Kaesong Death Watch

There’s enough bile circulating in my veins as it is, so it’s a burden lifted to read reports like this, via G.I. Korea, and have the confidence that the behavior will be terminated and deterred in due course. These days, Kaesong isn’t shipping much merchandise, but a lot of karma is about to arrive on some manufacturers’ loading docks.

Exhibit A: Amid North Korean demands to increase “wages” for Kaesong workers — the workers themselves probably see little or any of the money — panicky South Korean investors are appealing to their government to insure the free flow of freight traffic and the release of a South Korean employee still being held by the North Koreans. It’s hard to see what the South Korean government can really do about this.

Exhibit B: Inter-Korean trade in March 2009 was a full 30% lower than it was in March 2008.

The two Koreas exchanged goods and services worth US$108.74 million over the last month, down 31.1 percent from $157.9 million in the same period in 2008, the data from the Unification Ministry said.

North Korea sealed the border three times in March, disrupting South Korean production in a joint industrial complex in the North’s border town of Kaesong. Pyongyang imposed the ban in retaliation against a joint military exercise South Korea staged with the United States from March 9 to 20 south of the border. [Yonhap]

The latest convenient excuse was an annual military exercise. Even in March 2008, Kaesong’s output fell far short of early predictions about its potential.