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The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 9 | Issue 8 | Number 5 | Article ID 3492 | Feb 21, 2011 1 Contested Waters - Contested Texts: Storm over Korea's West Sea  紛争の海域 紛争のテクスト−−朝鮮西海上の嵐 Gavan McCormack Contested Waters - Contested Texts: Storm over Korea’s West Sea Gavan McCormack The Asia Pacific Journal’s Phantom Text This is the story of a text, which was briefly posted at The Asia Pacific Journal on 6 February, and almost immediately (within hours) withdrawn. The author was Kim Man- bok, who from November 2006 to January 2008 was Director of the South Korean National Intelligence Service (Korean CIA) under the Government of President Roh Moo-hyun. His text was entitled “Let Us Turn Korea’s West Sea (the Sea of Dispute) into a Sea of Peace and Prosperity.” The Asia-Pacific Journal is not noted for publishing articles by present or former national intelligence chiefs, and so both the posting and then the withdrawal of this text were almost equally unusual. The text began as a chapter in a book published by the Korean Peace Forum in Seoul in October 2010, and entitled (as translated) “Again, Querying the Path of the Korean Peninsula.” That Korean text was translated into Japanese and published, together with a short postscript added after the South-North clashes and the bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island in November, in the February 2011 issue of the monthly Sekai (published early January). 1 Through the good offices of the Sekai editor, the Asia-Pacific Journal in January 2011 sought permission to translate and publish an English version. Author Kim consented, asked for several minor revisions, and the translation proceeded. That translation was posted on the night of Sunday 6 February, as found here (http://japanfocus.org/-Kim-Man_bok/3485) and announced the following day in the Newsletter to subscribers. Almost immediately, however, the Asia-Pacific Journal received word that the author wanted publication to be stayed, and we reluctantly obliged. Many readers were puzzled to receive advice of publication of a text, only to find, rather than a text, an empty page. We hoped the withdrawal of permission would be temporary, and sought author Kim’s understanding to renew the permission he had initially granted, but having no response we are unable to publish the article as it originally appeared. However, given wide public interest both in the matters discussed in the article and in its aftermath (discussed below), and since the main text is already widely circulating in Korean and in Japanese, we therefore provide below a resume, with some extensive quotes. The reasons for the author’s withdrawal of consent to publish gradually became clear. Just days after the Sekai translation was published, the major Seoul daily Chosun ilbo on 13 January published a fierce attack on Kim. 2 Inter alia, it accused him of suggesting the November South-North artillery battle on and around Yeonpyeong Island might have been the consequence of South Korea, under Lee Myung-bak, abandoning the dialogue policy of the previous government; of referring to the outcome of the battle by the “humiliating” expression “South Korea’s defeat;” of offering some justification for the North’s artillery attack (its warnings were ignored); and of rejecting the outcome of the South Korean government’s report on the March incident of

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Page 1: Contested Waters - Contested Texts: Storm over Korea's West Sea … · Contested Waters - Contested Texts: Storm over Korea's West Sea 紛争の海域 紛争のテクスト−−朝鮮西海上の嵐

The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 9 | Issue 8 | Number 5 | Article ID 3492 | Feb 21, 2011

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Contested Waters - Contested Texts: Storm over Korea's WestSea  紛争の海域 紛争のテクスト−−朝鮮西海上の嵐

Gavan McCormack

Contested Waters - Contested Texts:Storm over Korea’s West Sea

Gavan McCormack

The Asia Pacific Journal’s Phantom Text

This is the story of a text, which was brieflyposted at The Asia Pacific Journal on 6February, and almost immediately (withinhours) withdrawn. The author was Kim Man-bok, who from November 2006 to January 2008was Director of the South Korean NationalIntelligence Service (Korean CIA) under theGovernment of President Roh Moo-hyun. Histext was entitled “Let Us Turn Korea’s WestSea (the Sea of Dispute) into a Sea of Peaceand Prosperity.” The Asia-Pacific Journal is notnoted for publishing articles by present orformer national intelligence chiefs, and so boththe posting and then the withdrawal of this textwere almost equally unusual.

The text began as a chapter in a book publishedby the Korean Peace Forum in Seoul in October2010, and entitled (as translated) “Again,Querying the Path of the Korean Peninsula.”That Korean text was translated into Japaneseand published, together with a short postscriptadded after the South-North clashes and thebombardment of Yeonpyeong Island inNovember, in the February 2011 issue of them o n t h l y S e k a i ( p u b l i s h e d e a r l yJanuary).1 Through the good offices of the Sekaieditor, the Asia-Pacific Journal in January 2011sought permission to translate and publish anEnglish version. Author Kim consented, askedfor several minor revisions, and the translationproceeded.

