Dual-neutrality for the Koreas, by Pascal Lottaz and Heinz Gärtner

[김반아]

Dual-neutrality for the Koreas: a two-pronged approach toward reunification
 by Pascal Lottaz  and Heinz Gärtner

DEFENSE & SECURITY ANALYSIS https://doi.org/10.1080/14751798.2022.2085109

aWaseda Institute for Advanced Study, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan; bDepartment of Political Science,

University of Vienna, Wien, Austria

ABSTRACT

This article builds a novel argument for the uni!cation of the two Korean states by way of a dual neutralisation process. After reviewing the neutralisation concept and the history of neutrality ideas for the peninsula, the authors introduce two historical models that would !t the security needs of both Koreas and their respective security partners. Using a realist framework, it is argued that the “Finlandisation” of the DPRK on the one hand; and the “Austriasation” of the ROK on the other, would not change the de facto security relationships with their patrons, but would create the structural underpinning for future foreign policy compatibility. Assuming other factors remain equal and a solution to internal political division could be brokered, the article proposes a security framework for both states aimed at separately creating the structures for a future uni!ed neutral Korea.

Introduction

When discussing Korean reuni!cation, it is often the German experience of 1989–90 that is cited as a model for the peninsula. Obviously, there are parallels: a people with one language and shared history, divided by decades of separation, with two separate econ- omies, political systems, and opposing ideologies. However, the geopolitical situations between Germany and Korea are very di"erent. The uni!cation of Germany became possible only because the Soviet Union disappeared. The geopolitical context in North- east Asia, by and large, stayed the same since the end of the Korean War (1953). There- fore, the situation of the Koreas today should be compared to the situation in Central Europe in the early days of the Cold War, not its end. In fact, this article argues that the most realistic path to uni!cation is the one Germany explicitly rejected, namely through neutralisation.

The idea of a permanently neutral Korea is old. Kwan Hwang pointedly called it an “all-weather paradigm.”1 Korean neutrality has been suggested long before the current division, even before the Japanese annexation of the peninsula. As this article will show, the question is not if a reuni!ed Korea should be neutral, but how to achieve that? Hence, we build a novel argument for the separate neutralisations of both Koreas through slight, but realistic, modi!cations to their current security arrangements, aiming at their eventual reuni!cation under a common neutral framework. Naturally, there are many hurdles in the way of such a uni!cation that must be solved, this article is dedicated only to the aspect of the international security dynamic amongst the two Koreas and their respective security partners. The arguments are built on histori- cal comparisons and the assumption that the political situations of the four main stake- holders, China, North Korea (DPRK), South Korea (ROK), and the United States (US) remain the same. Furthermore, the article makes the realist assumption that all regimes want to survive and take decisions that will either further their own interests, or at least not harm them. We will show how a dual neutralisation of the two Koreas is bene!cial to both security pairs (China–DPRK and US-ROK). To do so, we !rst intro- duce “neutralisation” as a concept and brie#y discuss previous ideas for Korean neu- trality. We then introduce the frameworks of “Finlandisation” for the DPRK and “Austriasation” for the ROK, to build the argument that there is a realistic way for uni!- cation if both Koreas took steps toward neutralisation separately.

Neutralisation and alliance formation

Neutralisation, or “enforced permanent neutrality,” as it can be called, is the idea of removing a plot of land, a waterway, an institution, or even just infrastructure, from the realm of military planning and alliance making through multilateral agreements.2 It is a realist tool for the management of military con#icts in an imperfect world where universal peace is aspired, but not achieved, and where the security dilemma remains a constant of international politics. Although a quite elaborate concept, neutral- isation, at its core, mainly implies three things: non-participation in military alliances, no foreign or foreign directed troops deployed on a neutralized territory, and no partici- pation of a neutral in foreign wars. The two most famous examples are the neutralisations of Switzerland (1815) and Belgium (1839). In both cases, several Great Powers vouched to recognise the neutrality and territorial integrity of the two states. The golden age of neutralisation came around the dawn of the twentieth century3 when the two Hague Peace Conferences (1899, 1907) codified many of the customary neutrality practices of previous decades.4 Neutralisation should not be understood as carrying a pejorative meaning. It is a purely technical term alluding to the external element of a permanent neutrality having the consent and blessing of (a part of) the international community, in contrast to self-declared permanent neutralities that lack explicit international recog- nition. Examples thereof are the early-twentieth-century neutrality policies of Sweden and Norway5 or those of some post-communist states like present-day Serbia6 or Mongolia.7

