GSOMIA decision: Moon Jae-in's nuclear option

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2019/08/667_274432.html

GSOMIA decision: Moon Jae-in's nuclear option

 

Now Moon is in the spotlight for his unexpected decision Thursday to scrap the country's three-year-old pact with Japan ― the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). Cheong Wa Dae's decision was a surprise as it came despite the U.S.'s open objections. The pact was established at U.S. urging to strengthen the trilateral alliance against North Korea's nuclear and long-range missile activities and, more importantly, to keep China at bay.

 

It is the combination of four factors ― remorse and reflection, on one hand, and confidence and determination on the other. The first set dates from the Roh era on which those of the 386 generation look back, thinking of their mistake in not being more forceful with their agenda, domestic and diplomatic. In the following 10 years, they reflected on that era, promising themselves never to let go another chance to implement that agenda.

The second set of factors is from the toppling of the Park Geun-hye administration through mass candlelight protests, on which Moon rode to his presidency. In the process, the administration's conservative opposition has been reduced to a mere shadow of its former self. Even at the worst time for Moon, marred by a hostile North Korea and scandals engulfing his top aides, such as justice minister nominee Cho Kuk, few would think of the Liberty Korea Party, the main opposition, and Bareun Party, the conservative opposition, as alternatives to Moon's ruling Democratic Party of Korea.  

 

The Moon administration decided to kill the pact, the decision-makers knowing that any deviation on Cho's nomination meant a potentially irreparable setback to the administration's governance itself for the rest of its term. In other words, like any presidential decision on a key issue, killing GSOMIA is open to a lot of different interpretations but with few provable.  

And the truth is up for grabs, depending on the outcome of the duel between the administration's supporters and detractors. If the Cho Kuk saga is put back on the main public agenda and his candidacy nixed, the detractors can claim that the GSOMIA scrapping was for public diversion and they stopped it. If Cho becomes justice minister, supporters may claim that killing the pact and Cho were two separate issues. So it is very much the victor's point of view that will prevail until it is debunked.