That translation was posted on the night ofS u n d a y 6 F e b r u a r y , a s f o u n d h e r e(http://japanfocus.org/-Kim-Man_bok/3485) andannounced the following day in the Newsletterto subscribers. Almost immediately, however,the Asia-Pacific Journal received word that theauthor wanted publication to be stayed, and wereluctantly obliged. Many readers were puzzledto receive advice of publication of a text, onlyto find, rather than a text, an empty page. Wehoped the withdrawal of permission would betemporary, and sought author Kim’sunderstanding to renew the permission he hadinitially granted, but having no response we areunable to publish the article as it originallyappeared. However, given wide public interestboth in the matters discussed in the article andin its aftermath (discussed below), and sincethe main text is already widely circulating inKorean and in Japanese, we therefore providebelow a resume, with some extensive quotes.

The reasons for the author’s withdrawal ofconsent to publish gradually became clear. Justdays after the Sekai translation was published,the major Seoul daily Chosun ilbo on 13January published a fierce attack on Kim.2 Interalia, it accused him of suggesting theNovember South-North artillery battle on andaround Yeonpyeong Island might have been theconsequence of South Korea, under LeeMyung-bak, abandoning the dialogue policy ofthe previous government; of referring to theoutcome of the battle by the “humiliating”expression “South Korea’s defeat;” of offeringsome justification for the North’s artilleryattack (its warnings were ignored); and ofrejecting the outcome of the South Koreangovernment’s report on the March incident of

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the sinking of the naval corvette, the Cheonan.It also accused Kim of publishing details ofmatters known only to him in his capacity ashead of the National Intelligence Service,notably hitherto unknown details of exchangeswith North Korean leader Kim Jong-il thatoccurred late in 2007.

In the face of increasing pressure, the KoreanIntelligence Service formally accused him onJanuary 26 of violating its regulations byrevealing secrets that he had acquired duringhis tenure at the agency. Following theaccusation, the prosecutor's office opened anofficial investigation.

In a follow-up article on 30 January Chosun ilbowidened the attack to the Japanese journal thatcarried Kim’s text.3 Sekai, published byIwanami, has a long and controversial record ofcomment on Korean affairs. Its campaignsagainst the then Seoul dictatorship and againstthe oppression, torture and denial of humanrights to democratic dissenters, especiallyduring the era of President Park Chung-hee inthe 1960s and 1970s, earned it a ban in SouthKorea that helped raise its reputation amongdissenters in South Korea as well as in Japan.Its commentary on North Korea was equallycontroversial, and Sekai was was one of the fewplaces where North Korean leader Kim Il Sungoccasionally appeared, interviewed by thejournal’s editor. Korean conservatives cannotforgive Sekai for the stances it then took andChosun ilbo therefore raises again oldaccusations of disseminating demagogic andfalse material. Referring to Sekai (today) asbeing “pro-North anti-South” and tantamountto a “North Korean propaganda organ,” itreserved its most savage attack for “the anti-South Korean intellectuals such as [TokyoUniversity emeritus professor and regularSekai contributor] Wada Haruki as “traitors.”Conservatives in Seoul may also have beenoutraged that Wada, had just been feted inSeoul as recipient of the 2010 “Kim Dae-jungPrize,” awarded by Chonnam National

University for contributions to Koreandemocracy and peace in the peninsula.

Sekai editor Okamoto Atsushi commented onthat journal’s homepage (31 January) that itseemed odd that the Korean prosecutors shouldpay attention to things published in a Japanesejournal, but apparently not to the same views(including the account of the 2007 Summit)that had been published months earlier inKorean.4 He pointed out that the Sekai articlecontained a short “postscript,” in which Kimdoes indeed criticize the Lee Myung-bakgovernment’s response to the variouspeninsular crises culminating in theYeonpyeong Island artillery exchange, but theonly fresh material he introduces there is abrief introduction of some recent Wiki-leaksrevelations on Korea (which he states helearned “from the media”). To Okamoto, thecharges seemed to signify “oppression of viewscritical of the Lee Myung-bak government’spolicies.” He added that “South Korea since itsdemocratization has earned the profoundrespect of democratic countries for the free andvigorous expression of opinion. It would be amatter of deep concern if it were now to revertto military government style practices underwhich once again the state intimidated andoppressed opinion…”

Whatever its eventual outcome, the affairexposed the deep spl i t in the Koreanestablishment over North Korea policy betweenthose associated with the former, “Sunshine”(or engagement)-oriented governments of KimDae-jung and Roh Moo-Hyun and the current(from 2008) government of Lee Myung-bak. Itfocused attention on the sharp contrast in theWest Sea between the agreements in principlereached in 2007 by the Roh government andthe confrontationist policies pursued by thepresent government under which the artillerybarrages of 2010 occurred and full-scale warwas narrowly avoided. The extension of theattack from Kim Man-bok himself to an eminentJapanese journal also pointed towards a revival

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of the Japan-Korea “culture wars” of the 1970s.With Kim Man-bok standing at the centre ofthis furore, it becomes a “Kim Man-bok affair,”whose outcome at time of writing (mid-February 2011) is far from clear.

