葛汉文、林佳萱文章英译文

T he Korean Peninsula has long been the major battleground for geopolitical contention in Northeast Asia, with the emergence of successive regimes basically controlling parts or the whole of the Peninsula in the history of the Korean Peninsula (including the United Silla, the Goryeo Dynasty, the Chosun Dynasty, the Korean Empire and currently the DPRK and the ROK),which had often played important roles in the evolution of the international political order of Northeast Asia or even the whole of East Asia. Nonetheless,in the course of history, the afore-mentioned regimes, while consolidating themselves as independent regimes, had been confronted with several big impacts and challenges from outside the peninsula that directly threatened their existence. During the course, the political elites of the peninsula at different times adopted different policies or policy combinations, including submission, balancing, restraint and resistance, to ensure the survival of the nation, while developing foreign strategy tradition with distinct characteristics,which played an outstanding role in the historical evolution of the peninsula or even Northeast Asia. Entering the second decade of the 21st century, with the deepening of complexity and co-movement in the situation of the Korean Peninsula, combing or exploring this thinking and spiritual tradition that has dominated the ROK’s external strategy as well as analyzing or grasping its influence and the present effects are undoubtedly of great significance for correctly understanding the current trend of the ROK’s foreign policy and effectively predicting the evolution of the strategic pattern in Northeast Asia.

I. The Submission Strategy: Submission for Autonomy

In the international politics dominated by power politics, one of the most important traditions in the ROK’s foreign strategy is submission to seek for its own security and survival. This strategy has recognized that the regime in the peninsula has an irreparable gap in power and influence compared with the neighboring powers, advocating in general submission and cooperation with the most powerful nation in the region by declaring submission, paying tributes, sending hostages and dispatching troops coordinately, to generally meet the political, financial or even military demands of the powerful nation,and gain the toleration of the powerful nation with its efforts to maintain autonomy. It is generally believed that submission as the foundation for foreign strategy of all the regimes in the Korean Peninsula history began in the reign of Li Chenggui, the founder of the Chosun Dynasty in the 14th century.

In addition to the realistic consideration of international politics, this submission strategy for autonomy and survival involves a lot of economic(lucrative tributary trade), political (wishing to oppress domestic oppositions with its legitimacy recognized by the big power) and security (avoiding attacks from the big power and wishing to obtain military support from the big power when having disputes with neighbors or being invaded) benefits. But generally speaking,the fundamental goal of the regimes in the peninsula submitting strategically to the neighboring big powers was to avoid invasion and maintain its survival.

Compared with other types of strategy, the submission strategy has its own characteristics, of which the most important one is the emphasis on ideology.From a historical point of view, if the regime in the peninsula had a sense of belonging and friendliness with the neighboring power in ideology (such as the political-academic elites during the Chosun Dynasty, who had fully identified with the Chinese culture), the intent of the regime in the peninsula to follow this strategy would be more solid and the effects would be more outstanding. Once this ideological identification was missing, this strategy without a spiritual pillar would be faced with a host of problems in vitality and result, whose survival was only based on the recognition of the fact that the power submitted to was much more powerful than itself. While on the other hand, the influence of the ideology factor to the submission strategy is often weak and limited, as the regimes in the peninsula would be likely to abandon its ideological position and bow to realistic threats when confronted with major survival crisis.

II. The Balancing Strategy: Seeking Survival in the Crevice

In addition to the submission strategy, the ROK has another major tradition in its security strategy----balancing. The balancing strategy is intended to seek big gains with small losses and strive for the key role as a “balancer” among the big powers, by utilizing, creating or even proactively stimulating potential or realistic contradictions among neighboring powers, so as to ensure power balance and mutual suppression among the big powers, and its own security. The balancing strategy followed by the regimes in the peninsula is also time-honored.

