North Korea: Friend, Foe, or Foreigner
How does South Korea feel about North Korea? If one believes the international press, one may be forgiven for thinking that the Democratic People’s Republic is an ever-present source of fear south of the border. Images of old men in Seoul burning photographs of Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un accompany articles about the dictatorship’s nuclear weapons program. Reminders of how Seoul is a mere thirty-one miles from a “crazy” nuclear-armed state and that North and South are still technically at war are common. It is also generally assumed that, despite this rancor, the ultimate reunification of North and South must be the dream of all Koreans.
However, things are much more nuanced than that. South Korean governments have pursued a number of approaches to the North Korean question, ranging from outright hostility to the “sunshine policy” of presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. The people themselves are also divided. The War Generation, those born before or soon after the Korean War (1950–1953), tends to be driven by fear and hatred of North Korea, and so seeks a tough response by the government to any aggression from the North. The so-called “386 generation” of 1960s baby boomers mostly favors rapprochement with “poor brother” Pyongyang. Those born in the 1970s and 1980s—the first generation to grow up without any sense of danger or capitalist-versus-communist ideological struggle—are instinctively peace-seeking, but they are also more apathetic than either the War Generation or the 386. This in itself poses a problem for the possibility of reunification in the future.
Pre-Democratization
During the days of military government, North Korea was presented as a wolf, a red monster that made it necessary for all Southerners to be on their guard at all times. South Koreans who were schoolchildren in the 1960s recall having this message drummed into them by their teachers. Guidebooks produced at the time often contain among the list of handy expressions for visitors terms such as “communist agitators” and “anti-communist National Security Law.” One vestige this era of high alert and government paranoia remains today: signs on public buses and trains offer rewards for anyone who reports “far-left activity.”
The National Security Law, which has existed since 1948, continues to be used to restrict “anti-state acts” such as creating, distributing, or possessing “materials that promote anti-government ideas.” Created to halt the spread of communist sentiment, it was also an effective tool for President Syngman Rhee to clamp down on political opposition. Fears about North Korea enabled Rhee to imprison some 30,000 people in the first year of the law’s existence, the law’s provisions making it easy for virtually any opponent to be thrown in jail or executed for being a “red.” At one point, Rhee had the whole National Assembly arrested on charges of participating in a communist conspiracy, and threatened to have them all shot if they refused to vote for a dubious amendment to the electoral process that was intended to bolster Rhee’s dictatorial powers.
Rhee, and later President Park Chung-hee, found the Northern threat politically useful, but at the same time the actions of the Pyongyang regime gave credence to their stark warnings. On January 21, 1968, thirty-one elite North Korean commandos, having trained for their task for two years, launched a cross-border raid with the intention of attacking the presidential mansion Cheong Wa Dae and assassinating President Park. They came within a hundred yards of their target before meeting with South Korean forces: twenty-nine of the invaders were killed, one was captured, and one escaped. Tunnels under the border, intended to facilitate a mass infantry invasion, were also discovered on separate occasions.
Given this very clear evidence of threat, and the fact that the Korean War remained within living memory for most people, the general attitude throughout the period can be summed up by a government memo written during the Rhee administration that states: “We in [South] Korea believe there is no middle ground, no possibility of co-existence.” North Korea was seen as a mortal enemy only. It is therefore entirely understandable that older South Koreans, who came of age during this period, tend to believe there is no possibility of rapprochement with the North, and that the U.S. Army bases that dot the country are a necessary bulwark against a communist takeover.
The mentality of the War Generation dies hard. A sixty-one-year-old government minister, when asked why most South Koreans cheered for North Korea in the 2010 World Cup, told a group of foreign journalists that this support was due to “communist thinking.” And in 2011, a sixty-two-year-old woman with the surname Park repeatedly featured in the news for attempting to physically attack left-leaning politicians, including Seoul mayor Park Won-soon. She would show up at public events, including the funeral of democratization activist Kim Geun-tae, shout “Bbalgaengi!” (Commie!), and strike out at those who in her mind wanted to sell the country out to Kim Jong-il.