In the febrile atmosphere of today’s Seoul, itwas not surprising that author Kim should feelreluctant to do anything that might bring downmore fire on his head. The charges and theinvestigation proceed. While Kim has beencharged but not yet indicted, his offending textcirculates in Korean and in Japanese. Sooner orlater it will be in English too, but for themoment all we can do is quote liberally fromour translation of the Japanese and drawattention to the Korean and Japanese versions.It is up to readers to figure out what it might bethat has outraged important sections of theSouth Korean national media and then stirredthe prosecutors into action.

Kim Man-bok’s Text – To Transform theWest Sea

Kim, like many commentators, points to thefailure of the post-Korean War settlement toreach any agreement on the maritime border,especially in the west, as the cause of itsevolution into a “Sea of Dispute.” What isdistinctive about his analysis, however, is theclose attention he pays to the efforts he and theRoh government (2003 to 2007) made to solvethe problems by a radical and imaginativeformula, designed to convert the “Sea ofDispute” into a “Sea of Peace and MutualCooperation.” Conservative Koreans, andespecially the Lee Myung-bak government,must be presumed to be discomfited, evenangry, at Kim’s calling attention to the recordof the previous government, and they seemespecially outraged that he should choose topublish his critique in Japanese, in that long-term target of conservative South Korean fury,Sekai.

The existing demilitarization line at sea, unlikethe line that DML on land, is simply the line

that Mark W. Clark, Commander of the UNforces, unilaterally drew on the map on August30, 1953. It has been known since then eitheras the “Clark Line”, or the “Northern Limit Line(NLL).” He chose a mid-point between the fiveWest Sea islands of Baengnyeong, Daecheong,Seocheong, Yeonpyeong, and U, then underSouth Korean control, and the North Koreancoast. The line he drew had no internationallegal status and was distinct from the Armisticeagreement of July. The arrangements wereprovisional, pending formal negotiations todraw up a peace treaty. Those negotiationshave yet to take place.

Up until 1973, North Korea crossed the NLLfrom time to time, but made no particular issueof it. Thereafter, however, it contested itincreasingly openly, especially during thefishing season in May and June when the crabsin these seas are especially abundant.However, according to Kim, in the Inter-KoreanBasic Agreement of 1992, North Korea agreedto treat the NLL as an “inviolable maritimeboundary.” Indeed, the Basic Agreementprovided not only that each side shall honor thecontrol actually exercised by the other partywithin the boundary, but also that they wouldsoon begin consultations toward a morepermanent settlement of the dispute. Kiminterpreted the Basic Agreement as NorthKorea’s agreement to honor the NLL as an" inv io lable mar i t ime boundary ," aninterpretation that one might expect the rightto celebrate. That his conservative reading ofthe agreement was brushed aside and insteadhis tepid criticism of Lee Myung-bak's NorthKorea policy attacked is indicative of theanxieties that wrack conservative Koreanpolitics.

These consultations, promised in 1992, haveyet to take place, due at least in large measureto the South's refusal to discuss the matter.Thereafter, however, despite regulartransgressions during crab-fishing season, theNorth de facto recognized the existence of the

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NLL.

Under these unsettled conditions, manymilitary clashes, of varying degrees ofseriousness, occurred. Following the “firstYeonpyeong naval battle,” on 15 June 1999(during the crab-fishing season) in which NorthKorea suffered heavy casualties, the Kim DaeJung government introduced strict five-stagerules of engagement to try to reduce thepossibility of any inadvertent recurrence. NorthKorea, however, responded by unilaterallydeclaring its own NLL, a “West Sea MaritimeMilitary Demarcation Line” based on a “12nautical mile limit principle” that completelycut off the main South Korean islands scatteredalong its coast (Baengnyeong, Daecheong,Seocheong, and Yeonpyeong). Subsequently, inMarch 2000, it promulgated new NavigationRegulations requiring that “any US militaryvessels or South Korean civilian ships enteringthe region to the north of the militarydemarcation line must use one or other of thetwo routes designated by North Korea.”

The map below shows the complexity of thesetwo arbitrary lines and the need for South-North agreement on a clear boundary. TheMarch 2010 incident of the sinking of the SouthKorean corvette Cheonan occurred in thevicinity of Baengnyeong Island and theNovember 2010 clash on Yeonpyeong Islandand its adjacent seas, both deep in contestedterritory and both within a few kilometers ofNorth Korean shores. The fact that IncheonInternational Airport and the South Koreancapital of Seoul lie just to the south of thecontested zone, and the major North Koreancities of Haeju and Kaesong just to its north(with Pyongyang itself just a little further away)shows how risky is the long-term failure toreach an agreement on this border.

