RPI’s primary goal is to contribute to bringing long-term and sustainable peace in the Korean peninsula. We believe this requires that confidence-building is engendered and made possible between DPRK and ROK through a practical strategy which we describe as ‘mutual convergent development’. Mutual convergent development is a steady process over a number of years whereby there is alignment of values, institutions and policy goals across all sectors of economic and social policy when two societies are in conflict.
So why is mutual convergent development so important as a potential route forward in the Korean peninsula? To grasp this, it is necessary to understand three key building blocks which are required to develop long-term relationships of trust in any context.
These are as follows:
- Mutual knowledge, which depends on face-to-face meetings, regular and multiple points of contact, and each side understanding better the other’s background and motivations.
- Mutual respect, including perceptions of fairness and participation in any decisions which affect both/all parties in the relationship
- Shared goals, including how these work out in practice1
How can this strategy be applied in practice to the divided Korean peninsula today? Mutual convergent development is the antithesis of an approach based on compromise or absorption. Both DPRK and ROK have to recognise that the ‘other Korea’ is a powerful potential friend, and it is worth spending time and effort to rebuild the relationship. As DPRK and ROK continue to have separate identities and governments during the process of convergent development, mutual respect has to be demonstrated through participation from them both in decisions at every level of government and across every area of public life. Implementation has to start to take place simultaneously on both sides of the DMZ.
In terms of mutual knowledge, there have to be multiple opportunities for the citizens of DPRK and ROK to talk about issues of mutual interest and concern. Individuals and groups across all parts of the country need to get to know one another personally through face-to-face contact, on-going regular communication, and have the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of each other’s personal backgrounds and goals. Civil servants and professionals would meet to discuss how to align values, institutions and policy goals in the education, healthcare, finance, or economic sectors. Business leaders and managers would discuss how they can best enable their companies to serve the interests of all their different stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, customers and wider society. Eventually, it could include people meeting simply to renew family ties across the DMZ.
In terms of shared goals, the first step may be for leaders from DPRK and ROK to agree which ideals they share. This would be drawn in part from the very different ideologies of Juche Socialism and Korean Capitalism, but also from their shared religious and cultural traditions including Confucianism, Shamanism, Buddhism and Christianity. They could include interpersonal duties and responsibilities, loyalty and faithfulness, compassion generosity and kindness, fairness and justice, tolerance and respect for every person.
Is this proposal for a mutually-accepted economic and social convergent development strategy just an impossible, distant dream? We think not. Of course, it would have to start in a small way, perhaps with just one sector of public policy, or in one region. In earlier blogs, RPI has proposed starting with a free trade agreement covering only agricultural sector outputs and inputs. It would require that DPRK and the US come to some agreement on incremental sanctions exemptions in parallel with incremental denuclearisation of the peninsula.
A mutual convergent development process as a long-term vision and direction of travel unlocks two doors:
- The first door it opens is to provide a solid reason for DPRK to enter into discussions with the US about incremental denuclearisation in parallel with incremental sanctions exemptions for its trade with ROK.
- The second is that it opens the door to the possibility of reunification of the two Koreas once the alignment of values, institutions and policy goals have been agreed and implemented to the critical point where neither side feels threatened any longer by the prospect of once again being a single nation.
For people to have hope about the future, and to encourage international investors and scientists to contribute to building the Korean economy, requires that the Korean people themselves have a vision for a peaceful future, for ‘without vision the people perish’. Our hope is that the leaders of DPRK and ROK imagine a better future together, where a unified Korea as a multi-connected neutral state contributes to peace in East Asia, and shows the world how peace can be achieved even under the most difficult of circumstances.
We hope, too, that the US will recognise the importance of being seen to support a mutual convergent development process between DPRK and ROK. From a US point of view, the purpose would be not only being able to initiate discussions with DPRK about incremental denuclearization in parallel with incremental modernisation of the DPRK economy. It would also be to lay the foundation for a long-term strategy for East Asia – to work together with DPRK’s more proximate neighbours, China, Japan and Russia, to create long-term peace in East Asia from which all six interested parties can benefit.
1 See John Ashcroft et al, ‘The Relational Lens: Understanding, managing and measuring stakeholder relationships, Cambridge University Press, 2017