China-Russia Backing Lets Pyongyang Tune Out Seoul's Old Song

Even if the South Korean government exercises patience and responds passively to North Korea's actions, there is virtually no chance that such restraint will have a positive impact on inter-Korean relations.

I generally supported the Sunshine Policy. However, I am well aware that reviving it is no longer possible. What has changed? First and foremost, there is the growing confrontation between the United States and China, accompanied by the accelerating division of the world into rival blocs.

In the early 2000s, US-China relations were so amicable that terms such as“Chimerica” and“G2” became fashionable. Today, however, the two countries are locked in a new cold war, which is likely to continue for decades.

Since the 1950s, during the original Cold War, North Korean diplomacy has been remarkably adept at exploiting rivalries and tensions among great powers to advance its own interests.

Having once skillfully exploited the Sino-Soviet split to secure enormous amounts of foreign assistance, Pyongyang now finds itself once again in the geopolitical environment that is most familiar and advantageous to it.

During the Sunshine Policy era, however, Pyongyang faced a very different international environment. Although rivalries between states certainly existed, they were relatively mild, and neither China nor Russia saw much reason to provide North Korea with substantial support.

Having lost its reliable patrons, North Korea made considerable efforts to obtain assistance from South Korea. In particular, when progressive administrations that placed great hopes in inter-Korean national cooperation came to power in Seoul, Pyongyang could obtain massive amounts of aid with relative ease.

Of course, even at that time, inter-Korean contacts were dangerous from Pyongyang's perspective. The North Korean authorities were particularly concerned that such contacts might expose ordinary North Koreans to South Korea's economic prosperity, thereby generating dissatisfaction with their own political system.

Nevertheless, in the early 21st century, North Korea had few alternatives and was therefore compelled to actively pursue contacts with South Korea and seek economic assistance from the South.

Today, however, China and Russia are actively supporting North Korea, while the North Korean regime has firmly shut its doors to the outside world. Last year, North Korea admitted only Russian citizens. Even then, the number of Russian tourists who visited the country was a mere 5,100.

Foreign organizations and NGOs that left North Korea during the Covid-19 pandemic have virtually no prospect of being allowed to return.