From marty@lclark.edu
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 07:58:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: Martin Hart-Landsberg 
To: moogoonghwa 
Subject: RE: Another Set back to N-S relations (fwd)

Jamie McDonald in a recent post said:


You refer to the "alleged" submarine incident, which also brings up
interesting possibilities.  Are you suggesting that the ROK invented the
incident?  I cannot see the advantages the South would gain in doing so.
 This endangers the continuation of heavy-oil shipments that a reluctant
U.S. Congress must approve, the investment area in northeastern PDRK,
and the shipment of free food from Japan, ROK, and the US.  None of
these seem in the ROK's best interest in light of supposed reunification
attempts, but more importantly from an economic standpoint -- the South
is trying to get into the PDRK to invest and the collapse of the current
government isn't going to be conducive to such a thing.

------
As far as I can tell the government of Kim Young Sam, and in fact the 
government before his as well has not placed a high priority on investing 
in the north or keeping the north korean regime from collapsing.  

For example, it has been the south Korean government that has continually 
restricted investment by the chaebol in the north as far back as 1989 
when it was clear that the chaebol wanted to make the investment adn the 
north was welcoming it.  Only in the last year or so has the south 
allowed any chaebol investment and that has been limited to about 5 
million.  [supposedly the limit has now been lifted a bit]

Moreover the south has done what it can to stop normalization of 
relations between the north and japan and the north and the US.  Both 
normalizations would unlock money for the north, especially the one with 
Japan.

So in short, the south Korean government may talk about not wanting to see 
thet north collapse and may talk about wanting to encourage investment 
but its actions are not in line with such talk.  

Marty Hart-Landsberg






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