EPTLee Myung-bak on North Korean economic independence (lol?) and reunification.
Key Obstacles to Korean Reunification - Page 2
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Shigy
United States346 Posts
Lee Myung-bak on North Korean economic independence (lol?) and reunification. | ||
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Shigy
United States346 Posts
More on reunification efforts escalating. Although I don't really know if this means anything. I do think that in January when Hu Jintao visits the US, that this story will develop and we'll get a better idea of what is to come with the Koreas. Peaceful reunification? hahaaaaa that would be something eh. | ||
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haduken
Australia8267 Posts
I think the succession of North Korean leaders is a very good opportunity. | ||
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hypercube
Hungary2735 Posts
On December 08 2010 12:33 kaisen wrote: I highly recommend people watch this video. This professor knows his stuffs and tells why korean unification isn't going to happen any time soon. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/292562-1 Thanks, that was really eye-opening. I know I used to think that just realizing how much better off the rest of the world is would undermine any authoritarian regime. Apparently that's not how things work in many situations. edit: On the economic side, I'm not sure reunification needs to be as costly as it was for Germany. For Germany there was a very real issue of now or never. No European power really wanted to see a unified Germany, which would immediately become the number one power in the region. But they could not really openly oppose it either at that moment as it was universally seen as a victory of freedom and self-determination over tyranny. If the North Korean regime collapsed for any reason there would be no such rush. Unification could happen immediately, in 10 years or 20 years. If anything, unification would improve China's strategic position because it would take away the reason for keeping US troops in Korea. There would be no urgency to "seize the moment" and North Korea could exist as a separate country with heavy economic assistance from the South until living standards were close enough to justify full unification. | ||
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don_kyuhote
3006 Posts
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Shigy
United States346 Posts
On December 27 2010 23:51 don_kyuhote wrote: No countries really want to see the two Koreas unite: China, Japan, Russia, heck even USA I think. Everybody would prefer to have two Koreas separate, just North Korea to calm down and stop acting crazy. In that sense, I think everybody had enough of Kim jong Il, even China. I don't know about China/Russia (although I don't think Russia is very relevant on the world stage anymore, however hard they try). But I do know that US, especially now, is a huge trading partner with SK and common sense leads me to believe that the US would benefit from a stronger South Korea due to economic and political reasons. We, just like the rest of the western world don't really like dictators and communism. North Korea does very little to contribute to the well-being of the human race (woah, deep bro) because their government disallows freedom to produce, learn, work efficiently, etc. But you're right, maybe we just need NK to cool off and start being a good neighbor. Unfortunately, I don't see this possible because of the stubborn regime. So in turn, the only way for NK to be a reasonable state for the Kim dynasty to end. When that happens... I think reunification is one of the few outcomes to the collapse of NK government. | ||
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lIlIlIlIlIlI
Korea (South)3851 Posts
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MightyAtom
Korea (South)1897 Posts
While many overseas Koreans have time to wonder why there is no real progress towards reunification and be critical of the status quo, but don't ever question, reunification for what end? Personally, I do feel the same way as randomKo_Orean, and I do feel that there would be a long term economic and political benefit (with stability and greater market); the transition period or what will even push there to be reunification is a complete mystery. I did watch the video of that professor Myers, his view really isn't that helpful towards reunification and while he has some fantastic points that give a lot of clarity to the current regime; its a bit lacking in insight. I mean to say this in that his audience is westerners; so its not hard to impress them with some new facts or some cultural insights that create some 'ah ha' moments, but for me, as a Korean, I know there are a lot more different levels to it; like when 50% of people defects back to North Korea from the Chinese boarder, its not that going back is so great, but if you are constantly in fear of being captured and sent back by force and you're basically being taken advantage of sexually or via forced labour by Chinese Koreans or the underworld and you weren't from a privileged background in the first place, going back to North Korea would be a better alternative in that case. Also in terms of being more anti Japanese, well I think his experience is very limited, especially if he was living most of his time in Busan. 100% we are not as anti-Japanese as we were before, I grew up thinking that the Japanese should all be killed on sight, while we may be some distaste and we definately don't trust Japanese, the majority of the population don't think we should shoot them on site, but at one point, the majority of the population felt that strongly about it, and I'm talking up to the 1988 Olympics. But as our own international pride increased, so did our chip on our shoulder and feeling of injustice and hurt pride also diminish. But yes, the youth nowadays, may still have some minor distrust, but they don't have the outright hatred that those in their 35+ grew up with. Another thing is that Koreans understand our community via our blood, now, no matter what new terminology the Japanese brought in, I can agree that via the exposure of the Japanese we did use their methodology to express ourselves with, how could we not, most middle class and educated Koreans never thought we would be free from colonial rule by 1945, but, what makes Koreans Korean including the ones in the North is this idea of our blood ties and our level of homogeneity, which may have been expressed through the forms we learned from the Japanese, but this has always been true, it is this kind of thinking which many academics fall into of not realizing that any society, with the exposure we had to such new foreign ways, would of course use those influences in how we express ourselves, but just because we expressed it using the methods we learned from the japanese, didn't mean that we still weren't expressing what was in our hearts and minds as Koreans. It's just like to say that Park Jung Hee, because he was Japanese educated, did things in a Japanese way, and of course, he used Japanese forms and was influenced by it, but the actual content of his expression was Korean (not to pass judgement good or bad). You know, there was a provisional gov't during the occupation, my family was part of it; there was a movement for independence from the Korean Christians and so on, and so there is another part of this entire story and situation which does not get any focus and is simply ignored, but not all south Koreans are hyper mad competitive brand conscious (not to say the majority aren't) and not all north Koreans will be brain washed still and there are a group of Korean people who were not influenced by the Japanese occupation as they were still fighting or in exile and came back to settle in South Korea hoping one day for reunification. And I think, as I am starting to ramble here, it is something out of our hands, but something inevitable as well, as we know we are Korean. Not south, not north, not overseas, but simply by blood Korean. I think that is why both Seoul and Pyongyang are both so geographically vulnerable, we as a people never expected this division to go out for so long... | ||
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Shigy
United States346 Posts
http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2011/01/07/kbs-poll-sentiment-shifting-on-unification | ||
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Blazinghand
United States25557 Posts
Lets's say thatt omorrow, the entire North Korean head government submits to South Korea, handing over complete control. South Korea has the right to restructure, integrate, and basically run North Korea however it wants. North Korea has a huge, uneducated labor force that's starving due to generations of mismanagement. Its physical infrastructure is in disarray, and it lacks the capital to quickly industrialize. But that's the lesser problem. The real problem is running the country. Who do you put as mayors, governors, and prefects in the various cities? Your options are basically: use someone from the area, or use someone from a different country (probably south korea). If you bring in foreigners or south koreans, they don't know the locals and bringing in foreign governors rarely works well, even when there's cultural similarities. Using locals, though, could also be out of the question. For the past several generations, any person in North Korea with any sort of leadership talent-- basically, any go-getters or intelligent people-- have joined the Communist Party, since it's the only way for a young person with talent to get anything close to success in that country. The number of talented leaders who aren't communists in North Korea is frighteningly small. So the question is: import foreign leadership, excuse low-ranking communists, or try to find North Korean non-party member leadership quality individuals? After half a century of brutal oppression, it will be a hard country to run. | ||
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kaisen
United States601 Posts
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