(Updated: Originally published October 25, 2006)
One family, but they capture the mood of a nation. Should be required reading for all Americans!
"In South Korea, Softer Feelings Toward the North" by MARTIN FACKLER
BUNDANG, South Korea, Oct. 22 — With news about the North Korean nuclear crisis flashing on the living room television, Kim Yoon-sup unleashed a verbal barrage of his own at the heavily armed Communist nation, some 60 miles north of this wealthy Seoul suburb.
From a sofa in his son’s high-rise condominium, the 79-year-old Korean War veteran blasted the North for murdering its domestic opponents, starving its population, and amassing legions of tanks and cannons. Mr. Kim, a retired air force colonel, also criticized his own country’s policy of engagement, which had failed to stop the North’s nuclear test earlier this month.
But asked if South Korea should sever its growing trade and investment ties with the North, as many in the United States advocate, his answer was a firm no. His country must continue engagement, he said, to avoid either backing the government into a corner or causing further economic hardship for its people.
Mr. Kim: “We can’t be too harsh. North and South, we share the same blood, after all. Of course, it’s good to help them.”
His son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren all agreed.
Once fervently anti-Communist, South Korea has slowly parted ways with the United States, its largest ally and wartime protector, on how to deal with the North. Across age groups and political persuasions, most South Koreans now appear to believe that their nation has no choice but to keep building ties with the North, despite the widespread shock and anger here over its nuclear test.
This bedrock of public sentiment underlies the different responses to the crisis by South Korea and the United States. Many in Washington have called for tougher sanctions or even a naval blockade to further isolate the North’s impoverished government and force it to relinquish its nuclear ambitions. But Seoul has been reluctant to tighten the economic screws on the North, hoping instead to entice it to the bargaining table with increased links with the outside world.
This softer approach is a result of a deeper evolution in public perception here since the end of the cold war and South Korea’s subsequent emergence as an Asian economic powerhouse. The changes were reflected in the personal political odyssey of the Kim family, three generations of whom gathered on a Sunday evening to discuss their perceptions of the North.
The elder Mr. Kim, the family patriarch, was born in what is now North Korea and fled the brutality of the fledgling Communist government in a grueling winter boat ride. But his grandchildren, who have lived most of their lives in this high-rise community on the outskirts of the bustling South Korean capital, said they saw the North as too distant and poor to be a real threat.
Kim Ta-yon, Mr. Kim's granddaughter and a 21-year-old university junior in French literature:
“The nuclear test is scary, but not enough to feel like it has violated everyday life. None of my friends think North Korea will actually attack.”
Her mother, Song Yon-ju, 49, said she remembered the panic caused by military crises in previous decades, when she joined mad rushes to grocery stores to stock up on boxes of dried noodles. There have been no such panics this time, she said, which she attributed to South Koreans having grown weary of living in fear.
She also said the continued desire to engage the North reflected a streak of pragmatism in a country where much of the population lived within range of North Korean artillery. A tougher policy would only push the North into deeper desperation, she said.
Song Yon-ju warned quietly: “Even a little mouse will bite if it’s cornered.”
Similar attitudes appear in recent public opinion polls, which show that while the claimed nuclear detonation hardened attitudes toward the North, a majority of South Koreans still oppose outright confrontation. According to a telephone survey of 800 people last week by the Naeil Shinmun-Hangil Research Center, only 15 percent of respondents called for ending economic ties, compared with 83 percent who supported their continuation. But most supporters agreed the current policy needed revisions, such as making it harder for North Korean leaders to profit from such ties.
Political analysts say a big factor behind the desire to maintain economic ties is a deep ambivalence in South Korean views of the North. While the two Koreas still face each other across the minefields and barbed wire of the demilitarized zone, many South Koreans have come to see the North as nothing more than a destitute, misguided relative.
Lee Nae-young, a political science professor at Korea University in Seoul:
“South Korean people are caught in a dilemma between perceiving the North as a threat and as a brother. They felt betrayed by the nuclear test, but don’t want aggressive sanctions, either.”
These conflicting feelings toward the North were apparent in the conversation with the Kims. The elder Mr. Kim, who watched Communist troops gun down critics in his village and spent 20 years in the South Korean Air Force, warned that the North was still armed to the teeth. But he also said South Korea could not just close the door on North Korea and its famine-ravaged population.
Mr. Kim: “We have no choice. We can’t ignore the more than 20 million Koreans still living up there. They don’t have enough rice.”
His son, Kim Seok-kyeon, 49, a general manager at an insurance company who was born after the Korean War ended in 1953, agreed that his country could not go back to the confrontation of the cold war. He said there was no need because the North wasn’t as fearsome as it used to be.
Kim Seok-kyeon: “They have more airplanes and tanks than we have, but they have no fuel to put in them.”
Another generation down, his son, 11-year-old Kim Dong-hyun, said he didn’t worry about North Korea at all. When pressed, he described the country as “crazy and harmless.”
His two sisters, both in college, said their textbooks blandly described the North as a starving land where fellow Koreans spoke an antiquated dialect. This was a big change from the era of their father, the insurance executive, who grew up during the military dictatorships of the 1960’s and 1970’s. He said anti-Communist education ran through his schooling, with monthly homework assignments to make posters demonizing the North.
The three generations of Kims also showed subtle differences in their views of America’s role in the nuclear standoff. All agreed that the United States was a friend, and that the crisis had made them appreciate the protection offered by the American nuclear umbrella.
But while the elder Mr. Kim expressed confidence that Washington was working to resolve the crisis, his granddaughters suggested that America bore some blame for the standoff — a common sentiment here.
Kim Ta-yon, the university junior:
“If the U.S. isolates North Korea, it’s just silencing someone who has something to say. I don’t think North Korea did the test to provoke war, but because it wants a voice in international society.”
I again propose my solution for the two Koreas:
How about the U.S., China, and Japan butting out and leaving Korea to the Koreans?
