This is certainly one of the more idealistic and altruisticviews and it would be nice to focus on the human vice the political - except that the human makes up the political. But we should expect this view from former President Roh's national security advisor.
It is with some irony that both north and South have proposed variations of the plan with forms of a federation – e.g., one nation, two systems but the north never follows through.
However, Mr. Ri's discussion of the Sunshine Policy while interesting in terms of the name being from an Aesopian fable, fails to acknowledge what it actually accomplished. It not only allowed the Kim Family Regime to survive but also for its nuclear and missile programs to thrive. It did not lead to an improvement in the north's economic conditions that hopefully would have led to more productive exchanges but instead emboldened the regime to continue to conduct provocations to gain political and economic concessions.
I am all for trying to achieve peaceful unification of the Peninsula especially because I believe it is the only way to increase the chances of long term stability in Northeast Asia; however, we need to realize that the regime is not going to allow opening, reform, economic engagement, exchanges and popular access to information because it will lead to the collapse of the regime. We can try every idealistic measure and theory to try to convince the north that we all want peace and peaceful unification. But while Kim Jong-un talks peace and reconciliation on New Year's we must also look at its actions. How soon people forget that the north launched a 3 stage missile on December 12 and has a nuclear program in development (north Korea is a non-compliant unsafe nuclear experimenter and expectant proliferator) and it is frustrating that some put more stock in Kim's words than the regime's actions.
This proposal is nice and one which I wish we could support and make happen (especially because 23 million people are living in prison conditions). However, for this to work the north has to participate in good faith and the nature of the regime is such that it cannot participate except to deceive the ROK and the international community. We have to deal with the north as it really is and not as we would wish it to be.
V/R
Dave
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By Ra Jong-Yil
I am presenting this small piece on the following assumptions: I do not believe that the unification of Korea will be possible in the near future. Nor do I believe that it would be desirable if its cost were high in terms of human sacrifice. The two societies have already evolved so apart from one another that it will not be possible for them to come under one roof for a very long time. The structures of power have also become so deeply entrenched on both sides that one cannot imagine they could be fused together peacefully. The best we can hope for is that the two sides will be able to create a regime under which they can coexist in peace like ordinary neighboring countries.
This, however, will not be possible either given the present predicament governing relations between the two Koreas. This relationship is dominated by what I call the “dynamics of adversarial duo,” a vicious and fatal rivalry to claim a common patrimony, the Korean peninsula. They are bound to each other, “neither separate nor united.” Each is a threat, either potential or actual, to the other in war or in peace, in exchange of fire and of good will. The very existence of the South is a threat to the North and vice versa. At present, the threat of the North is mainly a physical or military one while the South’s way of life is threat to the North with its relative superiority in wealth and its freedoms.
Foreigners often suggest that Koreans lack a culture of compromise, a sentiment that is often met with enthusiastic agreement from Koreans themselves. I remember reading a similar opinion in a memorandum drafted by the Research Department of the British Foreign Office toward the end of the World War II. Prepared jointly with the US State Department, the paper recommended trusteeship in Korea after its liberation based on evidence that Koreans tended to be divisive among themselves and that they had no experience running a modern state. Looking at things prima facie, at present, this seems to be true even today and the country remains divided long after all the other divided countries of the world have been reunited in one way or the other over the last half of the 20th century.
Above and beyond this, divisions in South Korea alone remain a deep-seated problem: Whatever the appellations may be, they run not only along socio-political but also regional lines, between the left and right, progressives and conservatives, east and west. Are Koreans really condemned to chronic internecine bickering whatever the cause and cost may be?
Is this state of affairs peculiar to Korea alone? Is a so-called national consensus possible or even desirable in a liberal, democratic country? Is it possible to achieve a unity of opinions for any purpose? Is there a practical formula around which a nation can organize a consensus? We need also to dwell on what are the concrete plans to overcome this division. Mere awareness of the problem or constant breast beating will not lead us to any practical results.
(Continued at the link below)
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