Might LMB finally stick a fork in the Unification Ministry? From Reuters:
South Korea’s new president could ditch the ministry that has long handled relations with North Korea, heralding what may be a major shift in the way Seoul deals with its prickly neighbour, aides were quoted as saying.
The Unification Ministry has been at the centre of growing criticism that the outgoing government has been too soft on the communist North, pouring aid across the border despite internationally condemned missile and nuclear tests.
Members of President-elect Lee Myung-bak’s team feel it has drifted off course, one adviser said.
“Many officials in the transition team take a negative view of the role and function of the Unification Ministry,” Korea University professor Nam Sung-wook, an adviser to the team, was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency on Thursday.
Surveys show most South Koreans want eventual unification of the peninsula divided for over half a century, but not while the hermit state is so down-at-heel that it risks sucking the energy out of their own economy.
Yonhap said the transition team is thinking of disbanding the ministry or merging it with the Foreign Ministry.
It quoted Unification Ministry officials as saying they fear the North would see the move as reducing it to just an “ordinary” country.
According to the Korea Herald, the potential shakeup is being led by Lee foreign policy advisor and Marmot’s Hole favorite Park Jin:
This is indeed a stark contrast from the mood at the Unification Ministry, which has been feeling increasingly anxious about its expected downsizing. Lee vows to put North Korea’s nuclear dismantlement at the top of the agenda. His transition committee has also openly stated that the new administration may seek to defer many economic agreements reached with the North, depending on their feasibility and relative importance. Rumors also have it that the Unification Ministry’s role in economic cooperation between the Koreas may be passed on to the Finance and Economy Ministry and the analysis department within the National Intelligence Service; also, various negotiations tasks may be delegated to the Foreign Ministry.
The Foreign Ministry, on the other hand, is cautiously welcoming this planned change that is being led by Rep. Park Jin, Lee’s point man on North Korean and other foreign policies.
Yes, I’m positively giddy — even leaving aside the cast of characters who have led the ministry in recent years (Jeong Se-hyun, Chung Dong-young and Lee Jae-jeong, in case you’ve forgotten), the merging of the ministry’s functions with the Foreign Ministry and other “real” ministries — if it happens — might actually lead to something approximating a rational North Korea policy and reduce tension within the South Korean government over foreign policy. At the very least, you won’t have the Unification Ministry and Foreign Ministry at each others throats anymore, and that’s a good thing for both Korea and countries dealing with Korea.
18 Comments
I don’t know if outright eliminating the Unification Ministry would send the right message. Adopting a more realistic approach to the North - one that demands the yet-to-be seen reciprocity and transparency that was supposed to be part of the sunshine policy in the first place - does not have to involve antagonizing them. (Unless, of course, an angry response is the desired result?) Downgrading the ministry to a largely symbolic/ceremonial body - or at least one clearly subservient to the Foreign Ministry - would be preferable to chopping it altogether. It could at least continue to have a research role, hopefully of a more balanced character than would have existed during the last decade.
Re: “I don’t know if outright eliminating the Unification Ministry would send the right message”
I think it would actually send exactly the right message. The Unification Ministry (UM) is just a flimsy name for its true purpose - to act as an extension of the DPRK directly into the ROK government. If anything, the UM is doing the opposite of moving Korea closer to Unification - its doing everything in its power to maintain the DPRK as-is.
Nay, I think eliminating the blindly pro-DPRK UM would send the right message :
No More Free Handouts
Yes, it should have a research role, as a study group within the foreign ministry. Its whole purpose would be what to do if NK collapses: about refugees, about infrastructure, administration.
Don’t you think, Hatch, that Japan, China and the US will take care of all that? The only thing they’ll want SK for is to pay the bill.
“The Unification Ministry (UM) is just a flimsy name for its true purpose - to act as an extension of the DPRK directly into the ROK government. If anything, the UM is doing the opposite of moving Korea closer to Unification - its doing everything in its power to maintain the DPRK as-is.”
You don’t really think the DPRK - a complete and utter failed excuse for a country - is calling all the shots down here, do you? South Korea is doing what it feels to be in its best interest. The ROK has been equally keen on maintaining the ROK as it is as far as not being flooded with refugees, being crippled economically by the collapse of the DPRK, etc.
