Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Adventurer]

Last Updated: Friday, 28 March 2008, 09:44 GMT



Sunset for Korean Sunshine Policy?
As North Korea test-fires missiles and expels South Korean officials, Korea analyst Aidan Foster-Carter asks whether a decade of co-operation between the two states has come to an end.

The Kaesong industrial park employs 23,000 North Koreans

On Thursday, before dawn, North Korea summarily expelled 11 South Korean government officials from the Kaesong industrial complex.


The complex is just north of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the two countries, and is a rare example of North-South co-operation.

Technically the two countries are still at war, and for years they were at daggers drawn.


In 1968, North Korean commandos got within a mile of the presidential Blue House in Seoul, and in 1983, agents from Pyongyang tried to kill Seoul's then military dictator Chun Doo-hwan.

The Koreas also occasionally tried peace. But brief rapprochements in 1985 and 1990-92, when a wide-ranging accord was signed but never implemented, did not last long.

KIMJUNGIL

[stevemcgarrett]

Dang, let's hope so. Enough pandering to the Commies up North. The South has poured in billions and received diddly-squat in return.

Kim Jong who's ill doesn't follow the same rules of engagement as 90% of the world. He makes Chavez look reasonable.

Let them provoke a war--which they've threatened for decades being the puffer fish they are.

They'll get their azzes kicked and then the South will have a bigger economic headache than West Germany.

But then they'll all be one big happy family of Koreans again and can officially rename their country Chosun at the UN.

No, I'm not being facetious but I am dealing with feces when examining North Korean diplomacy.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I think the missile firings and kicking officials out of Kaesong are just bluster. Every day the Norks fall further and further behind the South, and they know it. They had a whole decade to come to some kind of deal with the South and they refused, even when they had Roh willing to give up the whole store.

The new Lee administration seems to have a pretty sophisticated approach. They haven't slammed the door, but they have said they will no longer roll over for KJI.

There will be a few months of temper tantrums in revenge for the South signing the human rights thing at the UN last week, then the Norks will start to negotiate their nukes and their prisoners. Things will be better in 5 years than they were 5 years ago.