[Keynote Address] Division Management and Unification: Korea vs. Germany

[Former Foreign Minister Han Sung-joo] “Active U.S. Support is Necessary for Peaceful Unification”

1. Preface

After 25 years, the German unification still evokes admiration and envy among Koreans. Before Germany was unified, the relationships between East and West Germany and those between North and South Korea shared both similarities and differences. Both countries were divided by the occupation of separate Allied powers in the wake of World War II. Both countries became fields of East–West confrontation while being incorporated into the postwar alliance systems. Nevertheless, neither country abandoned its hope for unification for several decades after the division. In neither case did the surrounding powers seem eager to have them unified. Germany’s neighboring countries feared that it might be reborn as a strong unified nation, whereas the countries around the Korean Peninsula were concerned about the possibly unstable aftermath of unification, and the possibility for a unified Korea to fall into some other nation’s sphere of influence.

At the same time, there have been several differences between the German and Korean divisions. Five such differences stand out. For one thing, with the national division, while Koreans were inflicted with what might be called a “victim’s complex,” Germans, on the other hand, had what might be called a “guilt complex.” Koreans felt that they had done nothing wrong to deserve the tragedy of division but were simply the victim of power politics and backdoor understandings between the powers, especially the United States and the Soviet Union. In contrast, the Germans recognized and accepted the fact that their national division was the result of what pre-World War II Germany had done: the invasion of neighboring countries, the persecution of some ethnic groups, particularly the Jews, and the precipitation of World War II.

Secondly, during the period of national division, while the DDR, East Germany, was under the effective control and protection of the Soviet Union, it posed no serious military threat to West Germany itself. In contrast, North Korea was a constant security threat to South Korea, with which an all-out military invasion of the South had resulted in the Korean War, and smaller-scale military provocations, including commando attacks, military build-up, development of nuclear weapons and missiles of various kinds, and subversive activities.

Third, while the devoted and activist movements for unification came mainly from younger generations and from the politically leftist sectors in Korea, the relatively subdued and passive calls and desire for reunification tended to derive from the older generations and more from the conservative spectrum.

Fourth, whereas West Germany was an important member and active participant of multilateral regional and security organizations such as the European Community and NATO, South Korea’s main security link to the outside world was a bilateral alliance with the United States, and it enjoyed no membership in regional organizations or communities. So when unification came to Germany, the East Germans were prepared to join not only their Western brethren but also the European Community and NATO, thereby diluting the sense that East Germany was being taken over by West Germany.

Finally, after 45 years of German division and 70 years of Korean division since 1945, there is a big difference in the nature of the relationship between East Germany and North Korea on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and China on the other hand, their respective benefactors and guardians. In 1990, the Soviet Union was a declining and disintegrating empire in need of economic help from the outside after overspending in arms build-up and competition with the West. The Soviet Union was also in the process of internal transition from autocracy and dictatorship to perestroika and glasnost. In 2015, China is a rising economic power still under an effective one-party rule, challenging the domination of the United States and the territorial status quo in East Asia, even though it has a strong interdependent relationship with the West and has its own share of risks from rapid economic growth and self-aggrandizement. Nonetheless, East Germany was still under the firm control of the Soviet Union, and North Korea has been struggling for self-reliance and determination.

2. Status of North-South Korean relations

Roughly speaking, since the end of the Korean War in 1953, inter-Korean relations have gone through seven different phases with various degrees of hostilities and engagements. The post-Armistice period of 1953-1960 can be characterized as one of internal recuperation from the war in both Koreas and estrangement between the two sides. It was a period of a military impasse with each armed force aligned with the major supporting powers, namely the United States on the part of South Korea and the Soviet Union and China on the part of North Korea. It was also a period of diplomatic competition whereby, in a starkly bipolarized world, both Koreas established and nurtured diplomatic ties with the countries belonging to one of the two main blocs (Western and Soviet bloc) at the exclusion of the other. The so-called non-aligned bloc provided a field of competition for both recognition and votes at the United Nations on resolutions favoring one or the other of the two Koreas.

