South Korea’s National Assembly elections were supposed to shape the landscape for December’s presidential contest; instead, the parliamentary outcome seems to have muddied the waters.  The unanticipated victory of the ruling Saenuri Party has put Park Geun-hye back in the driver’s seat as the front runner candidate in the latest opinion polls, but the presidential election is still seven months away, an eternity in South Korean politics.

The Asan Institute’s Woo Jung-yeop has analyzed the parliamentary vote in a CFR Other Report, in which he concludes that the opposition Democratic Unification Party (DUP) was hurt by its decision to form a grand coalition, which pulled its campaign strategy to the left.  The DUP’s decision to run an anti-Lee Myung-bak (MB) campaign failed as a result of internal discipline problems, especially the decision by anti-MB podcaster and comedian Kim Young-min not to step down days before the election despite widespread public criticism for past foul-mouthed and politically inappropriate remarks.  Moreover, the DUP’s effort to ride a wave of anti-American sentiment by campaigning against the KORUS FTA and construction of a naval base at Jeju Island foundered, in part, on the flip-flopping of DUP leaders who had initiated both projects when they were in power during the Roh Moo-hyun administration.

Although Park Geun-hye was hailed as an “election queen” following her party’s surprise win, the results provide considerable cautionary data regarding whether her campaign for president this December can be successful.  The Saenuri Party lost in Seoul and Kyonggi Province, which comprise almost half of South Korea’s population, and the total number of votes for Saenuri Party candidates was less than for candidates from a combined opposition party.  Despite her apparent advantage, Park has drawn a surprising number of competitors in the ruling party primary, including five-time incumbent lawmaker and Hyundai heir Chong Mong-joon, Gyeonggi Provincial Governor Kim Moon-soo, and MB-confidant and political strategist Lee Jae-Oh, and several other candidates.

The opposition side had been riding high following the strong performance of Park Won-soon in the by-elections for Seoul Mayor, but was badly shaken by the National Assembly loss.   The election results appear to have weakened former Roh Moo-hyun chief-of-staff Moon Jae-in, opening the way for others including former opposition leader Sohn Hak-kyu or relative newcomer Gyongsang Provincial governor Kim Doo-gwan to climb back into the race.  It appears that the winner of any DUP primary contest would still face a run-off with popular SNU professor and IT entrepreneur Ahn Chul-soo, if he finally decides to run for the presidency.  A divided opposition candidacy would provide the easiest path to the presidency for Park Geun-hye, who appears to have a solid plurality of support from her longstanding base of support in Kyeongsang Province.

The day after the parliamentary elections last month, the Korea Economic Institute sponsored a discussion of the election result with Victor Cha, Bruce Klingner, and myself, at which we identified two factors likely to shape the presidential election: an issues agenda primarily focused on social welfare policies and efforts to capture the middle ground versus simply mobilizing evenly-divided political bases. It was argued as well that the United States is likely to be eager to work with South Korea’s next president regardless of who wins the December election.

Although South Korea’s presidential campaign process is mercifully compressed compared to the U.S. process, past election seasons have proven to be highly volatile, depending on the issues and mood, or “wind” that may arise as dominant influences on Korean voters in any particular election season.  The parliamentary outcome underscores that conservatives and progressives in South Korea’s political landscape are relatively evenly-divided; for this reason, the traditional rule of thumb in analyzing Korean presidential electoral maneuvering is to expect the unexpected.

The conventional wisdom is that there could be nothing more dangerous to North Korea’s current leadership than the penetration of information into North Korea from the outside world.  A new empirical study released last week by Nat Ketchum and Jane Kim entitled “A Quiet Opening:  North Koreans in a Changing Media Environment”draws on surveys and interviews from North Korean refugees to show that information penetration is changing North Korea, but the result has been an evolutionary change of circumstances in North Korea rather than uprising or revolution.

Almost four-fifths of survey respondents indicated that word-of-mouth is the most common means by which information is disseminated in North Korea.   Two-fifths of respondents identified DVDs and official state media as primary sources of information, and about one-fifth of respondents acknowledged South Korean and foreign media as important sources of information in North Korea.  This data confirms that North Korea is a society where rumors travel fast.  Prohibitions on “horizontal” transmission of information are increasingly ineffective.  The state media is increasingly challenged as an official source of information and entertainment, not only by rumors but also by better produced propaganda-free entertainmet offerings from South Korea.

