As Korea is in the news again, it’s a good time to think about the long-term situation. I would think that in the U.S. it’s generally assumed that the best conceivable resolution to the Korean situation would be peaceful unification of the Koreas, under the South Korean government and constitution, like Germany in 1990. I don’t know, however, if that is similarly assumed in South Korea. (In North Korea, I would guess the subject is never discussed, anywhere, by anyone but the highest leaders behind closed doors.) In Germany’s case there was some opposition in the Federal Republic to the enormous expense of assimilating an economic basket case like the Democratic Republic, but, as Helmut Kohl put it, “This is the kind of thing you spend money on.” Would the South Koreans (or their leaders) have the same attitude to the costs of absorbing NK?
The disparity between incomes, output, lifestyle and worldview is just too vast, and growing wider every day.
Honestly, NK needs a completely different government and a couple of hundred thousand outside volunteers to embark on a 20-30 year plan of turning it around and making it ready for Unification.
China probably wouldn’t go for it, but I find their vision there disturbingly short-sighted compared to their usual long view. A unified Korea will have NO use for American troops and will naturally fall back into orbit around China in time.
East German Population c 1990: 16.1 million, a quarter of W Germany
per capita income: about 1/2 of West Germany cite.
West German Population" 62.1 million, 1989.
South Korea pop: 48.7 million
GDP per capita: $20,000
North Korea pop: 24 million, about half of S Korea
GDP per capita: $1900, about 10% of S Korea.
North Korea would be a much bigger fish to swallow. Proportionately, it is a fifth as rich as East Germany was and has twice the populace. It would be far worse than having the US absorb Mexico.
Here in South Korea, reunification itself is considered an eventual inevitability; there is a government department tasked with figuring out how to do it most seamlessly. Each side wants it on its own terms, but each side wants it. A pretty common argument over here is that, of all involved parties, only America benefits from the continued separation (China doesn’t get mentioned so much).
During the soccer games last Spring, South Korean kids of course cheered for South Korea. But whenever North Korea played some other foreign team, South Korean kids cheered for North Korea. Those aren’t faceless “others,” those are their cousins. Literally.
It would be economically tough but I think it has at least moral support from most South Koreans even though they would balk at the price tag.
Speaking as a Korean who grew up in Korea, I disagree. South Koreans may cheer for North Korea in sports games but a lot of us don’t want actual reunification. Kids get spoonfed idealistic ideas about a “one Korea” but a lot of the younger generation in their 20s and 30s are pretty cynical about the idea.
In addition to the statistics Measure for Measure brought up, there is another key difference: East Germans had a lower standard of living than West Germans, and had been taught quite a bit of propaganda, but they were properly nourished, generally well-educated, and a large part of the working population were skilled tradespeople, academics, and service workers. The East Germany economy was in tatters, but there was a working society there. Their lives were not totally unlike the lives of their cousins in the West. And even then reunification was a difficult process, economically and psychologically; you could argue that, mentally, the two Germanies are not yet truly united.
North Korea is not just an economic basket case, it is a basket case. The average North Korean is significantly shorter than the average South Korean because even in the best of times the average North Korean is undernourished. Significant numbers of people are employed in make-work jobs that have no equivalent in a modern capitalist society. North Koreans who escape to the South require significant help to re-educate themselves to cope with life in a world where the leader doesn’t have god-like properties and people need to think and choose for themselves. Korean re-unification may happen, may even be inevitable for all I know, but when it comes it’s going to make German re-unification look like a picnic.
Hrmm. Well, I’ll take your word for it. Most Koreans I speak to seem to like the idea but for the price tag.
I have heard that assimilation of North Koreans into South Korean society requires significant re-education and subsidies.
I think the 3" average height gap hides the fact that the height gap really started taking off after the famines in the 1990’s. If you look at folks who grew up before that period, the height gap is very modest, apparently the height gap among 6 year olds is 5"
As an aside, the height gap between Americans and Europeans has been moving against the Americans. Most people attribute this to he more even distribution of wealth and the differences in health care coverage, especially pre-natal and neo-natal health care.
During WWII, the average American was 2" taller than the average German. Now they are 2" taller than we are.
Does a malnutrition-related height gap correlate with any IQ gap? That would be a far worse problem – if North Koreans are not even educable for the kind of life South Koreans have.
What benefit do they see accruing to America as a result of the continued separation?
I second this. Despite common perception, we do not enjoy spending millions on military bases defending our allies from psychotic. I suppose you could argue it’s a standing threat to China dn thus helps our global diplomacy, but a free Korea would be vastly more so.
Frankly, every time I’ve ever heard South Koreans talk about politics or international diplomacy or such, it’s like venturing into la-la land. Seriusly - I may disagree with Russian, Japanese, Chinese, French, German, or Greek idea, and I’ve talked at some point with people fom all of those. But I always understood their ideas. I can honestly say the South koreans have always seemed to be nuts to me. They appear, at least, to mix hyper-nationalism with weird misconceptions about everyone else.
Actually they remind of even more insular Japanese.
That, as it so often does, depends heavily on who you mean by “we.” There are a lot of powerful players in America who really do, in many ways, enjoy the permanent war economy that America has had continuously since 1941.
Once it becomes on the verge of realization, attitudes are likely to change. One way or another.
I’m really interested in learning more about what daily life for the average North Korean is like. Can anyone recommend a good book?
I am sure the Dear Leader has written one.
The prospect: With suicide.
The reality: With near-complete economic collapse.
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick was very good. It is told nearly entirely through interviews with refugees who’ve managed to escape and find their way to the South (typically via China).
The Aquariums of Pyongyang is a first-hand tale of surviving the infamous Yodok concentration camp.
I feel like you guys have been talking to super conservative and/or Koreans of an older generation. The idea that the US benefits from the separation dates back to the Cold War (although I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that the US wants to have a firm foothold near China, “just in case”). And the days of uber-nationalism are definitely fading. Most of my generation are pretty Westernized and long to leave Korea ASAP.
I know some Koreans and I must say they all agree with this above poster. They all think it’s a wonderful idea in theory but it would be too hard to put into place