Imagine, Part II

The Unification Ministry is again facing criticism over its laxness toward North Korea, after announcing yesterday it would provide 4.8 billion won ($4.8 million) to repair and complete a project on Mount Paektu on which it has already spent 4.98 billion won. Of that, 2 billion won is to repair faulty construction by North Korean workers, carried out without clear specifications of what the South expected for its contribution.

The project happens to an airfield, and I’ve yet to hear of an airfield in North Korea that’s not dual-use, meaning that the South is now officially paying a portion of the North’s defense budget, while the United States continues to pay a very large portion of South Korea’s defense budget.

A Unification Ministry official said, “As the runway has holes here and there, a plane bigger than middle-size cannot taxi on it.” He added, “North Korea used the pitch provided by the South in building a taxiway, which it was supposed to use only in road construction, leading to the faulty construction.” Some critics also suspect North Korea may have misappropriated the asphalt.

South Korea, however, has no way to check that suspicion. As the contract was signed one month after then-Unification Minister Chung Dong-young met North
Korean leader Kim Jong-il, critics say the South Korean government was moving hastily without scrutinizing the contract to further greater inter-Korean exchange.

Just imagine how much socioeconomic equality we could bring to Louisiana without all of the profligate misspending on the military infrastructures of foreign despots.