Importantly, neutralisation does not preclude defensive security arrangements for the neutralised territories. Although Switzerland and Belgium were both permanently neu- tralised, they di"ered in terms of security guarantees. Whilst Switzerland was alone responsible to guard its borders, and its army was even put in charge of defending the neutrality of the neighbouring Sardinian province of Haute-Savoie (which was neutral- ised and demilitarised),8 Belgian neutrality was augmented with “hard” British security guarantees. Striking a double-agreement in 1870, Her Majesty’s Government signed two treaties, one with France, promising military support to Paris (and Brussels) should Belgium be invaded by Prussia, and vice-versa, with Prussia, promising aide to

Berlin (and Brussels), in the case of a French breach of Belgian neutrality.9 This two-way security agreement externally reinforced the territorial integrity of Belgium during the Franco-Prussian war and was the major legal argument for Britain’s entry into the First World War when Germany eventually violated Belgian neutrality. It is worth noting that the agreement was made without the Belgian Government being actually part of it, thereby not constituting an alliance.

Although the Second World War and the re-creation of global collective security under the auspices of the United Nations (UN) led to a decline of classic neutrality, the advent of the Cold War immediately incentivised new forms of neutral behaviour. For one, the decolonised states of Asia and Africa distanced themselves from the block mentality of the Cold War in the form of the Nonaligned Movement. Neutralisation, too, made a comeback through several Eurasian frontier states declaring their neutrality under the auspices (and with the consent) of the continents two military blocks, like Finland and Austria. Other examples include the unsuccessful cases of Laos and Cambodia.10 Also for Japan and Germany, neutralisation was proposed but abandoned in both cases, and replaced by tight military integrations, even at the cost of long-term German division. However, it is worth noting that despite Berlin’s negative reaction towards the so-called Stalin note of 1952 for an alliance-free Germany, suggestions for a neutral Central Europe, including Germany, continued for many years. George F. Kennan, suggested in 1956–57 a neutral Central Europe because he did not believe there would be another way to unify Germany, and called Central Europe the “in- between-zone.”11 Other proposals included those of US Senators Hubert H. Humphrey and William F. Knowland, who started a bipartisan initiative in the same years to create a bu"er zone in Europe, that would go hand in hand with the with- drawal of US and Soviet troops from Germany and the members of the Warsaw Pact. Eventually, such a bu"er zone could have been linked to existing neutral states, Austria, Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland. Similar ideas came from the chairman of the British Labour Party, Hugh Gaitskell.12 In the end, these plans were not realised. US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, stated at a classi!ed meeting in 1958, the US and the Soviet Union agreed that a uni!ed neutral Germany could not be controlled, hence uni!cation should not be a goal of US policy.

The end of the Cold War led to a decrease in alliance formation globally – the Warsaw Pact transformed into the much smaller and much weaker Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) went through an identity crisis until well into the 2000s. Today, we are seeing a reversal of that trend in the increasing polarisation of security policy. US President, Joseph Biden, and the North Atlantic Council speak of an “alliance of democracies”13 against autocratic states, a geopolitical concept underpinned by idealist values, but in many ways trumping values and leading back into the alliance thinking of the past. Irrespective of the political colour of the US administration, the country does not hesitate to enlist non-democracies among its allies to get their support against China. Communist Vietnam and the Philip- pines of authoritarian Rodrigo Duterte are just two examples that the US is trying to win for its alliance system in the Paci!c. Similarly, Narendra Modi’s India hardly quali!es as a full-#edged democracy, but it is part of the newly created Quad-alliance of the US, Aus- tralia, and Japan, joining AUKUS another anti-Chinese alliance, consisting of the US, Australia, and the UK.14