The West Sea: Sea of Dispute

(Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Korea

n_maritime_border.svg/))

A. Northern Limit Line(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Limit_Line) (NLL, the border claimed by South Korea

since 1953)

B. Military Demarcation Line(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Demarcation_Line) (the border claimed by North Korea

since 1999

1. Yeonpyeong Island (Site of artillery clash in November2010)

2. Baengnyeong Island (Site of sinking of Cheonan, March2010)

3. Daecheong Island (site of Nov 1999 battle)

4. Jung-gu (Incheon Intl. Airport)

5. Seoul 6. Incheon 7. Haeju

8. Kaesong 9. Ganghwa County 10. Bukdo Myeon

11. Deokjeok Myeon 12. Jawol Myeon 13. YeongheungMyeon

Despite South Korean president Kim Dae Jung’svisit to Pyongyang in June 2000 for a summitmeeting with North Korean leader Kim Jung-il,and the adoption of the “June 15 South-North

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Joint declaration,” a “second Yeonpyeong navalbattle” nevertheless took place on 29 June2002. On this occasion, according to Kim,retaliation for its defeat in 1999 was a strongmotivating force in leading North Korea tolaunch a sudden, surprise attack.

The South-North Korean Agreement of2007

Prevention of further West Sea naval battleswas a policy priority for the Roh Moo-hyungovernment that assumed office in February2003. Kim Man-bok, as Roh’s intelligence chief,was a central participant and witness to theSouth-North exchanges that occurred as aresult and therefore his account deserves to bequoted at length.

Between May 2004 and December2007, at the initiative of the SouthKorean side, high-level talksbetween South and North Koreansenior military officers wereconducted on seven occasions,alternating between locations inthe South and in the North.Notably during the second talksbetween senior military officers ofSouth and North held at Mt Sorakin June 2004, both sides agreed ona common inter -sh ip radiofrequency as a means to preventaccidental conflict. At subsequentSouth-North talks between seniormilitary officers, both sides agreedon the “establishment of commonfishing grounds in the West Sea,”on “direct sea access for NorthKorean civilian ships to the port ofHaeju,” and on “necessary militaryguarantee measures for South-North economic exchange andcooperation.” …. it was thanks tosuch measures that placed anemphasis on building militarytrust, even if at an elementary

level, that there was not a singlemilitary confrontation along theNLL in the West Sea during theperiod of the Roh government.

On the basis of adapting anddeveloping the “sunshine policy,”the Roh government proposed a“peace and prosperity policy” as itsdiplomatic policy for North Koreaand Northeast Asia. It was a planfor the peaceful development ofthe Korean pen insu la thatcombined “peace” at the securitylevel with “prosperity” at theeconomic level. Even during theperiod of heightened crisis thatfollowed North Korea’s “nuclearpossession declaration” onFebruary 10 2005, the Rohgovernment affirmed the “‘3 No’principles of policy towards theNorth: ‘no war on the Koreanpeninsula,’ ‘no sanctions orblockade of North Korea,’ and ‘noattempt to cause the collapse ofthe North Korean regime’.” TheRoh Moo-hyun government’s peaceand prosperity policies bore fruit inthe historic “October 4 South-North Summit Declaration,” inwhich both sides agreed on theestablishment of a “West SeaSpec ia l Zone o f Peace andCooperation” designed to convertthe West Sea from a “sea ofconflict” to a “sea of peace andprosperity.”

In the fifth article of the South-North Summit Declaration signedat Pyongyang on October 4, 2007,president Roh Moo-hyun andchairman Kim Jung-il agreed that“the South and North would pavethe way for a ‘West Sea SpecialZone of Peace and Cooperation’ in

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the Haeju region, establish a jointfishery zone and a maritime zoneof peace, construct an EconomicSpecial Zone centering on the portof Haeju, allow direct sea access toHaeju for civilian ships, andpositively promote shared usage ofthe Han River estuary.”

From the beginning of August2007, when agreement wasreached to hold the second South-North Summit in Pyongyangbetween August 27 and 30, 2007,President Roh directed thedrawing up of a plan for convertingthe West Sea, the “Sea of Conflict,”i n t o a “ s e a o f p e a c e a n dprosperity,” personally collectingdata and materials and organizinga series of discussions with relatedofficials. As the summit waspostponed to the period October2-4 due to flood damage in mid-August in North Korea, closerattention was paid to the plan for a“West Sea Special Zone of Peaceand Cooperation” and a talksstrategy was drawn up thatinc luded “Dra f t I t ems fo rAgreement at the Summit Plenary”and “Draft Items to be drawn upseparately for signature.”

