The Guardian Guide to Korean Unification

Isabel Hilton's article at CiF doesn't start well:

The Korean peninsula is the final holdout of the cold war. The US, in the aftermath of the second world war, partitioned a country that had a history of nearly a thousand years as a unified kingdom, and whose citizens had a creditable record of fighting the Japanese. The US propped up a rightwing dictatorship in the south; the communist guerrilla leader, Kim Il-sung, established his dynasty in the north.

No mention of the Soviet Union there, you'll notice - whose troops, at the time of partition, were already in North Korea: just those US imperialists and the "communist guerrilla leader" Kim Il Sung.

And it gets worse:

Reunification is unlikely to get closer without the first step of a peace treaty – a longstanding North Korean aspiration – that normalises relations with the south and US. Only then could North Korea begin what will undoubtedly be a tortuous road to domestic reform and economic recovery, and only then is there likely to be progress in defusing North Korea's nuclear programme.

A peace treaty, a longstanding North Korean aspiration? A peace treaty is the last thing the Dear Leader wants. The whole Juche ideology, the whole cult of Kim Il Sung, the whole recent history of North Korea should be screaming at anyone who knows anything at all about it that a permanent war footing is the glue that keeps the whole rotten edifice standing.

Why is there this absurd determination in so much liberal thinking to assume the very best intentions for these appalling totalitarian regimes - Iran is another that comes to mind - and to insist that if only we made a few more concessions, were a little more generous, then all would be well? God knows it's been tried with North Korea - the Sunshine Policy, the endless talks, the aid which gets swallowed up by the politicians and the military before the people get a look in. This has been going on for years...and the results? Nothing. They're not interested. They have never, to put it plainly, negotiated in good faith. All that concerns the Dear Leader is maintaining his grip on power.

There is no magic bullet to resolve this crisis. But waiting for North Korea to collapse – which seems still to be at the heart of US policy – has little to recommend it. Paranoid garrison states do not collapse easily; nor can dictatorships be relied on to go down without a heavy price in human suffering. We might wish the regime away, but should be careful about how we seek to make it happen.

There are arguably more dependable routes. The west has been close to buying out North Korea's nuclear weapons programme with the promise of a controlled and subsidised programme of nuclear energy. This would help to stabilise the economy and allow North Korea to stop relying on its weapons programme as its only international leverage.

The promise of a controlled and subsidised programme of nuclear energy? Is she serious?

Comments

[scott neil]

doesn't surprise me. she peddles her China Dialogue thing, but i have feared in the past the prism by which she views things in east Asia is partial and this is more of the same.

somewhat off-topic, but she once made a very foolish contribution on the BBC News channel's Dateline London show (Saturday lunchtimes with Gavin Esler) about international engagement in Afghanistan (mind you, i've seen Johann Hari do the same on that show).

[Stephen Stratford]

"Is she serious?"

Possibly, in the sense that she means it rather than that she is a serious thinker.

But she is also nuts.

[Gene]

I love how it was the US that "partitioned" Korea, apparently just because we could. Nothing about that whole icky North-invading-the-South episode.

Are we sure she's not on a DPRK payroll?

[John C]

"The US, in the aftermath of the second world war, partitioned a country that had a history of nearly a thousand years as a unified kingdom, and whose citizens had a creditable record of fighting the Japanese."

Um, Korea was a Japanese colony not a "unified kingdom" before 1945. It was the US defeat of Japan in WWII that put an end to this state of affairs. Had it been down to the Korean resistance, however creditable, the country would probably still be part of the Japanese empire today.

No doubt the above could be twisted by "Guardian" columnists to prove that the Americans were in fact "responsible" for the existence of North Korea. "In an irony of history, the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki inevitably led to Kim Jong-Il's nuclear weapon programme. The DPRK is the monster we created...". It writes itself, doesn't it?