|
|
|
|
|
GOLDSEA |
ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
Impact of Corean Unification
t's been over a decade since the Iron Curtain came crashing down in Europe. The Bamboo Curtain is little more than a quaint phrase. Yet the Cold War remains very much alive on the Corean peninsula.
Across a 186-mile DMZ glare opposing armies collectively totaling 1.7 million. By all reckoning the Pyongyang regime should have become ideological roadkill following the collapse of communism. Instead, it remains an impregnable roadblock to the economic integration of East Asia, the world's fastest-growing region.
How can an economic nonentity be such a roadblock?
Consider its location at what should have been the crossroads of East Asia. With 56% of the peninsula's land mass, North Corea separates on one side the world's greatest market and labor pool (China) and the biggest reserve of natural resources (Sibera) from, on the other, two of the world's leading technological and manufacturing nations (Japan and South Corea).
But for Pyongyang's intransigence Seoul would already be linked by railroads and superhighways to Beijing, Moscow, Berlin, Paris and London. All those cities would also be linked to Tokyo via a bridge across the 126-mile strait dividing Shimonoseki from Pusan. The savings in shipping cost and time alone could amount to tens of billions of dollars a year. Such a trans-Eurasian land link would accelerate the cultural and economic integration of not only East Asia, but the world. In the process, the Corean peninsula would shed the burden of financing the world's most heavily fortified frontier and become the center of the global economy.
That's the vision dancing before the eyes of farsighted statesmen and business leaders pushing for the political leaps of faith needed to keep Pyongyang taking its unsteady baby steps toward opening North Corea.
But skeptics and pessimists abound. Even a loose confederation with the North would only burden and destabilize South Corea's economy and political system, they argue. For decades to come the impact on the global economy would be entirely negative as investors and customers begin shunning the uncertainties, denying capital and trading partners to hundreds of world-class Corean manufacturers. The ultimate result, argue the naysayers, would be to throw a monkey wrench into an alignment that has allowed three decades of strong growth for East Asia.
What is the likely impact of Corean unification?
This interactive article is closed to new input.
Discussions posted during the past year remain available for browsing.
CONTACT US
|
ADVERTISING INFO
© 1996-2013 Asian Media Group Inc
No part of the contents of this site may be reproduced without prior written permission.
|
|
|
|
WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Wednesday, Jan 22, 2025, 06:38:55 AM)
To Ka, I take your point regarding China's one child policy. Perhaps the fact that other Asian countries face the same gender imbalance is more a result of gender bias on the part of parents that prefer to have males, but any beliefs or practices that result in an increase of children born with birth defects due to inbreeding has got to qualify as stupidity. I don't care if it's China, Korea, or Alabama, it's stupid.
To AC Dropout, who said that South Korea WON the World Cup? I said that they had success. Combining an inability to read with your inability to write, I have no trouble imagining how you arrived at your moniker.
Naki
Saturday, July 20, 2002 at 20:37:44 (PDT)
Naki
Korea overran Asia in World Cup 2002.
You sure about what??
Who will be next Asian country to make
final four in World Cup??
boston, massachusetts
Saturday, July 20, 2002 at 07:13:37 (PDT)
AC, how you disappoint me, I thought that perhaps you were showing a glimmer of rational objective thought.
I suppose it's not enough that you don't read my own posts fully and start accusing me of writing something I never wrote, which I didn't. Now you start doing the same thing to poor Naki's posting. Where in his/her posting does he/she write, "South Korea won the World Cup tournament?" He/She wrote specifically that South Korea did very well during this years world cup (in contrast to North), and they did, considering they placed 4th in the tournament, but I guess you aren't much of a soccer fan. Again, you seem to base South Korea's soccer performance 4 years ago, instead of the more current result of..oh...just a few weeks ago.
AC, are you saying that Kim Dae Jung ordered the south korean navy to open fire on the north korean vassel to divert the public attention from his son? you show clear signs of political naivate. Instead of "shielding" Kim Dae Jung from public scrutiny, the naval incidence has made his popularity plunge even more. Why? Think about it. Kim Dae Jung is the biggest supporter of the Sunshine policy, which pretty much stipulates that South Korea should bend to North Korea's will whenever and however possible. Now South Korean men are dead from North Korean bullets. South Korean public believes that it was Kim Dae Jung's fault for revising the ROE and also it's his fault for being "soft" on North Korea. You wouldn't know this, of course, because like always, you don't like to read south korean newspapers or even the CNN. That wrinkly thing in our cranium is not a vestigial organ.
ka
Friday, July 19, 2002 at 10:35:32 (PDT)
nyhomboy,
No time at all. Considered it a by product of a misspent youth in sunday school.
AC Dropout
Wednesday, July 17, 2002 at 15:50:50 (PDT)
Hi Naki,
As much as I hate communism, I think it's unfair to blame China's one-child policy on creating female shortages. The recent edition of the Economist magazine has an article about this, but I thought that the magazine was blatantly biased on an anti-China basis. The reason why I say this is, because democratic S. Korea, Taiwan, and India all have the same problem China has (s.korea has one of the worst), and none of them have a one child policy. the magazine goes on to by saying that the sociologist from a mormon university (i'm biased against mormons), worries that a large number of unwed single men might be used for military purposes. Whereas we do have a big reason to worry about the tremendous gender gap, I think that singling out China and to claim that it's China's willful policy that is creating this is unfair. I however do agree that Chinese communists hold on to the rather antiquated Malthusian belief that more people means more mouths to feed, rather than the more modern and enlightened view that more people means more brains to create progress.
ka
Wednesday, July 17, 2002 at 08:04:05 (PDT)
In 1981, a Korean executive met with an American congressional delegation from California and Louisiana. The lawmakers were furious that South Korea, which was in the midst of a serious drought, had purchased large quantities of rice from Japan. Despite the fact that Koreans prefer the short-grain rice grown in Japan, these American congressmen insisted that South Korea had an obligation to buy long-grain rice from Louisiana and California. One congressman, John Breaux, who is now the senior senator from Louisiana, told the Korean executive that he would push for a cutoff of US military aid if Seoul didn't start buying his state's product.
It's now 20 years later, and nothing has changed. US pressure to buy from Boeing is an unsettling reminder of South Korea's role as a pawn. It began in spring 2000, when Bush pushed for a Boeing purchase in his meetings with Kim. After that, Boeing sent a delegation to Seoul that included several key members of Missouri's congressional delegation, including Senator Christopher Bond, a Republican, and Richard Gephardt, a Democrat who represents the city of St Louis. A few months later, Bond warned that "very unfortunate things could happen" to US-Korean relations if Seoul decided against buying Boeing's F-15 fighters.
A Divided Korea is in America's Best Interest
Tuesday, July 16, 2002 at 16:39:28 (PDT)
Naki,
Nicely put.
AC,
Too much talent has gone to your head. How much time did you spend in looking for these concomitant verses?
nyhomboy
Tuesday, July 16, 2002 at 15:23:58 (PDT)
Naki,
The World Cup?...you sure about that? South Korea won the World Cup...in Tae Kwon Do maybe.
I'm pretty sure the incursion at sea was about bringing attention away from Kim Dae Jung's son prosecution. That would a little more sense in your non-sense theory.
WTF is a Naki?
AC Dropout
Tuesday, July 16, 2002 at 14:21:01 (PDT)
NEWEST COMMENTS |
EARLIER COMMENTS
|