Well, maybe the title is somewhat an exaggeration but Michael Backman, the author of this article in The Age, describes the 23,000,000 Koreans living in the North as hostages of Kim Jong-Il. His opening paragraph, somewhat dramatically and in a backhand swipe at Bush, sets the tone for the article:
“PERHAPS the biggest tragedy to arise from the Iraq war is that North Korea will now not be invaded. Plenty of disappointed Burmese too were hoping that they would be next for some assisted regime change.”
The article goes on to look at the benefits of North and South Korea reunifying, and somewhat unsurprisingly the South Koreans will benefit the most from the reunification. What is surprising is how the South will benefit. According to Backman:
…South Korea faces two demographic crises: it has a serious gender imbalance, particularly among younger South Koreans; and it is aging faster than any other nation on Earth. The median age for South Korea’s population is forecast to rise to 50.9 years by 2040, up from 36.8 now. And by 2050 it will be about 52 years. This means that more than half the population will be aged over 50 in a generation. Supporting that number of older people will be an enormous drain on the economy. Furthermore, South Korea’s birth rate is way below the replacement rate. Its population is forecast to start shrinking from 2027. North Korea does not face these problems. Whereas each woman in the South gives birth to just 1.28 children, on average, the figure in the North is 2.05. This means that reunification will give South Korea a demographics rejuvenation.
Of course this “demographics rejuvenation” could be obtained through other means already discussed on this blog. Korean farmers could increase the number of women they buy marry from Vietnam, China, or the Philippines.
While Mr. Backman does see the advantages in unification - he is not so naive as to believe that this will be done quickly or without some struggles.
But reunification will take a long time. Infrastructure in the North is nothing like that in the South. For example, the North’s main port of Nampo has no container cranes — containers must be hoisted using conventional cranes. Economically, the two are much further apart than East and West Germany were when they reunified. Agriculture is the mainstay of the North Korean economy but even this is handled abysmally. Famine has had a devastating effect. According to 2005 UN statistics, the average seven-year-old boy in North Korea is 18 centimetres shorter and nine kilograms lighter than his South Korean counterpart.
Censorship in North Korea is more thorough than anywhere. Televisions and radios are hard-wired to receive only Government-controlled frequencies. Mobile telephones were banned in 2004. Access to the internet is banned. The designated North Korean web suffix “.kp” remains dormant. Educated North Koreans have no understanding of developments in the outside world, or any understanding of how backward their country is. The censorship is so total that when confronted with the truth they assume that it is all lies.
He ends his article on an upswing for ‘the Down-under’ by noting: “… the rebuilding of northern Korea will represent a big opportunity for infrastructure companies, most of which will be from the South, and for resources companies. Many of these will be Australian.”
21 Comments
Hm… What should I say? I’d rather remain silent. It’s so rude to offend an optimist, even if the said optimist is out of touch with harsh realities…
Well, you have to give him points for his boldness in reframing the current tragedy in Afghanistan in terms of the much bigger tragedy just north of the DMZ.
23 Koreans—now, God rest their souls, 21—versus 23 million Koreans. And we know that there are definitely far more than 23 Christians, no less, in North Korea, some enduring years of persecution, and some no doubt having already come to the same earthly end as Pastors Bae and Shim.
Agriculture is/was not the mainstay of North Korea’s economy, which underwent Soviet-style industrializaton and was more urbanized than countries at comparable levels of development — a fact that helped exacerbate the famine.
Re my comment #2:
Improbably optimistic though it might be, if the plight of the Christians in Afghanistan in any way galvanizes South Koreans to show more compassion for their brothers and sisters in North Korea and take more constructive action on their behalf, then it would be a marvellous thing indeed. Will anyone in the South Korean intelligentsia dare to take up this line of reasoning, though?
‘any way galvanizes South Koreans to show more compassion for their brothers and sisters in North Korea and take more constructive action on their behalf, then it would be a marvellous thing indeed…’ sewing
i get so tired of hearing this kind of stuff from folks who supposedly care more about koreans than koreans do. could you tell me how koreans can show more compassion? can you tell me what your game plan would be if you were the korean president? you seem to have all the answers.
Pawi, I don’t have all the answers. And there are many South Koreans today who are doing all they can to help North Koreans, not least those few dedicated, tireless souls who risk their lives working in China to help refugees.
But when the South Korean media pay so little attention to the human rights situation in North Korea—while offering 24-hour news coverage of the hostage crisis in Afghanistan—then something is amiss.
Whatever their mistakes or mistaken mission in Afghanistan, Korean missionaries (ROKs and KAs) are the mainstay of efforts to help North Korean refugees in China through the underground railroad and other shelters, and they do this at considerable risk. (It appears that they also put North Koreans at risk by attemptingto convert them.)
I maybe mistaken, but I thought sewing was a Korean (in Canada). A compassionate Korean president would abandon the fiction that extending aid to the Kim regime is the same as helping the North Korean people, would stop pretending that reconciliation is occuring until North Korea takes one step that is not a cynical ploy for money or goods and would speak openly, fearlessly and often about reunification. S/he would dramatically reshuffle the Unification Ministry leadership and senior staff to purge all coopted officials and redirect that agency to its core mission of unifying the country. Aid should be in nontradeable humanitarian goods and be administered by South Koreans on the ground in the North — a policy that could be enshrined in law, if necessary. S/he would also get more involved in seeing that the North Koreans who settle in the South succeed. Above all, Seoul needs to wrest back from Pyongyang the initiative in inter-Korean relations. The South pays all the bills; the South must call the tune.
