COMMENTARY
Koreas present U.S. with two problems

By John Griffin
Former editor of The Advertiser's editorial pages and a frequent contributor

Yes, I know that many Chinese scholars and speakers say those two chestnuts beloved by Western writers and orators are mostly American fiction. You can read the arguments by looking up "Chinese curse" on Google or another Web search engine.

South Korean protesters burned a North Korean flag during an anti-North Korea rally Thursday near the government complex building in Seoul. In addition to facing off with North Korea over the communist nation's resurgent nuclear weapons program, the United States must also deal with restlessness in the South over the outdated relationship that stems from the Cold War. Associated Press

This month's East-West Center scholars' conference in connection with Hawai'i's 100th anniversary of Korean immigration here made it clearer to me how the United States faces two separate yet related problems in divided Korea.

The one with the communist North is a crisis stemming from that hermit kingdom's paranoia and nuclear ambitions and our mistakes in dealing with it, by both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.

To avoid a war that could kill millions and involve nuclear weapons, it will take all the diplomatic skill and willingness to compromise we can muster. And maybe some luck.

For this is partly the last big conflict of the Cold War, partly a throwback to the bitter Korean War of 50 years ago, and partly a situation with three bad choices for the United States.

Those choices are a full-on new Korean war nobody should want, letting things slide as North Korea becomes a nuclear weapons and missile factory for the renegades of the world, or holding our nose and negotiating a deal that offers hope along with some risks.

And yet, it also could be a chance for moving Asia's most dangerous flash point into a new century of peace and prosperity.

And there we come to the opportunity part. Impoverished but heavily armed North Korea stands between the prospering capitalist South, a worried Japan, booming China and Russia with its interests in East Asia.

The immediate task for the United States may be to get that deal with the North, eliminating its nuclear weapons in return for economic help and eventual diplomatic recognition. Possibly South Korea can help with that process as it makes its own deals with the North.

At the same time, the United States might also work with others in Northeast Asia to organize not some formal military alliance but an alignment to work toward a lasting peace on the Korean peninsula, and then to go on to other kinds of cooperation where appropriate.

Southeast Asia doesn't provide a clear parallel or model. But it is impressive how the Association of Southeast Asian Nations started out as a five-nation grouping to counter communism in nonmilitary ways and now includes present and former communist states.

The situation in South Korea is less a crisis than a serious problem among friends that calls for attention.

Experts say the recent candlelight vigils were not anti-American so much as pro-Korean and a call for reform in a dated relationship. These new demonstrations involved middle-class people such as housewives, teachers and bank clerks, not just the radical students seen in violent protests in the past.

Sparked by an accident in which a U.S. Army vehicle killed two South Korean girls, the immediate focal point has been the agreement that covers American military forces in South Korea. The call is not for withdrawal of U.S. troops but for modernizing the status of our forces in ways that lessen the impact they have in a much-changed South Korean society.

For South Korea today is much different from the impoverished, war-ravaged country the United States saved from the communist North a half-century ago. The South now has the world's 12th-largest economy. It hosted the soccer World Cup. And, most important, its rising younger generations have no memory of the war or of communist repression. They look toward eventual reunification.

At the East-West Center conference, scholars talked of going beyond the Cold War, the threat from the North and mere revision of the military agreement. They called for a new-century vision, a partnership that is not just against communism but also stands for such things as promotion of democracy, open markets, anti-terrorism, peacekeeping, human rights and arms control. U.S. relations with countries in Europe were cited as examples.

It will not be easy defusing the crisis with North Korea, modernizing our ties with the evolving South and considering the bigger regional picture. The Bush administration got itself on a long limb, in effect talking about three wars — the necessary one against terrorism, a dubious invasion of Iraq, and facing down unpredictable North Korea.

But saner minds seem to be prevailing on Korea. The South's president-elect, Roh Moo-hyun, is proving more reasonable than some in Washington expected from his campaign rhetoric. A year after President Bush fired up the situation by including North Korea in his "axis of evil," we have opportunities in the divided peninsula — if we can grasp them.

So these are interesting times, to be sure. And, for those of us who like Chinese sayings, there is the supposedly real proverb that might be related: "It's better to be a dog in peaceful times than be a man in a chaotic period."