In an agreement foreshadowed by several overtures from Kim II Sung earlier this year, the North and South Korean governments issued a joint communique on July 4 announcing their "common desire to achieve peaceful unification of the fatherland as early as possible.* The two sides agreed on three principles for unification. First, it is to be the result of *independent Korean efforts without being subject to external imposition or interference." Second, it is to be brought about by "peaceful means, and not through the use of force against each other." Third, the goal will be to seek a great national unity" by "transcending differences in ideas, ideologies, and systems."
In addition, the two regines agreed "not to slander or defame each other" and to take steps to prevent inadvertent military incidents." A hot line between Pyongyang and Seoul was installed the next day "to deal directly, promptly, and accurately with problems arising between the South and the North." And a North-South "coordinating committee" was established, to be co-chaired by the two main figures in the secret negotiations leading up to the agreement - LeeHu Rak, director of the South's Central Intelligence Agency, and Kim Yong Ju, director of the Organization and Guidance Department of the North Korean Workers (Communist) party. Kim is a younger bother of North Korean Premier Kim Il Sung.
The agreement can be viewed as a byproduct of the Nixon trip to Peking and the detente: between Mao and Nixon. Certainly the cues on present-day application of the theory of "peaceful coexistence" emanating from the Nixon-Mao talks were pitked up in the Korean agreement. The effect of the accord is to recognise the legitimacy of the Park Chung Hee regime in the South. This was noted with considerable satisfaction by the New York Times, which reflects the views of an influential sector of the U.S. ruling class, in a July 9 editorial: Those accords pay lip service to reunification, which is mentioned twelve times in the brief fourteenpage agreement. But the key phrase is the one that talks about transcending' rather than eliminating the differences in the ideologies and systems' of the two states."
In addition, the agreement is understood to recognize the right of U.S. occupation forces to remain in the South. There are some 40,000 U.S. troops currently in South Korea. "The U.S. troops", Seoul's foreign minister, Kim Yong Shik, told newsmen, "are stationed in Korea as members of the United Nations Command established in accordance with a U.N. resolution." He declared that the United Nations should not be considered an external force or power " and the presence of its troops would thus not be incompatible with the agreement. "The United Nations should not be considered a bad foreign force", Lee Hu Rak told a news conference.
The New York Times hailed the agreement in a July 5 editorial as "a historic development of the utmost importance for improving the political atmosphere in Asia and the world and as a "major advance The underlying reason for such elation is clear: the U.S. ruling class sees in the agreement an example that can be used as one more club in the campaign to bludgeon the Vietnamese into settling for something less than their freedom and independence.
News of this agreement must raise the question why similar concord cannot be reached in Vietnam", the New York Times observed. Moreover many leaders in both South and North Vietnam will notice that the North Koreans were willing to make the first major advance toward reunification without requiring either the prior exit of United States troops or a change of regime in Seoul. It would be rash and unjustified to conclude that progress in Korea assures progress in Vietnam, but Seoul and Pyongyang have set a useful example that neither Hanoi nor Saigon can ignore."
The response of the Nixon administration to the Korean agreement has been "enthusiastic, reported New York Times Washington correspondent Bernard Gwertzman on July 4. He quoted a senior state department official's view of the pressure the agreement places on the Vietnam liberation forces: First China invited enemy No. 1, the United States. to Peking. Now North Korea has a friendly dialogue with enemy No2, South Korea, which has as many troops in South Vietnam as the United States. This must have a damaging effect on Hanoi's morale."
It has been clear for three years that Nixon's goal in Vietnam is to gain a settlement similar to the armistice that formally ended the Korean war. The ruling bureaucracy in Peking has now made it clear that it too, like U.S. imperialism, regards Korea as a model for a Vietnam settlement.
Chou En-lai gave the first public indication of the bureaucracy's views on the subject on June 16, when he praised former U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower for negotiating the armistice "in a straightforward way".
Then on June 25, the twenty-second anniversay of the beginning of the Korean war, Renmin Ribao, the official newspaper of the Chinese C.P., went a step further. The The compromise forced on the korean toroi ution whereby a puppet regime supported by U.S. troops was maintained in Seoul: *With the support of the people the world over, the heroic Korean people finally forced the U.S. imperialists to sign the armistice agreement after a bitter trial of strength with the U.S. aggressor troops. The victory of the Fatherland Liberation War of Korea not only defended the revolutionary gains of the Korean people and the security of China, but also made a great contribution to the revolutionary struggle of the world's people against imperialism and its running dogs aid set a brilliant example for the cause of liberation of the oppressed nations and people of the world." (Translation by Peking Review: emphasis added.)
The Korean war did represent a defeat for imperialism in that the latter was prevented from carrying out its. intention of overthrowing the workers state in North Korea. But that defeat was sealed by the intervention of Chinese troops, hot by the armistice agreement. Only the most myopic bureaucrat could see the armistice, which legitimized the Seoul puppet regime, as a victory for the Korean revolution.
Eisenhower did not have to be "forced" to sign the agreement any more than Nixon would have to be "forced" to sign a truce that left a puppet government established in Saigon. But that is precisely the sort of "victory" that the Peking bureaucracy has in mind for the Vietnamese revolutjon, as another passage in the Renmin Ribao editorial makes explicit: " U.S. imperialism is continuing its war of aggression in Indochina, and carrying out war escalation against the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam. Recently, it has not only mined and blockaded the ports of north Viet Nam but also steadily expanded the scope of its naval and air attacks there. It can be said with certainty that the perverse Kim Il Sung (right) meets Lee Hu Rak, director of the South's Central Intelligence Agency, in Pyongyang acts of U.S. imperialism can only result in defeat, as it suffered in its war of aggression against Korea, thus lifting a rock only to drop it on its own feet."
The agreement between Park and Kim will clearly fit in quite neatly with Peking's attempt to pressure the Hanoi leadership into a settlement. The Maoists will be able to point to the agreement as "proof" that U.S. imperialism can be peacefully evicted from its colonies. The fact that the imperialists have no intention of leaving South Korea will not at all disturb the bureaucrats, who long ago learned that the essence of "peaceful coexistence" is betrayal of revolution masked by fine words. -JCP