Like in my own country, the weather in Korea can change very quickly. The political weather, I mean. The literal weather in Korea is much more predictable; unlike in the UK, where it can rain at any time – and is currently raining pretty much all of the time. But I digress.

Call me an idiot, but suddenly I’m just a little bit excited. You’d think I’d have learnt by now, after so many let-downs and false dawns down the years. A triumph of hope over expectation, probably: heart over head. We’ll soon see. By the time you read this, or shortly after, I may well have egg on my face as yet another inter-Korean encounter ends in stalemate or tears.

YESTERDAY: THREATS WERE SUCH AN EASY GAME TO PLAY

Yet I dare to hope. Yesterday, it looked as if separated family reunions (the first since 2010) set for Feb. 20 might founder on the reef of planned U.S.-South Korean wargames. They still could (said he, hedging his bets). In September Pyongyang cruelly cancelled the last such planned event planned at four days’ notice, for no good reason. Even today So Se Pyong, the DPRK’s envoy to the UN in Geneva, reiterated this link; calling on Washington and Seoul to suspend these “sinister and dangerous” exercises (they’re actually routine annual events).

Several hundred elderly Koreans, pining for family they’ve not seen for over 60 years, may still have their hearts broken again. The literal as well as the political weather is a factor too. Eastern Korea, including the North’s Southern-built Mt Kumgang resort where the reunions will be held, is currently blanketed in snow. Nine Southern snow-plows are hard at work clearing it, and the South thinks this can be done in time. But the fear in Seoul is – or was – that the North might use the bad weather as a fresh excuse to procrastinate and play games.

I say “or was”, because of what I read – others don’t – as a hopeful sign. Last Saturday, out of the blue, North Korea sent a message to the South – in private, always a better bet than the usual megaphone diplomacy and grandstanding – proposing high-level talks. Seoul wasn’t expecting any such overture, but they swiftly agreed – and kept shtum about it until today.

“Senior delegations from both Koreas will [soon] meet for the first time in seven years: It’s a start”

 
So just a few hours from now, on Wednesday 12 February at 1000 Korean time in the usual place for such encounters, the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), senior delegations from both Koreas will meet for the first time in seven years. It’s a start.

The ROK team is an inter-agency one, involving not only the Unification Ministry (MOU) but also Defense (MND) and the Blue House (Cheongwadae), the presidential office which wields great power in its own right: presidential secretaries have as much clout or more as ministers. It will be led by Kim Kyou-hyun, a rising star. Promoted last year from deputy to first vice foreign minister, just a week ago on Feb. 3 Kim was brought into the Blue House as first deputy director of national security. In December President Park Geun-hye beefed up the National Security Council (NSC), whose restored permanent Secretariat Kim now heads.

TAKE ME TO YOUR COUNTERPART

The DPRK’s structures are very different and much more opaque. Last year this led to a row over protocol – specifically, which officials are of equivalent rank in their respective systems – which sadly scuttled high-level talks planned for mid-June. (For once I blamed the South.)

It’s a good sign that this time both sides have taken steps to ensure that doesn’t happen again. An intriguing Chinese report says the North specifically asked that the South side be headed up by someone from the Blue House rather than MOU as in the past; presumably on the basis that Cheongwadae is where real power lies. Also, if the North’s antennae are subtler than its propaganda (one can but hope), they must know the Park administration is conflicted. MOU supports engagement, but Seoul’s security establishment is skeptical. The hardliners are the ones who need convincing. Almost certainly a similar split exists in Pyongyang as well.

Across the table Kim Kyou-hyun will face Won Dong Yon, deputy head of the United Front Department (UFD) of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK). In the familiar dual structures of communist systems, the government counts for less than the Party which stands behind and directs it. North Korea has two other complicating factors: the role of the military, and the Leader. Precisely how those play in isn’t clear. But last year Seoul wanted to talk to the WPK-UFD, seen as the real power center – and this time Pyongyang has granted its wish.

“No formal agenda has been set. I see that too as a hopeful sign”

 
What will they discuss? Anything and everything, potentially: No formal agenda has been set. I see that too as a hopeful sign, suggesting an open-ended and exploratory attitude.

