UCLA Center for East Asian Studies
Korean Reunification Policies
September 19, 1999
Sunshine Policy Moderates Hardliners in NK
President Kim Dae-jung has a messages for South Koreans and the North Korean leadership, respectively, over inter-Korean relations.
He preaches impatient'' South Koreans to be patient'' and long-term-oriented'' in their expectation over any breakthrough in inter-Korean relations. To the enigmatic Pyongyang leadership, President Kim has repeatedly said, My message is clear: We will give incentives if your acts ease inter-Korean tension, but the North will face disadvantages if it escalates tension. Our peace offer is consistent'' and sincere.''For the quick-result-oriented South Koreans, President Kim's Sunshine Policy of engaging with North Korea has borne little fruit so far. They cannot visit North Korea to meet relatives, to communicate with them or watch North Korean Television. According to Unification Minister Lim Dong-won, For the past half decade, the South and the North have maintained hostile relations and mistrusted each other. It may take another 50 years for the two mutually suspicious Koreas on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone, to regain full trust.'' Lim's remark is to assuage the critics who focus on individual separate inter-Korean developments, including incursion of North Korean navy ships into the South Korean territorial water. Lim said, We must try to look at the wood, not trees, in approaching the North Korean issue.''For the North Korean leadership, President Kim's engagement policy might be the most threatening initiative'' to its survival.
But from President Kim's perspective, the Sunshine Policy has brought tangible results so far. Mt. Kumgang was open to South Korean tourists. More South Koreans contacted and visited North Korea during 19 months of his presidency than they had in the past 10 years.
Due to his engagement policy, peacemakers were given more voice than hardliners, including the military, in the North, according to Kim's logic. North Korea has allowed the U.S. to inspect its suspected nuclear weapons storage plants in Kumchangri, north of Pyongyang.
In addition, North Korea has agreed'' not to test-fire a missile, a clear signal that pragmatists have outvoiced hardliners in the North, President Kim said.
To the wary North Korean leadership, Kim has made it clear that we do not want the North to collapse, that we will never attack the North first, that we will provide economic assistance and that we will help Pyongyang become a responsible member of the international society.'' Engagement Policy In his February 1998 inaugural address, President Kim put forward three basic principles that would govern the promotion of peace, reconciliation and cooperation in South-North relations.
(1) No armed provocation by North Korea will be tolerated. (2) A takeover or absorption of North Korea will not be attempted and (3) reconciliation and cooperation will be expanded.
He also expounded a separation of politics from economics, thereby encouraging private enterprises to expand economic cooperation with the North through enhanced contacts and visits by South Korean citizens to the North. Kim also stressed reciprocity and mutual accommodation between the two Korean governments and the augmentation of food and economic assistance to the North. He also stressed Seoul's commitment to constructing two light-water nuclear plants in the North under the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO).
President Kim has reiterated his policies encapsulated under what is described as the Sunshine Policy'' toward North Korea. In addition, Kim has urged the United States to lift many of its long-standing economic sanctions against the North.
Kim's policy is made under the assumption that over the long run, North Korea will have no alternative but to undertake reform and accommodate the South, according to the U.S. Rand Research Institute.
In the words of the Council on Foreign Relations Report, it is clear that North Korea has lost the competition between the two Koreas. Though the North remains stubbornly resistant to change and opening its system. Reform is its only escape from continued erosion and eventual collapse.
But, the U.S. Rand Institute report said, Leaders in the North apparently find Kim's Sunshine Policy more of a threat to the viability of their regime than the former and overtly hostile ROK policy.
It said North Korea has so far taken advantage of the Sunshine Policy's less-threatening components, in particular, its commitment to enhanced economic and humanitarian assistance.
Rand said North Korea still views a breakthrough with the United States as pivotal to its long term political goals. It said though the North has proposed political negotiations with the South, they are contingent on unilateral concessions by the South Korean government that are apparently intended to undermine U.S.-R.O.K. alliance ties. It added that antagonistic policy toward the South is still an essential component of North Korea's insistence that it and not the South, has legitimacy as a state.
However, North Korea has shown sign of accommodating Kim's engagement policy. In the recent U.S.-North Korea talks in Berlin, North Korea was said to have agreed that it will suspend firing another ballistic missile. In return, the United States would ease sanctions on the communist country.
