The United States is going too far in its attack on South Korean business projects with North Korea, specifically the Mt. Geumgang (Kumgang) tourism enterprise and the Gaeseong (Kaesong) Industrial Park. U.S. assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill said on October 18 that Mt. Geumgang tourism "seems to be designed to give money to the North Korean authorities." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.S. ambassador to Korea Alexander Vershbow have been talking about the need to reconsider cross-border economic contact. They are overstepping their authority, and are doing so based on erroneous perceptions.
Mt. Geumgang, the first of South Korea’s business projects in North Korea, has played a decisive role in advancing North-South relations. It contributed to the holding of the 2000 summit in Pyongyang, and as can be seen in the fact that as of last year one million tourists had made the trip, it has become a symbol of reconciliation and exchange. More than 2,000 people are employed there: Koreans from the North, the South, and from China. The fact that those once-frequent North Korean military provocations along the East Coast have disappeared is evidence of the effect Mt. Geumgang has hand on reducing tensions. Conversely, if the tourists suddenly stop coming, the North could very likely see it as a precursor to military action.
The argument that money that enters the North through these projects went to fund the development of the North’s nukes is nothing short of calling for the North’s collapse through the severing of all of its economic ties with the rest of the world. That’s not diplomacy - it’s a prelude to something that could lead to military confrontation. As also noted by the American media, it was in early 2003 that the North started actively reprocessing the plutonium it used in the recent test, the same time talk began in Washington of a preemptive strike. It was the excuse the U.S. gave Pyongyang that Pyongyang used to develop nuclear weapons, more than any amount of money.
This time around, as well, fundamentalists in the U.S. like the "Special Envoy on Human Rights in North Korea," Jay Lefkowitz, has been calling the North Korean government a criminal regime and calling for the breaking off of all ties. It’s the same old "Axis of Evil" rhetoric you heard in the early stages of the Bush administration. And it goes without saying that the refusal to recognize Pyongyang as an entity worth negotiating with has heightened tensions between the North and the U.S. and contributed to Pyongyang’s decision to go ahead with a nuclear test. The motive behind the concentrated calls for changes or a complete halt to these business ties to the North is a desire to hide U.S. policy failures.
The U.N. Security Council’s sanctions on North Korea need to be solely a means toward a peaceful resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. Cross-border economic ties can be used as leverage for getting the North to engage in dialogue. If these ties are halted, the South is the side that stands to lose, while sanctions overall would have almost no effect on the North. That is why our government needs to clearly state that tourist visits to Mt. Geumgang and the projects at the Gaeseong Industrial Park are going to continue without interruption.
[Editorial] U.S. needs to back off from inter-Korean projects |