An irony of the report is that a primary catalyst driving consumption of South Korean cultural products in the North appears to be the sons and daughters of the elite, who have the means to secure and disseminate South Korean materials inside North Korea with relative impunity. Additionally, lowered prices of TVs and DVD players have enabled the spread of South Korean music and dramas to a broad North Korean audience. The growing popularity of these products is a telling indicator of the failure of North Korean propaganda and the potentially powerful influence of South Korean culture, which is changing the behavior patterns and vocabulary of North Korea’s presumed future leaders and people.

But the report also reveals that North Korea’s political system has shown sufficient durability and cohesion to resist upward social mobility for non-elites, even if they have experienced economic success in North Korea’s burgeoning markets, participation in which itself is a major means to access outside information.  North Korea has used outside media for its own purposes, even by inviting external media representatives to cover—and by extension, to validate—critical events such as the September 2010 Party Conference, the funeral of Kim Jong-il, and the 100^th anniversary of the birth of the founder, Kim Il-sung.  This strategy backfired when North Korea allowed extensive foreign media coverage in advance of the failed April 11, 2012 satellite launch, which provoked an unprecedented admission of failure.

Make no mistake; information penetration is a force for transformation of the North Korean system.  But the timeline for such changes will be frustratingly slow unless additional measures are undertaken to expose North Korea to the outside world.  Ultimately, greater change  will require the sons and daughters of North Korea’s elites  to do more than just copy South Korean dance moves or popular expressions; they will need to think like South Koreans and the rest of the world.  This is why we need to provide more opportunities for North Koreans to be educated abroad, so that they can  truly absorb the information necessary to move North Korea toward reform.

The UN Security Council issued a toughly-worded Presidential Statement on April 16, 2012, that deplored North Korea’s April 13 launch, called upon North Korea to “re-establish its preexisting commitments to a moratorium on missile launches” and directed the committee responsible for implementing UN security council resolutions against North Korea to make additional sanctions recommendations.

Within twenty-four hours of the UN statement, North Korea responded by rejecting UN condemnation, claiming “sincerity and transparency of the satellite launch for peaceful purposes to the maximum from A to Z.”  The DPRK Foreign Ministry categorically rejected UNSC Resolutions 1718 and 1874 as instruments of antagonism and oppression, pledged to “continue exercising the independent right to use of space,” and asserted that it is no longer bound to its obligations to its February 29 Leap Day Agreement with the United States, stating that “peace is very dear for us but the dignity of the nation and the sovereignty of the country are dearer for us.”

If the events of 2009 are any guide, we should expect more North Korean multi-stage rocket tests, among other unnamed “retaliatory measures” from North Korea.  Where did the Leap Day agreement go wrong, and what is an alternative course of action for the United States?  I tried to answer these questions together with fellow witnesses Michael Green, Patrick Cronin, and Frederick Fleitz in testimony presented to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on April 18^th.  You can read more here.

North Korea’s satellite test using ballistic missile technology highlights the danger of North Korean proliferation. Each multi-stage rocket test that North Korea conducts, whether they are called satellite launches or missile tests, brings North Korea closer to the day it can launch a nuclear strike. This is why former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates sounded the alarm regarding North Korean missile development in January 2011.

The June 2010 Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force Report on the Korean Peninsula highlighted both vertical proliferation (North Korea’s indigenous development of a delivery capability for WMD) and horizontal proliferation (whereby North Korea sells or transfers nuclear material to other state or non-state actors) as priority sources of concern. The most effective response to North Korean horizontal proliferation has been the October 2007 Israeli air strike on a nuclear reactor under construction in Syria that was designed as a plutonium factory.

Until the Israeli strike, it was not publicly known that North Korea was providing technical assistance in the construction of a reactor at a location within Syria that had no associated facilities for production of nuclear power. The Israeli strike has not put an end to North Korean horizontal proliferation efforts, as indicated by reports from the UN Panel of Experts assembled to evaluate implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1874, which puts into place an international framework for stopping instances of North Korean horizontal proliferation. But there has been no deterrent effort analogous to the Israeli strike on the Syrian facilities to stop North Korea from pursuing vertical proliferation by extending its own missile delivery capabilities.

