefkowitz, U.S. Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, for condemning the exploitation of laborers at the Kaesong Industrial Park; the use of the term “slave labor” particularly stuck in its craw, as blunt truths tend to do. The Chosun Ilbo retreads the South Korean government’s position, still failing to note that the laborers receive just $8 a month after Kim Jong Il takes his cut, not the $58 that the South Korean firms pay (how ironic that the Chosun Ilbo thus chastises Lefkowitz for not having its facts straight). Even Lee Jeong Seok had this confounding statement:

The Unification Ministry here was outraged by Mr. Lefkowitz’s comments, especially by a reference to “slave labor.” The minister, Lee Jong-seok, said on Sunday that he wasn’t sure whether Mr. Lefkowitz was trying to improve human rights in the North or hamper them.

Which is a pretty stupid thing to say for a guy as smart as Lee. Continuing with my comment, I noted that South Korea would face a choice:

Korea could always pull another Tokdo, which didn’t exactly win friends and influence people in Korea’s favor. Or, it will have to recognize reality and start demanding some real concessions from the North to show results. Lee Jong-Seok is no fool, and if you watch carefully, you will see some signs of that already taking shape. If North Korea is unresponsive, it will only mean it will become isolated from its few remaining friends.

And voila, what is South Korea doing now? It’s not yet demanding concessions from North Korea, but it’s showed a first clear signs of triangulating away from the policy of simply ignoring the entire issue.

Seoul will for the first time send senior officials to an international conference on North Korean human rights, the government said Monday. “Human Rights Ambassador Park Kyung-seo and Korean Ambassador to Norway Kim Young-seok will attend the seventh international conference on North Korean human rights and refugees in Norway from May 9-11,” a government official said. Park will explain South Korea’s position on human rights in the North in a 20-minute speech.

The Citizen’s Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, a co-organizer of the conference along with Norwegian group Rafto Human Rights House, has organized six conferences on the issue with various international groups since 1999. South Korean officials have never so far attended such events for fear of provoking Pyongyang.

Freedom House is co-sponsoring the conference.

This looks like the act a nation that can see itself being isolated. Now, I don’t expect that South Korea has had a conversion. I fully expect the South Koreans to do everything they can to stall, delay, and cajole others at the conference. In fact, they’ve been doing the same in Washington for several months now. They’re now forced to defend their positions and can no longer afford to ignore human rights issues altogether. This is a fighting withdrawal. But it raises interesting questions:

1. Will Seoul seek to formulate a new, more moderate position to try to win over liberals and moderate members of the foreign policy establishment, one that they calculate the North Koreans can also live with?

2. How will they respond to this fall’s UN resolution on NK human rights?

3. Will Lee Jeong-Seok, the brains of the outfit, attempt an intervention with the North Koreans? Will he explain to them that unless they play smart, like the Iranians have, that South Korea can no longer cover for them?

4. How will North Korea react? Will it offer up a few illusory concessions to try to give State Dep’t advocates of Agreed Framework II their mojo again? Some hints of returning to the terms of last September’s awful “statement of principles,” perhaps?

Or will the pressure on South Korea ease, meaning these small victories will prove temporary?