The second phase (1960-72) is one in which South Korea witnessed the emergence of a military government, and North Korea became increasingly belligerent toward South Korea with occasional military (although on a small scale) provocations both to South Korea and its ally, the United States. A selected list of such provocations would include the 1968 raid attempt on the Presidential mansion by a North Korean armed commando group, the 1968 capture of the USS Pueblo, and the 1969 downing of an EC-121 reconnaissance plane. These provocative acts were committed at a time when the attention and energy of both South Korea and the United States were diverted to the war in Vietnam. The third phase (1972-1984) could be characterized as a co-existence phase, where a series of dialogues got started as the two governments tried to use inter-Korean dialogue for the consolidation of power on their respective home fronts. The first dialogue of the series occurred as the Red Cross societies of the North and the South met from 1972 through 1973 and discussed possibilities for the reunion of families separated by the war. The inter-Korean “Joint Declaration of July 4th, 1972” pledged first to resolve Korean issues by Koreans without the outside intervention of other powers, second to resolve disputes by peaceful means without resorting to military means, and third, to work toward a grand unity of all the Korean people. Afterward, both sides set up the North-South Coordinating Committee to discuss reconciliation and unification. However, the dialogue was suspended in 1973 as the North refused to deal with the South.

The dialogue sputtered during the fourth phase (1984-1992), in large part because of the North Korean attempted assassination of the visiting South Korean president when the North Korean regime planted and exploded a bomb at the Aungsan Mausoleum in Rangoon, Burma in 1983. The North-South dialogue in the mid-eighties began as Seoul accepted Pyongyang’s proposal to provide relief goods for flood sufferings in the South. As a result of Red Cross talks, art performance troupes and some fifty families met with relatives living in the other part of the peninsula. The dialogue in the mid-eighties was one that could not surpass a certain level because of limitations pertaining to North Korea and distrust between the North and the South. The dialogue started mainly out of extra-dialogue motivations of the North, such as recovering its international image that had been tarnished by the Rangoon bombing, and enhancing the image of Kim Jong Il as successor to Kim Il Sung. Furthermore, faced with the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the unification of Germany, North Korea felt obliged to reckon with South Korea, which was broadening its diplomatic horizon starting with the hosting of the 1988 summer Olympics, and thus engage with South Korea in a serious bilateral dialogue. It resulted in such landmark agreements as the Basic Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression, Exchanges and Cooperation (1991), and the Joint Declaration on Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula Agreement (1992).

But the apparent lunge toward reconciliation was superseded by another, in the fifth phase of estrangement (1993-1998), as the North Korean nuclear weapons program became a focal issue of contention. Additionally, the passing of the “great leader” Kim Il-Song in 1994 made it impossible for North Korea to engage the South in any positive and active way. In the absence of the deceased father, his son and the designated successor, Kim Jong-Il, needed time to consolidate his position at home and re-figure his policy and strategy toward the South.

The sixth phase (1999-2008), the phase of “Sunshine Policy,” was ushered in when Kim Dae-Jung, a long-time advocate of engaging the North, became president in 1999. After the end of his five-year term, another “Sunshiner,” President Roh Mu-Hyun, succeeded Kim for the following five-year term until 2008. The ostensible purpose of Kim Dae-Jung’s Sunshine Policy toward the North was three-fold: One, to achieve peace by promoting cooperation, understanding, and confidence. Two, to help North Korean people improve their economic conditions so that they could overcome hunger and dire poverty. Three, to induce North Korea to open itself to the outside world and enable the society to change so that ultimately both political and social conditions could improve. Improved relations between North and South Korea culminated in an inter-Korean summit meeting when President Kim Dae-Jung visited Pyongyang in June 2000 and met his counterpart Kim Jong-Il. The result was large-scale economic assistance to North Korea and increased exchange of people, goods, and services between North and South Korea.

Despite the ten-year period of “Sunshine” relationship between North and South Korea, the North Korean military posture vis-à-vis South Korea did not become less aggressive or threatening. In fact, with the collapse of the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework in 2002, North Korea openly stepped up its nuclear and missile programs, with the effect of making the security situation in Korea more dangerous and threatening. In South Korea, criticism of the “Sunshine Policy,” which presumably helped finance North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, mounted. Thus, when the conservative government of Lee Myung-Bak took office in 2009, the Sunshine policy was replaced by a more balanced policy which was less unconditional, one-sided, and indulgent toward North Korea.

The seventh, and current phase (2009- ) of North-South Korean relationship can be characterized by continuing advancement on several issues, such as: North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, a deteriorating economic condition of the North, the start of a third-generational dynastic succession process, discontinuation of dialogue and the consequent decrease in exchange, trade, and economic assistance between North and South Korea, and the perpetration of provocative acts on the South by North Korea. The phase is also witnessing China seeming to take a more “protective” attitude toward North Korea lest it should collapse on its own weight of poverty and intransigence, and the strengthening of the U.S. commitment to security relationships with its allies, South Korea and Japan.

