[Photo caption: Chung is either demonstrating how far apart the two Koreans are, or he's explaining how to put someone's head in a vice.] Many in the Korea-related blogosphere complain that the Roh-Chung government is deliberately trying to block reunification with the North because of the massive expense, and it is the North Korean people who suffer as a result.However, in response to the mayor of Pusan saying he'd like to co-host the 2020 Summer Olympics with Pyongyang, Unification Minister and alleged Pyongyang-kowtower Chung Dong-young said, according to Reuters, that "communist North Korea and capitalist South Korea are likely to have formed at least an economic union by 2020." He predicted that between now and then there would likely be a lot of progress.
Chung also said North Korea would be ready to accept Seoul's offer of free electricity as a stop-gap until light-water atomic reactors were built after a deal was reached in six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs.
Reuters says that South Korea's leadership "does not aim for rapid unification, fearful of the German-style cost of unexpectedly welding together different systems," so a 2020 prediction may seem rather bold. He did say he thinks Pyongyang is headed for an economic opening similar to China and Vietnam, citing a few "piecemeal market reforms."
Could it be that the Roh-Chung's plan all along is to ween North Korea off of China so that Seoul can be completely in the driver's seat in terms of controlling North Korea?
He did give further clues of what he's up to:
The vision of the Republic of Korea -- my personal vision as a politician -- is that by 2020 we will be a welfare state, and also at the same time, the South and the North will be able to communicate freely, that we will at least have developed into a joint economic union.Welfare state? I hope that doesn't mean what I think it does.
Chung also brushed aside criticism of Seoul's stance on human rights in the North, including abstention from a UN vote condemning North Korean human rights, saying South Koreans felt pain because of the North's poverty and lack of political freedom, but open criticism would not work.
You may be right, baduk, but maybe it's Kim Jong-il's head he's planning to put in a vice.
ReplyDeleteI think you're on the money, Kushibo. Seoul is seeking to make the North economically dependent on the South. Better South Korea than China, I suppose. Give the North enough food and energy to keep its population from starving or rebelling. If South Korea can prop up the North's economy, it doesn't need 36,000 US troops.
ReplyDeleteSonagi wrote:
ReplyDeleteI think you're on the money, Kushibo. Seoul is seeking to make the North economically dependent on the South. Better South Korea than China, I suppose.
If that is what they're doing, then at least there is a method to their madness.
I don't agree with a lot of the things the Roh administration does, including abstention from condemning North Korean human rights abuses, but I don't agree that they are blindly hoping the costly unification bogeyman will go away. I think that people on the left simply think that hardline policies haven't ended human rights abuses or led to unification, so it's time to try something else.
Give the North enough food and energy to keep its population from starving or rebelling. If South Korea can prop up the North's economy, it doesn't need 36,000 US troops.
Well that I don't agree with. The North Koreans are NOT the only threat to South Korean or unified Korean security. China has historically attempted to swallow up Korea as a satellite country, and Japan has, too. I don't think Japan is the military threat to Korea that it once was, but the way to keep things that way is to maintain the highly successful status quo that has kept peace in this region for most of the past half century.
Every single president of Korea has said that they hope for a continued U.S. presence in Korea even after unification.
Sigh, the Chinese menace thing again. If/when we ever crawl out of Iraq, the Chinese threat will be the sole excuse for spending $446 billion on our global military empire.
ReplyDeleteFor centuries China was content to have a big brother-little brother relationship with Korea, and Korea didn't seem to mind. China did send troops to Korea when the Japanese invaded in the 1500s. The Qing conquest of Joseon was the result of Joseon backing Ming.
I'm weary of this global policeman thing. Really, our military should be for the defense of our own country. If we pull out of Asia, how will that endanger our future? I don't care how it will affect Korea or Japan or China. Our military needs to defend our borders, not somebody else's.