Two Koreas
Psycho-Social Factors on the Path of Unification
By Dr Kyu Hang Lee, Keyo Medical Foundation
I had a privilege to present the issue of Unification at the last Scientific meeting in
Seoul Korea. Today I am going to present the follow-up of that issue since there has
been tremendous changes and progress on our path toward unification. I deeply
appreciate the organizing committee for giving me this opportunity.
Let me first present the current status of two Koreas, divided by the demilitarized zone
for the last 50 years since the Korean war. Although Korea was divided with the similar
size of land and population and economic status since the end of the World War II, we
now realize at the beginning of the 21st century, there are tremendous differences
between us.
We can see a large gap in terms of population, quality of life and economic strength.
Both Koreas are on parity in terms of military power, though. Some people believe that
the north could be ahead of the south.
The geo-political significance played the most important role in division of Korea,
which is bordered by the world’s superpowers. The northern parts are bordered by
Russia and China, and the coastline by Japan. The USA does not want to be left out, so
the US troops are stationed in South Korea. Therefore, the international community
pays a lot of attention to the Korean peninsula. Naturally, we see international conflicts
take place here.
Perhaps the geo-political significance must have been recognized even 800 years ago,
when Jinghis Khans conquered the Chinese continent. The Mongols proceeded to
conquer the Korean Peninsula, and then they were able to launch a military expedition
to invade Japan. Then in 1592, after Japan was unified, Japan invaded Korea to advance
into China.
The Korean Peninsula receives the attention of the superpowers after the World War II.
The initial plan of dividing the Korean peninsula was Russians’ occupancy in South
Korea and the Americans in the North. Thanks God!, this was reversed due to the
military strategic reason. Otherwise, many of the Korean colleagues and myself who are
here today might not have been able to be here at this PRCP meeting.
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Then the Korean war broke out between South and North in 1950. As you see in this
slide, world powers’ conflicts or interests clashed in the Korean Peninsula. 16 allied
nations supported South Korea while China and Russia were in support of North Korea.
The Korean War was not only a demonstration of conflicts between the two Koreas but
was more of a war fought by the world powers representing Communists and those
from Free World.
The two Koreas walked different path. Both regarding the each other as an enemy. Each
Korea has spent approximately 40% of the national budget on military expenses. When
there’s an external enemy, people tend to pull together and remain loyal to the country
and they are willing to put up with the internal conflicts.
Both Korean regime have utilized this psychological element, I believe, in maintaining
their regime, in the past. This tendency has been more so in the north, perhaps even at
the present time.
Outside of the psychological factors, important matters including the legal framework,
military power, education, and textbook contents as well as budget allocation have been
made in conjunction with understanding that the two Koreas are technically at war.
There has been continuous military tension and occasional military conflicts mostly
initiated by the north.
Then the world began to change. To be specific, the world saw collapse of communist
regimes all around the globe, economic hardships in North Korea, remarkable economic
growth in South Korea. Changes also include the end of the Cold War and the mood of
rapprochement, and capitalistic economic policy in China. In the midst of these changes,
South Korea began to examine and explore the possibility of changing the policy toward
the North.
Under these circumstances, three years ago, when President Kim Dae-Jung took office
in South Korea, came a new approach in dealing with North Korea – the Sunshine
Policy.
The Sunshine Policy is a major shift from the old policy of unification by absorption. It
is a strategic effort aimed at genuine, long-term improvements in inter-Korean relations
through peaceful coexistence, mutual cooperation and exchanges.
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To help your understanding, I’d like to share one of the famous tales from Aesop’s
Fables. As you can see in the slide, while strong wind may not be able to strip off the
person’s clothes, sunshine gives the person a reason to take off his clothes. This offers
an interesting parallel to the Sunshine Policy.
North Korea has been a reclusive, hostile nation. In order to help North Korea to open the doors to outside
and engage them in peace dialogue, people thought sunshine (providing humanistic aids while
acknowledging their regime) would work better than strong wind (force). So at first, the Sunshine
Policy drew wide support at home and abroad.
The sunshine policy resulted in many fruits such as the historic summit, rice and
fertilizer aids, Kumkang Mountain Tour Project, reunion of separated families, plans for
reconnecting the railway, ministerial talks, military talks, talks between North Korea
and the U.S., factory construction, KEDO, and so on.
Where there’s sunlight there’s shade. Since this is the law of this world, we just can’t
ignore the shade while carrying out the Sunshine Policy. In other words, we can’t
neglect the problems of the North Korean defectors, financial difficulties of the Kum
Kang Mountain Tour Project, stagnation in the process of reconnection of railway and
slow progress of KEDO. The U.S. response in the Bush government has become
another factor influencing the path to the unification. And most importantly,
psychological dilemma of the citizens in South began to surface.
