The Kim Dae Jung Government’s Peace Policy Toward North Korea

The Korean summit in June 2000 entailed a major breakthrough in inter-Korean relations. The future terrain of inter-Korean cooperation and exchanges has been mapped out, and a newly forged inter-personal trust between the two leaders of Korea has significantly reduced military tension. Nevertheless, fear of insecurity has not disappeared; important pending issues such as inter-Korean confidence building and arms control, and transformation of the armistice treaty into a North-South peace treaty, remain unresolved. The Kim Dae Jung government has undertaken a sweeping peace initiative composed of peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peace building. While peacekeeping has been successful with a heightened security posture and sustained alliance with the United States, peacemaking and peace building have been less successful. Eroding domestic consensus and weak policy capacity in South Korea, realignment of American policy toward the North, and precarious policy behavior by the North have undermined such efforts. In order to realize peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, the Kim Dae Jung government needs to revamp domestic consensus, tame North Korea’s behavior, and forge close policy coordination with the United States.