There are hardly any real bbalgaengi. Some pro-Pyongyang groups engage in cat-and-mouse games with South Korean authorities, setting up websites and moving their domains after finding them blocked under the National Security Law. The blunt instrument of censorship arguably need not be used against these groups, for their message is not taken seriously by most people.
Unfortunately though, there are a small handful of national assembly members who at one time or another have been too friendly with North Korea. Lee Seok-gi and Kim Jae-yeon, who both have previous convictions for “pro-North activities” and allegedly swore allegiance to North Korea’s “juche” philosophy in the past, entered parliament in April 2012 on the proportional ticket of the United Progressive Party, a coalition of various old left-wing parties. They won selection via rigged internal party elections. Another, Im Soo-kyung—who won fame in her youth by travelling to Pyongyang and embracing Kim Il-sung, and in May 2012 reportedly called a North Korean defector a “traitor”—was somehow selected by the Democratic United Party as a candidate too, and gained a seat in the assembly. These developments have proven gravely embarrassing for both the UPP and DUP. None of the three will win selection again.
The Democratic Era
The 1980s saw the rise of the mass pro-democracy movement. President Park Chung-hee had his opponents in the 1970s, but it was not until the coming of Chun Doo-hwan that millions began taking to the streets to demonstrate for free speech and fair elections. The young people of that generation were tired of dictatorship and naturally distrusted everything the government said. Since Park and Chun’s general policy direction had been pro-United States, staunchly anti-North Korea, and pro-capitalist (though, as we know, Korean capitalism then was not capitalism by its dictionary definition), those who opposed dictatorship started questioning all of these ideas.
The young protestors came from what later became known as the 386 generation. When the phrase was coined in the 1990s, they were in their 30s; they had attended university in the 1980s, and they were born in the 1960s—hence 386. They were a large baby-boom cohort, with the electoral and economic power their numbers entail: 8.8 million Koreans were born in the 1960s, compared to the 6.6 million born in the 1950s. Typical 386ers were suspicious of U.S. involvement in the Korean peninsula, particularly following President Chun’s state visit to the White House. They felt that the United States was partly responsible for dividing their country and that it was up to North and South Koreans alone to pursue reunification. To the older generation, who thought purely in terms of capitalist versus communist, and South versus North, the 386 looked like an ultra-leftist nightmare.
The 386 were to be frustrated at the result of the first democratic presidential election in December 1987. The egotism of two long-time pro-democracy campaigners, Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam, resulted in both standing for the presidency rather than one yielding to the other. They split the vote and handed victory to Chun Doo-hwan’s intended successor, Roh Tae-woo. President Roh pursued “nordpolitik,” in which North Korea was still the enemy, but the policy focus was more on winning over the North’s friends rather than on engaging in a direct staring contest across the border. Thus, in 1988 the Soviet Union team returned from the Seoul Olympics not only with medals but also with televisions, buses, and cars, all gifts from Daewoo, a company that later would trade directly with the Soviet Union, as would LG and SK Corporation. Roh also established formal diplomatic relations with China, in January 1992.
Kim Dae-jung finally won the presidency in December 1997. The policy he introduced represented the greatest change in direction towards North Korea that the South had ever experienced. Under his “sunshine policy” (haetbyeot jeongchaek), he reached out to Pyongyang in an attempt to reform its behavior through better relations. Many older voters saw this as dangerous appeasement. For the 386 generation, though, Kim’s approach seemed to offer the possibility of a new era of peace.
The sunshine policy derived its name from “The North Wind and the Sun,” one of Aesop’s Fables, in which the sun and the wind each vie to remove a man’s coat. The wind blows and blows, but the man clutches more tightly to the coat, refusing to allow it to be blown off him. The sun simply shines, and the man removes the coat voluntarily because of the warmth. The aim of the strategy was the blunting of the Northern threat through rapprochement. North and South Korea of course have millennia of shared cultural history, and there was a sense that between fellow Koreans, an atmosphere of mutual trust and cooperation could be created.
