Northern politics

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The North Policy ( Hangeul : 북방 정책 ; Hanja : 北方 政策 ; RR : Bukbang jeongchaek ) refers to the foreign policy of the sixth South Korean President Roh Tae-woo , which began in the late 1980s and aimed at improving South Korea's relationship with North Korea and making contact with the communist states and allies of North Korea. A rapprochement with the Soviet Union , the People's Republic of China and Eastern Europe was intended to end the previously strategic isolation between South Korea and North Korea.

The model and namesake of the North Policy was the Ostpolitik that the Federal Republic of Germany pursued in the early 1970s to get closer to the German Democratic Republic . However, in contrast to the Ostpolitik, which aimed at a direct normalization of the relationship between the two German states, the Northernpolitik set itself the goal of normalizing the relationship with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, in order to initially be able to approach North Korea indirectly.

The 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul were an important reason for implementing the Northern Policy . As the venue for the Olympic Games, South Korea wanted to avoid an Olympic boycott by the Eastern Bloc and thus had to act against the problem of the lack of diplomatic relations with the socialist states in order to obtain their approval for the Games.

The North Policy was followed by the Sunshine Policy in the late 1990s , which was introduced by South Korea's eighth President and Nobel Prize winner Kim Dae-jung .

reasons

The reason for the development and implementation of the North Policy was, on the one hand, the view of South Korean political decision-makers that South Korea's economic and military dependence on Western states and in particular on the United States of America was too excessive. Instead of relying too much on the West and becoming dependent on the USA, the idea arose to independently establish a global position instead. Particularly when South Korea's western allies improved their relationship with Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, the desire for independence grew.

Another reason was that with the rise in US protectionism , South Korea needed new trading partners. Through the policy of the north and thus an improvement in the relationship with the socialist states, South Korea saw potential trade relations that would improve the South Korean economy.

Furthermore, South Korea saw not only economic but also political potential in northern politics. Far-reaching relations with socialist states should be made possible in order to establish contact and dialogue with North Korea so that the relationship between the two states can relax. North politics was initially founded solely with the intention of forming a unit with North Korea.

development

As early as June 1973, the former President of the Republic of Korea Park Chung-hee announced that South Korea was ready to forge ties with states that represent different ideological and political systems. After Park's declaration, South Korea opened its ports to communist states and gave them access to parts of the world previously forbidden to them. However, due to the Cold War and thus strong tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, the government in Seoul decided to close the ports for the time being and only open them again when the situation between the Soviet Union and the United States relaxed.

In June 1983, South Korean Foreign Minister Lee Bum Suk declared that South Korea was keen to normalize relations with the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union. Following the German model, Ostpolitik , Lee named this policy Northern Policy . In October 1983, however, Lee Bum Suk died in a bomb attack on the then South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan in Rangoon ( Myanmar ).

At the beginning of 1985 specialists from numerous ministries who dealt with northern policy declared that only with the will to negotiate with North Korea and its allies would this policy be successful. This task was taken over by Park Chul-un, a relative of Roh Tae-woo, who then became the special assistant to the head of the South Korean Intelligence Service (NIS).

During the 1987 election campaign, Roh Tae-woo announced that he would pursue a northern policy and promised new prosperity for the west coast of South Korea. To do this, he recruited Kim Chong-whi as a special assistant for foreign affairs. In a speech on July 7, 1988, Roh then presented northern policy and its content.

content

Key message and the six-point program

The core message of northern politics included a six-point program that was particularly focused on national self-esteem, association and prosperity. Roh Tae-Woo announced that the Korean government is committed to:

  1. Actively promote visits and exchanges between people from North Korea and South Korea, and make necessary arrangements to enable Koreans living overseas to visit both parts of Korea
  2. Vigorously encourage the visit anyway, exchanges and correspondence from family members who are distributed in North Korea and South Korea
  3. Open trade between North Korea and South Korea
  4. Not to refuse trade between North Korea and other states as long as this trade does not include military goods
  5. To allow contact between North Korean and South Korean representatives in international forums in order to cooperate in the interests of the entire Korean nation
  6. To cooperate with North Korea to improve its relations with allies of South Korea

