Perspectives on 'Caring' and its Potential for Deciphering Inter-Korean Diplomacy and Foreign Policy
In late January of this year, North Korean President Kim Jong Un blew up the Arch of Reunification, a monument built in 2001 to symbolise the genuine hope for a unified Korea. This was not a shocking surprise in inter-Korean relations, given Kim’s earlier policy speech calling the Arch an “eyesore” and amendment to the Constitution to label South Korea the “invariable principal enemy”.
In fact, since the 2019 failure of the US-North Korea Hanoi Summit, inter-Korean relations have steadily deteriorated, with Kim taking consecutive steps to showcase Pyongyang’s dissatisfaction. A few notable examples include the 2023 suspension of the Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA) aimed at reducing border tensions and accidents, a 2022 North Korean law that enshrined the right to pre-emptive nuclear strikes, and the 2020 demolition of the Joint Liason Office with South Korea in Kaesong.
This has led to a perception among many geopolitical commentators that Pyongyang is departing fundamentally from its founder, Kim Il Sung's stance on pursuing an independent, peaceful reunification of Korea and is now on a warpath.
Two experts on North Korea, Robert L. Carlin, a former US State Department official, and Siegfried S. Hecker, a professor at Middlebury Institute of International Studies, posit, “[this] may sound overly dramatic, but we believe that, like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war.” However, this binary thinking exaggerates and self-verifies the outcome of conflict.
If Pyongyang used nuclear weapons in a meaningful capacity today, the regime would collapse tomorrow. As the US warned Pyongyang in 2022, “any nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies and partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of that regime”. So, in spite of fearmongering rhetoric, the possibility of this scenario is highly unlikely.
Moreover, if it decides to engage in non-nuclear military conflict with South Korea, it will also undoubtedly lose. A simple overview of material, technological disparities and alliance networks will emphasise this point. Accepting that Pyongyang fundamentally seeks regime survival and is neither an irrational actor nor blatantly ignorant of reality, there must be a reason informing Pyongyang’s line of foreign policy.
If war were truly in Pyongyang’s immediate agenda, it would also not currently be sending North Korean missile and ammunition stocks to Russia. So, why, despite all these factors, is it so easy to arrive at the conclusion that Pyongyang is an ‘erratic’ decision-maker stumbling its way towards an unwinnable war?
Herein lie the potential benefits of utilising a framework of ‘care’. Under this lens, the diplomatic dynamic between Seoul (and Washington) and Pyongyang can be characterised as a relationship of ‘carer’ and ‘cared for’. Although this dynamic may appear strange to conceptualise, it is actually one that is universally observable. Take, for example, the binaries of the ruler–subject, nurse–patient, parent–child, and so on. The traditional conclusion drawn from applying this dynamic is that Pyongyang– as the ‘Hermit Kingdom’–is portrayed as the ill-tempered child seeking attention while Seoul and Washington take the role of an even-tempered parent attempting to ‘chastise’ them. This depiction plays very well into Western discourse and media circles, which has profound impacts.
The stereotype of the carer-cared-for relationship has several problematic assumptions. The carer-cared-for stereotype entails a one-way transaction whereby the carer makes a unilateral effort to provide care for another. It assumes that the ‘carer knows best’ and that the ‘cared-for’ does not know ‘reasonably’ what it needs for their well-being. The principal risk hinted at by the ‘child’ discourse is that it infantilises Pyongyang. Using the ‘care’ perspective, two effects of infantilisation can be highlighted that constrained diplomacy.
By approaching the diplomatic table with the perception that the counterpart is a ‘child’, the function and nature of international discussions can look very different. This has real-world implications seen by Washington’s diplomatic approach as a ‘solicitous uncle’ during the 2018 Trump-Kim Singapore Summit. The primary criticism of the Singapore Summit was that it produced a lot of rhetoric but little substantive effects. The joint agreement consisted of many “polite diplomatic platitudes”, but the main productive outcome was a “freeze for freeze” tactic that both parties could easily reverse. This aligns with senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment Suzanne Dimaggio's concerns –drawing on her interactions with North Korean delegates– that because Pyongyang is “highly rational” and has a strategy, Washington must be equally focused and committed to negotiations, not ‘talks’. The critical idea is that the infantilising effect made Washington under-anticipate the necessary preparations as well as lessen its intent to engage in substantive negotiations with Pyongyang. Put differently, Washington spoke to Pyongyang as you would a child rather than an equal, which led to an awkward diplomatic situation of ‘talking to’ rather than ‘negotiating with’.
The second effect of the infantilising influence of the carer-cared-for stereotype can be seen in the ‘punishment and chastising’ diplomatic approach adopted by Washington. This method is shortsighted in constructing a productive diplomatic relationship based on ‘care. As Luo comments about the nature of ‘caring’, “the cared-for’s appreciation of the kindness shown to her is necessary to the establishment or maintenance of the caring relationship”.
On the one hand, Washington wants Pyongyang to act ‘normally’ in the carer-cared-for relationship by responding to kindness with gratitude. On the other, Washington overreaches in the paternalistic dynamic by hovering the ultimate disciplinary measure of ‘regime end’ over Pyongyang’s head, treating it not even as a child but as an infant. The interpreted message is that Pyongyang is like an infant with a ‘hand in the cookie jar’. That is to say, it is already attributed with guilty intent, cannot be trusted, does not know any better and thus can only be dealt with using extremes.
This inference can be seen most clearly in Seoul’s treatment of the North Korean regime. In 2022, Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Kim Seung-kyum delivered a warning that Seoul’s missile capabilities “are at a considerable level… capable of sending a fatal blow to the enemy” and referred to Pyongyang as an enemy should it pose any threat. This presents a critical issue because so long as Pyongyang is infantilised, its behaviour will be characterised as ‘erratic’, ‘irrational’ and, therefore, a threat to the security of South Korea.
Moreover, in the same year, President Yoon Suk-yeol enhanced the ‘three-axis’ system, which denotes the “Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation” (KMPR), an operational plan to eliminate the North Korean leadership; the “Kill Chain” strategy, which pre-emptively strikes Pyongyang’s nuclear infrastructure and military command chain; and the “Korea Air and Missile Defense System”. Importantly, according to anonymous military sources, the KMPR was first disclosed in 2016 during Park Geun-hye’s administration. Ergo, there was a pre-existing vacuum of trust before the failure at the 2019 Hanoi Summit, making it all the more apparent that Pyongyang was not treated on the basis of equality. So, the framing of a benevolent carer and ignorant cared-for has much more nuance.
Continuous infantilising treatment and the threat of disciplinary punishment is a strong rationale for Pyongyang’s foreign policy behaviour as reactive rather than escalatory and problematises the idea of North Korea as an ‘irrational’ actor or sole aggressor in the Korean Peninsula.
On an optimistic note, critical analysis of a relationship of ‘caring’ can escape the pitfall of infantilisation. Caring, at its core, involves the identification and alleviation of the suffering of others. As political scholar Christopher Paul Harris suggests, the useful ethic of care must be invested in “unsetting and undoing totalizing systems of knowledge”. So immersing oneself in such relations and moving beyond the stereotypes can provide alternative ways of thinking about the limitations but also the potentiality of inter-Korean diplomacy.
Image courtesy of Jack Upland via Wikimedia, ©2012. Some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
