With folks busy and a lot end-of-the-year news out there, it is easy to miss some important stuff.
For example, this is a welcome development (Korea Times, with a cheap hat tip to my database blog):
Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung on Thursday said North Korea should make more progress in the nuclear disarmament talks before South Korea can resume its aid shipments to Pyongyang.
“There are several preconditions to our resuming the halted aid shipments. To name a few, more progress in the six-party talks and the resumption of stalled inter-Korean talks as well as more favorable public sentiments toward helping the North,” Lee said during his first press conference at the ministry in Seoul.
In other words, with Roh’s Son of Sunshine policy taking a beating from the GNP and two major elections coming up in the next 18 months, you have to throw us a bone if you want any more rice.
One thing the piece did not mention was the status of flood aid to North Korea. In any case and despite the missile and nuke tests, 2006 saw a record amount of aid from Seoul to Pyongyang.
Son of Sunshine also took a beating on the budget front (Korea Times again):
The budget cut reduced funds for inter-Korean cooperation from 650 billion won to 500 billion won.
The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) insisted that expenditures for inter-Korean affairs be cut, citing worsening relations between the two Koreas after North Korea conducted missile and nuclear tests in July and October, respectively.
The Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund has served as a lifeline for cross-border business projects, such as the Kaesong Industrial Complex and the Mt. Kumgang resort program, and Seoul’s economic aid to the impoverished North.
This Hankyoreh piece from November says that the total budget for inter-Korean projects in 2007 is somewhere around 1,836 trillion won (roughly $1.9 billion) so a cut of 150 billion won for the IKCF is not that big of a deal, but Lee’s call for some reciprocity from Pyongyang is certainly progress. While this might not be his and President Roh’s first choice of again, I will give them credit for taking the step.
UPDATE: The first comment has a link to a Yonhap piece which gives a very different view of Lee’s news conference.
14 Comments
Interesting that Yonhap is spinning the UniMin’s announcement very differently:
http://english.yonhapnews.co.k.....937E0.html
I wonder if it’ll last as long as the last time they withheld aide from them?
What was that? Two weeks?
The truth is SK has no choice but to send food, fertilizer(this can be extracted into fuel) and money to Kim Jongil.
Otherwise, KJI will shoot some machine guns at DMZ or send a Navy ship down to shoot at Korean ship. KJI will do it too. Maybe several times this year. He got SK by the balls.
Rho and his cronies are only happy to pay. They are traitors. What they should do instead is to tell SK people the truth. “We are being held hostage by Kim Jongil. Do you want us to pay or tell him to go to hell?”
I will tell this SOB leech to go to hell.
Here’s an interesting take on why the South still follows its Sunshine policy with the North:
Leading to the interesting bit:
The whole thing is here: Why Seoul is soft on North Korea
You can’t stop but wonder if something is rotten in the state of Danemark when you’ve got billions of dollars in aid being sent to North Korea, a former leader of an illegal pro-North Korean student union turning up as a presidential advisor, a German-Korean academic/high-ranking North Korean politburo member invited by the government, high ranking North Korean politicians now living in South Korea not being permitted to voice any criticism of North Korea or meet with the American government and politicians being arrested as North Korean spies.
Nothing to ‘wonder’ about, the rot is quite clear.
Well, in contradiction to this post, we get more strange comments from the current minister of unification, Lee Jae Joung:
and . . .
So the minister apparently wants South Korea to become responsible for the economic development of North Korea while North Korea is the chief threat to South Korea and the leadership, therein, claims to be the legitimate leader of Korea and apparently has a plan to subjugate South Korea already.
Though helping North Korea to improve its economic ability may have positive results, there is no change in its ideology or leadership. Empowering such people is a highly risky proposition that offers fewer certainties than if North Korea collapsed, I suspect. Though the North Koreans are like brothers to South Koreans, they are also the most direct danger to it, thus aiding North Korea on a large scale — without a substantial change in its policy towards South Korea is as sexy an idea as the male praying mantis mating with the female — right before she chews his head off and devours him.
Such ideas from Lee sound more like he is a minister of defecation rather than of unification.
So, that lasted two days then?
UniMon Lee seemed to studiously avoid addressing the main cause of North Korea’s poverty — unless he was using very vague code for regime change.
Here is a related thought to empowering North Korea and the eventual results from successfully doing such. All of the following supposition is based upon current events, trends and characteristics of Korean society, as best as I might describe it:
I suspect that if North Korea accepted a deal to put away nuclear weapons and eventually cut a deal in unifying the country, at some point, a country — much like the current hyper-nationalist Belarus would evolve, where much foreign influence would be curbed and most foreigners and foreign companies would effectively be expelled from a unified Korea. The language would be purified of foreign influences and the country would also most likely change its government and the world would, again change in a way that was good for the few but cruel and deliberate for the many who would be bound body and soul to the idea of “min jok”. Again, consider the case of Belarus here.
Naturally, if one is born Korean, then one may never realize that ideas that define one’s notion of their society is also the limits of what is officially allowed (it is a neat dove-tailing of the two concepts). Considering such, this Korea would definitely be much closer to China in spirit than ever before.
Much of this is also based upon the thought that to some Koreans, reunification is more important than retaining the current state of democracy in its present form. I can well imagine the PR effort in selling the idea to people that to solve the problem of a troublesome North Korea and unification, a change in government is needed so as to create one Korea. I honestly do not think that very many South Koreans would like this idea now but if North Korea were to become more industrious and burgeoning at the expense of South Korea, South Koreans might find themselves forced into a dilemma which would be greased with the slick idea of one nation and a new beginning. Currently a recent Gallup poll indicates that there is a growing pessimism in Korean society, regarding its future. Combined with the upcoming and probable real estate bust, South Koreans may find themselves seeking a better vision of the future — a vision that the current conservatives have failed to provide to South Korea and currently lack.
The summation of such is that this trend towards hyper-nationalism and the idea of empowering North Korea would more than likely change Korea in ways that are at best chilling to think of.
“reunification is more important than retaining the current state of democracy in its present form”
That is a scary thought.
“Security on the Korean Peninsula will always be in danger, and we cannot guarantee peace on the peninsula unless we can find a fundamental solution to the problem of poverty in the North”
Minister Lee JaeYoung, you are absolutely right. A fundamental solution to North Korean poverty IS necessary for security on the peninsula.
That fundamental solution is the absorption of the failed, barbarous torture-state/kingdom of North Korea into successful and civilized South Korea. The execution of KimJongIl for crimes against humanity and trials for KPA criminals would also contribute to a ‘fundamental solution’.
No need to send me a consulting fee, Mr. Minister. Clarifying your logic-deficient musings is all in a days work for me.
KCP criminals, that should be.
Great post #10, R. Elgin — really something to think about.