The crayfish sides with the crab: Some Reflections on Developing Trust between North and South Korea

By Mark Scholefield

This Korean idiom expresses how people with similar characteristics or backgrounds will tend to stick together. This commonality, which North and South Korea share, is likely to be an important ‘seeding particle’ for the emergence of trust to develop in relationships between the 2 parties. Commonality provides a strong foundation to build trust and can also act as one of the driving forces to develop trust.

So what is the basis of this trust which needs to be built up?

Trust is about the confidence you have in a person or organisation. It means that you believe that you can rely on them, that they will meet their obligations and they will not deceive you.^[1]

David Hume, the 18th century philosopher, captures the essential dilemma surrounding trust:

Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow. ‘Tis profitable for us both, that I should labour with you today, and that you should aid me tomorrow. I have no kindness for you, and know you have as little for me. I will not, therefore, take any pains upon your account; and should I labour with you upon my own account, in expectation of a return, I know I should be disappointed, and that I should in vain depend upon your gratitude. Here then I leave you to labour alone; you treat me in the same manner. The seasons change; and both of us lose our harvests for want of mutual confidence and security.^[2]

This description by Hume of a simple agrarian relationship actually describes quite accurately the more complex relationship between North and South Korea and the difficulties they face. There is an important element of reciprocity in trust and the more complex the relationship, as in the Korean case, the more difficult it is for either party to feel the amount of reciprocity is fair.

Trust is always contingent. The problem is that, even if 2 parties believe that it is in their best interest to cooperate (and ‘Game Theory’ demonstrates that cooperation maximises returns over the long-term), they can have no guarantee that the other party will not renege on any agreement and take advantage in the short-term. Moreover, one does not trust another party to do something merely because they say they will do it. One trusts them only because, knowing their disposition, available options, constraints and their capacity to deliver what they say, then you expect them to be able and willing to keep to any agreement.

Trust develops through a greater understanding of the other party. It is not only necessary for you to trust the other party but also to believe that you are trusted by the other party for any cooperation to work. 

These are some of the perennial dilemmas with trust and why it is also so fragile. It takes time and consistent action to be perceived as trustworthy but a single violation of trust can introduce a doubt which is difficult to overcome. We constantly re-evaluate our levels of trust depending on our recent experiences with the other party.

Some factors impacting on trust between North and South Korea

Trust cannot be rushed. It takes time and effort to develop confidence in any relationship. There are, in fact, several relationships at different levels in which trust must develop to bring North and South Korea closer.

The first is obviously between the 2 states themselves. There have been 2 major negative impacts here over the last few years. The development of missile technology with a potential nuclear capability by North Korea has been seen as a threat not only to South Korea but to the wider region. In response, the UN has implemented sanctions against the North and South Korea has been conducting joint military exercises with the US. Sanctions have killed the former trade relationship between the North and the South. Both sides effectively have been putting on the pressure to try to reinforce their bargaining positions but these approaches do not encourage long-term trust. North and South are also states which operate in very different ways from each other, politically as well as economically.

However, we have seen several small steps in cooperation in recent years between the North and South. There has been the unification of the North and South Olympic teams in the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and the recent agreement in principle to supersede the armistice with a formal end to the Korean War. A resumption of the inter-Korean hotlines as well as the temporary reunion of some South Korean families with their Northern Korean relatives in August 2018 has also taken place. Each small step of shared activities and goals, if successful and is built on, helps to increase trust.

The second relationship is between each state’s government and their citizens. Support for unification in South Korea has dropped year on year for the last 4 years and is now below 50%. The OECD reports that:

The erosion of public trust challenges government’s capacity to implement policies and carry out reforms ^[3].….while Korea has achieved and maintained rapid growth and development, and performs comparatively well in several existing measures of the quality of public administration, trust in government institutions is relatively low.^[4]

Any South Korean government will need to carry its citizens with it in developing closer proximity to the North.

The third involves the 2 super powers, the US and China, with their own interests to ensure that they are not disadvantaged strategically in the development of a closer bilateral relationship between North and South.  Levels of trust between the US and China are at a low ebb at the moment. This all increases significantly the complexity of the situation and the difficulties of trust. The issues of denuclearisation and lifting of sanctions on North Korea are key components to this and these spread far wider than just Korea. The fact that the US has military bases in South Korea and performs joint military exercises with it in an area of the world which China feels is in its backyard, versus China’s implicit support and trade with North Korea in spite of UN sanctions, are also significant.

The relationships above are all between ‘entities’. However, trust developing between individuals who are the key representatives of the states is also important. As these individuals get to know and understand each other with increasing contact with each other, this can be a driver to help promote trust and wider cooperation.

There is a presidential election in South Korea in March where there will be a change in President. Whether the same party retains the presidency or not, it seems that the new President will not have the same approach necessarily as the outgoing one. As a key representative of one side of the relationship, trust in him and by him will take time to re-establish.

Moving Forward

Generating trust in a relationship can be difficult especially when the issues which divide the parties are seen as means of keeping a balance of power/mutual deterrence (sanctions and US military presence versus nuclear potential.) To move forward, therefore, may mean that one party needs to make some kind of unilateral concession to generate momentum in the relationship even though this comes with a risk. This is what broke the impasse in Northern Ireland where the Loyalists eventually agreed to move forward without a decommissioning of the IRA’s weapons which had been a pre-condition. However, politically this can be a very difficult step to take. Unexpected events can also change the situation. For instance, Covid has had a huge impact on N Korea slashing its trade with China as both adopted zero toleration policies. This has severely affected N Korea’s economy and, along with some recent natural disasters, may make North Korea more ready to negotiate to get sanctions lifted. Pressure rather than concessions is usually the preferred mode of most Nation States’ foreign policy to preserve a bargaining position but this is not usually a good basis for building trust and does not work if the other party is able to retain an entrenched position.

The RPI’s suggestion of a Korean Peninsula Agriculture Community, which includes a Bilateral Free Trade Agreement for agricultural products and imports, would have small beginnings but could be built up over time, if it had the support of all interests. It would be a significant initiative for the 2 sides to develop trust. This might even include some shared tourism. However, this would require some form of partial lifting of sanctions.

Increasing personal contact between key players at all levels of the relationship would also be a step in the right direction. The perspective and policies of the new President of South Korea will be important.

Any increase in cooperation between North and South in terms of sport, professional organisations, social and kinship relationships would be beneficial.  Although these may be small initiatives, they can provide an important, more grass roots, bedrock to build trust between the 2 communities when some of the larger difficulties have been negotiated at a state level.

Cooperation helps to breed trust and trust lubricates cooperation. It is important that any initiatives take this into account.