A direct strike on North Korean launch facilities would carry with it considerable political risks, even if it might be the only effective way to send a message to North Korea that long-range missile tests of any kind are unacceptable. This is why no country has pursued this policy option despite North Korea’s three previous tests, each of which has resulted in ultimately meaningless sanctions and hortatory statements from the UN Security Council. UN resolutions have not stopped North Korea from pursuing its plans. Instead, without teeth or the collective will to comprehensively implement sanctions, the UN Security Council and its ineffective efforts probably only give Pyongyang a green light for future launches.

The region’s anxiety regarding North Korean satellite launch preparations is palpable. South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan have all reported that they are prepared to shoot down satellite debris in the event that it threatens their respective territories. But there has been little public discussion of options to prevent North Korea’s launch from going forward. Former Prime Minister Abe raised the possibility of preemption in connection with North Korea’s failed 2006 satellite launch, but such a course of action by Japan would be enormously controversial and might ignite a constitutional crisis.

A South Korean civilian commission set up to review defense policy following the March 2010 Cheonan incident recommended in December 2010 that South Korea pursue a policy of “proactive deterrence,” seeming to advocate a preemptive option in response to future North Korean provocations; the South Korean defense minister has recently underscored South Korea’s will to retaliate strongly against North Korean provocations, but there has been little South Korean public discussion of preemption against North Korea’s satellite launch preparations.

Current Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and former Secretary of Defense William Perry advocated preemption in advance of North Korea’s July 2006 missile test, but the Obama administration did not pursue this option prior to North Korea’s April 2009 launch. President Obama’s message to North Korea delivered in his March 26 speech at Hankook University of Foreign Studies in Seoul signals the likelihood of a U.S. response to perceived violations of international rules, but does not signal willingness to take preemptive action to prevent such violations. Direct diplomacy has been limited since U.S. negotiators thought that they had made clear to North Korea that a satellite launch would be a deal-breaker in advance of the U.S. and DPRK Leap Day statements.

China’s President Hu Jintao faced stern requests to restrain North Korea from making the launch during his participation in the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, but Beijing knows that North Korea has tied the launch to domestic factors and fears actions that might upset North Korea’s domestic political consolidation. Also, it is not clear China-DPRK high-level communications channels are working well following Kim Jong Il’s death.

China’s major diplomatic test will occur after North Korea’s test, at which time there will be great pressure to return this issue to the UN Security Council. China accommodated the international consensus with a UN Security Council Resolution and Presidential Statement condemning North Korea’s past missile launches in 2006 and 2009, to which North Korea responded consistently in both years withnuclear tests. Following the shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island in 2010, China blocked even a UN discussions of any statement condemning North Korea. A UN Security Council failure to condemn a North Korean launch in the wake of the 2009 resolution would be an embarrassment to both the Obama administration and the UN Security Council.

There is clearly no country in East Asia that has the capacity or will to use force as a means to limit North Korean provocative actions. Until there is an “Israeli option” that breaks the cycle of North Korean impunity for its destabilizing actions, expect North Korea to take advantage of neighboring countries’ fears of North Korean instability to impose on its neighbors the increasingly exorbitant costs of North Korea’s regime survival.

*An earlier version of this blog was published in the CSIS Korea Platform.

South Korean voters go to the polls on April 11 to choose a new National Assembly. I invited Ma Sang-yoon of the Catholic University of Korea and currently a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center to provide a primer on the elections, which you can read here.

Professor Ma explains how the National Assembly elections are a backdrop for the December South Korean presidential elections, and highlights issues relevant to the future of U.S.-ROK relations. Ma explains that the National Assembly elections have focused primarily on social issues, combined with a high degree of mudslinging and attacks between the ruling and opposition camps over character issues.

Pre-election polling has shown a strong generational divide, with the ruling party gaining support from older voters and the opposition party gaining support from younger voters. Many analysts have identified strength of turnout as a critical variable that could influence the outcome, with higher turnout being an indicator that more younger voters are participating in the election.

