hankyoreh

By Lee Je-hun, Staff Writer

“If we continue on this path, we will lose North Korea, and that could lead to a situation in which we cannot speak about inter-Korean relations.”

Korea Peace Forum Director General Lim Dong-won said, “We cannot continue the mistake of pushing North Korea toward China through a hardline policy, and if North Korea falls under the influence of China, peace and reunification grows that much further.” Lim went on to say, “We must treat North Korea with a more long-term vision, and I call on the Lee Myung-bak administration to stop suffering big losses for small gains and work to improve and develop inter-Korean relations.”

Lim issued tense statements during an interview with the Hankyoreh at his office in the Mullae neighborhood of Seoul’s Yeongdeungpo District on Monday to talk about the one-year anniversary of the founding of the Korea Peace Forum. The forum was founded on Sept. 7, 2009 to strengthen both the policy capacity of inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation and its base of public agreement. The organization plans to hold a publishing commemoration ceremony and sponsorship ceremony to mark the one-year founding of the forum at the Yonsei University Alumni Hall in Seoul’s Seodaemun district on Friday.

In a recent academic seminar at Inje University, Lim said it appears North Korea has begun to transition from its existing “Western policy” towards a “Northern policy.” He said that entering the 1990s, North Korea confronted the post-Cold War world after the collapse of the Communist block by pushing a “Western policy” that sought survival by normalizing its relations with the United States, the only remaining superpower, and improving its relations with South Korea.

It appears, however, as North Korea has obtained no results from 20 years of effort, and with South Korea and the United States upping their pressure and sanctions to force a North Korean collapse, North Korea had no choice but to alter this policy, he said. Lim said it appears North Korea has decided that the road to survival and prosperity is rebuilding its economy by relying on capital and technology from China, which has risen past Germany and Japan to become the world’s No. 2 economic power, and receive guarantees of national security and regime preservation from Beijing.

Lim believes North Korea is switching to a “Northern Policy” of strengthening its relations with China and Russia. According to Lim, China, which needs North Korean economic cooperation in pushing its Northeast Revitalization Plan, has adopted a policy of strengthening and developing its strategic relationship with North Korea and started to more actively draw North Korea along. He said China and North Korea now need one another more critically.

For South Koreans who must bring about peaceful reunification by creating an inter-Korean economic community and building political unity through economic unity, Lim says, this can only be seen as a serious blow.

Lim’s concerns regarding the Lee administration’s North Korea policies were the reason for putting together a thick, 460-page book entitled “Walking the Path of the Korean Peninsula Again” to mark the one-year anniversary of the founding of the Korea Peace Forum. In the preface, forum’s cochairmen, Lim and Baek Nak-chung, made clear their reason for publishing the work, writing that they did so to present the path the Korean Peninsula should travel again in the current reality in which South Korea has returned to the Cold War era.

The 36 writers, the bulk of whom are members of the Korea Peace Forum, are heavyweights. They include former high-ranking officials who were at the front-line of the policies of reconciliation and engagement with the North over the 10 years of the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations, including former Unification Ministers Lim, Jeong Se-Hyun and Lee Jong-seok, former Cheong Wa Dae Senior Advisor for Unification, Diplomacy and Security Baek Jong-jeon, former NIS Director Kim Man-bok and former Deputy Unification Minister Lee Bong-jo.

A number of scholars and civic organization leaders also participated, including co-chairman Baek, South Korean branch of the Committee for Implementation of the June 15 Joint Declaration Chairman Kim Sang-geun, Catholic University Professor Ahn Byung-ook, Seoul National University School of Medicine Professor Hwang Sang-ik, Yonsei University Professor Moon Chung-in, Sungkyunkwan University Professor Jeong Hyeon-baek, poet Do Jong-hwan, Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation Policy Committee Chairman Lee Seung-hwan and Korea Sharing Movement’s Peace Sharing Center Director Lee Jong-mu.

In accordance with the goal of the forum, they strove to open the way on the Korean Peninsula through a formula of “policy experience plus civil society passion plus academic wisdom.”

The Korea Peace Forum, which has been praised as a “dream team” of figures related to inter-Korean relations and Korean peace, has engaged in dynamic activities since its founding in September of last year. These have included monthly debates such as an academic seminar on the 10th anniversary of the June 15 Joint Declaration and another to mark the third anniversary of the Oct. 4 Summit Declaration, a debate to which U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens was invited, and strategic discussions between South Korea and Japan. Last month, they held a general meeting to strengthen the forum’s financial base.

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