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4 P. LOTTAZ AND H. GÄRTNER

Under these circumstances, balance of power concepts are becoming relevant again. The realist school holds that smaller and medium-sized states have three choices: First, they could join an alliance and bandwagon with a great power. The US is increasingly pressuring countries in Asia to take sides in the US-China rivalry. The more South Korea bandwagons with the US, North Korea will seek closer ties with China. Second, realists see “balancing” as an alternative behaviour, although that is mainly reserved for big powers, since small states usually lack the military capabilities of credible balan- cing on their own and are; hence, often forced into a collective balancing approach, blur- ring the line with bandwagoning. Last, there is a more e"ective strategy for small states, namely neutrality in the sense of classic neutralisation.

With the choice between bandwagoning and neutrality comes the fear of being entrapped in a great power con#ict, or the fear of being abandoned in case of an attack of a Great Power. If a great power con#ict is looming, the fear of entrapment might be more reasonable and neutrality the better choice.15 If no great power con#ict is on the horizon, or in a period of détente, neutrality o"ers more room for manoeuver to neutrals regarding their provision of good o$ces, mediation, peacekeeping, and serving as meeting places to the international community. This dynamic was well under- stood in the past and discussions about Korea joining the rank of o$cially neutralised states go back 140 years.

The old idea of a neutralized Korea

Already in 1885, the intellectual Yu Kil-Chun proposed Korean neutralisation in a popular essay.16 Around the same time, the !rst political proposals were formulated by Japanese statesmen, the most high-ranking coming from Foreign Minister, Inoue Kaoru. In the 1890s, Kojong, the last King of Chos°n-Korea, too, proposed a neutralisation to (unsuccessfully) prevent Japan from colonising the peninsula.17 Although neutralisation was not discussed anymore during the occupation period, after Korea was liberated, in 1945, and unfortunately divided into Soviet and American occu- pation zones, the Truman Administration contemplated the “desirability of perma- nent neutralisation of Korea.”18 The incoming Eisenhower administration shelved the plan as the Korean War intensified. The only kind of neutrality Korea experienced in the following years was the neutralisation and demilitarisation of the 38th parallel, after the war ended in 1953, and the political neutrality of North Korea toward its two patrons during the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s and 1970s.19 A decade later the idea of reunification under a neutral framework reappeared in a letter from North Korean Dictator Kim Il Sung to Ronald Regan (1987).20 Only two years later South Korea’s Kim Dae-Jung, a prominent Member of Parliament and later President (1998–2003) stated similarly that “if the country is reunified in the future, I think it will become an Austrian-style neutral country.”21 Also, Kang Young-Hoon, a high-ranking diplomat and short-lived Prime Minister (1988–90) pointed out, in 2004, that “Korea’s future foreign and security policy should seek permanent neutrality.”22 So did Son Hak-Kyu, the former governor of Gyeonggi province, when he proposed in 2012 to make a unified Korea into a neutral country.23 His opinion has gained more prominence recently through his candidature for the 2022 presidential election.

Scholars of international relations, too, have been studying the prospects for Korean neutrality lively. Selig Harrison has discussed the importance of US disengagement from South Korea as a “de facto neutralisation” as early as 1974.24 25 years later, he still stood behind the idea, dedicating a book to the proposal.25 Kwan Hwang even published three books on the same issue before the end of the Cold War.26 After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tae-Hwan Kwak and Seung-Ho Joo dedicated an essay and an edited volume to unification under neutrality,27 and Tae-Ryong Yoon argued for the neutralisation of South Korea alone,28 while several other academics proposed North Korean neutrality.29 In fact, the turn of the millennium was particularly vibrant in terms of neutralisation ideas, especially for outsider assessments, including English- language articles on Chinese perspectives,30 or Canadian involvement.31 A recent addition to the literature is Sangpil Jin’s “Surviving Imperial Intrigues,” in which the author studies nineteenth-century neutralisation proposals, driving him to argue that also contemporary Korea could be neutralised.32 In the wake of these various assessments, Korea’s case has been compared to nearly all possible neutralities of the past 200 years: Switzerland, Belgium, Luxemburg, Bulgaria, Austria, Finland, and even Laos.