I don’t think the Unification Ministry was ever about accelerating Korean reunification - as you mention, it has everything to do with delaying it - but I see little harm in it having a symbolic and a potentially important research role in the meantime.
Anyway, whenever the North finally implodes it won’t be because of - or coordinated by - a government ministry in Seoul. Any projected timetable for a “soft landing” goes out the window and all bets are off.
Hatch SZ, I agree, it might have been better had it always been a department within the Foreign Ministry.
Well, they could go around Seoul, picking up trash while wearing those demi-jackets; at least that is honest work and that is the right message.
The problem isn’t just the structure of UniFiction, it’s the mindset of those who populated it. The reconstruction function is a very important one, and it’s too important to leave planning it to people who want the North Korean system preserved, not rebuilt. You need a fresh start. It may sound cruel, but the same thing happens in Washington every four years. That’s why we have think thanks.
Really, I think the best news here may be that Park Jin looks seems to be in line for Foreign Minister (I got to meet Park in DC about a year ago and told him as much). I’m not a strong Lee MB fan — I’m keeping an open mind — but Park is one of the two best people in South Korean politics.
And one of the best looking, too. Not that there’s much competition.
“And one of the best looking, too. Not that there’s much competition.”
He’s slimmed down a lot over the last couple of years. I think he credited his new and healthy appearance to a “dolphin diet.” Don’t know what that entails, but it seems to have worked.
I’m loving the work LMB’s transition committees are doing, from Education to MIC to Unification (especially that monstrosity), too. But, and i hate to be sober about this, does LMB have the numbers in the legislature in April?
While I’m at it, exactly how do these transition committees and the ministries relate? Is there legislative oversight? Does LMB just wake up and abolish Unification on some date after inauguration?
Let’s not get too giddy! Roh Moo-hyun has got his bunker somewhere ready to lead the insurgency!
Linkd> No, I don’t think those countries will take care of it. The South will be asking them for money.
I think Lee MB has bigger problems than an Uri insurgency fighting on in the Cholla Triangle. Sounds to me like his efforts to shape the GNP candidate slate have royally pissed off Park Geun=Hye, and she’s thinking about splitting with him. Ordinarily, Lee Hoi Chang might not be much of a threat to Lee MB, but if Lee HC and Park GH both join forces against Lee, he could be in for a rough time.
Park Jin’s daughter is a fox too. I sat next to her on a flight back from DC and he came back from first class to business in order to glare at me.
Dare to dream, Brendon. He may have glared at you, but even in a best-case (for you) scenario, he really came back to remind her.
Instead of eliminating the “Ministry of Unification,” it should be renamed the, “Ministry of Absorption.”
Then the Lee should cut off all aid, announce plans for how the North will be redeveloped, followed by large cash rewards for the heads of KWP officials and other regime elite.
That would send the right signal.
If anything goes wrong, blame it on Japan.
If I remember correctly, some of the best intel reports on the North’s economy and human rights situaiton and so on have come from somewhere below the top levels of the (anti)Unification Ministry…
Maybe folding it into the Foreign Ministry would work out best. Chop off the heads of top layers of the UM (with their twisted ideology) and keep the working level experts and bureaus who spend their days analyzing information the ministry does seem to collect.
Apparently, some of the actions of the Unification Ministry have left many with the impression the ministry is run by a bunch of DPRK sympathizers “with their twisted ideology.”
Let me suggest a more banal, but more powerful insight into the UM.
The UM is not necessarily pro-unification, anti-unification, pro-DPRK, anti-DPRK, pro-human rights, human rights indifferent…whatever.
First and foremost, you need to recognize that the UM is pro-UM.
The UM is populated by political appointees and civil servants that have a strong vested interest in policies that benefit the UM generally, and themselves individually.
This point should be blindingly obvious, but apparently it is not. Hence the recourse to ascribing ideological motives to their behavior.
Take any policy position that the UM has pushed (including abstaining on the UN human rights resolution), view it through that prism, and see if it doesn’t start to make some sense.
Prior to the 2000.6.15 summit, the UM was a backwater in the government. You ended up there (or god fobid, transportation) if you couldn’t get yourself into MOFE or MOFAT (or their equivalents).
All that has changed, but they have too jealously promoted their interests and are seen by some in the LMB camp as “co-dependent” with the DPRK (or “captured” for those familiar with public administration), and are about to get their wings clipped.
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