South Korean election analysts are showing mixed views regarding the likely outcome, with Korea University’s Lee Nae-young anticipating a slim victory of 10-20 seats for the opposition (in line with Ma’s prediction in our essay), while Myungji University’s Shin Yul predicts that the ruling party will eke out a 10-seat victory.

The latest Korea Realmeter polls have Park Geun-hye enjoying an eight week rise in popularity,  and reestablishing herself as the presidential favorite when voters must choose between her and all the candidates. However, combined support for opposition candidates is still higher than Park’s support in those polls, and she still lags behind IT entrepreneur Ahn Chulsoo in popularity when voters need only to choose between the two. South Korea’s political environment is known for its volatility; even if the National Assembly elections provide a preliminary indicator regarding potential victors in the December presidential race, it is too early to make a safe prediction as to who will lead South Korea in 2013.

As over fifty world leaders gather in Seoul to address the task of how to more effectively secure nuclear materials, their landing path at Incheon airport will take them within range of North Korean surface-to-air missiles.  Although North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities are not formally on the agenda for the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit, Pyongyang’s leaders have done their best to ensure that North Korea won’t be forgotten in the global confab, first by announcing plans to launch a satellite in conjunction with the 100^th anniversary of the birth of North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung, and then by threatening war if the summit issues a statement on Pyongyang’s nuclear program.  The United States and DPRK in their respective February 29 “Leap Day” statements tentatively seemed ready to hit the “reset” button in U.S.-DPRK relations, but Pyongyang has apparently hit the “replay” button instead by rewinding to the events surrounding North Korea’s long-range rocket launch in 2009.

Even more worrisome is that the recent satellite launch announcement puts North Korea on a collision course with the international community as the DPRK seeks to consolidate political leadership under Kim Il’sung’s grandson, twenty-something Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong Il’s formal succession was accompanied by the launch of a Taepodong missile in 1998, and plans for Kim Jong-un’s succession were marked at an early stage three years ago by the North’s 2009 satellite launch, which was roundly condemned by a UN Presidential Statement.

North Korea’s outraged response to international efforts to ban its freedom to use outer space for peaceful purposes in 2009 included threats to conduct a nuclear test, which North Korea carried out only a month later. The strong international reaction that is building in response to defiant North Korea’s latest satellite launch announcement will heighten outrage in Pyongyang, while Pyongyang’s defiant insistence on its right to conduct a satellite launch will further outrage the international community.

For the United States, continued North Korean long-range missile testing (even under the guise of a satellite launch) highlights the priority concern of North Korean vertical proliferation, identified in the June 2010 findings of CFR’s Independent Task Force on Policy Toward the Korean Peninsula, and underscores the concern expressed by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in December 2010 that North Korea’s development of a long-range missile capability could become a direct threat to the United States.

The current path illustrates a fundamental dilemma for North Korea: actions taken to consolidate political leadership around Kim Jong-un may subject the DPRK to international protest, while deference to international concerns may undermine internal political legitimacy. But what if there are efforts to call Pyongyang on its assertion that it is only exercising its freedom to the peaceful use of space? What if the international community makes an offer that respects their right to send up a satellite but not a missile?  If one sets aside the challenges of securing inter-agency support, North Korea’s clear efforts to wed the rocket launch to Kim Jong-un’s political consolidation, and the backdrop of electoral politics in South Korea and the United States, how might one construct a policy path that combines diplomacy and force in ways that offer Pyongyang a face-saving way of advancing its satellite aspirations without damaging internal legitimacy by backing down to international demands? Such a course might include the following steps:

1)      The United States seeks a third party willing to offer North Korea launch services to place a North Korean satellite in orbit, and mobilizes support for such an offer among allies and partners in the six party framework.

2)      The United States quietly puts into place assets designed to give the U.S. president a credible preemptive option by following through on the past policy recommendations of former Secretary of Defense William Perry and current Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter that a North Korean multi-stage rocket be the object of a preemptive strike if it is placed on the launch pad.