For the record, I’m not Korean, either by citizenship or ethnicity, although my wife was born in South Korea. I know this will invalidate my commentary in the eyes of certain commenters, but I’ve travelled to South Korea 6 times in 10 years, spent most of that time outside of the cultural insularity of Seoul, can read and speak Korean, and can understand Gyeongsang dialect passably. And if Pawi cared to read over my comments on the Marmot’s Hole over the past 2+ years, he’d see I’m not some kneejerk K-basher.
Also, I have a visceral love of soju and “trot” music, had our wedding in a hyanggyo (Confucian academy) and cry when I watch the movie Seopyeonje, so that’s gotta count for something….
Always happy to stand corrected. I just figured that someone with your grasp of matters Korean and sensitivity to Korean feelings but not living there day to day would likely be an ROK expat or an overseas Korean.
I guess I’m an overseas expat, which sounds like a double negative (literally, but also figuratively for some folks).
When will we get our gravatars back? I miss your Deliverance-style image, Slim.
“Korean missionaries (ROKs and KAs) are the mainstay of efforts to help North Korean refugees in China through the underground railroad and other shelters, and they do this at considerable risk.”
Wait a minute, but I thought Koreans don’t care about North Koreans. They only go to missionary expeditions to Afghanistan to convert good Muslim people. Those arrogant Christians in China, shouldn’t they get out of there and leave the Chinese alone?
Sewing talks the talk, but does he walk the walk. That’s what I want to know. I say: If invasion, assisted regime change, is your question, then I got the answer. Hell, yeah!!
But I ain’t gonna be all puffed up and high handed about it. Fuck, why should I be? Take the commie, and/or rag head out. Explain it to the pansy liberals after the deed is done.
Echoing the sentiment in post #2, I like the boldness of linking the idea of “hostage” to the oppressed in North Korea.
Everyone, not just South Koreans, need to be sensitized to the suffering of those under a tyrannical despot.
Perhaps they should. After all, they’re committing at least a couple crimes in doing what they do (assisting North Korean refugees and (probably) holding unsanctioned religious services) for which they could be imprisoned or forcibly deported if the Chinese government found out (or if they missed their monthly payment to the local official’s ‘retirement fund’, as it were…) And of course, if the South Korean government would just step up and do something about the problem of North Korean refugees, (like even asking the Chinese government to give them safe passage to the nearest South Korean embassy) maybe the missionaries wouldn’t be there to break the law in the first place.
Of course, the situation in China isn’t quite the equivalent of the one in Afghanistan. For one thing, Northeast China isn’t exactly an active war zone with a local militant group that’s in the habit of taking and executing hostages… Whatever the missionaries in China do, they’re not very likely to be sparking any major international incidents anytime soon.
Not to mention that the groups in Northeast China are actually doing useful humanitarian work rather than just going to a desert war zone to play doctor and try to win a few souls for Jeebus. That counts for at least a couple of points any day.
“Not to mention that the groups in Northeast China are actually doing useful humanitarian work rather than just going to a desert war zone to play doctor and try to win a few souls for Jeebus. That counts for at least a couple of points any day.”
Jeebus, Shod, and the Holy Fashizit. I think I read about them in the best seller, “The Gospel According to Snoop Dog”.
“So there was this ho, her name was Mary Magdalene, but we called her Mary Jane because she was always chillin’ on the chronic…”
sewing, if my post came across to you as strong, i apologize. it’s not my intention to piss people like you off. i just get so tired of hearing that koreans don’t care about koreans. i’m korean. i support the sunshine policy. i understand seoul’s silence on human rights in nk. does that mean i don’t care about my breathen to the north? i care very much about them. it pains me to think that 23 million koreans are living under tyranny. i want it to end. but that can’t end without dialogue. the strategy seoul is pursuing is about the same strategy i would pursue: create a financial dependancy, and at the same time, start laying down the infrastructure for reunification. the south koreans can’t do these things if the north koreans aren’t talking to them.
sewing, our goals are the same. it’s just our methods are different. that my way is different from yours does not mean i don’t care about the plight of korean people in the northern part of korea.
and yes, from your writings, i know you’re no korea basher. i apologize if i have offended you.
Christian groups are in China helping N.K. refugees, doing the work that the S.K. gov’t won’t do for its own citizens under the constitution. While they do have religious motives I support them because they also are doing a real service in helping N. Koreans escape, at great risk to themselves. It’s much different than the ones in Afghanistan because they go in knowing the risks and are not Christian tourists mindlessly trying to convert people.
Pawi: It’s all good. Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
Still don’t know how to do the ‘quote’ thingies…
so i quote pawikirogi, “the strategy seoul is pursuing is about the same strategy i would pursue: create a financial dependancy, and at the same time, start laying down the infrastructure for reunification.”
While the strategy is probably conceptually sound, you cannot say that Seoul is doing that strategy. Have they created a financial dependency? Probably. But have they sought to use it as leverage? Noooo. NK has managed to make it look like SK’s giving NK aid is a privilege–a combination of NK shrewdness and staggering incompetence by the last two presidents of SK. This is only reinforced by NK’s endless rattling of its saber, which is now a nuclear saber thanks in no small part to the fecklessness of KDJ and Roh..
Moreover, even if Seoul DID try to capitalize on this, NK could just turn to the PRC, or maybe even Russia/Venezuela/Iran.
SK probably has less control over the fate of North Korea than at any time in its history. Yay “independence” policy!
Also, South Korea is doing nothing to “start laying down the infrastructre for reuinification.” And no, the “symbolic” rail link that a) don’t actually run b) serves to line the North’s pockets as they score c) a valuable NK propaganda victory.
South Korea should be stockpiling massive amounts of relief aid–blankets, water bottles, non-perishable food if it wants to be readying itself for unification.