korean unification studies

I reckon this extract from a Reuters report on the re-establishment of rail links says a lot about what drives South Korean unification policy:

Cargo trains will cross the heavily fortified border dividing North and South Korea every day from next month, restoring a link severed for more than half a century, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said on Thursday.

Seoul has been pushing to re-open the rail link cut by the 1950-1953 Korean War so it could shuttle goods to an industrial park it operates just inside the North where its manufacturing companies have access to cheap labor and land…

South Korea’s next goal is to run its freight and passenger trains through North Korea and into China and Russia and onto Europe.

What used to be a struggle to unify and liberate in Park Chung-Hee’s time is now about access to cheap labor and land.