Nearly all reuni!cation theorists agree that a viable solution must address the local (inter-Korean) and international parts of the Korean Question simultaneously. Both Koreas have valid reasons to fear an adverse end to the division: North Korea will do anything it can to prevent a German-style reunification in which the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) was swallowed and dissolved into the Federal Republic (FRG). At the same time, South Korea has legitimate reasons to fear a violent Northern takeover, in the way Vietnam was reunified after North Vietnam eradicated the South. At the same time, it is obvious – historically and judging from current political assurances – that both, the US and China, would go to war in defence of “their” Korea, to prevent a unified peninsula hostile to their interests. In fact, both Koreas have the strongest of security guarantees from their patrons; for the north, it is the “China-DPRK Treaty on Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance”33 which contains a mutual-defence clause (China’s only military alliance), and for the south, it is the “Mutual Defence Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea”34 that contains the same mutual-defence guaran- tees. The way forward to make a neutralisation of a reunified peninsula palatable to all sides is by renegotiating these treaties toward an overall more neutralist situation on the peninsula. Neutralisation and unification do not have to be achieved in one overwhelming coup de force but can be the outcome of a slow, mutual process over many years. The advantage of this approach is that it can be initiated by any one of the four security partners and through relatively small changes to the existing treaty configurations without an adverse impact on the de-facto security situation. This is important, as it cannot be assumed that a solution decreasing the status quo security situation for one of the states involved would be acceptable to them. Only modifications that do not decrease the security benefits of the partners are realistic in the !rst place. For both modifications, there are Cold War precedents that illustrate how these arrangements could be organised and how they benefit both Koreas and their patrons.

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Finlandisation for North Korea

First, one can discuss the “Finlandisation” of North Korea, meaning a change of the DPRK-China mutual defence treaty toward a security agreement akin to the one the Soviet Union used to have with Finland. It guaranteed the USSR that Finnish territory would be off-limits to its adversaries and bound the Finns contractually to the defence of the Soviet Union—albeit not universally. The critical aspects of the agreement were anchored in article 1 and 4:

In the eventuality of Finland, or the Soviet Union through Finnish territory, becoming the object of an armed attack (...), Finland will, true to its obligations as an independent state, !ght to repel the attack. Finland will in such cases use all its available forces for defending its territorial integrity by land, sea, and air, and will do so within the frontiers of Finland in accordance with obligations de!ned in the present agreement and, if necessary, with the assistance of or jointly with, the Soviet Union.35

The High Contracting Parties confirm their pledge, (...), not to conclude any alliance or join any coalition directed against the other High Contracting Party.36

The agreement also provided for bilateral consultations and the option of Soviet support to Finnish defence. Importantly, there was no automatism prescribed in the treaty, and Finland was only obliged to come to the aid of the USSR in case of an attack through its own territory which, by any means, would have already triggered Finnish defences anyhow and is therefore very di"erent from a mutual defence obligation. Finland’s long-term president, Urho Kekkonen, clearly understood Finnish neutrality !rst and foremost as a policy to avoid the activation of the treaty with the Soviets. However, A. Upton wittily observed, “that when it comes to the test, there can be no doubt whose side she [Finland] is neutral on.”37 Although this might seem contradictory, it is normal that neutralisation serves one great power more than the other. Geostrategi- cally, Swiss neutrality, too, has always been more important to the military security of its immediate neighbours (sheltering them from attacks from each other) rather than to distant belligerents, as the United States. Finnish neutrality, in its letter and spirit, was always geared toward providing security first and foremost to itself and the Soviet Union.

