hankyoreh

North Korea began allowing South Koreans to return to the South from the Gaeseong (Kaesong) Industrial Complex on Monday, having prohibited them from doing so beginning Friday. The move appears to be aimed at avoiding further criticism for keeping Southerners against their will on the one hand, while still using the industrial complex as leverage against the South on the other. By all appearances, the situation is going to continue until March 20, when the joint South Korea-U.S. Key Resolve military exercises come to a close.

The North is in the wrong here. Failing to guarantee free passage to and from Gaeseong for both people and goods is going to seriously hurt business activity at the industrial complex. Many companies are already having problems with production, and it won’t be easy for things to return to normal there, as if nothing was ever the matter at all, even if the North later allows for smooth passage. We hope the North takes a good look at the damage it is doing.

The biggest problem is the North’s attitude, which is what permits itself to think it is okay to shut down normal operations at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex for political and or military reasons. Even considering how the military has a big say in how things go within the North Korean government, unless Pyongyang guarantees this kind of nonsensical episode is never going to happen again, South Korean companies in Gaeseong are going to remain nervous about staying there. Therefore there need to be several apparatuses in place to make Gaeseong operations, including free passage, go smoothly, this with absolute guarantees from an authoritative body in the North. Pyongyang also needs to work to prove that the principle of the separation of politics and economics does not end at being an empty slogan.

As seen once again, there are limits to the effectiveness of the Lee Myung-bak administration’s response to this, because there are no effective tools for getting the North to move when relations with it are so poor right now. Instead of just saying it does not want to see business at Gaeseong suffer, it should plot a fundamental change in policy, so that substantial progress in inter-Korean relations can be achieved. Responding to situations after they erupt is not going to provide for stability in Gaeseong or for the political situation on the Korean Peninsula as a whole.

The Gaeseong Industrial Complex is an example of inter-Korean economic co-prosperity. Naturally, therefore, both sides need to refrain from behavior that hurts either one. The North, for its part, needs to make a clean beak with the temptation to shake up the industrial park with other goals in mind. And it needs to realize that there are no companies in any country that are going to want to do business there once Southern companies write Gaeseong off as a “non-investment grade” endeavor.

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