Fairly speaking, whether the Goryeo Dynasty in history or the Korean Empire in the late 19th century, it was very difficult for the regimes in the peninsula to follow the balancing strategy. As geographically located at the important strategic passage between the land Asia and the maritime Asia, coupled with the facts that the peninsula was narrow in space and poor in economy as well as lagging far behind in modernization process, it was almost impossible for the regimes in the peninsula to gain a proactive position in the geopolitical contention in Northeast Asia with the neighboring powers, many of which were intercontinental powers, such as the Mongol Empire, the Ming Empire, the Qing Empire and the Russian Empire. Therefore, the best result achieved by the regimes in the peninsula following this balancing strategy in the late 19th century was only making themselves a weighted chip in the contention among big powers, whose failure had directly resulted in losing their independence and autonomy completely for the first time in the history of the peninsula.

III. The Continuation of the Submission Strategy and Its Adjustment

In the wake of the Second World War, with the US and the Soviet Union stationing militarily in the Korean Peninsula and the Cold War emerging, the political pattern in the Korean Peninsula underwent revolutionary changes: the Korean Peninsula for the first time in history was divided into two mutually contradictory parts----the DPRK and the ROK. During the Cold War, the two,which were well-matched in strength and belonged to different political and military blocs, remained hostile to each other all the time and controlled by different outside powers (the US and the Soviet Union): the US ensured the security of Japan, the so-called “breakwater for democracy in the Far East”,by occupying militarily the southern part of the Korean Peninsula to prevent the communist forces from coming into the Western Pacific; the Soviet Union also saw the importance and necessity in protecting the DPRK, the outpost of the socialist camp, as it could protect the “passage to the South Manchuria and the Yellow Sea for the Soviets”. Influenced directly by the strategies of the two superpowers, the Korean Peninsula had become the forefront in the Far East during the Cold War.

On the whole, the submission strategy continued during this time in foreign police of the ROK, with the ROK in particular. During the Cold War,the basis for the ROK’s external strategy was to obtain foreign (especially from the US) military, diplomatic and logistic assistance. Similar to the regimes in the peninsula history that followed the submission strategy, the ROK had not only tried hard to keep close ties as a subordinate with the US politically and militarily (for instance, proactively allowing the US troops to station in the ROK permanently and put its military forces under the command of the US-ROK Combined Forces Command), but also fully support the US’s military operations in other regions in exchange for its security commitment.For example, during the Vietnam War, the ROK proactively asked for involvement in the war. From 1965 to 1973, the expeditionary force of the ROK was the largest foreign troops participating in the war except for the US troops. In addition to security, the ROK’s submission strategy to the US in the post Second World War era was also intended to ensure economic assistance from the US, which had made the ROK become a new industrialized country in a short-run. Compared with most of the regimes in the peninsula history,the ROK’s submission strategy to the US since the end of the World War II has also had a spiritual pillar, while the “sense of belonging to the Chinese culture” has been replaced by the so-called “democracy and freedom”, which has incorporated the ROK into the Western capitalist camp dominated by the US on the spiritual level.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the ending of the Cold War, the strategic security environment faced by the ROK has taken a gradual turn for the better and the US-ROK strategic alliance has got relaxed to some extent. The ROK began to get actively engaged in pursuing the so-called balancing strategy in East Asia,especially promoting its relations with China, Japan and Russia in the region,with a hope to achieve the balance of power in international relations of the region. Particularly, when the comprehensive national strength (the economic strength in particular and the military power that was worth mentioning) of the ROK entered the rank of Top Ten globally, the ROK began to run after the goal of building itself into a “middle power” during the reigns of Roh Tae-woo, Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam, and strive for becoming the“balancer among the four major powers of the US, China, Japan and Russia”.Until the reign of Roh Moo-hyun, the ROK made a clearer statement that it wanted to play the role as a balancer in maintaining peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia, proposing to put the practical “balance” concept into its external strategy, hoping to make the ROK appear as a middle power with more influence in regional affairs.

IV. The Issues in ROK’s Current External Strategy and Their Counter-Measures

Entering the second decade of the 21st century, with the fast changes of the peninsula and regional security situation, the ROK’s external strategy which is in adjustment is beginning to confront major challenges, which has resulted in the ROK stopping the adjustment of its submission strategy and the pursuit of the balancing strategy since the end of the Cold War, returning to the old external strategic basis of strengthening the ROK-US alliance that would last for some time to come.

