hankyoreh

The Lee Myung-bak administration has reportedly decided to terminate all projects that are currently conducted by government ministries with North Korea. Prior to this, the Lee administration virtually told private companies engaged in processing by commission trade with North Korea to halt their operations. The Lee administration’s stance seems to be that they are willing to sever every slim thread connecting North Korea and South Korea, using the Cheonan disaster as a pretext.

Regardless, inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation have greatly decreased since the launch of the Lee Myung-bak administration. The Lee administration has suspended rice and fertilizer aid and blocked most private aid. The inter-Korean economic cooperation fund, 70 to 80 percent of which had been used each year, saw less than 10 percent of its funds used last year, or about 100 billion Won ($86.77 billion) of 1.12 trillion Won. So far this year, only about 1 percent of the fund has been spent. The Lee administration has now been moving to completely suspend North Korean projects and trade conducted, with difficulty, at the government ministry and private levels. The Kaesong Industrial Zone and some humanitarian aid for North Korea’s most vulnerable were exempted, but in this atmosphere, the future of even those projects are uncertain.

A greater concern is that the full-scale suspension of inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation is becoming a part of a full-scale hardline assault on North Korea. Conservative groups friendly to the Lee administration have been demanding as measures to follow the announcement of the investigation findings into the sinking of the Cheonan the restart of loudspeaker broadcasts along the front line, ending permitting North Korean ships to pass through the Jeju Straits, displays of force against North Korea and suspending the Kaesong Industrial Complex project. The Lee administration, which depends on these groups, seems to have given up maintaining inter-Korean relations at even a baseline level.

The Lee administration’s moves have continued along the path of building hostile inter-Korean relations. The relations experienced ups and downs before the mid 1980s, when North Korea and South Korea did not recognize each other’s existence and confronted one another over each and every incident. This is a structure in which the nation must pour its national strength into conducting the diplomacy of confrontation while the base of inter-Korean relations, built up over the last 20 years, crumbles and tensions become the norm. Needless to say, as a result of these policies, security will only become weaker.

The government’s hardline attitude is largely the product of a firm belief that North Korea must have been the one who sank the Cheonan. Political considerations ahead of the June 2 regional elections may also be at play. In the end, however, continuing along this hardline path without clear evidence that the Cheonan was sank by the North Koreans will only cause irreversible damage to South Korea and the situation on the Korean Peninsula. In particular, the Lee administration should know that it will pay a greater price if it thinks nothing of turning inter-Korean relations into a sacrifice.

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