South Korean Strategic Thought on Reunification

Abstract

Discussions of the Korean peninsula veer between two extremes: 1) North Korea is bound to collapse with or without outside pressure, and however unprepared South Korea may be, it will take charge of a chaotic process of putting the North back together as part of a united state and 2) the North Korean regime firmly controls the land north of the 38th parallel and shows no sign of letting go no matter how much lip service is paid to reunification. These two ways of thinking share the conclusion that there is little point in strategic planning for a staged merger of the two sides of the peninsula, taking into account bilateral and multilateral diplomacy along with coordination of the public and private sectors. Until the second half of the 1990s when thinking about reunification started to go forward gradually based on two standing governments finding ways to compromise, few doubted the validity of one or the other view. The Sunshine Policy raised hopes, and, nine years later the February 13, 2007 agreement at the Six-Party Talks has intensified interest in negotiated, gradual integration of the peninsula. A review of how discussion of this theme has proceeded, incorporating various types of inter-peninsula cooperation, can shed light on how South Koreans have reasoned about this issue and are prone to link it to developments in the Six-Party Talks.