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3 Working through Korean unification
blues By Andrei Lankov
For six decades, the myth of unification
as Korea's supreme goal has been enshrined in the
official mythology of both nations. The lip
service to this myth is still paid by virtually
all political forces in both Koreas, but the
actual policy of both Pyongyang and Seoul nowadays
is clearly based on a very different set of
assumptions and hopes: both sides try to avoid
situations which might lead to unification.
There are good reasons for this quiet
change of policy. The gap between the Koreas is
too great; depending on which calculations
you
believe the per capita gross domestic product in
the South is between 15 and 40 times higher than
that of the North. Perhaps, nowhere in the world
one can find two neighboring countries whose
income levels would be so vastly different - and
in this case the two countries happen to speak the
same language.
The North Korean rulers
know perfectly well that in a unified country they
would be unable to keep their privileges, and also
are likely to be held responsible for decades of
gross human-rights abuses and economic
mismanagement. South Koreans are no more willing
to unify with their impoverished brethren -
unification of Germany where the initial situation
was much better, became an ordeal, so the
unification of Korea would clearly become a
disaster.
Therefore, South Korean
politicians are doing everything possible to
support the dictatorship in Pyongyang, assuming
that "stability" in the North is necessary for
South Korean economic prosperity. Sufficient to
say that some 40% of all grain consumed in North
Korea is either received from the South or
produced with the help of the mineral fertilizer
shipped by Seoul free of charge.
This
policy is usually explained as a way to "create
the environment for Chinese-style reforms". This
indeed might be its long-term goal, but for all
practical reasons the major immediate outcome of
massive South Korean aid is a continuous survival
of the Pyongyang dictatorship. The statement that
a "German scenario is unacceptable" has become a
mantra of Seoul politicians.
However, over
the past decades, Kim Jong-il's regime has not
shown the slightest inclination to reform itself.
Obviously, the Pyongyang elite believes that the
Chinese model, so enthusiastically extolled by the
good-wishers from Seoul, is not acceptable for
them. Perhaps they are correct in their fears. The
existence of a rich and free South, always
presented as another part of the same nation,
makes the situation in Korea quite different from
that of China or Vietnam.
Chinese-style
reforms, if undertaken by Pyongyang, are bound to
produce a certain openness of the country and
certain relaxation of political control. As a
result, the North Korean populace will soon learn
about South Korean prosperity and will be less
afraid of the regime's repressive machine. It's
questionable to what extent the North Koreans
would be willing to obey a government whose track
record has been so bad after they see an
attractive alternative of the South.
Hence, North Korean leaders have made a
rational decision: to keep stability and their own
privileges, in recent years they have used foreign
aid to roll back the changes which happened in the
mid-1990s. Instead of reforms, they now do
everything possible to limit or ban private
economic activity and reassert their control over
society.
Despite the government's
resistance to reform, the North Korean system is
gradually crumbling from below, and this
slow-motion disintegration might turn into an
uncontrollable collapse in any moment. A sudden
death of even a serious illness of Kim Jong-il is
almost certain to trigger a serious crisis. If
this happens, all bets are off, but it seems that
a collapse of the system, Romanian or East German
style, is one of the most likely outcomes.
This is what people in the South fear
most. Indeed, unification might indeed spell
economic and social disaster for the rich South.
There are different estimates of the "unification
costs", the amount of money that would be
necessary to close the yawning gap between the two
Korean economies. The most recent estimate was
made public last October. A report prepared by a
committee at the South Korean National Assembly
states that if unification happened in 2015, it
would cost US$858 million to raise North Korean
per capita income to half of the South Korean
level. This is guesswork, of course, but everybody
agrees that the amount of money necessary for
reconstruction of the impoverished North could
ultimately be counted in trillions of US dollars.
The "unification cost" is a hot topic, but
many problems are of a social nature and have
nothing to do with money issues. For decades,
North Korea has remained one of the world's most
isolated regimes whose rulers once perfected
Stalinism to the level undreamt of by Joseph
Stalin himself. The population, with the exception
of a tiny elite, has very vague and distorted
ideas about the outside world.
North Korea
is a well-educated society, but the technology and
science they teach at the colleges is of 1950s
vintage. The average North Korean engineer has
never used a computer. Society has been
conditioned to perceive the total distribution of
goods and services as the norm, and experts seem
to agree that the average North Korean defector in
the South has serious problems when it comes to
making consumer or career decisions for oneself
(no such decisions are necessary or even possible
under the North Korean system).
So, it is
easy to see why South Koreans are so afraid of
unification. However, history does not flow in
accordance with human desires. If the North Korean
state collapses, South Koreans will have few
choices but to prepare themselves for unification
at time and under circumstances which they would
not be too happy about.
As the East
European revolutions of 1989-1990 (or, for that
matter, of nearly all popular revolutions) have
demonstrated, once changes begin, nobody can
control the pace and direction of events. Now it
is time to think what should be done if an
emergency happens and the North Korean regime
follows the fate of nearly all regimes which once
were its models and aspirations - Albania, Romania
and the Soviet Union itself. When a crisis starts
unrolling, it doesn't leave much time for rational
thinking.
Alas, any open media discussion
of this subject remains taboo in the South. There
are fears that such discussions might annoy the
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