Why Seoul Backs Obama on North Korea

The U.S. President-elect's head-on approach to ending Pyongyang's nuclear program and its isolationism are in line with South Korean policy

By Moon Ihlwan

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At first blush, the election of Barack Obama as President raises the specter of policy clash between the U.S. and its ally South Korea over a nuclear-armed North Korea. During his campaign, Obama expressed his willingness to hold direct talks with North Korea, including a possible summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. On the other hand, conservative President Lee Myung Bak of South Korea took office in February with a vow to get firmer with Pyongyang, criticizing his predecessors' "sunshine" engagement policy that he said failed to address the North's nuclear ambitions and despicable human-rights abuses.

Yet despite their differing approaches, Obama's objectives of dismantling North Korea's nuclear program and breaking North Korea's international isolation are exactly what Lee's administration seeks to achieve (BusinessWeek.com, 11/5/08). South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan said the policy stances of Obama and the Lee administration are "not a mismatch but a perfect fit." Lee himself said he did not oppose an Obama-Kim summit, adding that he did not have a "modicum of concern" that such a meeting would sideline Seoul in international efforts to end security threats in northeast Asia.

Unification on the Slow Track

In fact, South Korea needs U.S. initiatives to improve relations with North Korea. That's because South Koreans are not eager for unification with North Korea anytime soon. To prepare for an eventual unification of the Korean peninsula, Seoul wants the North to start opening up and narrow gaps with the South. A U.S. role will be vital to allow North Korea access to Western capital and technology (BusinessWeek.com, 10/13/08) that are necessary for the country's development.

Little wonder Seoul's Unification Ministry is not making concerted efforts to prepare for the immediate collapse of the Kim Jong Il regime. Instead, the 470 bureaucrats at the ministry spend their time working through scenarios that involve a long transition for the North. "It's desirable for us to first expand economic exchanges between the South and the North," says Kim Chun Sig, director general of the ministry's unification policy bureau. "We want a period of assimilation to lay the groundwork for unification."

Despite its potential role in Korea's future, the ministry likes to keep a low profile for fear of offending the Pyongyang regime. So while officials give periodic media briefings and write the occasional position paper, they don't publish any details of scenarios they're examining. "Given the importance of dialogue between the South and North, we should avoid steps that could undermine cooperation," says Kim.

Perhaps the biggest factor driving Seoul's go-slow policy is fear of a repeat of what happened two decades ago in Germany. South Koreans are keenly aware of the strains that East Germany's collapse put on West Germany, and the Unification Ministry has sent scores of delegations to Europe to study that transition. The economic woes of East Germany, meanwhile, are dwarfed by those in North Korea, where gross domestic product last year was just $27 billion, or 3% of the South's output, the Bank of Korea estimates. Factories in the North are running at less than a third of capacity, and the highways, railroads, and other infrastructure are antiquated.

Flood of Refugees?

The South is also worried about the North's population. Two-thirds of the country's 23 million people are malnourished, according to an October U.N. report. And virtually no one has traveled abroad, which means few North Koreans have any understanding of the outside world. One of Seoul's biggest fears is the potential for a wave of impoverished refugees flooding across the border if the barriers to travel were to disappear overnight, as the Berlin Wall did.