hankyoreh

former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade

By Kim Su-heon, staff reporter

“If unification of the Korean peninsula cannot be achieved until US troops pull out of the country, as some Chinese scholars are facing, we are faced with the vexing question of whether to choose unification or a US military presence,” said Song Min-sun, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Mar. 18. “For South Korea to take the lead in unification, we need to have constructive debate about the issue of control of USFK by the South Korean military.”

During a lecture at the National Assembly Members‘ Office Building for a unification and economic club attended by Saenuri Party (NFP) members, Song asked the audience to imagine how China and other countries in the area might feel about South Korea’s plans to unify the Korean peninsula - a sensitive region for China - using an army that takes orders from US military commanders. Insofar as US forces in South Korea present an obstacle to Korea-led unification, serious thought should be given to finding a solution to this issue, Song said.

One solution offered by Song involves playing up the Japanese threat to convince China of the need for the US military to remain stationed in South Korea after unification. “The fact is that, as soon as US forces withdraw from the peninsula, Japan will immediately begin rearming,” Song said. “China won‘t want a power vacuum to form in Korea as a result of the withdrawal of the US military. The constructive advice I would like to offer is to try using this argument.”

“Ultimately, the only way to achieve unification is to augment solidarity inside South Korea, thus increasing the centripetal force in the Korean peninsula while also overcoming the centrifugal force in neighboring countries,” Song said.

“Living with a nuclear-armed North Korea on the border is kind of like living with a kidnapper waving around a grenade,” Song said, speaking on the issue of North Korean nuclear weapons. “In a sense, North Korea is holding us hostage. We must not tolerate this, and we must take the lead in resolving the nuclear issue.”

The unification and economic club, a Saenuri Party meeting that was founded by lawmaker Kim Moo-sung, has a total of 150 members, including 120 Saenuri Party lawmakers and 30 chairs of local branches of the party. Altogether, around 90 people attended the lecture on Tuesday.

“I thought that hearing the opinions of Song - who has viewed unification and inter-Korean relations in a somewhat different light from us - would help us adjust our views,” said Kim, when asked why he invited Song, who served as Blue House chief of security policy and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade during the administration of Roh Moo-hyun, to give the lecture.

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