Transitions from one government to another are good times for political analysts. Before the new team moves into office these experts share their knowledge, make evaluations and sometimes even predictions. There is clearly a market for this kind of political fortune telling. These days the newspapers around the world are full of analyses and commentaries: the writers explain what the new leadership might do and might not do, others even go one step further and offer unsolicited suggestions as to what should be done. Regarding Northeast Asia the analysts concur in two points: first, they expect the new president of the US to strengthen the alliance with Japan in an effort to cope with a rising China; second, they assume that Bush will take a tougher approach toward the communist regime in North Korea.
US policy remains a crucial factor for the political developments in this part of the world. But then again, it has become one factor out of many. Gone are the times -- quite fortunately, I might add -- when the Americans would blow the trumpet and the rest of the world would dance to their tunes.
The shift in political weight is particularly apparent in the Korean context. There are several indications that the center of the political and diplomatic decision making process regarding the strategy vis-a-vis North Korea has moved from Washington to Seoul in recent years.
Policies in harmony
This is a major achievement of President Kim Dae-jung, who not only is esteemed as a leader with a clear vision in the US, but who also has many friends in important positions on the other side of the Pacific. Seoul and Washington have harmonized their policies and are moving along in step. Looking back, this has not always been the case. And now again, the danger looms that this political harmony, based on a strategic consensus, may be shattered. This could well happen -- and I hurry to add that this is a hypothetical case -- should those analysts prove right who predict that Bush will pursue a more combative approach with the aim of undermining Seoul's Sunshine policy. Ever since Kim Dae-jung moved into the Blue House the South Korean government has a very clear concept and strategy. This was certainly not always the case in the past: When I first came to Korea some four years ago, diplomats and journalists were joking about the continuous changes in the North Korea policy of then-President Kim Young-sam, even saying he adjusts his positions as frequently as others change their underwear.
In clear contrast, Kim Dae-jung has lined out his strategy regarding North Korea for everyone to hear at the beginning of his presidency -- and pursued it with remarkable success ever since.
It would be a misconception to portray the Sunshine Policy, as which this strategy has come to be known, as a policy of appeasement. The government pursues a carrot policy firmly based on a stick, said a leading South Korean diplomat in a lecture some days ago. The president himself hardly misses a chance to pronounce the three principles guiding his policies: he will never tolerate armed provocation, he will actively pursue reconciliation and cooperation with the North, he has no intention to undermine or absorb North Korea.
Problematic
It is this last of the three principles the critics of the Sunshine policy -- both in Korea and beyond the shores of this land -- where the most problems occur. This once more became clear to me as I spoke with a group of Americans who had come to Seoul to attend the 2nd International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees ... I am referring to these recent encounters, as the individuals I happened to speak to were either professing Republicans or sympathizers of that party and their presidential standard bearer.
The people I spoke to were in no way expressing official positions, that could or should be portrayed as a party line. But on the other hand they left little doubt that they consider the policy pursued by the Kim Dae-jung government as misconceived and heading in the wrong direction: "He must help the North Korean regime leave the scene. We must stop saving the regime," said one speaker from the US. Asked what he suggests as an alternative to the strategy of engagement, the US expert and author of a book on North Korea said: "Let North Korea collapse, and let us then manage the collapse." Another speaker was more straightforward in his rejection of the policy of the Seoul government: "everyone who is not intoxicated, must realize that the Sunshine policy is really a Moonshine policy."
In a certain manner the frustration of the US experts and human rights activists is understandable as, so far at least, the Sunshine policy has indeed not changed the horrendous state of affairs of human rights in North Korea. Also, the policy of engagement has done nothing to weaken the position of the communist dictator, Kim Jong-il (or Kim Jong-evil, as one of the participants insisted on calling the North Korean leader). But then the question must be asked, whether the efforts of past governments and regimes aimed at isolating and destabilizing the communist regime have achieved any tangible results to improve the lot of the North Korean people and weaken the regime. There is a short and very clear answer to this query: No, they have not!
Door opened slightly
On the other hand, the Sunshine approach has, for the first time in decades, not only opened the door to the most reclusive regime in the world -- just a tiny bit -- but it has also helped produce an atmosphere of cooperation, and the basis for dialog, thus initiating an historical process that will eventually lead to more normal relations on the Korean peninsula, and in a final step to peaceful unification.
For very good reasons the historical wisdom of this approach has been acknowledged by awarding its main promoter the Nobel Peace Prize. South Koreans like to look to West Germany in order to learn some lessons how that country managed relations with the communist part of the divided nation. From those studies the South Koreans know that the best way to overcome the communists is to engage them.
George Bush, the father of the president-elect, has a wonderful legacy of being the Western statesman whom, earlier than all others, supported the Germans' aspiration for unification quite unconditionally. His son might be offered the same historic opportunity in the case of the Koreas. One pre-condition would be to support the Sunshine policy and its strategy, and not sabotage it.
Ronald Meinardus is the resident representative in Seoul of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, a German foundation for liberal politics which enjoys close links with Germany's Free Democratic party
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