1. A Gilded Alliance: Global Korea’s G-20/Yeonpyeong Moment Revisited
- Author:
- Haejong Lee
- Publication Date:
- 09-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- East Asia Institute (EAI)
- Abstract:
- Alliance is an instrument for national interest, which is dependent upon the international environment and defined by domestic, democratic political processes. This commonsense notion of alliance was not fully embraced by the incoming South Korean administration of Lee Myung Bak in 2008. For the Lee administration, South Korea’s alliance with the United States was much more than an instrument of foreign policy. The alliance embodied South Korea’s political identity and was severely damaged by the preceding Roh Moo Hyun administration’s anti-American, pro–North Korean policies. The restoration of the Republic of Korea (ROK)–US alliance was both the goal and key to its national security strategy of Global Korea to enhance South Korean’s influence, contribution, and stature on a global scale. Thereafter, in a circle of the alliance’s cheerleaders in both Seoul and Washington, the alliance has almost taken its own life: the alliance should be protected from disruptive political forces and modernized/adjusted/expanded into new dimensions for the preservation of the alliance itself. In the post–Cold War years, the United States has tried to modernize its military alliances in order to preserve its influence at reduced costs. The Barack Obama administration had to mend US alliances strained during the George W. Bush administration’s war on terror. In 2009, Presidents Lee and Obama agreed on “a comprehensive strategic alliance of bilateral, regional, and global scope, based on common values and mutual trust.” The so-called Great Recession, triggered by the fall of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, has both brought to power and bedeviled the Obama administration; 9/15 has become a new historical marker, replacing 9/11. The very “common values” of the ROK-US strategic alliance—democracy and market economy—have been put to the test; the worries and cries over the decline of the US have arisen once again. In May 2010, the Obama administration published its national security strategy of national renewal and global leadership. Nation-building at home was the primary goal of and imperative to national security. Along with moral leadership to “live” American values, global architecture to embed both allies and challengers in US-centered institutional networks became a new feature of American global leadership. “The United States can, must, and will lead in this new century,” asserted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in September 2010 at the Council of Foreign Relations, the oldest bastion of American global leadership. She went on to declare that “the complexity and connection of today’s world have yielded a new American moment, a moment when our global leadership is essential, even if we must often lead in new ways.” Confirming that “the 21st century will be another great American century,” President Obama argued at this year’s Air Force Academy graduation ceremony that “we have laid the foundation for a new era of American leadership.” Global Korea, with a comprehensive strategic alliance and a free trade agreement with the United States and hosting of a G-20 meeting and nuclear security summit, has been an integral part and a success story of American global architecture. The Lee administration was awarded with the first two-plus-two (foreign and defense ministers) meeting in 2010, which had been previously held only with Japan, and a state visit to Washington in 2011. “The relation between our two countries has never been stronger,” commended Secretary of State Clinton in this year’s second two-plus-two meeting. Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-Jin confirmed the 2015 operation control plan and expressed commitment to make “the alliance the best alliance in the world.” American Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta lauded an ongoing trilateral collaboration, including Korea and Japan, to deter North Korea as “another way to strengthen and modernize our alliance.” It is widely disputed that the Obama administration has seized a new American moment and laid the foundation for a new American century. The Obama administration has been beset with rampant unemployment and snowballing deficits. “The Moment of Truth,” a bipartisan commission’s report on the financial crisis, issued a warning in 2010 that it is imperative to raise revenues and to cut both defense and nondefense spending—in short, a complete overhaul of the existing American national security state and social welfare system. However, the political polarization of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street and resultant partisan gridlock have foiled nation-building at home and led to the first downgrading of the US credit rating and a self-made financial cliff of sequester—mandatory across-the-board budget cuts in the next ten years beginning January 2013. Against its lean and mean years, the Obama administration’s rhetoric of a new American moment or century rings hollow. In contrast, the positive—it couldn’t be better—evaluation on the state of the ROK-US alliance is widely held. Nevertheless, the alliance’s success does not resonate with a (far from positive) strategic reality facing South Korea; nor does the alliance translate into a smooth-working component of American global architecture. The Lee administration has doubled down on its alliance with the US. With the Obama administration’s “strategic patience” or no policy toward North Korea, the Lee administration has succeeded in punishing/isolating North Korea but failed to prevent the latter’s development of nuclear capacity, not to mention the latter’s denuclearization. Or, to put it differently, when it comes to nuclear issues or power transition, North Korea has been on its own, with no South Korean leverage over the latter. Most critically and tragically, Global Korea’s prime moment of hosting a G-20 meeting in November 2010 (in the midst of the final renegotiation of a Korea-US free trade agreement) was followed by North Korea’s shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, which in turn led to a joint Korean-US military exercise including the USS George Washington aircraft carrier and which was opposed by China. In the G-20/Yeonpyeong moment, the Lee administration succeeded in synchronizing its strategic and comprehensive alliance with the US and global contribution but rather miserably failed to maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula and manage its relationship with China. On the other hand, the ROK-US comprehensive and strategic alliance does not dispense with politics among allies; nor does it develop into a trilateral cooperation of the United States, South Korea, and Japan. The Lee administration has been at odds with the United States on the issues of spent nuclear fuel reprocessing and missile development, albeit much out of public scrutiny. In addition, the Lee administration has recently confronted Japan with the territorial issue of Dokdo and Japanese colonialism, along with a public relations campaign, including President Lee’s visit to Dokdo in August 2012. This was an abrupt turnabout from its attempt to share information with Japan on North Korea through a military accord—a trilateral collaboration that Panetta mentioned as a way to modernize the ROK-US alliance. Faced with a public uproar against the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), the Lee administration canceled the latter’s signing ceremony at the last minute and turned to confront Japan, which reciprocated with its territorial claim and disavowal of historical responsibilities for colonialism, and even a threat to halt financial cooperation. In sum, despite of (or because of, if you will) the much touted success of the ROK-US alliance, South Korea is now in a diplomatic wilderness, isolated from all of its neighbors—North Korea, China, and Japan. Why? It is, I argue, because President Lee’s Global Korea was a vision for a bygone, pre–Great Recession, and pre-G-2 world. As long as the United States confronted an assertive China with allies and new partners, South Korea’s strategic alliance with the United States could serve both the former’s security interests and the latter’s regional architect. The sinking of the Cheonan happened in the context of such confrontations of the United States and China over the South China Seas, which led to the rescheduling of transfer of operational control (from the United States to South Korea) from 2012 to 2015 that had been requested by the Lee administration. However, as the United States began to embrace China and both deemed it necessary to contain security tensions on the Korean Peninsula, an assertive South Korea against North Korea and China became a liability to the United States, and South Korea’s strategic, global, comprehensive alliance with the United States became superfluous, if not necessarily inimical, to South Korea’s local and regional interests. Such was the case after the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. Following is a reconstruction of an anticlimax of Global Korea in the historical contexts of the Obama administration’s struggles to forge a new American global leadership.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, G20, and Alliance
- Political Geography:
- Asia, South Korea, North America, and United States of America