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It’s Still “Business as Usual” Until Kaesong Closes

Hmmm:

The government on Monday banned citizens from going to the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea, site of an inter-Korean reconciliation project, as tension on the peninsula remains taut. The Ministry of Unification, citing “security concerns” for South Koreans working there, said it would monitor the situation and decide on a day-to-day basis whether to recommence travel to the complex or other parts of the North.

“If the situation gets any worse, the ban could be extended,” an official of the ministry said. [….]

Under the ban, the more than 600 citizens who were scheduled to go to work at the industrial enclave were prevented from crossing into the North. The 200 South Koreans currently staying at the complex were not required to return to the South, but according to the ministry, more than 100 opted to do so.

In spite of everything, Kaesong still managed to expand its output last month. Certainly tensions and political interference will continue to deter new investment. Yet behind every South Korean diplomat, official, or politician who declares his outrage at the North’s attacks, threatens retaliation, or asks other nations to put pressure on the regime, Kaesong is the elephant that lurks with eyes downcast, trying to look as inconspicuous as an elephant can. As Defense Minister Kim Kwan Jin said, the continued operation of the complex “could hamper military responses to the North,” and with all of those potential South Korean hostages inside North Korea, it’s not hard to see why. There is also a very real question whether Kaesong’s largely unaccounted-for payments are consistent with the financial provisions of UNSCR 1874. Finally, there is the question of Kaesong’s “optics,” and what it does to Seoul’s diplomatic credibility when it demands that China, for example, exert financial pressure on North Korea. No matter how tough the ROK government talks, and even as the North attacks South Korean territory and kills its people, the continued operation of Kaesong screams “business as usual.”

6 Responses

  1. Has the ban already been lifted?

    http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news…010200320.HTML

    Quote:
    “The unification ministry decided to allow South Koreans to visit the Kaesong industrial complex at a limited level,” the ministry said in a statement, citing the decision stemmed from consideration of difficulties of South Korean companies operating within the complex.

    According to the ministry, 466 South Koreans will visit the complex on Tuesday, while 438 will return to Seoul.

  2. Is Kaesong masquerading as South Korean territory? That is, are items made or assembled at Kaesong marked, and distributed in the West, as “Made in Korea”? I recently bought a soft camera lens cover, of simple manufacture — a plastic carabiner, a woven safety loop, neoprene and rayon cover and body, with a toggled closure. It was marked “Made in Korea” but was poorly constructed, not at all what one comes to expect from the anal perfectionists of Seoul.

    It required cutting, assembly and stitching on a sewing machine, well within the capabilities of a fourth world country like the DPRK. But if my suspicion is correct that this lens case was actually manufactured in and exported from the DPRK, this means either that we, the USA, have given dispensation to the South to export items made in the DPRK (within some questionable sanctions arrangement) or these are simply illegal but subject to collusion of the South Korean export authorities in the government.

    I suppose ultimately the legality of the importation here depends on the exact terms of the Trade Agreement between North and South — and then on its compatibility with the rules as to sanctions. But there also seems to me to be a separate issue, of national origin marking — whether the item should be marked, for international trade mark and copyright purposes, as “Made in the DPRK”

  3. The US outsources to China, South Korea outsources to North Korea, and Israel outsources to Palestine. Money trumps everything else.