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S Korean study on unification offers lessons for Taiwan

A book discussing the potential consequences of Korean unification serves as a warning for supporters of Taiwan's unification with China, a leading political commentator said.

The book, South Korea and North Korea, United We Fall, was written by Park Seong-cho, a professor with the Unification Policy Research Team at Seoul National University.

The author, a South Korean academic who has been based in Germany for 30 years, looks at the unification of Germany and then predicts the unification of South and North Korea will result in much greater instability.

Commenting on the book, Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒), a political commentator and editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine, said that what interested him in the work was the argument regarding "the fall of unification."

Chin said the experiences of German unification showed that many were dissatisfied with what unification had brought them. One group was bound to take advantage of the other, he said.

"The book, which dampened enthusiasm for unification with North Korea in South Korea, provides new angles for viewing the unification matter in Taiwan," Chin said.

The book, first published in Korean last June, sparked fierce discussion in South Korea, according to translator Rick Chu (朱立熙).
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