Rising Costs of Korean Unification
Flying Yangban has a good entry on the rising costs of Korean unification:
Yes, economic and social costs would be, indeed, high. Only, the problem is that the costs would be even higher later. And this does not even factor in the continued suffering of the masses in North Korea.
We now have a curious situation in which the US administration wants the end of North Korea (and by default, absorption by the South) and the South Korean administration wants to prevent re-unification.
Given the pay-now-or-pay-much-more-later situation, the right policy for South Korea would be to cooperate with the US, topple the North Korean regime and re-build the North with American help. It will be difficult and painful, but some of it can be mitigated if the US stands along as a helpful ally. Unfortunately, the continue alienation of the US alliance by the South Korean government is eroding this possibility.
One of the standard lines of the people opposing Korean unification (all the way up to AntiUnification Minister Chung Dong-young) is that a quick unification of the Koreas is prohibitively expensive and the North must be brought up to the South's level of development before unification is possible.This is consistent with my view. The current South Korean government wants a "soft landing" for North Korea -- coexistence, reform and gradual economic development before re-unification if at all. The idea is that a sudden re-unification would be devastating to South Korean economy and social stability.
Well, the studies of a Korean professor for the Brookings institute (a liberal think tank based in Washington) says that not only is unification delayed unification denied, it is also unification made more expensive.
Yes, economic and social costs would be, indeed, high. Only, the problem is that the costs would be even higher later. And this does not even factor in the continued suffering of the masses in North Korea.
We now have a curious situation in which the US administration wants the end of North Korea (and by default, absorption by the South) and the South Korean administration wants to prevent re-unification.
Given the pay-now-or-pay-much-more-later situation, the right policy for South Korea would be to cooperate with the US, topple the North Korean regime and re-build the North with American help. It will be difficult and painful, but some of it can be mitigated if the US stands along as a helpful ally. Unfortunately, the continue alienation of the US alliance by the South Korean government is eroding this possibility.
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