Left Flank

Amid all the inflated rhetoric?from both the Roh administration and expat pundits?the recently announced DPRK-ROK summit is at best yawn-inducing. I'm struggling to find any element of this proposed vanity project that either side has not tried before. Even foreign responses sound remarkably trite. The only difference, ironically, is that all elements are present and the effect is less than the total of all the excitement each element ever elicited before. The Six-Party Talks have leeched anything North Korean of all of its novelty. In short, the Roh administration, the caretaker of the progressive «Sunshine» legacy, is bankrupt.

Anecdotally, my South Korean wife, generally more conservative than even I would want to be and a dyed-in-the-wool Communist hater, in 2000 expressed a tearful modicum of nationalist pride when the last DPRK-ROK summit swamped the TV channels, newspapers, and the street. Now, she's more concerned about our impending trip to the States. I usually take my cues from the gap between her opinion ( and mine) and those of my students and the official media. Right now, though, there's no gap; it's all a consensus of indifference. I don't live in the capital, either, so, if the locals are talking about politics, as they were in 2000, it's remarkable (and slightly unnerving). It's all very quiet now, the way it should be, since most people just don't migrate out of their life-worlds for more than a few days. So, should any of those worry about the summit? Actually, I do find this development alarming. Firstly, however, I'll try to retrace the litany of tedium.

The Dong-A Daily tackles the issue of financial aid to Pyongyang head-on.

The government has allocated 65 trillion won to inter-Korean cooperation in the ten years from 2006 to 2015, according to a report that the Korea Development Bank produced in early 2006, upon the request of the Ministry of Finance and Economy. This is about 1.3 million won or 1,400 dollars per citizen. A report produced by the Ministry of Unification in February also suggests that the government provide between nine and 14 trillion won in aid for North Korea, including social-overhead-capital projects, over the next few years. Since such projects involve a great deal of taxpayers? money, the government must carefully review whether its investment and assistance will bear fruit.

The Korean government and non-government organizations spent 6.59 trillion won to provide assistance, including rice, to North Korea between 2000 and 2006. However, despite the sumptuous spending, it has failed to produce any significant change to the attitude of the Stalinist regime or the lives of the North Korean people. Tensions have rather mounted between the two Koreas, and in the neighboring countries surrounding the Korean Peninsula, due to the North?s launching of missiles and development of nuclear weapons. ?Even if we give everything that the North demands, we will still have to resolve the (North?s nuclear) problem. It will still be a profitable deal,? President Roh said, mentioning the U.S.?s Marshall Plan. However, it will never be a profitable deal unless North Korea changes its attitude.

ROK President Roh is even resurrecting an old proposal to take the train to Pyongyang. And, a no-brainer, it IS an electoral ploy, just like his previous attempts to promote transportation and reconstruction projects on the heels of his impeachment. Poll-challenged, legacy-seeking Roh enjoys US President Bush's predicament: opponents cannot stop him from continuing the same stubborn policies.

This is the concern here. South Korean conservatives have failed to challenge the progressives' aid-for-nukes paradigm, which now has ossified into a platform plank that will survive the Roh administration. The problem results from an inability to appreciate just how much the DPRK wants to be a normal state, albeit one with gulags and a de facto dynasty and caste system.

Through a survey local media DailyNK conducted that sought answers on the actual living conditions in the Northeast region of North Korea it was discovered that massage rooms, steam baths, beauty-related enterprises (plastic surgery, breast augmentation and skincare maintenance) are the main thriving businesses.

Beauty-related businesses such as these prevail in relatively large-sized cities, such as Chongjin in North Hamkyung, Hamheung in South Hamkyung, and Wonsan in Kangwon. This trend seems to follow the up and coming wealthy class who have risen through doing business in North Korea.

Conservatives having failed to cripple the gulag state, the only alternative is to recognize it and end the Korean War, followed by negotiations to bring Pyongyang back within the NPT. But, now, too, the region will be saddled with the legacy of a progressive agenda, which seeks unification through gradual and corrupt economic linkages favoring elites in both Koreas. Handing over food, money, and oil is bad policy, but conservatives have done even worse. They have refused reality for their own selfish moralistic delusions.