Sunshine policy

South Korea
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The Sunshine Policy constitutes the current South Korean doctrine towards North Korea emphasizing peaceful cooperation, seeking short-term reconciliation as a prelude to eventual Korean reunification. Since South Korean President Kim Dae Jung articulated the policy in 1998, political contact between the two nations has increased, several high-profile business ventures launched, and brief meetings of separated family members have been facilitated. Critics believe that the policy ignores the fundamentally repressive and belligerent nature of North Korea, resulting in propping up the regime of Kim Jong-il. In 2000, Kim Dae Jung received the Nobel Peace Prize for his Sunshine Policy initiative.

Overview

The term sunshine policy originates in one of Aesop's fables. In the fable, the sun and the wind compete to remove a man's coat. The wind blew strongly, but the man clutched his coat and kept it on. The sun shone warmly, and the man voluntarily took off his coat to enjoy the fine weather. The policy aims mainly to soften North Korea's attitudes towards the South by encouraging interaction and economic assistance.

The policy has three basic principles.

• No armed provocation by the North will be tolerated.
• The South will not attempt to absorb the North in any way.
• The South actively seeks cooperation.

Those principles convey the message that the South respects the North's sovereignty and will refrain from undermining its government. The South maintains the goal of peaceful co-existence rather than regime change or re-unification, though a unified Korea still exists as an implicit long-term goal of South Korea.

Kim's administration outlined two addition major policy objectives. The first, the separation of politics and economics. Practically, that means that the South has loosened restrictions on its private sector to invest in North Korea, limiting its own involvement essentially to humanitarian aid. Kim initially intended that policy both to improve the North's economy and to induce change in the North's repressive government, though the latter goal has since been (at least officially) de-emphasized.

Sunshine policy
Hangul 햇볕 정책 Hanja 햇볕政策 Revised Romanization Haetbyeot jeongchaek McCune-Reischauer Haetpyŏt chŏngch'aek

Kim's second objective, the requirement of reciprocity from the North, initially intended that the two nations would treat each other as equals, each making concessions and compromises. Perhaps most criticism of the policy has stemmed from the significant back peddling by the South on that principle in the face of unexpected rigidity from the North. The South Korean government encountered difficulty just two months into the Sunshine policy, when South Korea requested the creation of a reunion center for divided families in exchange for fertilizer assistance. North Korea denounced that as "horse trading" and cut off talks.

A year later the South announced a revision of the second objective, seeking "flexible reciprocity" based on Confucian values. As the "elder brother" of the relationship, the South would provide aid without expecting an immediate reciprocation and without requesting a specific form of reciprocity. The South also announced providing humanitarian assistance the the North without any expectations of concessions in return. The logical justification for the policy change lay in the belief that, even in light of its continuing famine and economic deprivation, Kim Jong-il's regime will survive even if the South were to apply strong pressure. The South's contents that military tensions can be lessened through bilateral and multilateral frameworks. That emphasizes the normalization of political and economic relations between both the United States and North Korea as well as Japan.

The Sunshine Policy in the Kim administration

Kim Dae-jung's administration first formulated and implemented the Sunshine Policy. North-South cooperative business developments resumed, including a railroad and the Kumgangsan Tourist Region, where several thousand South Korean citizens still travel every year. Though negotiations proved difficult, the North and South conducted three reunions between divided families(though the North canceled a fourth at the last minute).

In 2000, Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il held at a summit meeting, the first between heads of state of the two nations. After the summit, talks between the two nations stalled, possibly due to a schism within North Korea between hard-liners and reformists. Criticism of the policy intensified and Unification Minister Lim Dong-won lost a no-confidence vote on September 3, 2001.[1] After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States proclaimed North Korea a third leg of the Axis of Evil along with Iraq and Iran, the North responding by cut off talks with the South[2]. In 2002, a naval skirmish over disputed fishing territory killed four South Korean sailors, further chilling relations.[3][4] Credible allegations later came to light that Kim's administration had arranged the 2000 summit meeting with payments worth several hundred million dollars to North Korea.