North politics was thus seen as a way of approaching the solution to inter-Korean problems. It showed that the South Korean perception of North Korea had changed. For example, North policy has consisted of viewing North Korea as an equal partner rather than an adversary in the inter-Korean dialogue. Instead of continuing to slander North Korea, the North Policy should help liberate North Korea from its isolation from the rest of the world. The strategy was not to go on a course of confrontation with North Korea, but to come to an understanding in order to work together towards prosperity. The main goal was the Korean reunification .

Furthermore, diplomatic relations with North Korea's allies, the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China and Eastern Europe should be entered into through the North Policy, in order to improve South Korea's international position on the one hand and to be able to establish a relationship with North Korea more easily on the other.

Evaluation of the six-point program

In retrospect, it can be seen that the six-point program, as well as some aspects of northern politics, were very idealistic rather than realistic. Seoul called for cooperation and reciprocity from North Korea, not knowing how Pyongyang would react to this unilateral move. On the contrary, the prognosis was that Pyongyang would not be enthusiastic about northern politics. This also suggests that South Korea had actually developed northern policy not only to draw closer to North Korea, but also to draw closer to other socialist states.

Reactions and successes

Eastern Europe

Hungary was one of the first successes of Northern politics . The businessman and chairman of the Daewoo group, Kim Woo-chong, who had long established relationships with states that had a connection to Pyongyang but not to Seoul, decided in the early 1980s to look for business partners in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. In December 1984 he flew to Budapest and negotiated with the Hungarian government and party members, which ultimately resulted in an agreement on trade and promotion of trade between Seoul and Budapest in early 1988. When the Northern Policy was enforced in mid-1988, Seoul demanded full diplomatic relations with Hungary. Hungary itself was also interested in increased trade with South Korean firms and agreed, but on condition that South Korea provided them with a billion dollars in economic aid. Secret negotiations followed from the beginning of July to the end of August 1988, in which the two states finally agreed on 625 million dollars. Since Seoul wanted to publish before the Summer Olympics in 1988 that it had contacted a communist state in order to improve the political atmosphere for the games and to establish relations with other states more easily, it was already on September 13, 1988, four days ahead of the Olympics, announced that South Korea and Hungary are seeking diplomatic relations. North Korea reacted bitterly to this announcement and was concerned that Hungary's decision would affect other Eastern Bloc countries. It also emerged that Hungary, prior to agreeing to enter into relations with South Korea, asked the Soviet Union for consent, which was granted. On February 1, 1989, diplomatic relations between Seoul and Budapest were finally fully established.

The Czechoslovakia , Bulgaria and Romania , and Poland and Yugoslavia then took in the course of 1989 also official diplomatic relations with the South Korean government.

Soviet Union

As early as July 1986 and August 1988, the President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev announced that he wanted to improve relations with South Korea, although this was rejected by conservative and powerful bureaucracies. The improvement was nevertheless planned systematically with the three phases: sport, trade and political relations. The Summer Olympics in Seoul were the decisive turning point, as the Soviet Union showed a great desire to take part in the Games and South Korea welcomed the Soviet Union as an honorable guest more than any other participant, including the United States.

