Seoul rows against the US tide

[CHIMO]

When it comes to North Korea and defusing its nuclear crisis, the United States is finding that South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, who wants to be friends with North Korea, is becoming increasingly obstructionist. US neo-conservatives want to play hard ball, very hard ball, with Pyongyang, and say South Korea is too soft. Who's side is Seoul on, anyhow? they ask.

Roh made clear just how soft - and infuriating to the US - his policy is when he addressed the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles on his way to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Chile. Roh, never one to mince words, stunned many in the audience of foreign-policy experts with his assertion that the central argument underpinning North Korea's nuclear-weapons program - that it is a necessary defense in the face of hostility and threat - is not entirely illogical. But it was a shocking, if frank, pronouncement, to be sure.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/FK24Dg03.html

[TheDebbieDee]

1. I don't blame the South Koreans for taking a conciliatory...

posture. After all, if there is going to be conflict, it will take place in their backyard.

[teryang]

2. Eventually the unification will take place without a shot

...being fired across the DMZ, so why risk a conflagration in which Seoul would be severely damaged?

I wrote this over a month ago:

The issue isn't what goes on in N.Korea.

The issue is whether S.Korea is strong enough to allow its citizens to speak in defense of N.Koreans when outside powers attempt to dictate what the relationship of S.Korea and N.Korea should be.

The goal is reunification and protection of the integrity of the entire Korean nation. The people in the north are related by culture, language and blood to the people of the south. It is one country. Regardless of the extreme despotism and hardships in the north, it is fantasy not to appreciate the historical circumstances and current manipulations from without that contribute to it. The division of the peninsula is the product of world powers carving up spheres of influence. Great power meddling in internal Korean affairs continues to date.

American and Japanese politicians glibly embrace scenarios which involve pre-emptive attacks and by implication the physical destruction of the north (and Seoul). While China, American and Japanese national security policies perpetuate the polarization of the peninsula for their own geo-political aims, the people and the government of S.Korea remain the legitimate spokespersons for the oppressed people of the north. Nobody here understands their situation better than S.Koreans. They should be free to debate N.Korean issues as they see fit. The notion that there are people in the south who favor the N.Korean regime is a totally misleading characterization. Nobody supports that government but what they do support is the notion that it is a Korean problem with Korean answers not pre-emptive and bellicose threats from Washington, Tokyo or anywhere else. It should not be lost on anyone that the Washington-Tokyo axis has at its heart the maintenance of the South as a client state. Unification will upset this apple cart.

One day Korea will be unified politically again. There are powerful interests who wish to keep this from happening... There is no such thing as a Korean national security interest confined only to South Korea.