When President Roh Moo-hyunproposed his plan for the “WestSea Special Zone” during themorning session of the SecondSouth-North Summit on October 32 0 0 7 , N a t i o n a l D e f e n c eCommission chairman Kim Jong-ilseems to have considered itimpractical in light of the existingsituation of military confrontationin the West Sea and so evadeddiscussion by saying, “let thevarious problems be referred for

discussion at the Prime Ministeriallevel.” In response, president RohMoo-hyun made greater efforts topress his point, emphasizing itsimportance from three aspects:first, as the optimal way to resolvepossible military confrontation inthe West Sea; second, that theWest Coast Special Zone of Peaceand Cooperation would become theaxis of joint South-North prosperityin a future “West Sea Coastal Era,”and third, that not only would itconstruct peace by endingconfrontation in the West Sea butthat it was also a comprehensiveplan for developing South-Northeconomic cooperation in the WestSea.

The South-North Summit, Pyongyang,October 2007.

(wearing pink necktie, at far right, is KimMan-bok)

At the afternoon session on thesame day, Chairman Kim Jong-ilwelcomed Pres ident Roh’s

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proposal for a West Sea SpecialZone of Peace and Cooperation,saying, “I discussed the matterover lunch with senior responsibleofficials of the National DefenseCommission. When I raised thepossibility of a Haeju IndustrialComplex, they replied that thatwould present no problem. Notonly would Haeju itself be fine butKangryong township, linking Haejuand the Kaesong industr ialcomplex, and Haeju port, couldalso be developed.”

The West Sea: Sea of Peace andCooperation

This was, as Kim Man-bok rightly suggests, anextraordinary agreement. The internationalmedia at the time, which obsessively focusedon the North Korean “nuclear threat,” paid itfar too little attention. Under the Agreement,with the joint fishing zone and “marine zone ofpeace” spanning the NLL, both sides would pullback their forces and replace them by lightlyarmed police patrols. With Haeju City in NorthKorea declared a “special economic zone,”(connected to the already existing KaesongIndustrial Zone, and special corridors by landand sea opened to link the major industrial andport zones of South and North, and theundeveloped area of the Han River estuaryopened to cooperative development, Kim

concluded that

the West Sea coastal area wouldbe transformed from “frontlinemi l i tary confrontat ion” to“National Economic Community,”thus contributing not only to peaceon the Korean peninsula but to theunification that is the deep desireof the Korean people. ….[It wouldbe] nothing short of a completeparadigm shift, transforming theWest Sea, a danger zone wherethere is always the risk of militaryconfrontation, so that South andNorth come together not inmilitary ways but in terms ofpermanently reducing tension andestablishing peace througheconomic cooperation and mutualprosperity. The epochal, counter-intuitive quality of the “West SeaSpec ia l Zone o f Peace andCooperation” lies in the fact that itdoes not stir up the problem of themaritime borderline but insteaddevelops a mutually beneficialeconomic system, thus convertinga “zero-sum” military game into a“win-win” economic game.

Unfortunately, as Kim recounts, time ran outbefore the detai ls and procedures toaccomplish those goals could be agreed. ASecond Round of South-North DefenseMinisters Meeting was scheduled to be held inPyongyang for three days from 27 November2007 to settle the detailed blueprint of the“West Sea Zone of Peace and EconomicCooperation.” Kim goes on,

However, at the second South-North Defense Ministers’ Meeting,between Deputy Defense MinisterKim Chang-su from the South and

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Korean People’s Army militaryaffairs Chief Kim Il-chol from theNorth, it was only possible to cometo an agreement in principle “thatSouth and North would adoptmilitary guarantee measures forthe West Sea Special Zone ofPeace and Cooperation. A seriouserror was made by agreeing to“refer the matter of militaryguarantees in concrete cases to bediscussed and agreed as a matterof highest priority at a separatemeeting of South-North working-level military officials.” This issomething that will have to bedealt with in concrete terms by theconvening of a third South-NorthDefense Ministers meeting.

Abandonment of the 2007 Agreement andReversion of the West Sea into a “Sea ofWar”

The “Third South-North Defense Ministersmeeting” has yet to occur. Kim Man-bok issevere in his criticism of the Lee Myung-bakgovernment, not least for abandoning the WestSea cooperation and development agenda. Hesays,

By reinforcing its exclusivestrategic cooperation with Japanand the United States under theUS-South Korea alliance, and bytaking the lead in resolutions atthe United Nations denouncingNorth Korea on human rightsmatters, the Lee Myung-bakgovernment has fo l lowed aconsistent line of containment ofNorth Korea. By linking the NorthKorean nuclear issue and theSouth-North Korea relationship, ithas also reverted to Cold Warpolicies of confrontation with the

North, insisting that “in case of aNorth Korean pre-emptive nuclearattack being imminent, SouthKorea would not hold back from apin-point attack on the North’snuclear facilities.” In this context,on May 25, 2009, North Koreacarried out its second nuclear test,and South Korea the following daydeclared that it would ful lyparticipate in the ProliferationSecurity Initiative (PSI, designedto prevent proliferation of weaponsof mass destruction), meaning thatSouth Korean warships mightinspect or detain North Koreancargo boats.

