Tracking Number: 172636
Title: "AEI Fellow Says Korean Reunification 'Predictable'." American Enterprise Institute fellow Dr Nicholas Eberstadt added that it is "impossible to predict if the
reunification will occur under happy or unhappy circumstances." (910214)
Author: MORSE, JANE A (USIA STAFF WRITER)
Date: 19910214
Text:
*EPF409
02/14/91 * AEI FELLOW SAYS KOREAN REUNIFICATION "PREDICTABLE" (Article on Eberstadt telepress conference) (720) By Jane A. Morse USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- North Korea seems to be loosing the "race" with the South, and reunification is a "predictable event," says Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (a Washington-based think tank).
"It seems clear that the race between North and South Korea is coming into its final phase," he told reporters and editors of the "Chonnan Ilbo" newspaper in Kwangju during a teleconference February 11. "Reunification is a predictable event, although the date cannot be predicted. It is also impossible to predict if the reunification will occur under happy or unhappy circumstances."
South Korea has won the economic race, Eberstadt pointed out, as well as international legitimacy, as shown in the response of nations to the 1988 Olympic Games held in Seoul. The era of 79-year-old Kim Il Sung, who has successfully maintained power over the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) for more than 40 years, is coming to an end, Eberstadt said, and the question of succession remains open despite attempts to build a "personality cult" for his son.
Furthermore, the war in the Persian Gulf may ultimately show that North Korea has lost the military race as well, Eberstadt said. Most observers have long acknowleged the superior size of North Korea's military, equipped mostly with Soviet weaponry, to that of the South, equipped largely with American weaponry. "But there is a difference between the size of a military force and its effectiveness," he pointed out.
Iraq's Soviet-equipped military has yet to prove itself a credible match to coalition forces equipped largely with American weapons, he explained. "We can't have a final assessment until the conflict is finished," Eberstadt said, but "if it turns out that the Soviet type equipment is less effective than allied equipment, we may have some indications about the situation in the Korean peninsula that we did not have earlier."
Eberstadt predicts that Korean reunification, when it comes, will be the result of the collapse of one of the two governments on the peninsula. "The problems that can occur under such circumstances are obvious," he said; therefore
GE 2 EPF409 policymakers in the United States and Korea must start thinking now about the practical considerations of reunification. He noted that the United States has always supported a peaceful and free reunification of a democratic Korea.
Although Germany's reunification has been held up as an example for Korea, the situations in each country are different, Eberstadt pointed out. East Germany was a Soviet satellite, he noted. Its government collapsed with the crisis of Soviet power. Kim Il Sung, on the other hand, has very successfully played the Soviet Union against China, -- "getting aid from each, but declaring allegiance to neither," Eberstadt said.
Germany is much more affluent than Korea, he noted. West Germany will be able to finance the reconstruction of East Germany with its own resources. After reunification, Korea could find itself "one of the largest so-called 'third- world debtor countries' in the world" because of the need to borrow money from abroad to finance its reconstruction.
West Germany at the time of unification was a state under the rule of law, Eberstadt observed. Although there have been many reforms in the Republic of Korea, Eberstadt said, "I don't think one could say that it is a country where there is an impartial administration of law at the moment.
"If there is a personalistic or a personal exercise of official power after unification (in Korea), it will make the bruises and resentment more difficult to heal," he said. "It will also make it more difficult to attract the money from abroad that will be necessary to finance reconstruction."
Eberstadt urged both Koreas to consider allowing more contact. "I think there is a great hunger in North Korea for contact with the South," he said. He urged an opening of both sides to electronic communications, mail, and people-to-people meetings. South Korea should allow reception of North Korean broadcasts, he said. Having watched North Korean television during his Pyongyang visit, Eberstadt said. "Even the most radical leftists in South Korea would be saddened, I think, by those broadcasts.... I can't believe such broadcasts would cause trouble." NNNN
File Identification: 02/14/91, EP-409
Product Name: Wireless File
Product Code: WF
Keywords: KOREA (NORTH)-KOREA (SOUTH) RELATIONS; REUNIFICATION
(TERRITORY); EBERSTADT, NICHOLAS; KOREA (SOUTH)/Economic & Social; KIM IL-SONG
Thematic Codes: 1EA
Target Areas: EA
PDQ Text Link: 172636
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