(From Chosun Ilbo editorial this week)

North Korea at a meeting of the Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Committee on Friday asked the South to provide it with raw materials for 60 million pairs of shoes, 2 million formal suits (30,000 tons) and 200 million bars of soap (20,000 tons). That is enough to wash and dress the North?€™s entire population of 23 million. In return, Pyongyang proposes to let us mine its underground resources and take minerals — not much of a deal, since Seoul has to supply all the mining and transport equipment.
So it really is a demand for aid, and a preposterous and potentially bottomless one. The rice and fertilizer the South supplied this year alone are worth over W1.4 trillion (US$1.4 billion), and like the rice, once you start giving the clothes and shoes, you have to keep giving them year after year. Having handed the responsibility of feeding its people to the South, North Korea now also wants us to clothe them, and if anything is to come of the nuclear arms negotiations, we have to supply their electricity. Maybe next time they will ask us to build their houses.

Exactly. When certain Koreans publicly pine for unification and accuse foreign interests of preventing it, they wilfully ignore the one party that genuinely doesn’t want it: North Korea. The North has all the interest in the world in paying lip service to the idea of unification, and all the interest in the world in preventing it from actually happening (unless it’s on northern terms, ensuring the preservation of the existing power structure).

I can (and do) definately agree on that point but I wouldn’t necessarily suggest competing as a ‘unified team’ in the games, or not discouraging the DPRK to pull out of such a team willl be considered as negatively as say, refusing to donate more rice (as an extreme example).

I think it would not be hard for the Korean spin-doctors (even if they are not the world’s best) to appeal to the average Korean fervour as regards winning things (golf and fencing are two prime ‘why all the excitement?’ examples to mine). I am therefore of the opinion that, with the right angle, the party could create a ‘votes for medals’ scheme (to speak a little cynically), and make Northern non-participation into the best thing since sliced bread (because honestly I cannot see the North contributing many - dare I say any? competitive athletes).

While I like your analogy better then my own I don’t necessarily attirbute all ROK help/concessions ‘northwise’ as mere capitulations to the machinations of the Kim regime, I think the southern administration is not that free of guile in matters of peninsular relations.

When I spoke of enlightenment I was referring mostly to the DPRK (while I believe the ROK has it’s own state/social sponsored opinions we cannot compare the southern propoganda machine with the north’s).

For the record I completely agree freedom of information in the north will be the death of the regime there - it’s just a matter of time and I think almost everybody knows it (providing nobody lets fatboy fly in the meantime).

peace

most SK politicians are very scared of being seen as “anti-unification”, so when the north wants something, they will just threaten to pull out of the combined team, and SK will give them whatever they want.

Your analogy to a school yard bully doesn’t fit, as the relationship is more like NK as a spoilt brat, and SK the parent that gives them whatever they want.

I agree that unification will come by enlightenment, but this needs to occur in the north, and as long as the nk leaders are in power they will do whatever they can to stop this as freedom of information will spell the death of their regime.

Nononono. This is not the World Cup, where some countries are left out. The Olympics are open to all countries. You don’t have to qualify ?€“ or rather the only criterion is being a country. So NK does qualify. And an offer to participate to the Olympics as a “reunification team” would met the hearts of the lefties and peace-lovers out there, and it would breeze through any committee in charge of deciding who can play.

Then again, a binational team would prolly help NK participate, as they might not have enough athletes anyway…

First of all, there is going to be donor fatigue when DPRK will inevitable demand more madness concessions. But more importantly, if there is a “real” olympic team, then there will be more contacts between the actual South/North team members. Chances are likely that South will dominate the North, and this will lead to some resentment. Also, we have to assume that South will give “concessions” in the form of giving more berths to unworthy Northern athletes. This will lead to some further resentment.

But let’s say that KJI being the person who he is says, demands that if United States does not send over all the gold in Fort Knox, then the deal is off. This sort of thing probably affects athlete training and further lead to awful outcome.

So in 2008, the effect is that Korea’s “gold count ranking” which has been awfully important for political reasons since God knows when, will shrink. If the left had political power due to world cup, then the olympics will be their undoing.

At some point you also have to wonder, how will KJI decide to censure this sort of event when he even voluntarily aired SK world cup performance? hmm.

I’m feeling mighty naively optimistic today.

That’s all very well and good, but the older I get, the harder it is for me to see the point of such an exercise. The two countries are clearly miles apart in so many ways (despite lip service, economic projects, etc.). It’s just such a ridiculous superficiality to field a single team…and I find it increasingly distressing as I get older that South Korea would wish to coooperate so openly with a country that has so many human rights problems and that still has the vast bulk of its soldiers and armaments arrayed against the south. Is this gesture really going to help rapprochement between the two countries (which is presumably the rationalization for it)? I sincerely doubt it.

Even some of the pre-unification projects some southerners hold so dearlike real rail and road connections, rather than the connections that have been built to simply service what have essentially become South Korean outposts (Kaesng and Kmgangsan)have not materialized, despite pledges to build them way back in 2000.

Actually, considering the North’s tendency to pledge action and then let the idea die in endless talks (and I’m not even talking about big issues like the 6-party talks: small things like the transportation connections mentioned above), I’ll have to echo Nomad in saying I’ll believe it when I see it.