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If I were the South I wouldn’t be enthusiastic about that. West Germany had it easy. People in the East were never completely cut off, they weren’t starving, th
by ugh 16y ago
If I were the South I wouldn’t be enthusiastic about that. West Germany had it easy. People in the East were never completely cut off, they weren’t starving, they weren’t even poor, they had educations and knowledge that would be useful in a united Germany and they weren’t ruled by a tyrant. Oh, and unification was still hard for Germany.
Just imagine how hard it would be to give the North in an united Korea something as ordinary as a working public administration. Those who now have that job in North Korea probably aren’t the best material for the task and I doubt that many other people in North Korea are sufficiently educated to put them to work immediately. You would have to ship thousands of South Koreans with the right training to the North – I have no idea how you could lure them – who would presumably have to stay there for years to take over public administration and educate people from the North. And that’s just one of the problems you would have to solve in order to unify Korea.
- yread 16y agoThey also speak a slightly different language
- InclinedPlane 16y agoIt would be a far harder problem than unifying Germany. But there would likely be a lot of foreign aid coming in. In the end it doesn't really matter how hard the problem is, if it has to be done it has to be done. The only long-term alternatives are annihilation of the North, the North turning into a failed state but sans the Stalinist regime and WMDs, or annexation to China, which would be even more difficult than unification because of the language and cultural differences, not to mention all of China's serious problems in basic administration.
- fleitz 16y agoThese things you speak of are not something that is given, rather it is something that the people build. Whatever the situation in North Korea it would only be made better by allowing the populace to trade freely, communicate freely and enjoy all the other rights endowed to every human being by their creator. Do you not think there are many people in North Korea willing to work 16 hour days to have enough money to buy food? Do you not think there are people willing to employ people to work 16 hour days for enough to buy food? I'm not saying this is an ideal situation, however it is a vastly better situation than that which currently exists. North Korea survives on a shoe string, it would not be difficult to match this with foreign aid, let alone the capital investment that would pour into a free North Korea. China was in a similar situation 30 years ago. Waiting longer to solve this problem will not make it easier, everyday North Korea falls further behind the rest of the world.
- ugh 16y agoUnification would definitely be preferable to the status quo. I’m only saying that no government in the world would be happy about actually having to implement an unification with North Korea. South Korea’s economy would struggle tremendously, even with the large amounts of foreign aid that will probably come flooding in. But, as InclinedPlane said in response to my comment, “if it has to be done it has to be done.”