[Editorial] Moon-Chang-keuk’s nomination as PM negates Park’s unification pledges

Posted on : 2014-06-16 13:35 KST Modified on : 2014-06-16 13:35 KST
 June 13.  (by Kim Tae-hyeong
June 13. (by Kim Tae-hyeong

Minus any improvement in inter-Korean relations, the 14th anniversary of the 2000 North-South Joint Declaration passed on June 15 without a joint celebration. Indeed, the situation has been made even more awkward this year with President Park Geun-hye’s nominee for Prime Minister espousing ideas typical of someone whose notion of North Korea policy is to wait for the regime in Pyongyang to collapse. That nominee, Moon Chang-keuk, has been in hot water recently primarily for a special lecture delivered at a church in 2011, but he also went on church television in 2012 saying there is no point in having dialogue or negotiations between North Korea and South Korea because the North Korean regime is going to collapse. Specifically, Moon predicted that North Korea would “fall by the providence of God when nobody is expecting it,” offering perhaps one of the more extreme versions of collapse theory. Having someone who believes such things as our Prime Minister would itself be one more stumbling block to reunification. His remarks conflict with the Park administration’s own statements about the goals of its North Korea and reunification policy. As recently as June 11, Park offered “to do my best to steer North Korea onto the path of dialogue and cooperation.”

Moon as Prime Minister poses an additional problem in areas of foreign policy, where addressing the North Korean nuclear issues and other concerns affecting the peninsula are likely to get much tougher. This is especially true when it comes to China. When Moon has spoken about China, he has emphasized a Christian form of democratization, talking about how “communism does not fall from negotiations” and how the country “needs God’s touch.” The logic undergirding his church lectures is that of someone trapped in his subjective illusions, without any balanced diplomatic sense. His attitude is almost sure to undo much of the diplomatic progress we have made with Beijing in the last two decades or so.

For all Park’s talk about reunification being a “jackpot” and the need for a “trust-building process” with Pyongyang, she apparently wants to proceed with nominating someone whose ideas conflict with the aims of those same policies. Either the President knows she made a mistake with her nomination, and she is just being stubborn, or she is basically admitted that her administration’s policies are unrealistic. The latter have certainly have lost much of whatever steam they once had, and the new national security team she recently named does not inspire much hope for a turnaround. Add a Moon Chang-keuk to the mix, and the result is an utter disaster.

If the terms of the June 15 Joint Declaration had been followed, the two Koreas would be in the early stages of reunification by now. Instead, the two sides cannot even hold a joint event to commemorate that statement. As long as Park insists on having Moon be the Prime Minister, she is not going to shake the sense that she is looking for more support on the “waiting for a regime collapse” side.

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