Both states were interested in trading with one another. The Soviet Union coveted South Korea's advanced technology and needed its help out of the economic crisis through direct investment , joint ventures, and trade, while South Korea was interested in oil, metals, wood, and fish from the Soviet Union. Due to a lack of diplomatic relations, both states had previously traded these goods indirectly via Eastern Europe, Hong Kong , Japan and Singapore . However, due to mutual desire for direct trade, the Vice Chairman of the Soviet Chamber of Commerce Vladimir Golanov and the President of the Korean Trade Promotion Agency Yi Sun-gi met in October 1988 and signed a trade memorandum in December 1988. Seoul's trade office in Moscow opened in July 1989, Moscow's trade office in Seoul in April 1989th

Furthermore, political relations gradually developed. Due to the technological progress and increasing affluence in South Korea, the Soviet Union showed interest and promised not only to promote trade, but also to promote cultural ties between the two states. Kim Young-sam , later the seventh President of South Korea, was selected to work on the ongoing process of the Moscow-Seoul relationship. In early June 1989, he visited Moscow, met and spoke with various Soviet officials, which led to the Moscow Kremlin announcing that 300,000 Soviet Koreans who had lived on the Soviet island of Sakhalin since World War II are returning to the country Allow South Korea. Moscow arranged a meeting between Seoul and Pyongyang, at which Kim Young-sam, after obtaining approval from Roh Tae-woo, met with Kwon Hui-gyong , a North Korean ambassador who is a regular exchange between the Reunification Democratic Party (RDP) and proposed by the Workers' Party of Korea (WKP) as well as at summit meetings in North Korea. In June 1990, Gorbachev and Roh met for the first summit in San Francisco . In September 1990 the Soviet Union and South Korea established full diplomatic relations.

People's Republic of China

Since the People's Republic of China did not need any support or relationship with South Korea, especially in an economic sense, Beijing did not share Moscow's keen interest in northern politics. Nevertheless, China and South Korea began to meet informally. Due to the lack of official relationships, this did not lead to a deepening of trade relations because there was no legal protection for the business people. Furthermore, Beijing and Pyongyang were politically very close, which made it difficult to improve the political relationship between the People's Republic of China and South Korea, despite increasing trade. China nevertheless tried to mediate between North Korea and Japan, North Korea and the United States, and North Korea, South Korea and the United States. China also encouraged face-to-face meetings between Koreans and Chinese, with academics, journalists and family members from both countries being allowed free meetings from the late 1980s. In August 1992, the People's Republic of China and South Korea established full diplomatic relations.

North Korea

North Korea, the final and most important goal of northern politics, did not respond positively. As early as July 11, 1988, four days after Roh had presented the North Policy, North Korea declared in detail that only the three basic principles announced in 1972 would be considered for reunification and an inter-Korean dialogue for North Korea. These basic principles included: reunification by peaceful means, despite ideological differences and without external rapprochement. Pyongyang believed that North policy was nothing more than an attempt by South Korea to appease the rising anger of radical students who protested against the holding of the Olympic Games without North Korea taking part. Pyongyang was therefore not reassured but even more angry with the declaration of northern policy that Kim Il-sung's offer of a Democratic Confederal Republic of Korea opposed.

North Korea called for a boycott of the Eastern Bloc of the Olympic Games in 1988, but the Soviet Union and other communist states ignored this and took part despite opposition from North Korea, which considerably strengthened Seoul's contacts with the socialist states. North Korea, on the other hand, could not be set up for the games.

In addition, South Korea began to speak publicly about direct and indirect inter-Korean trade, which North Korea also disapproved of. Pyongyang claimed that Seoul would invent this trade because there was no trade between the two states. In 1988, Seoul then reduced tariffs that were supposed to liberalize trade with North Korea. Trade statistics from Seoul or Pyongyang on inter-Korean trade that were listed at the end of the 1980s are very unreliable because the information provided by both countries did not match and the trade was mostly carried out through third parties or illegally.

Pyongyang responded to northern policy by calling for Seoul to repeal the South Korean National Security Act, which Pyongyang was opposed to, a declaration of non-aggressiveness and establish a "Peaceful Reunification Committee" for peaceful reunification. The government under Roh then tried to respond to these demands and to meet them. On October 18, 1988, Roh advocated a six-state assembly to discuss permanent peace between North Korea and South Korea and called for a partnership with Pyongyang. In his 1989 New Years address, Kim Il-sung invited the presidents of major South Korean political parties and religious leaders, such as Cardinal Kim Sou-hwan , Rev. Mun Ik-hwan, and Rev. Paek Ki-wan, to a leadership-based reunification conference in Pyongyang. However, there was no meaningful inter-Korean dialogue.

