South Korean Man Still Held at Kaesong

That South Korean man arrested at Kaesong continues to be held incommunicado.

It’s staggering that South Korea would invest so much economic and political capital on something as poorly thought through as Kaesong. I didn’t have time to find an estimated total cost for the entire Kaesong fiasco, but this UPI report puts the cost of Kaesong’s recent expansion alone at $2.5 billion, just a small portion of more than $11 billion committed by Roh Moo Hyun to upgrade North Korean infrastructure near the end of his term. The South Korean Unification Ministry points out the obvious:

All countries are obliged to protect and support production activities of foreign companies which invest in their industrial complex, and this is an international norm that has been abided by throughout the world. It is hard to expect stable development of the GIC unless normal transportation of goods and free access of South Korean personnel to and from the GIC are guaranteed. [Unification Ministry Press Release]

If you think obstructing the flow of trucks and widgets will kill investment prospects, just wait until potential investors consider the opportunity risk of being sent before a revolutionary tribunal. They’ll be fleeing for the exits like … North Korean citizens.

The Unification Ministry’s web pages describing the objectives of Kaesong and Kumgang appear not to have been updated for nearly a year, and those glossy gif ads at the left-leaning Hankyoreh that the Roh Administration had paid for — in the process, subsidizing the friendly press — have vanished.