Korean unification: An expensive dream
The desire for unity with the north expressed by several thousand students on the campus of Seoul University last week is hardly shared by the vast majority of the population of South Korea. Although most South Koreans view the split of their country as something unnatural, an historical injury to more than two millennia of national identity, the average person on the street looks upon the idea of reunification with more caution than enthusiasm.
Public opinion in recent years has been following very closely the results of German reunification. The message that has been perceived loud and clear is the astronomical economic costs that Germany’s ideological unity has imparted on the West Germans. Germany’s approach was to get the job done and the pain over with as quickly as possible. However, South Koreans have been astute observers of how that pain is lingering.
The billions of marks invested in restructuring programs in the former GDR are not bearing the fruit that had been anticipated. It had been hoped that at least some of the industrial structures of the previously communist country would reveal themselves to be competitive or at least transformable. However, the truth was that not one was able to resist the laws of the free market and the West Germans were forced to start the new enterprise building in the east from scratch.
The moral of the story for South Koreans: While observing carefully the recent problems that have afflicted the north and watchful of any signs of political collapse in the North Korean government, any dreams for a future reunification are on a long term basis, heavily pondered, and with space for pauses for reflection between carefully calculated stages. It is in this light that the Seoul government has published a pamphlet propagandizing an eventual reunification plan based on three phases. The first phase is called "reconciliation and cooperation" in which initial contacts would be encouraged between the two countries. In the next phase, a "Korean Commonwealth" would be established in which the two states, although remaining distant, would begin to formulate some common institutions in order to promote a carefully monitored and parallel economic progression. Only in the third phase would the countries actually be reunited with a validated economic system.
It wasn’t that long ago South Korea was considered a Third World country. It has only begun to reap the benefits of its economic development on a massive level in the past 5 to 10 years. It will scarcely be willing to throw it all away in order to take on the disasters of the north without weighing every move very carefully. In any case, if and when it does decide to take on the burden, it is with up front knowledge and awareness that however high the economic estimates might be, the real costs are bound to surpass them.
August 1996
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