The chemistry of two dictators and a czar-aspirant

The recent handshake in Pyongyang between the two dictators, who talk of using their nukes, is ominous.

Lee Ha-kyungThe author is a senior columnist of the JoongAng Ilbo. The clock pointed at 2:45 a.m. when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un greeted Russian President Vladimir Putin at Pyongyang’s Sunan International Airport on June 19. Behind the two dictators embracing each other in the middle of the night loomed the shadow of the late General Terenty Shtykov, a Soviet military commissar who held the fate of the Korean Peninsula in his hands 79 years ago. A renowned military leader who defended Leningrad during World War II, Shtykov engineered the Communist regime in the North in 1945 with Kim’s late grandfather, Soviet Army officer Kim Il Sung, by his side. He maneuvered Park Hon-yong, the leader of the Workers’ Party of South Korea, and orchestrated the general strike in the South in September 1946 and the following riots in October. Shtykov marshalled all the preparations for the “mini World War III” under Joseph Stalin’s directives.

This time, Putin — the commander-in-chief of post-Soviet Russia — visited Pyongyang and established a “comprehensive strategic partnership” with North Korea. Russia’s automatic military intervention for the North became possible. The marriage of the two nuclear powers poses a major threat to the security of the peninsula and beyond. The nightmare from Shtykov has returned 79 years later.

Kim Jong-un is missing one deadly trap. Just as the Soviet Union had done before, Russia will turn its back on North Korea if circumstances change. In 2021, Russia’s trade with South Korea was $26.5 billion, while its trade with the North was $40,000. Once the war in Ukraine is over, Moscow will change its stance. It takes guts to confront the North — a global outcast clutching nuclear weapons and clinging to an unstable alliance. Bipartisan cooperation and wisdom is urgently needed for the South.

But in reality, it is the opposite. Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung — the czar of the majority party — wields unfettered legislative power. To address his judicial risks from four ongoing trials, Lee turned the DP into a theocracy that serves him, and refused to make any compromises with the government and the People Power Party. After his party’s landslide victory in the recent parliamentary elections, Lee tried to earn people’s hearts with plans to cut the comprehensive real estate tax and reform the national pension system. But he is abusing the majority power of the party only to protect himself.

Lee placed his former defense lawyers in the Daejang-dong scandal in the Legislation and Judiciary Committee after they won the elections and is pushing for the impeachment of the prosecutors who investigated him.

After his one of his close associates — former Vice Gyeonggi Governor Lee Hwa-young — was convicted of sending illegal money to North Korea and sentenced to nine years and six months in jail, Lee Jae-myung was indicted as an accomplice. He is now trying to overturn the court ruling through an independent counsel probe. He even ridiculed media organizations as “pets of the prosecution.” The principle of the separation of powers is being critically shaken.

A member of the DP’s Supreme Council even extolled his boss as “the father of the party” in stark resemblance to the supreme leader in North Korea. The episode confirms that the unipolar system with Lee at the center of the party is completed. Lee may think that if the current pace continues, he can become the next president. But the public sentiment is far different from what he thinks. Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, who hasn’t even made his presidential ambition publicly known, is leading in the polls. The people want to see a levelheaded leader.

Next year marks 80 years of national division. This is a shame. The 38th parallel was drawn by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1945, but we have seen the invisible lines of division before. Konishi Yukinaga — who spearheaded Japan’s invasion of Korea in 1592 — proposed to his Ming Dynasty negotiation partner on Sept. 1 to halve Korea by using the Daedong River crossing Pyongyang as a line of division. This was the first attempt of national division by major powers.

The ideological confrontation between the two Koreas is a dangerous structure that invites foreign intervention. The recent handshake in Pyongyang between the two dictators, who talk of using their nukes, is ominous.