The death of Kim Jong Il on Saturday may rouse hopes for a
future unification on the peninsula. I’d like to say that, reporting from South
Korea, those hopes are in vain for several reasons. Firstly, North Korea’s
strategic position aids both the US and China in their attempts to maintain and
increase their spheres of influence respectively. Next, South Koreans do not
want to have to deal with the strain reunification will put on their economy
and society. In this regard, some people have tried to draw parallels with the
German experience, but this also fails. Finally, internal factors in North
Korea favor the status quo being maintained at all costs.
Here in South Korea, I have read many opinion pieces that
claim that the world is ‘scared’ of a unified Korea, as it would make a larger
country that is in possession of both economic clout and nuclear weapons. Some
on the South Korean far right suggest that Japan, Russia and China conspire to
keep the country separated out of pure fear. I think that there is a more
prosaic reason for maintaining the status quo. Since the end of World War 2,
the United States has maintained a military presence in Japan and South Korea,
and it has a defense pact with Taiwan in order to ‘box in’ the former Soviet
Bloc of Russia and China. This has not only proved profitable for the military
establishment, but also serves as a powerful disincentive for China to embark
on any aggressive courses of action in its recent expansionist policies. The
Americans need North Korea to remain belligerent in order to justify their
presence in South Korea and Japan.
China would love to see the Americans out of Asia, and the
Japanese and both Koreas tire of them running the show in the Pacific, but
China fears that a Korea unified under the direction of the South will favor
the US, even if the military bases are removed. They also fear the exodus of the
North Korean elite, who would surely be driven from the country by angry
peasants or vengeful South Koreans, across their Eastern border. China also has
resource pacts with Pyongyang, some ninety nine year leases for mining and
lumber that have been offered at a fraction of their worth for China’s continued
political patronage and protection. The Seoul government has said that it would
cancel all such agreements should reunification occur. Therefore, although some
in China are not opposed to reunification, the Chinese government does not wish
to gamble with the results of a unified Korea.
Talking to my friends in Korea, it is apparent that they do
not want a unified nation as much as their parents and grandparents do. South
Korea has embraced free markets and prospered, going from one of the poorest
nations on earth in 1961, to the thirteenth biggest economy today. This year it
surpassed Great Britain in exports, and quality of life is relatively good. North
Korea has plummeted since 1990, with up to three million dead due to food
shortages, chronic malnourishment for a vast majority of North Korea and, of
course, a cult personality that have all combined to rob the citizenry of
almost all initiative. The North Korean refugees that do make it over here are
treated like dirt. Their accent is mocked and they are discriminated against in
the workplace. Whilst the South Korean language has been allowed to adapt and
incorporate foreign words and a technologically proficient vocabulary based on
them, North Koreans have steadfastly held on as much as possible to a
traditional way of speaking. They are
different people. When the current generation passes on, there will be very
few, if any, familial ties. Young South Koreans
do not want reunification.
As I mentioned, the German example does not apply well to
Korea. East Germany never threatened to
turn Berlin into a ‘lake of fire’. East Germany did not launch an unprovoked
attack on West Germany, or have a bitter war that lasted three years. East
Germany did not bomb West German airplanes or attempt to assassinate West
German premiers. When East and West Germany unified, the leaders of the East
knew the jig was up and gave in to demands for democratic reforms from their
people. Furthermore, East Germany was the most prosperous of the Eastern Bloc
countries; South Korea and North Korea couldn’t be more different. The division
of Germany was forced by foreign powers, whilst the Koreas split up according
to very different ideologies that each faction chose to follow in a most
extreme manner. In this regard, it is more like the Indian/Pakistani divide
given the almost religious devotion that both countries choose to follow either
free market capitalism or state planned socialism with.
Lastly, internal forces in Korea are difficult to gauge.
There is no doubt that Kim Il Sung was a hero to the Koreans in their fight for
freedom from the Japanese. Even South Korea has, grudgingly, acknowledged his
role in the resistance, despite the fact that he instigated the Korean War. At
the time, Kim Il Sung enjoyed support in South Korea who welcomed the
opportunity to reunify under his leadership. One of the great shames of South
Korea is how they very effectively murdered or suppressed this support in the
period leading up to the war, and executed many as traitors during the war. The
United States and Japan basically placed the Japanese collaborators in the
Seoul government, which is why North Korea often refers to the Seoul government
as the ‘traitorous clique’ in its propaganda.
The point is that Kim Il Sung’s personality cult is easily
understandable; he is still the ‘Eternal Leader’ of North Korea. Even though he
is dead, his body rests in a mausoleum where visitors are told that he is ‘just
sleeping’. Comparing the videos of weeping North Koreans that came out on
Youtube today to the ones that came out after Kim Il Sung’s death, it is
striking how different they are. Kim Jong Il and his son do not enjoy nearly
the level of support that he did. Kim Jong Il was also sick for a very long
time before his death. It has been speculated that either his sister and
brother in law, or the military have really been handling his affairs for quite
some time. These are people well invested in the status quo. Kim Jong Il
himself admitted to a Chinese ambassador that he had had a nightmare of the
fall of his regime and being stoned by his own people. For the surviving
members of his family, it is clear that maintaining the current order is a
matter of life or death. Should they lose their guards and palaces and be
driven into exile, there will be no rest or safety for them. No, reunification
will not come from the Kims or their allies in the Workers’ Party or military
establishment.
There are way too many factors that would indicate that
continued separation of the two Koreas will continue into the foreseeable
future. Barring a complete revolt by the Party, the Military or the general
North Korean population with the clear goal of reunification via negotiated
settlement, the death of Kim Jong Il will do little to defuse the powder keg
that is the current East Asian situation. I do hope, however, that Kim Jong Un
will be able to abandon his father’s disastrous brinksmanship diplomacy and
bring those elements in the military so intent on stoking tension on the
peninsula to heel.
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