Two Koreas Hold Second-Ever Summit

The unification of the Korean peninsula is inevitable. The question is one what terms and how many generations in the future. Today, those terms might have clarified themselves and the number of generations dropped by a few with the second-ever summit meeting between the Republic of Korea (South) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North). As he walked across the 38th parallel, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said, “This line will gradually be erased and the wall will fall.” From his lips to God’s ears.

Precisely what the North hopes to get out of this is hard to say. The place is called the “Hermit Kingdom” for a reason. However, one might surmise that the ugly practicalities of feeding the population and getting some fuel would be high on the list. The only reason for those objectives, of course, is to ensure the continued existence of Kim Jong-il’s regime in the North. In short, self-preservation is a fair guess at the purpose of the talks for Pyongyang.

For Mr. Roh’s government, there are two purposes. The first is the stated objective of de-escalating the tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang, leading ultimately to a peace treaty and discussions on integration of the two societies. The second is purely for domestic political gain. Mr. Roh is coming to the end of his term of office, and the conservative opposition is ahead in the polls with elections slated for December.

There is no set agenda for the talks, but by mutual consent, there will be no discussion of North Korea’s nuclear program. That is reserved for the six-party talks, and that’s probably just as well. With that removed from consideration, the two leaders can address more mundane (but more readily solved) matters like rail links, family reunifications, and development of cultural exchanges.

With the current constellation of power in the world, the two Korea’s are only going to become one entity at a snail’s pace. It will look more like the unification of Europe than the founding of America or the unification of Italy or Germany in the 19th century. The line, as Mr. Roh said, will gradually be erased. For that reason, it is more important that the talks occur than that they achieve very much – the achievement is in holding them at all.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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