Against the background that the DPRK’s nuclear development is accelerated and its threat to the ROK’s national security is rising speedily, many of the ROK’s political and academic elites are disappointed to find out that although the ROK itself has already become a power that cannot be belittled, its socalled independent diplomacy and balancing strategy are usually empty talks without the support from the top rank powers, which not only have little charisma and influence, but also cannot resolve the deteriorating realistic military threats the ROK is faced with, letting alone reaching the grand goal of dominating the development of the peninsula situation and achieving national reunification. Out of these considerations, after the incident of the“Yeonpyeong Island shelling” in 2010, the transition of the ROK under Lee Myung-bak’s administration from the alliance strategy to the balancing strategy was much weakened, beginning to raise the ROK-US alliance to a new height----the comprehensive strategic alliance, and parting with China by holding joint military drills with the US and letting the THAAD system into the ROK. Especially when the ROK, ignoring the strong opposition from China and Russia, changed its previous policy and insisted on deploying the US THAAD during the administration of President Park Geun-hye, the ROK began to re-take the policy of following the US politically, relying on the US economically and depending on the US for security as the major way to cope with the deteriorating strategic security situation. Nevertheless, this measure has worsened the regional security situation in reality.

In the more than 2000 years’ history, the regimes in the peninsula have had considerations on two levels with regard to their external strategies: the relatively low policy goal----maintaining its own survival and autonomy against the realistic background of fierce contention among big powers by taking such policy measures as resistance, balancing, compromise and submission; and the relatively high policy goal----extending outwardly its cultural, political and even military influence with assistance of the power it submitted to, so as to play a role at the regional level. Nonetheless, whether or not the regimes in the peninsula could reach the above-mentioned goals or whether or not the peninsula could ensure its own autonomy and become strong, the key factor to success did not rest with the regimes themselves in the peninsula, at least from historical point of view, but rather with the determinants from outside the peninsula. Getting into the second decade of the 21st century, this fact has not been changed: the key to the resolution of the issues in the peninsula mostly lies in the hands of the big powers outside the peninsula. What dominates the development of the security situation in the peninsula is not the policy of either the DPRK or the ROK, but the contention and game-playing of the big neighboring powers. This is the fundamental reason that the issue of the peninsula has not been solved for so long.

It is worth noting that there have emerged great changes in the current peninsula situation. The Park Geun-hye regime has fallen for scandals, while the newly elected President Moon Jae-in continued with or even accelerated his predecessor’s policy to deploy the THAAD system in South Korea in spite of the strong protests from China and Russia. The DPRK has continued with the development of its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and conducted its sixth nuclear test on September 3 of 2017, with an explosion equivalent never seen since 2006. The US has frequently held large scale military exercises around the peninsula and increased the momentum of strategic deterrence against the DPRK never seen in the past. The US President Trump declared that North Korea will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,hinting at the possibility to strike at the DPRK militarily. A large scale military conflict in the peninsula will be triggered at any moment.

Presently, the situation in the peninsula has come to an extremely severe and critical moment with great historical significance. It should be recognized that the ROK is confronted with great difficulties in its choice of external and security strategies with little space for maneuver, which is extremely similar with the regimes in the peninsula history. Nonetheless, the ROK in great security anxiety should be convinced of the fact that with the complexity,contradiction and linkage rising in the peninsula situation, it can hardly cope with such complicated reality of international politics simply by relying on the submission strategy or the balancing strategy. On the contrary, to coordinate the policy positions of the shareholders with regard to the peninsula by taking a more flexible approach, capitalizing on multiple strategic means, and relying on the existing international mechanisms and arrangements should be a critical issue the ROK must pay special attention to in its external strategic considerations presently and in the near future. This strategic path may be the right solution to ensuring the realization of the ROK’s interests so as to safeguard its own security as well as the security of the whole peninsula.

(Ge Hanwen is Deputy Director and Associate Professor from the Center for International Security Studies under the International Studies College,the National University of Defense Technology and Lin Jiaxuan is Graduate Student from the International Relations College, the National University of Defense Technology. This article was received on Sept.1, 2017.)