Korean reunification

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
reunion
Korean alphabet : 통일
Hanja : 統一
Revised Romanization : tongil
McCune-Reischauer : t'ongil
Flag at Cheonggyecheon Christmas Festival
The divided Korean Peninsula

The keyword Korean reunification is used to name hypotheses and theories that deal with various possibilities for the unification of the two states of the Korean Peninsula . The dictatorial North Korea ruled in the north and South Korea in the south of the peninsula, which has been democratized since the end of the 1980s, have been divided since 1947 (see also the division of Korea ) - since the end of the Korean War there have been phases of rapprochement and alienation of the two states and one of them of different intensity Series of armed border incidents, but they are still formally in a state of war (see Korean conflict ). A prerequisite for reunification would therefore be a formal end to this conflict with a peace treaty .

The fact that the North and South Koreans care about the reunification of their countries is shown by the fact that people meet at the summit of Seoraksan to shout the word tongil ( Korean: "reunification") across the border. As in Germany in the 1980s , family reunions are possible to a limited extent, and a cross-border road and railway line have also been set up. The soldiers were no longer exposed to propaganda along the strictly fortified border. However, both sides are still nominally at war, since the end of the Korean War in 1953 only a ceasefire and a non-aggression pact have been concluded; Missile tests and the development of nuclear weapons by the North Korean side are weighing on the tense relationship.

However, on October 4, 2007, a declaration of peace between the two states was signed at a historic summit in the Mansudae Congress Hall in Pyongyang . In the declaration, both heads of state called for peace, prosperity and closer economic cooperation on the Korean Peninsula. A similar declaration was signed on April 27, 2018 at the third inter-Korean summit on the southern side of the Joint Security Area . This is the clearest movement to date towards a peace treaty , as it was agreed, among other things, to hold talks with the USA or with the PR China about an end to the state of war this year.

Concepts

Both sides have different concepts of what a reunification should look like. There is the South Korean National Community Unification Formula (NCUF) and the Democratic Federative Republic of Koryo , which are mainly aimed at a confederation . The North Korean side, however, envisions a federal system .

The first reunification concept came from Kim Il-Sung , who proposed the creation of a Democratic Federal Republic of Koryo in 1960 . Koryo is a neutral name insofar as the country is called Chosŏn in North Korea and Hanguk in South Korea . This is not evident in the translation of the country names into foreign languages ​​in every language.

There are concerns in South Korea about the economic aspect of reunification. In any case one will have to say with Engelhard:

"The longer reunification is delayed, the greater the economic burden on South Korea."

Goldman Sachs offered a very optimistic forecast . Jim O'Neill also contributed to the 24-page study by Goohoon Kwon . At the time, he identified Brazil, Russia, India and China as emerging economic powers. As for these countries, North Korea would have a well-trained workforce, a resource rich in uranium, coal and iron ore, and a favorable demographic development. In order to be able to use this potential, says Kwon, we need to say goodbye to the dictatorship and to reunite with South Korea. In the first phase of integration, the North Korean economy could have grown by a remarkable seven percent annually from 2013 to 2027. In the middle of the 21st century, a united Korea could even have had a higher gross national product than France, Germany and Japan.

Oliver Kloss notes :

“Assuming this prognosis is too optimistic, one should at least consider: As soon as the people of North Korea free themselves from dictatorship, they must be offered a path to reunification. Otherwise, out of sheer fear, there will be a refugee movement to South Korea, as there was at the beginning from the east to the west of Germany. The North Korean population must then be offered the security through South Korea that the communist elite will not be able to regain power. Only this prevents the mass exodus, because there is no language barrier. "

In popular culture

documentation

literature

  • Kyu-Young Lee: The Sunshine Policy and Korean Reunification . In: Heiner Timmermann (Ed.): The GDR in Europe. Between isolation and opening . Lit Verlag , Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8884-3 , pp. 208-226. (including a full article by Lee as a digitized version freely available on Google Book Search >> p. 208ff.)
  • Robert A. Scalapino: China and the Korean unification. A neighbor's concerns . In: Nicholas Eberstadt , Richard J. Ellings (Eds.): Korea's future and the great powers . The National Bureau of Asian Research, University of Washington Press, Seattle / Washington 2001, ISBN 0-295-98129-6 , pp. 107-124. (English)
  • Hyun-Ki Shin: Korea on the way to peaceful reunification and the four great powers. An analysis of the possibilities for unification in the area of ​​tension between the politics of confrontation and readiness for dialogue . Herbert Utz Verlag , Munich 1999, ISBN 3-89675-471-8 . (also dissertation; LMU Munich 1999)

Web links

Commons : Korean Reunification  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Aurel Croissant: South Korea: From the military dictatorship to democracy . In: Introduction to the Political Systems of East Asia . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2003, ISBN 978-3-322-86664-6 , p. 225–270 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-322-86663-9_5 ( springer.com [accessed April 16, 2017]).
  2. Summit: North and South Korea plan nuclear disarmament . In: Spiegel Online . April 27, 2018 ( spiegel.de [accessed June 5, 2018]).
  3. ^ Karl Engelhard: South Korea. From the developing country to the industrialized state , (publications from the One World Initiative, Vol. 7) Münster, Waxmann Verlag , 2004, p. 382. ISBN 3-8309-1404-0 .
  4. Goohoon Kwon : A United Korea? Reassessing North Korea Risks (Part I) , Goldman Sachs Global Economics Paper No: 188, September 21 (2009), Commodities and Strategy Research.
  5. Cf. Evan Ramstad: “Study sees gains in Korean unification. A combined North and South would create an economic powerhouse by midcentury, Goldman Sachs report says " , in: The Wall Street Journal , September 22, 2009, p. 12.
  6. Oliver Kloss: The treatment of the East German power elites in the course of German reunification. Lecture at the international conference of the Korean-German Society for Sociology and the Korean Institute for National Association on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Dongguk University in Seoul 2009, p. 27.