On 20 November 2009, another West Sea clashtook place. Kim describes this “Daecheongnaval battle,” in which North Korea sufferedheavy losses while South Korea escapedunharmed, as a “unilateral victory for the SouthKorean side.” And, although he does not say so,it was taken in Lee Myung-bak circles asvindication for the adoption of a tougher line.Inter alia, the Lee government had drasticallysimplified the previous government’s five-stage“rules of engagement” based on proportionalityand designed to “prevent local conflictsescalating into all-out war” in such a way,according to Kim, as to signal the intention to“make a determined, preemptive attack in theevent of any North Korean NLL provocation.”That, he suggests, might be what happened atDaecheong.

Then, on 26 March 2010, in the atmosphere ofheightened tension and confrontation thatfollowed the Daecheong Incident, occurred thesinking of the South Korean corvette, theCheonan. The sequence of events that followedis well known: South Korea insisted that itsship had been attacked and deliberately sunkby North Korea, probably by torpedo; aninternational investigation conducted by South

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Korea together with states friendly towardsSouth Korea and the US confirmed thataccount ; doubts over that Report ’ smethodology and conclusions spread bothwithin South Korea and internationally; NorthKorea consistently and vigorously denied anyinvolvement, and the alternative (Russian)report (so far known only in resume form)presented a disturbed mine hypothesis. Thedoubts over the Cheonan have been welldiscussed in sources that are readilyaccessible, including in this journal.5 Kim Man-bok notes discrepancies and problems in theLee Government’s case and finds especiallyinteresting the Russian investigation, with itshypothesis of a mine explosion, but he simplyi n t r o d u c e s t h e v a r i o u s s c h o o l s o finterpretation.

He stresses, however, the seriousness of theaftermath,

South Korea suspended aid toNorth Korea, d iscont inuedrelations, and accused North Koreaof a “torpedo attack” before theUN Security Council. North Korearesponded angrily that, it “hadnothing to do with the sinking ofthe Cheonan.” And it reinforced itsconfrontation with South Korea bydeclaring that it would have “nofurther discussions or contact withSouth Korea during the presidencyof Lee Myung-bak.” With theUnited States and Japan affirmingtotal support for the findings of theSouth Korean government’sinvestigation, while China andRussia supported North Korea, thesituation surrounding the Koreanpeninsula was thrown back to theCold War. The conduct of joint US-South Korea anti-submarine drillsin the East Sea late in Ju lyescalated military tensions on the

peninsula to new heights.

The Lee government’s attitude toward dissentmay have hardened as its version of eventsfailed to convince. One opinion poll Kim citesshowed only 32.5 percent of people believingthat North Korea had been responsible for thesinking of the Cheonan.

Following discussion of the Cheonan incident,K i m M a n - b o k m a k e s s o m e p o l i c yrecommendations. He calls first for thestrengthening of South Korean defencesagainst any future asymmetric attack by NorthKorea in the West Sea and second forsignificant increase in defence expenditure. Hecomplains that the rate of increase in nationaldefence expenditure under Lee Myung-bak wasonly around 3.4 percent, whereas the Roh Moo-hyun government had set a goal of an annualincrease of 9 percent, and in fact did actuallyincrease it by 8.8 percent.

In thus formulating his recommendations togive priority to stepped-up military measures,Kim is on well-established, conservativeground, writing as one might expect anintelligence chief (even a former one) to write.It was his third point that was controversial:

Third, the government should heedthe demand of citizens who desirepeace not war. … For this, allc h a n n e l s o f S o u t h - N o r t hcommunication have to be quicklyrestored and expanded and theaccumulation of problems betweenthe two sides resolved throughd i a l o g u e . I n p a r t i c u l a r ,communication must be restoredbetween the ships and navalcommands of South and North, andt h e s y s t e m o f e m e r g e n c ycommun ica t i ons be tweenresponsible staff offices of boths ides must be res tored . I f

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necessary, unofficial delegatesshould be exchanged, and as afurther step in this direction, athird South-North Summit Meetingshould be promoted.

In the postscript to his article, writtensubsequent to the Yeonpyeong incident of 23November 2010 and published only in theJapanese version, Kim Man-bok makes clearthat he regards the context – heightenedtensions and breakdown of communicationsbetween South and North – as crucial. Hewrites of South Korea’s “defeat in the battle ofYeonpyeong” and gives some examples ofapparent dissension in the ranks of the SouthKorean government that followed.

