From Seoul With Love

Religions may teach us to turn the other cheek and to forgive and forget in the case of one’s transgressions against you, however such a strategy, as employed by the South Korean governments of the past to ensure better relations between their state and that of their northern neighbors, may have limited the effectiveness of recent threats and ultimatums issued by them. This idea is well expressed in the articles N Korea expels S Korean managers and Seoul 'to criticise North Korea' found on the BBC’s website. The first article describes the removal of many of the South Korean managers operating firms in a joint economic zone between the two countries meant to foster economic development by maximizing South Korean technology and expertise, and cheap North Korean labor. The actions of the North Korean government come in the wake of the claims of the newly elected more conservative South Korean government that “the expansion of [this venture] was dependent on progress towards North Korea's denuclearization.” The blatant disregard for such goals on the part of the North Koreans, in their firing of the South Korean managers, reflects another in a series of events where North Korea has discredited the unilateral attempts of the South Koreans to intimidate them.

Much of the problem in the inability of the current government to establish a credible commitment to its goals lies in the actions of its predecessors. “Successive liberal regimes,” as noted in the second article, “have taken a careful line with Pyongyang... [to avoid] upsetting the efforts of closer engagements between old rivals.” This second article uses the instance of human rights records to justify this argument. In light of Lee Myung-bak’s conservative government’s decision to speak out regarding the poor human rights record of it neighbors to the north, the article exposes that South Korea has, surprisingly, only once in the last five years voted on such a human rights resolution, in response to Pyongyang’s test of a nuclear weapon in 2006. Such inconsistent criticism of North Korea is likely to result in much change across the border. Despite the good intentions of the previous governments of the South to ensure stable relationships between the two Koreas, the fact remains that South Korea is dealing with a state with very little transparency, which, despite its agreement to end its nuclear program, has not satisfactorily completed this procedure as promised to the U.S and South Korean government at the time of the ascension of the new government. The new government will need to work harder to establish its credible commitment to its ultimatums and ensure that a potentially revisionist state does not get out of hand and threaten the South Korean existence.