Does S.Korea Really Want Unification?

Christopher Hill has taken charge of the U.S. State Department's Korean Peninsula policy for four years. His predecessor was James Kelly. The first U.S. chief envoy to the six-party talks, Kelly was a moderate. He commanded no less attention from the two Koreas than Hill has. But unlike the loquacious Hill, he has seldom expressed his views about South Korea. When I interviewed him in May last year, he only talked about the North. But Kelly has now offered a critical analysis of the South in an article in the latest edition of National Interest, published by the Nixon Center. Titled "Two For Now," he criticizes the South’s harder line on North Korea because he believes it is even less likely to work. As a major basis of his argument for maintaining the status quo on the Korean Peninsula, Kelly cited South Koran society's attitude toward the North. "The irony is that South Korea's great success has made South Korea comfortable enough to live at least with the status quo," he writes. "While favoring unification in the abstract, South Koreans dread the potential cost of absorbing the North -- its economic weakness and its people.” “The result is great apathy and a tendency of South Korean governments across the political spectrum to seek to avoid tensions -- and even to pay North Korea what amounts to 'protection' money." U.S. officials and Korean Peninsula experts are well aware that South Koreans are fed up with discussions about human rights in North Korea. They also pay attention to the fact even after a conservative government assumed power, the administration, surrendering to North Korean threats, is trying to prevent activists from floating anti-Communist leaflets to the North. "North Korean defectors find it much easier to meet the American president than the South Korean president," some Korea experts say. In the same vein, the Washington Post noted South Korea's indifference to North Korea when it reported on Shin Dong-hyuk, who escaped from a North Korean concentration camp. "It's horrifying… that only 500 people in South Korea, where Shin lives, have bought his book," the newspaper said. The problem is that such analysis by American experts on the Korean Peninsula and the press is not just embarrassing for us. South Korea's indifference to North Korea and repeated surrender to North Korean threats are reflected in U.S. policies. When State and Defense Department policy makers discuss Korea policies, they may argue in favor of maintaining the status quo rather than unification, as Kelly says. Since the illness of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has become known, the North Korea issue is rapidly becoming an acute problem rather than one that can be left for another day. Until South Korean society in general changes its attitude toward North Korea, Washington is right to view us with skepticism. The column was contributed by Lee Ha-won, the Chosun Ilbo's correspondent in Washington.