During last month’s 81st United Nations General Assembly, President Lee Jae-myung re-emphasized South Korea’s role as a Korean Peninsula pacemaker for peace. This follows his promise during last year’s first summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, where he asked Trump to be the ‘peacemaker’ while positioning himself as the pacemaker assisting him. However, looking at the recent actions of the South Korean government, there is growing concern that rather than becoming a pacemaker, it might turn into a ‘troublemaker’ causing confusion in the ROK-U.S. alliance and peace on the Korean Peninsula.
While covering the Aspen Security Forum last July, I had a conversation with a 25-year veteran foreign policy and security reporter who posed this question: ‘Wasn’t there a uniquely low level of mention regarding North Korea this year compared to last year?’
Looking back, that was indeed the case. While North Korea did appear when adversaries of the U.S. were discussed alongside China, Russia, and Iran, discussions dealing intensively with the direct threat of North Korea decreased noticeably. This contrasted sharply with last year, when North Korea’s cyber threats and other issues were treated as major agenda items. Even though North Korea continues to build its nuclear and missile capabilities and strengthen military cooperation with Russia, its presence in U.S. foreign policy discourse is fading.
Precisely because of this, the South Korean government must take action. It needs to inject agendas and capture attention within the U.S. Congress, executive branch, think tanks, and academia so that the North Korean nuclear issue, cyber threats, and human rights issues continue to be discussed. This is public diplomacy as well. Public diplomacy is not merely about promoting K-pop and K-food.
In particular, North Korean human rights are a crucial diplomatic leverage point that South Korea can utilize. In the U.S., North Korean human rights is treated as a bipartisan issue, as evidenced last June when Democratic Senator Tim Kimb and Republican Senator Dan Sullivan jointly sponsored a bill to reauthorize the North Korean Human Rights Act. Furthermore, U.S. law mandates a special envoy on North Korean human rights to raise international awareness of the severity of the situation. In the past, South Korea’s progressive administrations were criticized for placing North Korean human rights on the back burner in inter-Korean relations, and the current government is facing similar concerns. Even while pursuing dialogue with North Korea, the human rights issue of North Korean citizens must not be pushed to the margins of negotiations.
An even bigger problem is that at a time when North Korea-related agendas should be elevated in the U.S., diplomacy with Washington repeatedly displays scenes that amplify confusion rather than build trust. Recent discussions on U.S.-Korea investments are a prime example. When President Trump successively announced an $8.4 billion oil recovery project and an Alaska LNG investment, the South Korean government drew a line, stating the details were not agreed upon or required further review. The pattern of the U.S. president making announcements as if matters were finalized, only for the South Korean government to issue corrections, has repeated itself.
With this style of diplomacy toward the U.S., it is difficult for President Lee’s desired ‘pacemaker’ role to gain traction. Coordinating the pace between Washington and Pyongyang requires, above all, the trust of President Trump and Washington. If differing messages are sent even on trade and investment issues, how much would the U.S. trust South Korea if it claims to take on a mediating role in the much more sensitive North Korean nuclear negotiations? What a pacemaker needs is not a mere declaration, but diplomatic credibility that the counterpart can trust and rely upon.
The case of the past Moon Jae-in administration can serve as a counter-example. Back when inter-Korean and North Korea-U.S. summit diplomacy unfolded in 2018, former President Moon gained attention as a mediator. However, around the time of the 2019 Hanoi North Korea-U.S. summit, discontent arose in Washington over rushing the easing of sanctions. Furthermore, Pyongyang communicated directly with Trump, losing the need to go through South Korea. Having styled itself as a mediator, the very space for mediation vanished.
If President Lee genuinely wants to become a pacemaker for peace on the Korean Peninsula, he must straighten out the sequence. He must elevate the presence of the North Korean issue in the U.S., establish clear principles on the North Korean nuclear issue and human rights, and firmly solidify trust between South Korea and the United States first.
A pacemaker is not a position acquired simply by making a self-declaration. It is a role assumed only when the accompanying partner trusts you enough to entrust you with the pace. The pacemaker intended to lead peace on the Korean Peninsula must never become a troublemaker that tangles the flow.
