On October 18, 2013 an international conference on “Global Cooperation in the Era of Eurasia” took place in Seoul under the auspices of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. RIAC Director General Andrei Kortunov addressed the meeting with a speech on contemporary security issues in Northeast Asia.
On October 18, 2013 an international conference on “Global Cooperation in the Era of Eurasia” took place in Seoul under the auspices of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. RIAC Director General Andrei Kortunov addressed the meeting with a speech on contemporary security issues in Northeast Asia.
The conference was also attended by former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, RIAC member Alexander Panov, Russian Ambassador to South Korea Konstantin Vnukov, Director of the HSE Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies Timofei Bordachev, Director of the Far-Eastern Marine Research, Design and Technology Institute Jaroslav Semenihin.
Northeast Asia’s Peace Cooperation and the Era of Eurasia
Text of the speech by Andrei Kortunov:
Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends!
It’s an honor and a privilege to be selected as a keynote speaker at the first session of such a remarkable conference. I do appreciate an opportunity to share my views with distinguished scholars, politicians and opinion makers present here today. At the same time, I feel somewhat uneasy, because I have to make my presentation in front my senior colleague and a good friend Ambassador Alexander Panov. No doubt, he is much more knowledge about the region and its problems; I can only humbly beg him to be understanding and tolerant to my immature and unprofessional opinions.
Let me start with saying that, as I can see it, the security environment of Northeast Asia contains two overlapping agendas – the old one, inherited from the XX century, and the new one, which reflects realities of the XXI century. We have a lot of problems that belong to the past – a divided nation, territorial disputes, old animosities and grievances among nations of the region, nuclear proliferation – to name a few. At the same time, we all have to confront such threats and challenges as environmental decay and climate change, manmade and natural disasters, cyber and food security, terrorism and political extremism.
Can we jump over the old agenda and move right to the new one? I believe that we cannot and should not neglect the unfinished business. If we do so, the legacy of the Cold War will continue to poison the overall security environment and prevent us from dealing with the new challenges. This legacy will not dissolve automatically, without our consorted and persistent efforts. Economic interdependence between nations of the region is not a guarantee against political and military conflicts. Today, an unprecedented level of trade and mutual investment in the region coexists with an unprecedented level of military spending and a rise of nationalistic sentiments all over the place.
The Korean Peninsula is the centerpiece of the North Pacific puzzle. I do not mean that other problems are not important. But it is clear that without resolving this fundamental problem our capacities to deal with other regional matters will be limited at best. Russia has always attached a lot of importance to the Korean Peninsula – for a variety of historical, geopolitical and economic reasons. Any conflict – or even a tension – here is going to have an immediate impact on the Russian Far East and beyond. The Russian position on the Korean Peninsula problem can be condensed to three guiding principles:
First. We are strong believers in a multilateral approach to the problem. Bilateral initiatives can be instrumental and appropriate, but in the end of the day we will not succeed if South Korea, the United States, Japan, China and Russia fail to come to a common denominator in their respective approaches to North Korea. Some say that the Six-party talks are dead; I would argue that only we can decide whether they are dead or alive. Maybe, the time has come to turn the page and to start a multilateral process in a different setting. But the Six-party talks offer us a unique format, where positions of all sides can be properly represented and where there is no suspicion of any back stage deals or side arrangements.
Second. We are explicitly against linking the issue of nuclear proliferation in North East Asia to a regime change in North Korea. Yes, we would encourage our partners in Pyongyang to embark on the road to a market economy and political pluralism, but North Korea is a sovereign state and it is up to North Koreans to decide how they manage their economic and political system. An attempt to impose political or economic reforms from abroad would be counterproductive and even dangerous for all neighboring countries. On the contrary, we should offer credible multilateral security guarantees to North Korea in exchange for the Pyongyang leaders abandoning their nuclear ambitions. One of possible ways to do that is to offer a peace treaty that would put an end to the bloody war on 1950s, which has legally never been terminated. And, in our view, the issue of the North Korea’s nuclear program cannot be separated from a broader issue of denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula. This is not an easy issue, but we have to confront it.
Third. We cannot separate the security agenda from the development agenda in the Peninsula. There are a number of ambitious economic projects aiming to link Russia, China, North and South Korea – including energy, transportation, agriculture and so on. I am not an investor or an economist; it is hard for me to give a professional assessment of the economic side of these projects. However, I tend to believe that politically such projects are very timely and they can make a real impact on the security situation in the Peninsula. Of course, political risks should be kept in mind, but I do not think that we should simply sit on our hands doing nothing because of anticipated political risks. On the contrary, if we are able to engage Pyongyang into a network of long term large scale development projects, it might be the best way to bring down political risks that we are all concerned about.
Now, let me address the regional peace cooperation beyond the Korean Peninsula problem. I do not want to sound pessimistic: we do have some spectacular success stories here. As a Russian scholar I cannot fail to mention the Russian-Chinese settlement of the territorial dispute that was finalized some twelve years ago. It is probably the most efficient and the most remarkable conventional arms reduction agreement in the world today. I recall visiting the Soviet – Chinese border in early 1980s as a student; at that time I was shocked by the scale of the Soviet military infrastructure along the border with China (which was, by the way, the longest border in the world). One could only guess how much resources the two countries had invested in confronting each other. Today the border is a trading place, a locus for large scale social, cultural and human interaction.
Still, success stories are not in plenty in our part of the world. I tend to believe that the Initiative for Peace and Cooperation in Northeast Asia advanced by the Park Geun-hye leadership of South Korea makes a lot of sense. We do suffer from an ‘institutional deficit’ in our region; compared to Europe, Northeast Asia lacks a thick network of governmental and non-governmental organizations capable of gradually building trust, common values and common aspirations. And it is only natural for South Korea, located right in the center of our region, to lead this process. It is going to be a long term investment, but I am sure that it will ultimately generate lofty returns for all of us.
In terms of concluding I’d like to single out one specific dimension where such a multilateral interaction would be of particular importance. I suggest we consider a multilateral threat assessment exercise in Northeast Asia. Not at the official level, but rather in a “track 2” format. If all of us continue to invest heavily into defense in spite of pressing economic and social needs, there should be plausible explanations of these investments. Why don’t all of us sit together and reveal our respective threat perceptions and our security concerns to each other? How can one justify the US – Japanese missile defense efforts? Or the Chinese blue water navy building program? Or the Russia’s intention to restore and to modernize its Pacific fleet? I am sure that our threat perceptions are not necessarily irreconcilable. If so, can we agree to shift from balancing each other to burden-sharing in providing security to Northeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean in general? The idea might sound farfetched, but I see no reason why we should not give it the benefit of the doubt.
The Korean War ended sixty years ago. We have to be grateful to generations of politicians, military and diplomats of our countries who managed to prevent another large scale military conflict in Northeast Asia. They did what they could in a very challenging environment. Now it’s time to aim higher – to demonstrate that our region can become a global model - not only in terms of its economic development, but also in terms of our ability to provide for common security, mutual understanding, humility and compassion. Together, we can do it.
Thank you for your attention.
