LATER this month North and South Korea, which are still officially at war with each other after 60 years, will hold what is their second formal meeting in that time. Nominally the talks will be about reunification. The reality is that in the present circumstances, it is as hard to see the authoritarian and deeply repressive regime in Pyongyang yielding power in favor of the democracy and freedoms of the South, as it is to see the South accepting the doctrinaire nonsense and commercial illiteracy of the North.
At best the only reunification these talks will probably advance will be the program of contacts between families cruelly split by the division of the country. That in itself will be no small achievement. The break-up of the country is as artificial as that which befell Vietnam when Communists also took the northern half. However, there the parallel ends. Unlike the Americans in Vietnam, the United Nations successfully stopped a Communist invasion — latterly backed by the Chinese — and accepted the cease-fire that endures to this day.
Seoul’s hopes from the talks are clear. By resuming a dialogue with Pyongyang, however uneasy, it will expect a reduction in tension and an increase in what might pass for trust in North Korea. The problem is that the so-called “Communist” regime there has built its power base on the paranoid assertion that it was in constant danger of invasion from the South. To admit to any degree that their neighbors are no longer a clear and present military danger to the “wonderful” life enjoyed by North Koreans might loosen the heartless glue that binds the country together.
The North of course wants rewards for abandoning its nuclear weapons program. Already promised almost a million tons of fuel oil once its atomic arsenal is seen to be abandoned, Pyongyang is now seeking a further 50,000 tons a month, beyond the agreement. No one is much surprised by these tactics that have been deployed in past talks. The South Koreans will doubtless try and oblige from their own resources, if only to maintain the intra-Korean nature of the talks. Seoul does not want Washington butting in and waving a big stick again.
Nevertheless there is one basic reality that will be bearing heavily on the South Korean government as it prepares for these talks. North Korea is extracting concessions from an international community, which abhors its Stalinist ruthlessness precisely because it has nuclear weaponry. Pyongyang knows that the moment it truly gives up this advantage, it will become prey to outside manipulation, not least from China, which has become annoyed and frustrated with its recalcitrant ally. North Korea’s detractors once believed the country would collapse because of its inability to feed it people and keep them warm. That indeed seemed on the verge of happening until it demonstrated its nuclear bomb and medium-range rocketry. Convinced that this is a regime that would be mad enough to launch a nuclear strike, the rest of the world found itself forced into sustaining its existence by food and fuel. The irony is painful.
