Why Sunshine Will Backfire

And I’m not talking about the fact it lavishes and appeases the North in exchange for a few symbolic gestures and photo ops. Figure one, the latest trade figures from the North

SEOUL, South Korea — Trade between North Korea and China rose to a record last year as the North becomes increasingly dependent on its No. 1 trade partner for food and energy, a South Korean trade agency said Monday.

The volume of trade between the two countries rose 14 percent in 2005 from the year before to a record $1.58 billion, according to South Korea’s state-run Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, or KOTRA.

Two-thirds of that trade was made up of North Korean imports from China, which grew 35.2 percent year-on-year to $1.08 billion, much of it food and energy.

Trade with China accounted for more than half of North Korea’s total exports and imports last year, KOTRA said in a release.

“North Korea has to depend on China for most of its food and energy resources,” KOTRA said. “China has also been rapidly increasing its investment in North Korea in recent years, which leads to an additional boost to the amount of trade between the two countries.”

North Korea has been showing signs of emerging from the horrors of the 1990s, when a famine caused by bad weather and compounded by mismanagement resulted in the deaths of an estimated 2 million people.

It’s an assumption that reunification will occur eventually. I think so too, but no one ever stops to think where would North Korea, given a choice, want to be a part of. The natural assumption is, of course, South Korea. But is it really a given? What if North Koreans reject the South in favor of China? Could North Korea really become another Chinese province? From what I can tell, most Koreans want reunification, but become more reluctant when it actually has to reunite. Chinese people probably feel the same way, but then they do not have a say in the country’s affairs.

So I believe, given what’s going on in the present, at this rate whenever the Kim regime finally collapse, North Korea will become another Chinese ethnic conclave like Tibet. By now I’ve enraged the entire Korean population, but I hope they ponder that situation and set their anger elsewhere. Economically, North Korean society is nearly dependent on China for its survival while China seeks to further integrate its economy with the bordering provinces. The folks behind Kaesong can try, but it has to do more than just developing the North Korean economy. But ultamately, where North Korea ends up in the future depends on the North Korean population voting with their feet. So do North Koreans prefer? Obviously, South Korea presents a superior choice to China. But to date only a few thousand refugees have made to South Korea. But hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have already been to China. And despite the fact that a North Korean refugee living in China represents only a level up in Dante’s Inferno, South Korea is a dream, China is the reality. All I have to do is point out the huge similarities between North Korea and Heilongjiang and the huge differences between North Korea and South Korea. And based on what I see, both Chinese and South Koreans are reluctant to bring the North Koreans into the fold. But like I said, Chinese people do not have a say in their own government’s affairs (based on current trends). So in the scenario that the Kim regime has collapsed and North Koreans face the choice of joining either nation (independence is not a viable option, as regime collapse would undermine that argument), a small percentage of North Koreans would join their brothers in the South while the rest become Chinese subjects in newly acquired Chinese territory.

I make this argument in hopes that South Korean nationalists would end their obsession with Japan and realize the prospect of bordering with China in the future. There is a way to minimize the chance of this happening, but requires the South Koreans to actually care about the plight of their northern brethren. That will involve invoking “that H phrase” LiNK and those damn conservative religious groups use all the time when describing North Korea. If economic is still your thing, may I suggest placing a bet on China’s Northeast region rather than the one sided deals made with the North Koreans. But what do I know, I’m just relishing the prospect of North Koreans reuniting with their Northern comrades.