3)      The U.S. pursues UN authorization in advance of a North Korean satellite test to enforce Security Council resolution UNSC Security Council Resolution 1874 with action to preempt North Korea’s satellite launch, arguing that North Korea’s 2010 provocations have shown that limited use of force on the peninsula need not escalate into full-scale war.

4)      The United States sends a special envoy to Pyongyang to make the offer of launch services, while underscoring American will to stop North Korea’s planned launch, with the understanding that acceptance of such an offer may be used by North Korean authorities as evidence of international support for North Korea’s new political leadership.

5)      The United States coordinates with Beijing to underscore to Pyongyang the sincerity of the international community’s willingness to launch a North Korean satellite into orbit so as to uphold restrictions on North Korean long-range missile launches of any kind as stated in UN Security Council Resolution 1874.

6)      Having sidestepped confrontation, the United States and DPRK implement “Leap Day” pledges, opening the way for the confidence building measures that North Korea called for in its own February 29 statement.

This admittedly unlikely script would avoid a serious case of déjà vu in which we are doomed to repeat the cycle of 2009.  It would also deprive Pyongyang of the ability to use international outrage as a means to unite North Korea’s population in support of the succession process.  It might also instigate a serious debate in Pyongyang over the future of North Korea and its relationship with the international community. But does the political will exist to pursue it?

The Nuclear Security Summit will bring more national leaders to Seoul than any other international meeting that South Korea has ever hosted.  Just the logistics for such a meeting are daunting, and South Korean hosts have been preparing for months to ensure no surprises (while the timing of North Korea’s  satellite launch announcement last week suggests that Pyongyang has been working for months on “surprises.”)

Johns Hopkins SAIS has offered extensive analysis of what the summit itself aims to accomplish, but Seoul will also want to make its mark in conjunction with the summit in ways that serve South Korean interests.  As part of the Korea program’s issues in U.S.-ROK relations series, Fred McGoldrick identifies the issues of North Korea, nuclear safety, and the negotiation of a U.S.-ROK nuclear security agreement that more adequately reflects South Korea’s needs and interests as three areas where South Korea will try to make progress, in addition to contributions to be announced at the summit regarding the enhanced global protection of nuclear materials.  Fred has also written a longer chapter on U.S.-ROK nonproliferation cooperation for my newly-published edited volume on The U.S.-South Korea Alliance, which evaluates prospects for expanded U.S.-ROK security cooperation following the June 2009 U.S.-ROK Joint Vision Statement.

The New York Times today reports North Korea’s announcement that it will launch a satellite next month as part of festivities to mark the 100^th anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s birth.  The story includes immediate reaction statements from South Korea, the United States, and Japan criticizing North Korean plans for such a launch. Despite North Korean protestations that they have an inherent right to peaceful use of space, North Korean testing of multi-stage rockets was proscribed by the United Nations in UNSC resolution 1874 that was passed following North Korea’s 2009 satellite launch and missile tests.

If the test goes ahead, it will destroy any prospect for “simultaneous moves aimed at building confidence” with the United States that the DPRK had invoked in its February 29 statement announcing the return of IAEA inspectors in exchange for U.S. food assistance to North Korea.  Despite North Korean appeals to the United States to change its “hostile policy,” a launch may scuttle any future prospects for non-hostility in U.S.-DPRK relations, coming on the heels of negotiations at which North Korea pledged not to conduct future missile tests.  Moreover, it directly challenges one of the rationales for supporting the Obama administration’s support of limited agreements with North Korea that such agreements serve to constrain North Korea’s provocative behavior.

North Korea attempted to make the case for its right to launch a satellite in 2009 both in advance of and following its April rocket test and has continued to make that case even on the day that Kim Jong Il died, foreshadowing the likelihood of a repeat of such a launch this spring.  North Korean rocket launches have historically been tied to domestic leadership events, and the renaming of Kim Jong-il’s birthdate using the name of the rocket launched in 2009 also underscored the likelihood that North Korea would pursue such a launch.

