South Korea’s North Korea Policy: Desirable Path for Future Development

Abstract

The following Principles should be kept in pursuing North Korea policy. First, it is necessary to prioritize projects for augmenting North Korean peoples’ living standards. In consideration of the North Korean citizens’ suffering from chronic and extreme famine, development aid to North Korea must first and foremost focus on easing living conditions for North Koreans. Second, it is necessary to promote conformity with international standards. The two Koreas after their first round of Summit Meetings have actively engaged in economic cooperation and exchanges, but progressive parties within South Korea have shown little success in strategic thinking for transforming the North Korean regime according to the ‘Exchanges first, transformations second’ policy. Bearing this in mind, development aid to the North in the future must be accompanied by conformity with international standards as well as stimulation to bring about North Korea’s transformation. Third, it is necessary to improve self-sustained capability in North Korea’s economic recovery. One of the most important directions in Vision 3000 for Denuclearization and Openness Initiatives is the improvement in capacities of the recipient state. Fourth, it is necessary to contribute to ease North Korean hostility. In accordance with the directions for development aid, contributions to easing North Korean hostility must also be taken into consideration. Such directions for development aid to North Korea imply the lessons learned from past policies on the North that solely ‘gave’ without substantive results, and ultimately aided in North Korea’s incorporation into the rest of the world. This means that by accepting development aid from the international community, North Korea’s hostility in its external relations must be fundamentally changed. Without such assumptions, development aid to North Korea will not be as successful and efficient as it should be in the long run.