President Kim Dae-jung described the successful conclusion of the U.S.-North Korea talks in Berlin as hopeful''_ a sign of diffusing inter-Korean tension_ and urged Pyongyang to share his win-win'' strategy with Seoul so that both sides will stand to benefit from the sincere negotiations under the principle of give and take.
The President said, however, that the Berlin talks are just the ...start of he long-term process in improving inter-Korean relations,'' saying that ...we should be patient in pursuing improvement of inter-Korean ties and encouraging North Korea follow the path of reform and openness.
I heard from President Bill Clinton that the United States was initially satisfied with the result of the Berlin talks,'' Kim said, adding that foreign ministers of Korea, the United States and Japan will soon meet together to put the Berlin agreement into action.
But, Kim has not disclosed what types of actions the allies will take toward North Korea in accordance with the Berlin accord. Broadly speaking, Kim said, ...we will provide security assurance and economic assistance to North Korea as well as help Pyongyang become a responsible member of the international society.''In return, North Korea will be dissuaded from launching another ballistic missile or renounce its decades-old objective of unifying the South through military force, the President added.
President Kim called on North Korea to pursue inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation on the basis of mutual confidence. He noted that the Seoul government will be patient and consistent'' in dealing with North Korea. Even when there was a naval clash off the West Sea, Seoul did not abandoned the basic principles of pursuing a comprehensive engagement policy toward North Korea. So far, Seoul has not taken actions that might amplify mistrust from the North, the President said. I will not take haste in pursuing improvement of the South-North ties. I will neither beg nor rush this,'' the President said.
He asked North Korea to ...improve the inter-Korean relations first if it really wants to get assistance from the western countries, including the United States.'' Kim said he welcomes North Korea's contacts with any country in the world, saying this is in line with Seoul's policy of engaging with North Korea.
Kim said South and North Korean are the same brethren'' who have the same fate. If we cooperate with each other for peace and exchange and eliminate sources of concern over a possible outbreak of war, foreign investment will flow toward North Korea or South Korea,'' the President noted.
He said foreign investors want to invest in North Korea only through South Korean companies. Thus, it is vital for North Korea to mend ties with South Korea first if it really wants economic prosperity, he added.
The President stressed that his ultimate objective during his five-year tenure is to uproot the Cold War-era structure so that the South and the North follow the path of common prosperity, cooperation, and reconciliation.'' Personally, I want to free North Koreans, especially children, from the nightmarish hunger and malnutrition,'' the President added.
During my tenure, I do not think unification will be realized. If I am in haste to realize unification before I step down, there will be many negative side-effects,'' he noted. Origin of Sunshine PolicyAccording to President Kim, his trademark Sunshine Policy is nothing new, as it is modelled after former U.S. president Richard Nixon's Detente Policy to China and former West German chancellor Helmut Schmit's East Policy (toward former East Germany).
Due to the detente policy, China has successfully taken the path of reform and openness. Without firing even one bullet, Communist Soviet Union collapsed. Due to the East Policy, the German unification was realized, according to the President.
The Sunshine Policy is no longer a Korean one. It has international recognition and endorsement. U.S. President Bill Clinton is a strong advocate of Kim's policy. Dr. William Perry will issue its recommendation on the future U.S. policy toward North Korea to Congress soon. The so-called Perry Report is alleged to be a carbon copy of Kim's Sunshine Policy.
The majority of the western allies, from European Union to New Zealand and Australia, in addition to Russia and China, have expressed their support for the policy, saying that it has no alternative policy.
Even the opposition in Korea and its leader Lee Hoi-chang said they support the Sunshine Policy as long as its reciprocity principle is upheld. Conservatives in the South and the U.S. Congress have skepticism over the success of the Sunshine Policy as they have a lingering suspicion over North Korea, which is notorious for its brinkmanship diplomacy and use of military threat as a bargaining chip to squeeze more concessions from the outside and to rally its people around its leader Kim Jong-il.
Kim's crusade for improving inter-Korean ties under his trademark Sunshine Policy may not be appreciated during his tenure. But decades later, many Koreans will remember President Kim as a man who had played a pivotal role'' in the peninsular unification, according to Chong Wa Dae secretaries and his supporters.
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