North Korea’s pursuit of a missile launch as a symbol of the consolidation of its domestic leadership will come with considerable cost.  It will further weaken the international legitimacy of North Korea and strengthen its isolation.  With the notable exception of China, few international observers can accept Kim Jong-un’s succession; even if it is consolidated domestically, North Korea’s dynastic succession is perceived as an anachronism.  Although plans for a spring missile test were probably made last year, the test will only heighten international suspicion if the fireworks displays planned for April 15 in Pyongyang are punctuated by a North Korean missile test.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton finally had occasion to address an ongoing spat over Chinese repatriation of over thirty North Koreans, many of whom have family members in South Korea, at a joint press conference with ROK foreign minister Kim Sung-hwan last Friday.  In answer to a reporter’s question, she stated that “we believe that refugees should not be repatriated and subjected once again to the dangers that they fled from. . . we urge all countries in the region to cooperate in the protection of North Korean refugees within their territories.”

These cases have occasioned appeals in recent weeks from the South Korean government, a hunger strike by a South Korean parliamentarian in front of the Chinese embassy in Seoul, and a benefit concert by South Korean pop stars to draw attention to the plight of these refugees.  If the testimony of other refugees from North Korea is correct, those North Koreans repatriated by Chinese authorities—in abrogation of China’s international treaty commitments against refoulement—face serious interrogation, possible torture, and imprisonment under extraordinarily harsh conditions.  North Korean women who become pregnant in China are likely to face involuntary abortions. And, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has threatened to “exterminate” three generations of any family member who defects from North Korea during the mourning period of Kim Jong-il.

Although these issues have returned to the public eye, there is nothing new about these circumstances, which have been standard operating procedure between China and the DPRK for well over a decade since the issue first became politicized by North Korean refugee dashes to political asylum in foreign embassies and consulates in Beijing and other cities in 2002.  China’s solution: build fences around foreign diplomatic compounds to keep the North Korean refugees out, and repatriate “economic migrants” who have found their way into China.  The result has been to force a steady stream of North Korean refugees to travel across China to Southeast Asian countries where they are able to apply for asylum and onward passage to Seoul.

For those North Korean refugees who successfully entered South Korean diplomatic facilities, the informal deal between South Korea and China has been that as long as cases were unpublicized in the media, China would reluctantly allow their onward passage to Seoul. Though China continued to repatriate North Koreans who failed to pass the guards, fences, and other obstacles to asylum, this informal deal allowed for some to escape a forced return to North Korea.

In early 2012, however, this agreement broke down, resulting in a renewed South Korean public campaign to draw attention to the refugees’ troubles.  Despite the now extensive body of eyewitness testimony regarding the plight of North Korean refugees who finally made it to Seoul after having been returned to North Korea from China, China continues to insist that all North Korean refugees are economic migrants and has refused to allow the office of the UN High Commissioner on Refugees to interview them.

A February 24 Renmin Ribao editorial issued in Chinese during the latest round of U.S.-DPRK talks in Beijing criticizes South Korea for politicizing the refugee issue “at a sensitive moment” while the United States and North Korea were engaging in talks in Beijing. The editorial argues that South Korea’s actions are a sign of disrespect toward China’s efforts to contribute constructively to promote peace and stability on the peninsula, and that they hinder the resumption of Six Party Talks. Furthermore, it states that it is useless for South Korea to politicize, internationalize, and connect the issue of China’s repatriation of North Koreans to the refugee issue.

That a leading Chinese publication would voice such a critique is surely a prime example of what President Obama once characterized as China’s “willful blindness” toward the Korean peninsula.  But if North Korean refugees have faced these same circumstances for over a decade with no crescendo of outcry from the international community, it is not only the Chinese government that has been willfully blind to their plight.

As part of CFR’s Campaign 2012 series, I have a new video discussing the policy challenges that the next U.S. administration is likely to face as North Korea faces a “transformative moment” that may require substantial time and resources. The opportunities and costs will be determined by how developments in U.S. presidential leadership track with leadership transitions in South Korea and China, as well as how North Korea’s own leadership transition challenges unfold.

The next U.S. president will likely have to consider North Korea through four primary channels that will interact to shape U.S. policy: the priority of North Korea as a challenge to the international non-proliferation regime; U.S.-ROK alliance coordination under a new South Korean president; where North Korea falls as an issue following China’s leadership transition; and how the United States decides to deal with the regime in Pyongyang. You can watch the video here.