This was followed in early 1989 by the founder of the Hyundai group Chung Ju-yung in his home province of Kangwangn-do in North Korea, who campaigned for the relationship between North and South Korea. Chung was received in Pyongyang by Heo Tam , chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, and by many business people interested in economic cooperation. On the basis of this meeting, Seoul hoped for further exchange with North Korea, but these expectations were not met, as Chung's business relations with North Korean partners already suffered a setback on his return to South Korea.

Further meetings were agreed, at which the South Korean government consistently aimed to bring North Korea out of isolation and work towards reunification. North Korea's entry into the United Nations in 1991 and the signing of the Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression, Exchange and Cooperation in December 1991 by North and South Korea were viewed as successes . The reunification of the two states or the opening of North Korea to western states were not achieved.

Some critics are of the opinion that North policy has promoted North Korea's isolation. Due to South Korea's new relations with North Korea's allies and North Korea's opposition to diplomatic relations with South Korea's allies, the North Policy was a great success for South Korea, but it failed to achieve its goal of getting closer to North Korea and bringing it internationally.

literature

  • Andreas Wilhelm: South Korea's new northern policy . Peter Lang, 1996, ISBN 978-3-631-49867-5 (265 pages).
  • Dan C. Sanford: ROK's Northern Policy: Revisited . In: The Journal of East Asian Affairs . tape 7 , no. 1 , 1993, JSTOR : 23254205 (English).
  • Sanghyun Yoon: South Korea's "Northern Policy" with special reference to its relationship with China. 1994, OCLC 647532858
  • Danielle L. Chubb: Contentious Activism and inter-Korean Relations . Columbia University Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0-231-53632-5 (296 pp.)
  • Man-su Kim: The ambivalence of democracy in South Korea: from the Tonghak peasant war to the (im) possibility of democratization under the "first" civil government of Kim Young-Sam (1993–1998). Tectum Verlag DE, 1999, ISBN 978-3-8288-8088-7 (266 pages)
  • Johngseh Park: Korea's Northern Policy: Its Background and Future Prospects in the Post-Cold War Era . East Asian Institute, Columbia University, 2008 (18 pages)
  • Charles K. Armstrong: Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950-1992. Cornell University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-8014-6893-3 (328 pages)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Don Oberdorfer, Robert Calin: The Two Koreas . 3. Edition. Basic Books, S. 146-150 .
  2. ^ A b c d e Andrea Matles Savada, William Shaw: South Korea: a country study . 4th edition. DIANE Publishing, 1997, ISBN 978-0-8444-0736-4 , pp. 250-266 .
  3. ^ Aidan Foster-Carter: A Long & Winding Road: South Korea's “Northern Policy” (Part I). March 26, 2014, accessed January 27, 2017 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Young Whan Kihl: Transforming Korean Politics. Democracy, Reform, and Culture . Routledge, 2015, ISBN 978-1-317-45331-4 , Foreign Policy and Democracy: From Nordpolitik to Engagement, pp. 241–246 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ a b Part II: The New Approaches to Korean Reunification Policy after German Unification. With particular reference to Kim Dae-Jung's policy towards North Korea. (PDF) Retrieved January 30, 2017 .
  6. ^ Relations with the Soviet Union. Retrieved January 27, 2017 .
  7. ^ A b Lester H. Brune: The Korean War: Handbook of the Literature and Research . Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996, ISBN 978-0-313-28969-9 , pp. 323 .
  8. ^ Marion Eggert, Jörg Plassen: Small history of Korea . CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52841-4 , p. 168 .
  9. ^ John J. Metzler: Divided Dynamism: The Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China . 2nd Edition. University Press of America, 2014, ISBN 978-0-7618-6347-2 , pp. 73-75 .