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The Sunshine Policy Is Dead

I guess the whole protection racket thing was the last straw. Now they’ve even managed to rile South Korea’s UniFiction Minister, Lee Jong-Seok.

Efforts to bring North Korea back to disarmament talks were in tatters on Thursday as Pyongyang stormed out of a meeting with the South and a senior U.S. diplomat left the region after a week of shuttle diplomacy.
….
“The South side will pay a price before the nation for causing the collapse of the ministerial talks and bringing a collapse of North-South relations that is unforeseeable now,” the North Koreans said in a statement before leaving for the airport, a day before the meeting was due to end.
….
“Who in the South asked you to protect our safety?” Lee told Kwon on Tuesday, according to a South Korean official. “It would help our safety for the North not to fire missiles or develop a nuclear program.”

The South said the North could also forget about any more aid until it returns to separate talks on its nuclear weapons.

Is South Korea finally through with being the bitch in this relationship? When the Marmot and I were on the BBC recently, he said, dryly, (most things he says, he says dryly) that he’ll believe that when he sees it. I’ll give Robert that point, since I’ve noted more than once that Lee’s words and the truth tend to be two different things. Overall, a cutoff of food aid would be a mixed blessing, but more good than bad for the North Korean people. Although I strongly believe in feeding them — because I oppose punishing the regime’s victims for what the regime does — I doubt they ever saw much of South Korea’s unmonitored aid. My guess is that it will be missed mainly by party members and military officers, whose hunger matters to Kim Jong Il. The loss of unmonitored aid, so the logic goes, might force North Korea to accept monitored aid.

The next question this raises is whether Minister Lee finally grown a pair. I’m not sure. Yes, Lee often talks like a man who likes a good boilermaker with his breakfast, but until now, he’s only been willing to publicly insult the President of the United States (while praising His Porcine Majesty). This is new territory for Lee, but my money says he’ll be shocking this cadaver with the heart paddles again within a week, tops. That doesn’t mean he’s fooling anyone, himself included.

The most interesting question for the three of us who blog here is why Kim Jong Il would burn the bridges Seoul used to send its tribute across his moats. One thing that makes the question so appealing is the dearth of facts to work with, but you can do a back-of-the napkin cost-benefit analysis. On the cost side, Kim has seen the results of South Korea’s elections, and he can probably guess that things aren’t getting any better for him in the Blue House from here. On the benefit side, I’ve offered my own theory. Kim Jong Il certainly acts like a man desperate enough to make mistakes. A series of them has sealed the demise of Sunshine as the policy of a discredited fringe whose tenure of office has become a painful political anachronism. As of today, you can find the death certificate on file at the courthouse.

The only problem is that you’ll have to sift your way past two million more of them.

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8 Responses

  1. I think the South will end up blaming the U.S. for the North’s actions, and continue to plug away with the “Sunshine Policy.” Unless the North follows up with something more drastic, I think it’s a hiccup. They seem to have gone a little overboard on the disengagement, but I don’t think their actions could be interpreted as extortion at this point.

  2. I think the South will end up blaming the U.S. for the North’s actions, and continue to plug away with the “Sunshine Policy.”

    I think they’ll try, but I just don’t see how they can succeed now. Also, I don’t think KJI really expects to extort anything this way. I think he’s going to beg privately while trying to create the appearance of extortion.

  3. I don’t think they know when to quit:

    Instead of admitting they’d been sold a dead horse, South Korean policy makers continued to ride the rotting and bloated beast known as the “Sunshine Policy,” until all that’s left today is a pile of bones, a bit of dried skin, and a few dirty tufts of hair. The Roh administration, however, is still in the saddle.

  4. uniFICTION minister Lee, the well known commie sympathizer who gave away much if not all classified intelligence to his midget sugar daddy, is turning out to be a GOOD ACTOR indeed…

    Say was his major in Drama (times when he was not protesting) in college?

    NO got no balls so kept silence for DAYS (and still) about his daddy midget’s July 4th bottle rockets gala. Few days ago posted utter nonsens in houseofblue website. What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?

    So what does NO balls NO do? Follow the public sentiment and instruct his “boy” uniFICTION to act up like ROK is upset about his sugar daddy’s fireworks. LOL Again nice acting job.

  5. SK should withhold some aid until NK agrees to stop testing its missiles. SK should be firm about this.

    This is a setback for the Sunshine Policy, but it’s not the end of it.

  6. I almost put in a statement that if Mi Hwa admits that Sunshine is in trouble, the end is at hand.

    And I just want to make clear that for all our disagreements, I do enjoy your comments and your different perspective. You never fail to provoke good discussions here, even if I occasionally find what you say a bit maddening….

  8. My perspective, as I hope you understand, is that I just want the North Korean people to have a shot at a decent meal and a life worth living. I want them to join us in this discussion one day.