For an example, the agonies of separated families tend to intensify through one time
events such as the family reunion and letter exchanges that had more of the
demonstration effect. These types of events had a symbolic significance but also seemed
resulting in more disappointment and emptiness among some families. There have been
strong demands that these have to be on-going programs for all the separated families,
rather than one-time event of reunion and letter exchange for the limited number of
families,
In fact, there has been many doubts among South Koreans.
These are the most prevailing questions and doubts we began to have.
Why do we have to pour our resources to the North Koreans when there is no evidence
of change in the North Korea?
Can we really trust the communist regime, the communist terrorists?
They may be just playing a game to get support from the South and the rest of the world
without any genuine intention of dialogue or developing mutually trustful relationship
for peaceful co-existence
What are we going to do about our traditional education and the anti-communism
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policy? Can we accept the communism and change the law and education policy?
Dilemma resulting from diversity and freedom of democracy: Just one truth and one
justice exist in the communist regime, but South Korea is a free democratic society. So
the problem in South Korea is that communists may also exist legitimately. This is the
dilemma facing the South since the government’s implementation of the Sunshine
Policy.
Furthermore, it has been very difficult to have a unified opinion over the sunshine
policy and unification in South Korea although the principle of this policy has been
accepted and welcomed by most of people.
Ironically, there have been growing divisions and conflicts among South Korean people
in terms of viewing the Sunshine Policy and support to the North. So some cynical
critics have been stating that unifying the people of the South should come before
unifying the two Koreas.
I believe there must be even more serious dilemma in the North Korean regime. Once
they open the doors to the free world and the people begin to experience the freedom
and democracy, the North Korean regime may not have much choice: The regime may
have to change as the Chinese government has changed, or collapse as many of the East
European communist regimes did.
There are many socio-psychological conflicts arising out of the effort toward
reunification. I think we could see the two Koreas as having “love and hate
relationship”. It’s an undeniable fact that they are the same people and brothers and
sisters. The life in North Korea is tough enough to spark sympathy among South
Koreans. But when we look at how North Korea behaves, sympathy goes away and we
are left with the painful memories of the war. This is the agony coming from such
ambivalence.
In this environment, we have seen two attitudes in South Korea. The extremists are
criticizing the people with vested rights, saying that “they do not want unification out of
fear that it may result in changes and threaten their privileged status.”
On the other hand, there’s been outpouring criticisms against the extremists saying that
“unification for the sake of unification poses a danger; they are compromising
democracy and freedom with the North communist regime, and that they are too
sentimental and naïve in approaching this issue.” There have How should we deal with
these problems then? I believe the answer is to take the communist regime and its
people as separate entity.
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In this context, the basis of the Sunshine policy is a proper and timely way to approach
North Korea. But potential problems and conflicts that may arise in the process of
achieving unification are immense.
Personally, I believe the solution would be to approach peaceful co-existence and
unification as two different ideas. That is, the two nations have to first respect and
cooperate with each other.
Unification is a second priority. If we put unification before peaceful co-existence, the
reality will be too difficult to deal with. It is like “putting Cart in front of Horse.”
Why do we have to pour our resource to the North Korea?
Can we really trust the communist regime and talk with them, when they do not
change?
What are we going to do with our traditional education over the anticommunism policy?
“Pouring our resource to North” is a significantly distorted view and overstatement.
Although South has, I hope, substantially, provided humanistic and financial support to
the North, it is far from pouring our resource.
“Can we trust and talk with communist when they do not change?” This is labeling
mistake, rather than communist, we may want to talk with partner, our brothers and
sisters, and they will have to change, the effect of their change has been visible yet. As
the whole world has been changing, they are changing.
What is important is the direction and speed of their change. Sunshine policy certainly
gives right directions at least. The speed may have to be continually adjusted
realistically.
“Traditional education and the anti-communism policy” may have to be dealt with new
dimensional thinking with “peace, freedom, democracy” rather than the dichotomous
thinking with democracy vs. communism.
As Koreas have been divided, we may have to separate many issues until we solve.
Peaceful relation is probably different from the Unification. Dealing with the north
regime is one issue and supporting the North Korean people should be another.
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Both the sunshine policy and its outcomes should be separated from the shade of the
sunshine. In spite of the number of conflicts arising as a result of the sunshine policy, its
policy should be consistent, regardless of the dilemma coming out from it.
Finally “give and take” should be regarded as two different issues. Even after the South
support the North Korea, we should not have such expectation or or receive something
in return.
Before I close my final remarks today, I’d like to ask this question:
Should dream remain as just a dream? I think we should accept the irony that a more
serious dilemma could follow as the dream coming closer to a reality.
I’d like to emphasize our psychological readiness for our path: Peaceful relations,
helping North Korea open doors. And finally, we must trust freedom and democracy as
our strength. As long as we patiently support North Korea to open their door, democracy
and freedom will prevail in the Korean Peninsula, and ultimately the unification will
come not as a communist nation but as a democratic country.
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