nwasianweekly.com
Oct. 13, 2007

Korean leaders’ summit a serious
step forward

Last week, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il met face to face in Pyongyang for a three-day summit meeting.

The media coverage was intense and incessant, as befits an event of such historical and international significance. But the reaction from experts and civilians alike was generally along the lines of “So what?” Big deal. Nothing will come of it, just as nothing much happened after the 2000 summit talks between Kim and then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

The summit meetings ended last Thursday, with the signing of a peace and economic cooperation pact. The declaration outlines various economic projects that South Korea will undertake, including creating infrastructure in North Korea, developing special economic zones, establishing joint fishing and shipping routes, and building an industrial complex.

The North, for its part, committed to diplomatic efforts to dismantle its nuclear weapons program and to work towards signing a formal peace treaty.

South Korea’s obligations are specific, concrete and attainable. North Korea’s are admittedly vague and hard to account for. The summit did not produce a peace treaty or reunification, no. It did, as a New York Times headline put it, exceed low expectations. Many people, especially Koreans, were prepared to see this summit as a non-event, or worse, as pandering to the North Korean dictator.

But just last month, several North Korean officials in the U.S. were invited to tour Washington D.C., a city previously off-limits to them. The Bush administration has also promised Pyongyang 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil in exchange for the nuclear disarmament plan. President Bush has generally been praised for softening his diplomacy tactics. Why is President Roh not being given the same latitude?

The South Korean government has always maintained a policy of reducing the economic gap between the two nations as a means towards reunification. Economic inroads will lead to political inroads. This has proved to be true elsewhere in the world, and it is by far the most substantial way to help North Korean civilians.

Many Koreans and Korean Americans resent Kim’s rotund belly, an obvious symbol of the dictator’s self-indulgence as his nation starves. Roh has been called a coward and a kowtower. Why should the South Korean and U.S. governments contribute to Kim’s belly? Won’t he use those funds to further his nuclear weapons program?

These are clearly valid concerns. Pyongyang does not have a stellar track record of honoring its international contracts. But Roh’s strategy is best. Small, tangible, concrete inroads by way of economic advancement are cause for hope.

If history repeats itself, then Germany’s reunification is a lesson to us all. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, reunification for the East and West Germans came so suddenly and unexpectedly that they were ill-prepared for the process. The resentment from West Germans was, and is, that they would be responsible for the financial burden. As of today, the German government is still pouring billions of dollars into the development of the former East German states.

If the Germans are still facing challenges as a result of their reunification, the reunification for North and South Korea will easily be 10 times more challenging. North Korea is in direr straits than East Germany was in 1989, and even more closed off from the outside world.

What we learned from the Germans is that reunification requires a great deal of wealth, knowledge and resources—possibly more than we can imagine. Just as importantly, patience and compassion towards the North Koreans who have suffered for such a long time is also needed.

Here in the United States, the National Association of Korean Americans (NAKA), which lists contributing to the peaceful reunification of the two Koreas as one of its four primary objectives, has always urged the U.S. government to soften its foreign policy towards North Korea. The NAKA has also sent financial aid to North Korea for humanitarian efforts, believing that they have a duty to their brethren, regardless of the government they live under.

While waiting for the reunification they so desire, Korean Americans need to ponder the vast needs of the North Koreans in many areas, including education, technology, urban development, food production and manufacturing. They can think of ways to support and contribute to the rebuilding of North Korea, for the sake of eventual reunification.

The latest summit meetings seem to have underwhelmed most spectators. Many mentioned the lack of results from the 2000 summit meetings as a cause of their cynicism. But since the 2000 talks, some 18,000 Koreans from separated families have been permitted reunions. For those families, this alone would qualify the summit talks as an overwhelming success. Even the smallest step forward affects ordinary people in very profound ways.

As Hwang Jong-ki, a Korean American who was in Korea last week, told an Associated Press reporter, “I hope the leaders of North and South Korea will meet again and again, and I will not ever get bored of it.”

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