The Sunshine Policy in the Roh administration

Current president Roh Moo-hyun has continued the policy of his predecessor, and relations on the divided peninsula have warmed somewhat since 2002. In 2003, the issue of the North's possession of nuclear weapons surfaced again, with both North Korea and the U.S. accusing each other of breaching the Agreed Framework.

Nevertheless, Roh stayed committed to the policy and his government has continued to supply the North with humanitarian aid. The two governments have continued cooperation on the projects begun under Kim Dae-jung and also started the Kaesong Industrial Park, with South Korea spending the equivalent of just over $324 million on aid to the North in 2005 [5].

There appears to be a pro-North Korean trend in public attitudes, though there are significant differences between generations, political groups, and regions.[6][7][8] However, the ruling Uri Party, which strongly supports it, have suffered recent electoral defeats.

Criticism

Many critics of the policy believe that, rather than increasing the chances of reunification or improving the human rights situation in North Korea, it has been used instead for political gain in domestic politics in the South. They point to what they say are the continuing provocations and criminal activities committed by the North, such as the 2002 sea battle that left several South Korean sailors dead [9], the counterfeiting of American money [10], and what they call the North's general unwillingness to reciprocate Seoul's gestures of goodwill, as evidence that the North is interested only in receiving money and aid to prop up the regime of Kim Jong-il. Critics also believe that, in exchange for providing humanitarian aid, the South should demand that the North return kidnapped South Korean citizens[11] and the remains of POWs from the Korean War. Some see the Kaesong Industrial Park as merely a way for large South Korean companies to employ extremely cheap labor.

In 2006, North Korea backed away from its pledge to re-open direct rail links between the North and South. No comment was made from Pyongyang as to why the sudden turn-about was made or when the link might be opened. This was used by critics of the Sunshine Policy as further proof of North Korea's failure to repay the South's goodwill with similar gestures.

Many observers see the weakening of the US-ROK alliance as being due in large part to the Sunshine Policy; they say it has led the South to favor the North's interests over those of its ally the United States [12][13] and that it leads South Korean politicians to unreasonably mute or censor criticism of the North [14][15] and even to ignore the sacrifices of its own soldiers[16] so as to avoid upsetting the North. They say that this is harmful to the South's national interest in being allied with the United States[17], and actually damages the chances for a smooth and peaceful reunification. Internationally and at home, the South Korean government has been criticized for repeatedly abstaining from United Nations votes condemning the North's human rights record.[18][19][20] The government defends the abstentions by citing the special character of inter-Korean relations.

Sunshine Policy In Peril

On October 9, 2006, following the nuclear and missile tests, South Korea suspended aid shipments to the North and put their military on high alert status. There is much concern regarding how South Korea can maintain a cooperative policy towards the North when such provocative acts are occurring. [21] Nonetheless, the government of South Korea has insisted that at least some aspects of the Sunshine Policy, including the Mount Gumgang Tourist Region and the Kaesong Industrial Region will continue.

See also

• Korean reunification
• Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization
• Hyundai Asan
• List of Korea-related topics
• Nordpolitik

Sources

• Terrorism Eclipses The Sunshine Policy: Inter-Korean Relations and the United States, Asia Society, March 2002
• The Cost of Sunshine, Time, 3 February, 2003
• Excerpt from Rand Corporation monograph
• The Future of the Sunshine Policy, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, 15 June, 2001
• Despite U.S. Attempts, N. Korea Anything but Isolated, Washington Post, 12 May, 2005
• Sunshine Policy in a Nutshell, a publication of the Federation of American Scientists.
• The Bush Administration and the Korean Peninsula: Interview with Dr. Suh Sang-mook, Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs, Spring 2001, Volume 1.
• Oberdorfer, Don. The Two Koreas : A Contemporary History. Addison-Wesley, 1997, 472 pages, ISBN 0-201-40927-5

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