Remember that both sides have leaders who are still fairly new. Park has almost finished her first year in office, leaving her four more to go. South Korean presidents are restricted to a single five-year term, to stop them getting ideas like Park’s dictator dad Park Chung-hee did – or the way they run things in Pyongyang, where Kim Jong Un has had two years in power and could be around for decades to come if he follows his grandfather Kim Il Sung’s example.

STILL SNIFFING AND FUMBLING

My sense as a close observer of North-South relations for many years is that regime change – democratically in South Korea, not the hawk fantasy re the North – makes a real difference. I reckon that neither of these two still rather inexperienced leaders has yet made up their mind what they think of the other, or how to handle the other Korea. Park proclaims ‘trustpolitik’ but in office has been very cautious – as well as sorely provoked. Kim’s wild threats to nuke all and sundry last spring made no sense on any level, and his sabotaging of the joint venture Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) by pulling out all the North’s workers was self-defeating – as witness the fact that five months later the KIC opened for business again.

So much of North-South relations is like snakes and ladders. One shouldn’t get too excited about ‘progress’ which in truth simply takes us back to where we were before. But Kaesong seems to be inching forward. On February 10 the North finally agreed to allow the Internet there. It took ten years, and mobile phones remain off-limits. But this is a hopeful sign, as is the fact that three South Korean firms were due to head to Rajin today, to look at possibly investing in a Russian rail-port project in North Korea’s northeastern Rason special zone.

As to timing, the ghost of Uncle Jang hovers in the background. Amongst much else, Jang Song Thaek was North Korea’s point man on China – on which it has grown almost wholly dependent for trade and investment since 2008, when Park Geun-hye’s hard-line predecessor Lee Myung-bak foolishly ditched Seoul’s former ‘sunshine’ policy of engaging Pyongyang.

Self-interest suggests this is a bad idea for both Koreas. The North doesn’t want all its eggs in Beijing’s basket, and the South is loath to see China gobble up the North’s minerals. (Did Lee really not foresee that if Seoul took its bat home, Beijing would rush in to fill the vacuum?)

The long and varied charge-sheet against Jang accused him inter alia of “selling off precious resources of the country at cheap prices.” If China does get DPRK minerals for a song – and there is evidence for that – it’s because no one else is buying. South Korea could change this. Indeed, if the many joint ventures agreed at the 2007 second inter-Korean summit but ditched by Lee had gone ahead, many of those minerals would now be heading south, not west.

THINK WIN-WIN, FOR ONCE

In sum, even a modicum of vision in Seoul and Pyongyang should convince both sides that it makes good geopolitical and business sense alike to move on from the sad and self-defeating stasis of the past eight years. Sending senior people with real clout from each side’s power center to meet face to face and sound the other guy out is a welcome if belated beginning.

“What will come of this? Anything is possible, including nothing”

 
What will come of this? Anything is possible, including nothing. On past form the North may stomp off in a huff after mere minutes, if minded to or (in its own eyes) provoked. Hardliners – each team likely includes some; if not, the folks they’ll report back to certainly have their share – will as ever try to stymie progress, having much to lose from any outbreak of peace.

But possibly, just possibly, win-win – or the will to find it – will prevail, as it mostly did for a decade after 1998. If they still need convincing, the Koreas should look next door. China and Taiwan have shown for 30 years now that a history of civil war and continuing rivalry need not prevent pragmatic cooperation for mutual benefit. Inter-Korean trade and other contacts took off around the same time, in the late 1980s, so it’s painful to contrast how far China has come since then and how little Korea has changed. Shame on both Koreas for their obduracy.

Tomorrow’s talks give them a chance to grasp the nettle. Will they? Don’t count on it. But as Antonio Gramsci said: Pessimism of the intelligence, optimism of the will. We live in hope.

Like in my own country, the weather in Korea can change very quickly. The political weather, I mean. The literal weather in Korea is much more predictable; unlike in the UK, where it can rain at any time – and is currently raining pretty much all of the time. But I digress. Call me an