korean unification studies

There’a a good article in the Chosun Ilbo today on the role of investors in contributing to inter-Korean reconciliation. Although I can’t say that I agree with the whole article, which with lines such as:

One of the facts confirmed in the second inter-Korean summit is that North Korea is willing to push ahead with an open economic policy…

…seems a little overly optimistic, there is one very good point that is rarely discussed in South Korea – co-opting the North Korean leadership and elite into economic reform:

…Mao Zedong’s Red Guards were also never expected to change, but they emerged as major Wall Street investors in three decades. If they truly feel the taste of money, there is no reason why the generations that follow Kim Jong-Il will not change…

Co-opting the leadership and elite of North Korea into reform, by demonstrating to them that they can retain their privileged position after economic reform, probably does not sit well with anyone who wants to see the leadership and elite punished for human rights abuses. But it does open the possibility of reform actually taking place within a short timeframe. I have had this alluded to by various South Korean policy makers. Should policies of reconciliation really be about co-opting the North Korean leadership and elite into economic reform?