hankyoreh

Yesterday North Korea informed the South that it is going to end tourist visits to the North Korean city of Gaeseong (Kaesong) and halt train passage between North and South starting December 1. It also demanded the closure of the “economic cooperation office” in the Gaeseong Industrial Complex and the reduction of Southern corporate employees living there by half. The North’s intentions look clear. Aside from keeping the Gaeseong Industrial Complex phenomenon around at a minimum, it wants to put a complete stop to the rest of the inter-Korean exchange projects. It is also a hint that, depending on the circumstances, it could close the door on the industrial complex as well.

Whatever its reasons, the North’s move is most regrettable, mostly because it would very probably make relations that were already turning bad, worse. Hard-line moves only lead to emotional confrontation, and relations between North and South have demonstrated that well enough. It will be setting back the clock on non-governmental exchange a full decade if, tours to Mount Geumgang (Kumgang) having stopped, tours to Gaeseong stop as well. Hurting relations is easy and restoring them is hard. Which is why actions need to be restrained when times are difficult.

The South has made an effort to prevent Southern groups from sending leaflets airborne over North Korean territory ever since the North threatened to prevent travel over the Military Demarcation Line because of those leaflets. It has put forth various measures such as deciding to provide the goods necessary for improving a military communications line between North and South. While that is not a wholesale change in the tone of Seoul’s North Korea policy, it has sent the signal that it does not want to see a further souring of relations.

The North might not think the measures the South has taken are satisfying enough. That should not mean that coercing the South is the answer. The parties that will suffer because of the North’s move here are medium-sized South Korean companies and everyday North Koreans. The Southern companies that are in the Gaeseong Industrial Complex are pioneers of inter-Korean reconciliation and coexistence for having decided to invest there despite the many difficult-to-predict variables. Should they be made to suffer for reasons that are unrelated to business? Pyongyang needs to keep in mind the fact that if it becomes hard to do business at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, North Korea’s international credit rating is going to suffer the consequences. What international business executive is going to want to invest in North Korea?

We should not need to reemphasize how our government needs to transform its North Korea policy and do so quickly. It is not wise to be sending inter-Korean relations to ruin because it wants to tame Pyongyang to its liking. Did it not learn from how the Bush administration tried that for six years and failed? Making substantial progress in inter-Korean relations and improving the lives of everyday North Koreans is more of a priority than the Lee Myung-bak administration’s pride. It needs to refrain from a direct response to the North’s hard-line action and urgently transform its North Korea policy in a way that can warm up North-South relations.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]