Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bucheon bum]

Today there was an op-ed in today's NY Times. I thought it was a pretty good analysis.

NY Times Piece

[canuckistan]

Anyone have a generic ID and password to access the NY Times site? That would be handy.

[Cthulhu]

I generally liked it too, BB. The article really condemns Seoul for appeasement, and rightly so. The North is as belligerent as ever and the government in Seoul is playing into it. They give so much and get slapped in the face in return. This whole business of closing the border to Northern refugees is a fine thing to do to one's "brothers" in the interests of maintaining good relations with a nation that has no interest in maintaining good relations.

For the South to ignore human rights abuses in the North is to ignore abuses made against their own people--that is if they really consider Korea to be one nation with the cute blue and white flag and all. If you are going to stand side by side with a bunch of mindless cheerleading North Korean robots in a soccer stadium then you'd better stand side by side with North Korean victims of torture. Failure to do so only serves to embarrass South Korea.

And really, short of threats made mostly towards the U.S., what could the North do in the face of a harder line from the South that they hasn't already been done from the time the two countries were divided up until the start of the ill-fated "Sunshine Policy"?

That said, I would disagree with his argument that economic factors aren't worthy of concern--the economy of the South is strong but still fragile when considering a mass exodus from the North or a sudden need for billions in aid. The annual emergency influx of $1 billion to keep the North afloat that he mentions seems to be a bare minimum that doesn't address improving the North but rather keeping it alive. Actually getting the North Korean economy close to that of a functioning nation must take much more money than that. At least some of the South Korean defence budget could eventually be shifted over to other sectors.

The North might be a great potential market but that would take a long time to come to fruition. The infrastructure in the North would have to be completely rebuilt, a time consuming task and the purchasing power of Northerers would be next to zero for quite some time. They might be good for cheap labor, but once they can travel freely to the South some jealousy over the difference in standard of living will quickly arise.

Nevertheless, there are significant moral factors to consider when letting things slide they way they are going.

[Gwangjuboy]

Thank you for the article, it was a very good read. Coincidentally, I was discussing the Sunshine Policy with Korean friends earlier this week. I was disturbed by their refusal to acknowledge that crimes took place north of the DMZ. References to Amnesty International were greeted with "they lie because they are foreign." I reorted that the US receives heavy criticism from this same group - thus evidencing its impartialty, but to no avail. These were genuinely intelligent people, so I was surprised by their ignorance.

The article does a good job of tearing a strip of the Sunshine Policy. I have a few other pointes to add though. Not only has North Korea remained unchanged by the SP, but it has failed to deliver on key promises that were made at its inception - generally regarded as the 2000 summit for practicle purposes. Kim Jong Il has yet to visit South Korea, and the only beneficaries in the south are the chaebols - especially Hyundai. Hyundai is eyeing economic free zones in Kaesong, and other large North Korean cities with a view to having North Koreans make their products, and thus undercut China on the wages front. Hyundai are losing money on their flirtation with the Kumgangsan project, but it's all part of the bigger picture. The SP is the only way to getting access to those economic free zones. A restoration of hard line policies could jeopardize their schemes. Needless to say, they are quite prepared to throw away a few million in the hope that access to the cheapest labour market on the planet (only a stone's throw away) will yield much bigger prizes.

[Moldy Rutabaga]

It is a sobering account of what this country has been trying to do for five years: love the North Koreans into compliance. It has not worked.

The newspapers have been talking about the "success" of the recent inter-Korean political meetings. The "success" is that south Korea sent massive amounts of fertilizer to the north and is now allowed to send a delegation of ministers north to celebrate the 2000 meetings. You give them aid and then bribe them into accepting your visit, at your expense, to celebrate five years of you giving and the north taking. Great "success", guys.

Ken:>

[bucheon bum]

[Dan]

Doesn't the north have plutonium mines that can be used to churn out nuclear weapons for sale to rogue states to leverage some of the economic impact unification would have?

I kid, I kid.

Seriously though, I think North and South Korea getting back together would be an even bigger mess than Germany. Let China annex them. They'll fit right in.

[rapier]