The Sunshine Policy Is Dead, Part 3

Like the captain of a sinking ship herding rats back into the hold, Kim Dae Jung is desperately trying to preserve a policy that was his dubious legacy.  Without Sunshine, there is only bribery and a tarnished hunk of metal.  Kim, predictably, apportions blame equally between North Korea and the United States.  Honestly, there is just no pleasing some people.  We’ve offered the North Koreans far too much for far too long.  If DJ really thinks the North Koreans have a God-given right to counterfeit — our response to that is their latest excuse for refusing to talk — nothing is stopping South Korea from broking the perfect compromise.  It can let the North Koreans print these:

Will South Korea finally find  concentrated sobriety of the condemned?  Michael Breen strikes true brilliance in diagnosing the syndrome that has removed all friction from its grasp of reality:

[I]n other areas of public life, in defense, in politics and in managing relations with allies and with North Korea, there seems to be a peculiar weirdness at work. It ‘s as if leaders align themselves with certain people and nations for emotional reasons like, we went to the same high school and then work backwards to develop strategy to justify it and tactics to fit.

The result is frequently stupid.

Take the nonsense over Dokdo, for example. What ‘s that all about? Do Koreans really care more about Dokdo than about the human rights of 23 millions in the rebel-held territory of North Korea, who according to the Constitution, are legally citizens of South Korea?

That could be a yes.  (ht: Asia Watch)

And yet there is hope.  U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, seeing that the iron is hot, is raising the point that I’d predicted the USG would eventually raise:  Seoul’s direct aid to the North Korean regime.

Mr. Vershbow declined to comment specifically on what Seoul should do. But, he continued, “I would just say that this is probably a time when all countries need to review their programs of assistance that may provide financial benefits to a regime that, as we have seen, enable it to devote a disproportionately large share of its resources to nuclear programs and other military programs.”

The ambassador continued, “I think that applies as well to China, which provides considerable assistance to North Korea.” He urged more cooperation from Seoul in Washington’s Proliferation Security Initiative, a multinational program to suppress international trade in mass weapons and missile components. 

The  South Korean government has rediscovered the benefits of allying itself with the United States.  It’s taking the PSI  request seriously.  I suppose it’s a little early for  the “Rebirth of an Alliance, Part 1.”  That will depend on whether Seoul attaches some meaningful conditions — on disarmament, abductees, and human rights — to its aid.