May 8, 2002

FROM WORLD CUP TO PENINSULA PEACE?

By Tom Plate

The big soccer tournament is bringing out the best in Japan and South Korea

(C) 2002 Asia Pacific Media Network

LOS ANGELES --- Peace on the strategically vital Korean peninsula still has a long way to go, but we may be getting there, step by halting step.

Step one is positive input from the Bush administration. Praise to the White House for ditching its nasty “thunder and lightning policy” toward North Korea, as it announced acceptance of Pyongyang's offer to resume official talks. That takes the administration a distance away from the president's “axis of evil” speech, which threw an immense dark cloud over South Korean President Kim Dae Jung's “sunshine policy” and went over with the South Korean public like the proverbial lead balloon.

In fairness to Washington, North Korea is one tough nut to crack. You don't have to be a parochial American who rarely travels beyond his ranch to despise a regime whose Communist-cockeyed policies have led to malnutrition and starvation and whose idea of diplomacy is to hide behind a rock, show the muzzle of a gun and shout stupid running-dog slogans.

Poor Kim Dae Jung, who has to leave office next year: In more than four years as the country's second non-military president, he has gotten precious little in return from Pyongyang.

But maybe his “sunshine policy,” which helped garner him a Nobel Peace prize, is starting to warm North Korea just a little. In accordance with the North's promise to beam at least a slight ray of sunshine southward, hundreds of North and South Korean families have been meeting at a North Korean tourist site for long-delayed reunions. And so the clouds parted -- at least a little.

Those tearful reunions -- played big-time in the South Korean media -- also burnished the fraying image of Kim big-time. Until then, the former political prisoner of Korean military regimes was known, and derided, for his dismissive style, parochial dialect and ineffectiveness with North Korea.

His own people evidently didn't think too much of the judgment of the Nobel prize committee, but perhaps Korean public opinion will begin to put his flaws into more favorable perspective as Kim heads into the home stretch of his presidency, riding the excitement as co-host of the 2002 World Cup, starting soon in both Japan and South Korea.

These two nations and cultures have been at odds for decades, not least because of Japan's occupation of the peninsula, as well as its truculent reluctance to own up to the brutality of that 35-year-long nightmare.

To be sure, Japan has its own issues with Korea -- especially with the North. Tokyo wants answers to questions on the whereabouts of Japanese citizens kidnapped long ago by Pyongyang agents. Suddenly Japan's pleas are no longer being ignored: The Red Cross of Japan and North Korea now say they will try to find out.

Big historic divides and rifts die hard. Yet they can, eventually, die. Japanese investment in South Korea, whose economy is predicted to grow 4-6 percent, perhaps second this year in Asia only to China's, is on the upswing. Tourism between the two countries is skyrocketing. And the two are cooperating closely -- and so far effectively -- as co-hosts of the 2002 World Cup, which for many Asians is the equivalent of three U.S. Super Bowls with a March Madness or two thrown in for frenzy.

Should a serious Japanese-Korean modus vivendi emerge from this cooperation and investment, the implications for Asia -- and America -- would be staggering. U.S. fears of a giant China lording over the region could ease, allowing Washington to notch down the rhetoric -- and even shave away at costly U.S. troop deployments.

The prospect of a considerably closer Japan-South Korea relationship may be as improbable as it is desirable. Yes, it will require far more than a world-class soccer extravaganza to take it to the next level. It would certainly benefit from spectacular joint Korean-Japanese statesmanship. Alas, the prospect of President Kim Dae Jung and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi going to Pyongyang together today seems more inconceivable than Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger going to China.

The recent family reunions took the Korean peninsula only partway. To go the full distance, dramatic diplomacy is needed. A Nixon-to-China trip to Pyongyang for Koizumi and Kim -- the leaders of modern Japan and Korea is the stuff of which long epochs of peace can be made.

Previous Columns:

The Virtue of Keeping Mum on China-Taiwan (May 1, 2002)

The Power of Saying 'No' or Doing Absolutely Nothing (April 24, 2002)

American Culture: When the Stars Come Out to Shine -- Or Plea Bargain (April 22, 2002)

Odd Couples and Bad Practices (April 17, 2002)

How to Solve the Middle East Crisis (April 15, 2002)

Asia's Press is Getting Better -- But is it Improving Fast Enough? (April 10, 2002)