Special envoy diplomacy

The beauty of special envoy diplomacy lies in that resolving a diplomatic conundrum in one stroke that existing diplomatic channels could not. A case in point came in 1971, when then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger`s envoy diplomacy resulted in the normalization of Sino-U.S. relations and changed the course of world history. His first visit to China was made in secret via Pakistan. Washington was reluctant to disclose his special duty aimed at thawing bilateral relations by taking advantage of the Sino-Soviet conflict.

In South Korea, previous governments always used secret envoys to achieve a breakthrough in inter-Korean relations. A famous episode involved Lee Hu-rak, former director of the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency who made a secret visit to North Korea with a suicide pill in hand to negotiate the 1972 joint communiqué between the two Koreas. Park Chul-un, a former adviser to then South Korean President Roh Tae-woo, made about 20 visits to Pyongyang in the late 1980s. Park later said he wrote a will every time he went to the North Korean capital. Seo Dong-kwon, former director of the Agency for National Security Planning of South Korea, met both North Korean leader Kim Il Sung and his heir Kim Jong Il in the North at the same time in September 1990. In 2000, then South Korean Culture and Tourism Minister Park Jie-won helped set up the first inter-Korean summit, perhaps because Seoul gave a large amount of money to Pyongyang.

Yet special envoy diplomacy is not always successful. In October 2002, then U.S. President George W. Bush, who maintained a hardline stance against the North, sent special envoy James Kelly to Pyongyang to negotiate terms for dialogue. The North, however, announced that it had a uranium enrichment program, driving its ties with the U.S. to the brink of collapse. South Korean President Kim Dae-jung hurriedly sent his special envoy to Pyongyang in January 2003, only to fail. Lim Dong-won, who was also a special envoy under then President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, stayed in Pyongyang with Lee Jong-seok, a key member of Roh`s transition team, for three days. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il did not see them.

For President-elect Park Geun-hye, who will take office in February next year, one of her most important challenges is to re-establish smooth diplomatic ties with China and Japan, which recently appointed new leaders, as well as with the U.S. under the second-term Obama administration. As the countries are all in a leadership transition period, sending a special envoy who can accurately deliver Park`s intentions would be frosting on the cake. One key prerequisite, however, is to analyze the priorities of issues and South Korea`s strategic goals rather than just sending envoys to the four powers surrounding the Korean Peninsula. Japan`s new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe looked hasty when he made an abrupt proposal to send an envoy to Park even before he took office, only to be rejected by the president-elect.

Editorial Writer Ha Tae-won (triplets@donga.com)