For North Korea, one can reason in analogous terms. Since China is a great power with a nuclear triad and all possible capabilities of self-defence, the only real danger Beijing faces from the Korean peninsula is the stationing of hostile nuclear, or con- ventional assets near its southern border, only a few hundred kilometres from major industrial hubs and its capital city, or from troops that could invade its territory from that #ank. There is little hope that the North Korean navy could come to China’s help in case of a confrontation between Chinese and US navies, nor would its military be useful in the case of a war with India or another distant neighbour. North Korean troops and military assets are of little value to Beijing other than for the defence of hostilities emanating from the territory of the South or the Sea of Japan. To China, North Korea’s strategic value is its bu"er function. A change from the current mutual-defence treaty to a Finnish-style agreement in which North Korea promises to defend itself and China against attacks through its territory would not only be in line with current North Korean defence policy, but also guarantee China exactly the same bene!ts it already enjoys under the current treaty. Furthermore, a provision like Article 4, that the territory of the DPRK can under no future agreement be made part of a hostile alliance to China, would further enhance Chinese security by ensuring that in a reunified Korea, no hostile troops or assets could be stationed in the northern territories. Such an agreement would not be a change to the status quo and represent a security bene!t to China, all while enabling North Korea to take a decisive step toward a neutral position, compatible with a reunified neutral state. If it were not for UN sanctions, the DPRK could even receive guarantees from China and Russia concerning its rights to buy weapons from both partners for its self-defence. Such agreements would be compatible with its step-by-step neutralisation according to the Finnish model.

Austriasation for South Korea

Secondly, South Korea could aspire to follow an Austrian model to achieve a neutral position of its own. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Austria was divided into four zones jointly occupied by the United States, Britain, and France in the Southwest, and by the Soviet Union in the East. There was a danger of a partition similar to Germany and Korea, where the question of military allegiance of the occupied territories in both cases was a pivotal stumbling block toward an amicable agreement among the occupation forces and their respective local administrative dependencies. However, in the Austrian case, the existence of one single national administration in Vienna, and the decision to promise the Soviets unwavering neutrality in military affairs in the Moscow memorandum led to a successful and unified independence.38 In its neutrality law of 1955,39 Austria agreed not to join a military alliance and not to allow any foreign military bases on its territory. All foreign soldiers left Austria in October that year, formally restoring its independence. Nevertheless, Vienna did not become ideologically neutral. Austria quickly adopted Western values and started a process of integration in the market economy, eventually leading to close collaboration with West European economic institutions and its eventual accession to the European Union, in 1995. Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow accepted the economic partisanship of Vienna, mainly because Austria guaranteed it would not become a security threat by joining NATO.40

In terms of military capabilities, some neutral countries – foremost Sweden and Switzerland – experimented with the development of nuclear weapons, reasoning that such capabilities would be necessary to defend independently their territories in case of a hostile (Soviet) intervention.41 Austria, in contrast, quickly became a model for the concept of a Central European Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ). The idea gained momentum through the so-called Rapacki Plan (named after a Polish foreign minister), prescribing military disengagement from the blocs and a nuclear-free status of the parti- cipating states. Poland, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, and the FRG should become neutral and remain o"-limits for nuclearisation in the same way the Austrian State Treaty de!ned that “Austria shall not possess, construct or experiment with – (a) Any atomic weapon, (b) any other major weapon adaptable now or in the future (...).” Because of the emerging concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) the plan was not implemented, although it was never completely shelved.

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This concept of a conventionally armed, but non-nuclear neutralist state, is suitable for the !rst South Korean step towards security compatibility with the North. It would be based on a change in the current security treaty on the one hand, and a South Korean pledge concerning nuclear weapons on the other. The treaty change would have to be effected with the US to the extent that the two countries agreed shifting from the current reciprocal commitment of mutual defence to a unilateral US commit- ment towards South Korea, in exchange for the continuous lease of extra-territorial mili- tary bases, in the same way, the US–Japanese security treaty functions.42 Although base- lease agreements admittedly infringe on a core-aspect of neutralisation (i.e. no foreign troops on neutral soil), the change in the treaty would be a very strong signal to both North Korea and China that the next step, a complete neutralisation, including the with- drawal of US troops, could be negotiated if reuni!cation was actually aspired by all parties.

