The Korea summit: A win-win result

By Robert J. Fouser

SEOUL: What an incredible 54 hours it was: the summit that changed the course of Korean history. Now that the joy of the moment has passed, policy makers are busy trying to put actions behind the words of the summit, while analysts are trying to figure out what it all means. Exuberant citizens have become cautious again, wondering if it was all for real.

But real it was. For all the focus on words over actions and style over substance, the summit let loose the forces of reunification that will soon take on a life of their own. The key to understanding these forces is South Korean President Kim Dae- jung's reference to reconciliation and eventual reunification as a "win-win situation" for both Koreas.

Consider the meaning of the president's words in his statement after arriving home: "Therefore, whatever happens, we should not stick to the ideas of communizing the South or absorbing the North. Instead, let us coexist and proceed on the path toward unification. At this time of best opportunities, which is the 21st century, I stressed to the North that we must forge a first- rate nation on the Korean Peninsula. I would like to tell you that they expressed agreement" (official Blue House translation).

In the context of post-division Korean history, this is revolutionary. Instead of trying to claim sole legitimacy, both Korean states have recognized the other's existence within a greater Korean community. Though only vaguely defined, the greater Korean community now has room for both Korean states.

The paradigm has shifted from exclusive legitimacy to inclusive legitimacy in which the two states work together to make Korea into a first-rate nation. Attempting to destroy the other state -- once a great patriotic cause -- is now viewed as anti-national because it hurts the greater Korean community.

The reunification process that will unfold is really a process of deciding what shape the greater Korean community should take. Now that the two states have agreed to participate in building a greater Korean community, the forces of nation building have been let loose.

There is no turning back. North Korea can no longer afford to go it alone, and South Korea cannot afford to absorb the North. This is the reality that everybody knows, and the forces of nation building start from here.

Building nations from peoples that have no history of being together is a complex and extended process that takes generations. To make up for history, they need something else to bind them together, such as language, religion, or ideology.

Great empires have come and gone because they could not bind their disparate parts into a coherent whole. The collapse of the Soviet Union is the most recent example of a failed empire, whereas ethnic tensions in Indonesia and elsewhere reveal the difficulties of post-colonial nation building.

Korea, by contrast, offers all of the right conditions for effective nation building. The pictures from Pyongyang showed repeatedly how similar Koreans in both states really are. For all the harshness of the division, Koreans share a common identity that comes from common everyday mores and folkways. The essential "Koreanness" of the Korean people will help overcome many of the difficulties that arise in the process of nation building.

As elsewhere, building the greater Korean community will face opposition foreign and domestic. The media has spilled much ink contemplating foreign opposition to a unified Korean state, but, as President Kim noted in his return address, "It is not an age of imperialism when the big four powers rule us. On the contrary, the big four powers are our markets, and we can take advantage of them."

There is little that the four powers can do to reverse the course of events, just as major powers in Europe could do little to stop the reunification of Germany. Indeed, once the powers accept the reality of a greater Korean community, they will compete to befriend it.

Domestic opposition is more problematic. In the process of nation building, there are always groups that choose to opt out, usually because they feel threatened by the emerging state. Dealing with groups in both the South and the North that feel threatened will be the biggest challenge that the emerging state will face.

If the greater Korean community maintains its legitimacy as the provider of prosperity and defender of national pride, then these groups will remain on the sidelines. If it falters, these groups will grow, perhaps threatening the integrity of the emerging state in the process.

Conventional wisdom is skeptical of the agreements reached at the summit and of North Korea's intentions. By accepting the existence of two states in a greater Korean community, however, North Korea has taken a giant step toward reducing tensions.

By accepting President Kim's win-win standard for legitimacy, it has matched him in taking a giant step for reunification. Before the summit, no one could have predicted such a dramatic change in North Korea's stance.

For the time being, the forces of nation building will concentrate on the details of setting up the infrastructure that will govern interaction between the two Koreas. These forces will accelerate, however, as interaction increases and win-win legitimacy takes hold.

At some point, perhaps sooner than most people think, the greater Korean community will decide to maximize its advantages by forming a unified state that has a strong chance of becoming the most dynamic state in Korean history.

The writer is an associate professor at Kagoshima University in Japan. His e-mail address is heungbob@han mail.net.

-- The Korea Herald / Asia News Network