Aid in the form of food, basic materials, and cash flowed generously, and joint development projects came into being, such as the Kaesong industrial complex into which Hyundai—whose founder Jeong Ju-young maintained a lifelong interest in reunification—poured millions. Attitudes were also reshaped by the fact that North Korea had fallen far behind the South and was a state desperately in need of assistance. Until the mid-1970s, North Korea had a larger economy than South Korea; but while the South continued to experience miraculous growth, the North’s economy stagnated under Kim Il-sung before declining precipitously in the 1990s under Kim Jong-il. In the mid-1990s, over a million North Koreans died in a devastating famine. When President Kim visited Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang for their historic summit in 2000, he brought a gift with him: US$500 million, mostly provided by Hyundai. He later explained his munificence by saying that “a rich brother should not visit a poor brother empty-handed.”
The Lee Myung-bak Presidency
Kim Dae-jung’s successor, Roh Moo-hyun, continued with sunshine, despite evidence that North Korea was developing nuclear weapons rather than “removing its coat.” A test on October 9, 2006, provided confirmation of the North’s nuclear program. In the public mind, the sunshine policy had demonstrably failed to achieve its objectives. Lee Myung-bak, a no-nonsense conservative, came to power following the December 2007 presidential election and implemented a radical reversal of policy. Sunshine was out, and aid conditional on the abandonment of nuclear weapons was in. President Lee strongly supported U.S. sanctions against North Korea, blocking the Pyongyang regime’s ability to conduct trade. He also made frequent public comments to the effect that “reunification is near,” implying that the North would soon collapse and be absorbed by the South.
The North’s response was to continue developing nuclear weapons and compensate for U.S.-led sanctions by conducting more business with its only remaining friend, China. China now accounts for more than 80 percent of North Korea’s trade. China has taken advantage of this situation by winning access to North Korean ports and the right to mine North Korean mineral deposits. This raises obvious concerns about the amount of influence China has over the North, particularly given the fact that China once held Korea in fealty and treated it as a little brother throughout the Joseon dynasty. Many fear China’s influence makes reunification less likely: to China, North Korea is a business opportunity as well as an anti-American buffer state, which Beijing would be unlikely to want to lose to reunification.
Kim Jong-il also reacted against President Lee in a way that took everyone by surprise. Having refrained from direct violence against South Korea since the 1987 bombing of a Korean Air plane in which 115 people died, he apparently ordered two deadly attacks in 2010. The first, the torpedoing of the South Korean navy corvette Cheonan on March 26, saw the loss of 46 seamen’s lives. The North hid its tracks and was silent about its aggression, and without Pyongyang’s admission of guilt, South Korean society was divided. The old and the right wing instinctively felt North Korea was responsible, while the young and the left were skeptical. Some believed the sinking to be part of a conspiracy to shore up support for President Lee’s tough policy. A survey by the Joongang Ilbo newspaper in 2011 found that 33 percent of nineteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds doubted North Korean responsibility. One left-leaning group, People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), sent a letter to the UN Security Council expressing doubt about the South Korean government’s claims of North Korean guilt. Ruling Grand National Party members responded by calling PSPD “traitors.” This episode was a prime example of what is known as nam-nam galdeung: the South-South conflict derived from political division, as opposed to the more famous North-South conflict.
The blame for the second incident was never in doubt. On November 23, 2010, North Korean forces shelled the island of Yeonpyeong, located in a disputed stretch of sea administered by the South. Two military personnel died, but, more crucially, two innocent South Korean civilians were also killed. For young South Koreans, this was new territory: those in their twenties and thirties had known only peace, and the idea that North Korea could attack them was shocking. One young woman from Seoul who had been pro-sunshine said at the time: “I couldn’t believe that they could just attack us. The government should have responded more strongly than they did.” In the wake of the Yeonpyeong attack, this was a commonly held view: over 68 percent of the electorate favored a military response, according to the East Asia Institute, and 39 percent wanted air strikes. In January 2011, 31.7 percent of the public regarded North-South relations as “the most salient issue” in politics.