Kim’s analysis concludes with his listing,without discussion, the main Korea-relatedfindings of the Wiki-leaks material: that NorthKorea is likely to try to sell not only nucleartechnology but also plutonium; that Kim Jung-ilis not likely to live more than three to five yearsand North Korea would likely collapse a year ortwo after that; that North Korea’s militaryprovocations against South Korea signaled thelast-ditch struggle of a collapsing dictatorship;that the Lee Myung-bak government hadresolved to freeze South-North relations for theremainder of its term; that in the event of North Korean collapse South Korea and theUnited States would move to unify the Koreanpeninsula; that China’s consent to such processcould be won by promising the participation ofChinese enterprises in the development ofNorth Korea’s rich underground resources; and that China would not object to a post-unification “purely benign” alliance between aunified Korea and the US. Kim simply presentsthese materials without comment. Heconcludes:

this author becomes even morefirmly convinced that the presentsituation of heightened tension on

the Korean peninsula was due to“the Lee government exacerbatingrelations with the north because itis convinced that North Korea willcollapse.” Even in the short periodremaining of his term of office,President Lee Myung-bak mustmake efforts to resume the SixParty conference to achieve apeaceful resolution of the North’snuclear problem and contribute tothe peace and s tab i l i t y o fNortheast Asia by implementingexisting agreements for theestablishment of the “West SeaSpec ia l Zone o f Peace andCooperation,” towards the ultimategoal of peaceful unification of theKorean peninsula.

The “Kim Man-bok Affair”

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Kim Man-bok on the front pageof Joongang ilbo, January 10, 2008

The article has now become an “affair.” Inwriting such an essay, there is no doubt thatKim Man-bok was, at least in part, self-serving.In other words, he wrote to justify his actionsas Director of the National Intelligence Serviceand to contrast what he believed to be thesuccess of the Northern policies adopted underthe Roh government with the tensions, clashes,and risk of all-out war that have risen sincethen. Being “self-serving,” however, isinevitable when a participant writes of eventsin which he played a central role, and it shouldenhance, rather than diminish, interest in suchan account.

Who then is Kim Man-bok? A life-long KCIAagent, he joined the agency in 1974 right aftergraduating from Seoul National University’s

Law school, the elite of elites. He served theagency throughout his career, rising throughthe ranks to become the director in 2006, apost he held until 2008. In the 1970s whenstudents sharply criticized the dictatorship,Kim was active in monitoring and controllingtheir activities, a career that became a sourceof tension with the liberal Kim Dae Junggovernment a quarter of a century later. But heparticipated in the preparation for the firstinter-Korean summit in 2000 and was promotedas a reward for his work on the South-Northprotocols . Under the Roh Moo-Hyunadministration, he led the 2003 governmentinvestigation team that laid the groundwork fordispatching Korean soldiers to Iraq thefollowing year.

Kim’s account is not especially shocking, savein the reminder it provides of how different theKorean peninsula was just over three yearsago, when senior officials on both sidesnegotiated in apparent good faith and broughtthe rival states to the brink of what would havebeen an epochal shift. The few sentences fromthe 2007 Summit that he quotes (first in theKorean book, then in the Japanese journal) areindeed new, but they add no more than a glossto what is already known of those exchanges.

Kim Man-bok had been the subject ofvituperative attacks in South Korea long beforethe present contretemps. He is accused ofhaving told North Korea, on the eve of the 2007presidential elections, that South Korea’sNorthern policy could be expected to remainmore or less unchanged under a Lee Myung-bak government. Though roundly attacked byconservatives in South Korea for this, in truthhe had done nothing more than get thingswrong, as indeed intelligence organs, much ofthe time, are wont to do.

He has also been accused, by Chosun ilbo in2008, of devoting too much attention in the lastdays of the Roh government to negotiating withNorth Korea over the size and shape of a stone

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to commemorate the Summit o f thatyear.6 Whatever be the truth of the story of themonument, unless it is placed in the context ofthe hugely ambitious schemes for negotiating adifferent future for the country that were ontables in Seoul and Pyongyang at that time, itseems ineffably trivial.7 The Chosun, whichbroke the “news” on 13 January that Sekai hadrun Kim’s article, editorialized the followingday that “it is no longer puzzling that theagency did not catch even one [North Korean]spy while Mr. Kim was its director” and “wenow must closely reexamine how the agencywas run [during his tenure].”

The attack on Kim in the conservative presswas immediately followed by Yangjihoe (SunlitLand Association), a group of retiredintelligence officers) that expelled Kim from itsmembership. What is perhaps most telling isthe fact that conservatives have savagely begunto cri t ic ize one of the arguably mostconservative of the officials of the Kim DaeJung/Roh Moo-hyun era, with profoundimplications for the future of Koreandemocracy.

