Designed to further peaceful cooperation and short-term reconciliation with North Korea in hopes of achieving eventual reunification of the Korean peninsula, the Sunshine Policy swung into full force following a dramatic inter-Korean summit in June 2000 between Kim Jong Il and Kim Dae Jung. In the decade that followed, South Korea provided copious amounts of economic aid and made a series of diplomatic concessions to the North, with little more than domestic political gains to show for its efforts. As the global diplomatic stage is once again set for the resumption of six-party talks in 2010--despite Pyongyang's intermittent protests to the contrary--it is important to reflect on the precedents, motivations, and potential legacy of South Korea's Sunshine Policy, which is perhaps the most deliberate and sustained effort of "engagement" with North Korea to date.
What will be the historical legacy of the Sunshine Policy? One possible answer, of course, would be akin to Chinese premier Zhou Enlai's supposed reply to Henry Kissinger's query about the impact of the French Revolution: "It's too soon to tell." The full effect of the Sunshine Policy will not be known until the Kim Jong Il regime either is no longer in existence or has undergone revolutionary changes. Indeed, even following unification of the two Koreas, it would probably be many years before a full accounting could be made of how the Kim Jong Il regime used Kim Dae Jung's unconditional aid to North Korea and what impact, if any, such generous aid had on modifying the regime's behavior or improving living conditions inside the famine-stricken, isolationist, totalitarian state. But we can, and should, make some preliminary assessments, if only to help the public and their representatives avoid repeating mistakes of the immediate past.
Read Full Article »