Just nine months later, however, that figure had plummeted to 8.8 percent. And the passing of Kim Jong-il in December 2011 was met with apathy. One thirty-something office worker recalled the moment: “I heard someone say ‘Kim Jong-il is dead,’ so I got up and looked at my computer screen and saw it was true. But after ten minutes of talking with my co-workers, we just got back to work.” In contrast, the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994 was so fraught it caused food hoarding among South Koreans.
While the present government strives to remind people of the Korean War and the lives lost at Yeonpyeong by putting up poster displays in downtown Seoul, most voters are more concerned with the economy and jobs than North Korea. It is only when Pyongyang actually attacks that this apathy towards North Korea is temporarily broken. For Kwon Youngse, a former member of the ruling Saenuri Party (former Grand National Party) in the National Assembly and head of the national Intelligence Committee, this is a matter of grave concern. According to Mr. Kwon, South Koreans usually “act as though nothing can happen,” but they “should worry more” about North Korea.
Peaceful Permanent Separation?
Though twenty- and thirty-somethings may not worry much about North Korea, they do favor rapprochement rather than confrontation. The 386 Generation prefers “sunshine”’ too, while the War Generation supports a hard-line stance. Two generations against one means that 55.2 percent of the electorate favor a long-term policy of conciliation and cooperation towards the North, according to the Asan Institute. Given that this survey was taken shortly after the Yeonpyeong attack occurred, the figure now is likely to be higher.
President Lee Myung-bak’s Saenuri party began a process of internal reform in late 2011. Since President Lee was perceived by the electorate to be too rightwing, Party Chairman Park Geun-hye (Park Chung-hee’s daughter) has led a move to the center. Part of this effort includes a less confrontational approach to North Korea. Kwon Youngse—who is a supporter of Miss Park—contends that “we should help them (North Korea) to become a normal state.” Unlike President Lee, who often hinted at the inevitable collapse of the North Korean regime, former Rep. Kwon rates the likelihood of such a breakdown as “very low,” even in the wake of Kim Jong-il’s death and the handover to the young, untested Kim Jong-un. Thus, instead of trying to push North Korea to breaking point by means of confrontational policies, Saenuri’s future policy direction will likely contain some “sunshine.” And should Saenuri lose and a center-left candidate wins the presidency, we can expect a full return to the sunshine policy, regardless of the North’s nuclear weapons program.
There will be less talk of collapse and reunification then. “We should not talk about it,” says Kwon Youngse, in the belief that doing so may provoke the North Korean leadership—which is itself in a transitional phase—to lash out. However, it is also increasingly the case that many South Koreans do not even want reunification. Fewer and fewer people now alive can remember life before partition and have old friends or relatives to reunite with. Furthermore, the economic divergence of North and South Korea means that the South would incur huge costs from reunification. Even the lowest estimates suggest an outlay of more than a trillion U.S. dollars to bring the infrastructure and quality of life in North Korea up to anything approaching South Korean standards.
This skepticism about reunification is especially prevalent in those under the age of forty, who have grown up with wealth and stability. “I don’t want reunification. It is an expensive headache,” says one thirty-two-year-old office worker from Seoul. This is an attitude that Kwon Youngse calls “individualistic,” and not in a complimentary way. There are many who agree with the office worker, though: in 2008, Professor Eun Ki-soo of Seoul National University found that, while 70 percent would support North Korea in a sports match, only 12.3 percent of South Koreans thought unification “necessary,” down from 58 percent in 1995. A full 45 percent said it was “unnecessary.” Older Koreans are more likely to be pro-reunification: according to the Asan Institute, 20 percent of over-sixties want reunification “as quickly as possible,” whereas only 8 percent of those in their twenties do. As the years go by and those who remember a united Korea pass away, the desire for reunification will diminish even more.
A survey by the Peace Research Institute showed that 30 percent of South Koreans now agree with the statement "In the past they [North Koreans] were our ethnic brethren, but now I am beginning to feel that they are foreigners." Another 9 percent went so far as to say, or agree with the statement: “North Koreans are as foreign as Chinese.” It is often assumed that the greatest obstacles to reunification are the presence of two very different political systems and ideologies on either side of the border, and the influence of China over the North. However, the ultimate stumbling block to reunification may prove to be a simple lack of desire for it.