Sekai editor Okamoto voices the fear that theLee government is turning against freeexpression of opinion and reverting to theoppressive ways of past, authoritariangovernments. As it happens, the dispute inSeoul coincided with submission of a report bythe UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom ofOpinion and Expression (Frank La Rue) to theUnited Nations Human Rights Council, statingthat freedom of expression had indeeddiminished in South Korea since the coming topower of the Lee Myung-bak government andnoting the “increasing number of cases whereindividuals who do not agree with thegovernment’s position are prosecuted andpunished based on domestic laws andregulations that do not conform to internationallaw.”8

Gavan McCormack is a coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal and an emeritus professor ofAustralian National University. His book,Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea tot h e B r i n k o f N u c l e a r C a t a s t r o p h e(http://www.amazon.com/dp/1560255579/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), was published in Englishand Japanese in 2004 (Nation Books andHeibonsha) and in Korean (Icarus Media) in2006. He is the author, most recently, of ClientState: Japan in the American Embrace(http://www.amazon.com/dp/184467133X/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (New York, 2007, Tokyo,Seoul and Beijing 2008). The translatedexcerpts from Lee Myung-bak’s article are alltaken from the version published in Japanese inSekai, February 2011, and all translations areby the author.

R e c o m m e n d e d c i t a t i o n : G a v a nMcCormack, Contested Waters - ContestedTexts: Storm over Korea’s West Sea, The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 8 No 5, February21, 2011.

For articles on related themes see

S e e S e u n g h u n L e e a n d J . J . S u h(http://japanfocus.org/-JJ-Suh/3382), “Rush toJudgement: Inconsistencies in South Korea’sCheonan Report,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, 12July 2010.

Tim Beal (http://japanfocus.org/-Tim-Beal/3459), “Korean Brinkmanship, AmericanProvocation, and the Road to War: themanufacturing of a crisis,” The Asia-PacificJournal,” 20 December, 2010.

W a d a H a r u k i(http://japanfocus.org/-Haruki-Wada/3458),“From the Firing at Yeonpyeong Island to aComprehensive Solution to the Problems ofDivision and War in Korea,” 13 December,2010.

N a n K i m a n d J o h n M c G l y n n(http://japanfocus.org/-John-McGlynn/3452),

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“Factsheet: WEST SEA CRISIS IN KOREA,” 6December, 2010.

P a i k N a k - c h u n g(http://japanfocus.org/-Paik-Nak_chung/3466),“Reflections on Korea in 2010: Trials andprospects for recovery of common sense in2011,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, January 10,2011.

J o h n M c G l y n n(http://japanfocus.org/-John-McGlynn/3372),“Politics in Command: The "International"Investigation into the Sinking of the Cheonanand the Risk of a New Korean War,” June 14,2010.

T a n a k a S a k a i(http://japanfocus.org/-Tanaka-Sakai/3361),Who Sank the South Korean Warship Cheonan?A New Stage in the US-Korean War and US-China Relations, May 7, 2010.

Notes

1 “Funso no umi, ‘Sohe’ o heiwa to hanei no umini suru tame ni,” Sekai, February 2011, pp.56-66.

2 I here refer to the Japanese version of thisarticle, written by Tokyo correspondent ChaHak-bon, published on line 13 January as “MotoKokujoincho ‘Yeonpyeongdo hogeki wa genseiken ga maneita’,” in 2 parts, Chosun ilbo,l i n k(http://www.chosunonline.com/news/20110113000011).

3 C h o n G w o n - h y o n(http://www.chosunonline.com/news/20110130

000023), “Koramu, Iwanami shoten ‘Sekai’ nikiko shita moto kokkajohoin-cho,” Chosun ilbo,30 January 2011.

4 O k a m o t o A t s u s h i(http://www.iwanami.co.jp/sekai/), “Kim Man-bok shi e no Kankoku, kokkajohoin nokokuhatsu e no komento,” 31 January 2011. 5 S e e S e u n g h u n L e e a n d J . J . S u h(http://japanfocus.org/-JJ-Suh/3382), “Rush toJudgement: Inconsistencies in South Korea’sCheonan Report,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, 12July 2010.

6 “All this fuss just to leave Roh’s name in NorthKorea,” Chosun ilbo, 15 February 2008, link(http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2008/02/15/2008021561023.html).

7 For a detailed account of the complex South-North cooperation schemes as of late 2007,that warrants reading in conjunction with theKim Man-bok account introduced in the presentarticle, see especially the second part of AidanFoster-Carter’s two-part article in 38 North, 20January 2011, “Lee Myung Bak, PragmaticModerate? The Way We Were, 2007,” link(http://38north.org/2011/01/lee-myung-bak-pragmatic-moderate/), and “Scrapping the SecondSummit: Lee Myung Bak’s Fateful Mis-step,”l i n k(http://38north.org/2011/01/lee-myung-bak-fateful-misstep/).

8 S o n J u n - h y u n(http://english.hani.co.kr/popups/print.hani?ksn=463878), “U.N. rapporteur reports freedom ofexpression severely curtailed under Leeadministration,” The Hankyoreh, 18 February2011.

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