nuclear crisis

All weekend long, I was trying to make sure my senses were acutely tuned, hoping that if I tried hard enough, I could feel the tremor of North Korea stomping its nuclear foot. It was with great disappointment then, that I failed to notice even the slightest shake in the ground at 10:36 am local time. Now, one might imagine at least a social tremor radiating throughout the country that shares a heavily fortified border with the world’s newest nuclear power. I had thought when the word came down there might be panic, or a tangible sense of dread in the air. But there was no such feeling. I don’t think any of my Korean co-workers even mentioned it to me today. The whole reaction all weekend has been, well, subdued. CNN Asia is pumping us full of hype and fear though, so don’t worry, we’re getting our fair share of crazed blabbering.

This is not to say that no one here is talking or thinking about North Korea, but the discussion is surprisingly calm and rational. Of course South Koreans don’t like the idea of North Korea demonstrating its nuclear might, but they’re not frantic about it. People here are much more likely to point to broad and ultimate causes of the current situation, rather than spouting off some kind of rant about a crazy dictator and calling for punishment.

Now, I’m certainly no expert in international affairs, let alone specifically the Northeast Asian region, but I’ve learned a thing or two about people’s attitudes since I’ve been here. Let’s start at the beginning. South Koreans I’ve talked to have absolutely no beef with North Koreans; they don’t even call themselves “South” Korea. People here seem to just assume that they will reunify with the North at some time. They very much consider themselves and North Koreans as one group of people: Koreans. There is certainly not hatred of North Korea, and more then anything, I think there is a sense of sympathy for the North. The commentaries in the English language newspaper lately have portrayed a North Korea that has been kind of pushed into a corner by the international community. This is the same sentiment I’ve gotten from many of my students when we talk about these issues. You hear a lot of talk about how what North Korea really wanted was a direct dialogue with the United States. (As an unfortunate side note here, you may remember (I believe it was) the second 2004 US Presidential Campaign debate, when Kerry pledged to open bilateral talks with North Korea to diffuse the crisis, while Bush insisted that the only way to make any progress was to continue exclusively with the six party talks.) The overwhelming opinion I’ve heard is that the worst road to take is further isolation of North Korea. But now, South Korea feels they’ve been pushed into a corner of their own by this nuclear test. They feel they will now be pressured into joining the hardliners in the US and Japan. While South Koreans are uncomfortable with the current situation, even my 13-year-old students have the sense to know that nobody’s going to be aiming nuclear missiles at Seoul any time soon. The talk in the papers is the more reasonable fear of a nuclear arms race in the region.

For what it’s worth, I find much more legitimacy in the South Korean position than I do in the US position. I wholeheartedly agree that further isolation of North Korea is going to do no work towards achieving the ultimate goal of stability in the region. I heard this same argument about China about ten years ago: if you want to change a country, the way to do it is to trade with them, expose them to democratic and Western values. It made sense to me then, and it’s essentially what happened. Granted, they’ll still go out and beat 55,000 dogs to death in China, but they haven’t run anybody over with tanks lately. China has become much more open and liberalized in the past ten years, due mostly to increased trade with the rest of the world. North Korea wants a dialogue and a relationship with the west, that’s what this whole issue is about. And if we can achieve our goals by having a dialogue and opening up to them, I see no reason not to do it. Of course, I understand the reasons not to reward their bad behavior, but come on here. How many drunken fistfights occur needlessly because nobody is willing to step down and talk things over? It’s time for Washington (and Tokyo) to step down and say: “hey, let’s talk about this, we’re acting like children here.”