3. Possibility for duplication?

Despite these differences between the divided Germany and Korea, however, South Koreans were hopeful after German unification that they could duplicate the German path to unification. Moreover, German unification provided North Korea with both incentives and perhaps means to prevent a similar process from taking place on the Korean Peninsula.

In fact, at the time of German unification, North Korea had plenty to worry about: The Soviet empire was disintegrating; Both China and the Soviet Union officially recognized the Republic of Korea and established diplomatic relations with it, while the United States and Japan did not reciprocate for North Korea; the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on a détente; China and the United States agreed on a rapprochement; and North Korea opposed the application of the German formula to Korea.

In that sense, German unification brought about regression rather than progress in the short term in the North–South Korean relationship, by stiffening the North Korean attitude. This is a very tragic irony for a divided country. That is to say, the stronger the aspiration of one side for unification is and the louder the clamor for unification is, the lesser become practical opportunities or possibilities to achieve it as the other side takes the aspiration for a desire to take over and therefore is threatening. While both North and South Korea clamor for unification, neither side would think of turning over power, or sharing it with the other side, in the name of unification. Under such circumstances, unification by either side would mean to absorb or subjugate, if not conquer, the other. Whereas North Korea’s reference to unification meant to South Koreans a North Korean takeover of the South, the South Korean reference to unification sounded to the North to signify absorption of North Korea by the South, thus evoking the fear and resistance from Pyongyang.

What evoked North Korea’s concern was not only German unification. As a result of transformations in socialist states since 1989 and the promotion of Nordpolitik by South Korea, most of them established diplomatic relations with Seoul. Pyongyang, of course, showed negative responses to the establishment of diplomatic ties by its allies with Seoul and recalled most of its international students from Eastern Europe and the USSR. North Korea, one of the most closed, if not the most closed, regimes in the world, could not but be influenced by the transformation of socialism. As a means to prevent a regime change, North Korea chose to develop WMDs including nuclear weapons and missiles and to further insulate itself from outside influence.

Only during the 10-year period from 1998–2008 of South Korea’s Sunshine Policy, North Korea chose to engage South Korea as the latter was eager to provide the former with extensive economic assistance. However, with the election of Lee Myung-bak as President, and with the return to power of the Grand National Party in 2008, South Korea’s experiment with the Sunshine Policy had come to an end, and a policy of pragmatism and balance, which emphasized reciprocity, conditionality, and measured engagement with the North became an official policy of the South Korean government.

North Korea, on its part, was dissatisfied with the less generous and less indulgent South Korean government attitude following the more generous Sunshine Policy years. Since then, North Korea conducted three nuclear weapons tests and pursued what it named the byongjin policy, described as a parallel policy to become a nuclear weapons’ state while simultaneously reviving its economy.

In the meantime, the Park Geun-hye government that succeeded Lee Myung-bak’s government pretty much continued the preceding government’s “measured engagement policy” but with greater emphasis on cooperation with North Korea and search for “unification,” which would supposedly bring a “bonanza” to Korea and its neighbors. The problem has been that the Park government had to overcome two hurdles to get positive results from its policy for promoting unification. One is the need to overcome North Korea’s suspicion that Park’s unification overtures are nothing less than a call for “unification by absorption,” that is, by the German formula. The other is that it had to find a formula by which North Korea would suspend and then abandon its nuclear weapons program and refrain from conventional provocations.

4. Persuading major powers

Another important task for the Korean government is to persuade the four major powers, i.e., China, the United States, Russia, and Japan, that have strong interests in how the situation on the Korean Peninsula develops, that Korean unification, when and if it comes, will actually be in accord with their respective interests rather than being against them. So, how will Korean unification affect their interests? One can think of both positive and negative perspectives of the major powers on Korean unification.

Let’s first talk about the interest of the United States. There are some positive reasons why the United States will think Korean unification to be in its own interest as well.

Positive Reasons:

1. War in or over Korea less likely

2. North Korean threat (WMDs, missiles, etc.) and provocations removed

3. Emergence of a unified Korea as a powerful ally

4. Korea’s increased dependence on the United States in the short term––need for economic and security support from the U.S.

5. Expansion of democracy, market economy

But there are some possible reasons why the U.S. could think Korean unification to be against its interest...(Continued)

This Keynote address was prepared for "Preparing for a Peaceful Unification of Korea" Conference which was hosted by the Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation and the Ministry of Unification, and organized by the East Asia Institute.