Secondly, a unilateral ROK commitment to remaining nuclear-free is not only in line with current US policy that rules out nuclear-sharing, or even deployment of US tactical nuclear assets to South Korea,43 but it would also function as a powerful bargaining chip with the DPRK, as the issue of abandoning the North Korean nuclear programme will have to follow into the unification discussion at some point. It is not reasonable to expect either the US or Japan could consent to a nuclear-armed, uni!ed Korea. There- fore, the seeds of a Korean “single state NWFZ” of the likes of Mongolia44 can be planted in the ROK to ease the North’s abandonment of its programme in the future. Beyond these commitments, South Korea would not have to give up its security ties with the US or Japan. Procurement of weapons, exchange of military know-how, and even combined maneuvers to maintain interoperability would still be possible and should still take place. The goal would not be to disarm the ROK, just to initiate a neutr- alist foreign policy signaling future compatibility with that of the North.

Further neutralist steps toward uni!cation

In short, neutralisation does not have to be complete from the beginning. Steps towards neutralism can be made without endangering North or South Korean security.45 Despite the proposed changes, de-facto, nothing in the security con!guration of the peninsula would actually change, which should make the taking of these steps easier to contemplate on all sides. Even the denuclearisation of the North can be put off until actual unification negotiations start because under a dual-neutralist framework North Korea would not yet be pressured to abandon its nuclear capabilities. Likewise, the framework would give time for political and economic rapprochements, be it through the working on a federalist future, or through a slowly evolving inter-Korean customs Union with limited suprana- tional powers, akin to the early European Coal and Steel Community.

Of course, a peaceful reunification of Korea can only be achieved if internal and external factors align. A “real” solution can only be negotiated in a process similar to the “4 + 2 Talks,” through which modern Germany was established, just in the Korean case, it would be the US, China, Russia, and Japan, plus the two Koreas that would need to agree on a roadmap.46 Nevertheless, the separate neutralisation of the two Koreas is a step that can precede actual uni!cation talks and could even be initiated by any one of the two Koreas, or in consultation among each other, thereby giving much more agency to the Koreans in a geopolitical process, which, at many crucial junctures, was taken over their heads.

In the end, a legally binding neutralisation of a denuclearised, but uni!ed Korean state would have to be aspired to solve realistically the security conundrum in the region. China would bene!t from these steps !rst by decreasing its own security com- mitment, to the DPRK whilst maintaining its strategic bu"er, which would eventually grow to the entire size of the peninsula. The US, too, would gain from this arrangement as it would secure the status-quo for as long as the peninsula was not completely neu- tralised and politically stable. Once that was achieved, a phased-out troop withdrawal would free up valuable US resources without leaving a power vacuum in Korea. Fur- thermore, the US presence in Japan would remain una"ected. To future-proof the agreement from a US perspective, another provision from the Austrian State Treaty can function as a template, since it contained a clause guaranteeing Austria would never again join a union with Germany. For Korea, a similar treaty could expressly pro- hibit territorial claims of any external power (like China or Russia). In this way, a united peninsula could serve in perpetuity as a bu"er zone, the way Switzerland bu"ered its neighbours for over 200 years.

The Korean peninsula has always been a geostrategic hotspot, which, had it been removed from the Great Power rivalry would have benefitted all parties in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-!rst centuries alike. Yet, the power con!guration in East Asia and a “status-quo lethargy” have constantly prevented what economists would call a Pareto- efficient solution from emerging. Maybe a baby-steps approach toward neutralisation from both ends can !nally change the security dynamic.

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Relative to the Neutrality of the Netherlands and Belgium. wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/ nTreaties_and_Documents_Relative_to_the_Neutrality_of_the_Netherlands_and_Bel- gium. The Swiss and the world conveniently forgot about this defense obligation when in 1914 the First World War broke out.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Ju-Hyung Kim for his kind support in researching Korean language newspapers and providing translations for some of the cited materials. The authors bear the sole responsibility for all errors.

Disclosure statement

No potential con#ict of interest was reported by the author(s). Notes on contributors

Dr. Pascal Lottaz is an Adjunct Researcher for Neutrality Studies at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (Tokyo), and Adjunct Professor for European Politics at Temple University Japan Campus. He leads the research network neutralitystudies.com.

Prof. Dr. Heinz Gärtner is lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna. He was academic director of the Austrian Institute for International A"airs. Among other things, he chairs the advisory board of the International Institute for Peace in Vienna and of the commission Strategy and Security of the Austrian Armed Forces.

ORCID

Pascal Lottaz http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9737-9760