I just saw where Pres. Kim Dae-Jung has died.
I’m somewhat surprisingly lenient with Kim considering how much I dislike how the Sunshine Policy has kept heat off North Korea’s horrific human rights abuses. I guess there are several reasons:
- Kim was a long-term, true democracy advocate. He put his life on the line for democracy. And by that I don’t mean the Democratic People’s Republic of China version or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea style or the Soviet style or Castro style or even the Hugo Chavez style. I mean real democracy.
Too many of the long term “democracy” advocates around the world actually wanted to replace one form of dictatorship for another. I think looking at Kim’s record, we can conclude he was not among them. He believed in actual democracy.
- Sunshine for the moment -
I wasn’t against the Sunshine Policy when it first came out. With hindsight, I am still not against it coming back then…
Kim Dae Jung gaining the presidency in the South was a big step for South Korean democracy. It was also a new, fresh day globally – the Cold War coming to an end was still somewhat fresh though largely squandered in the West…
…North Korea was also in a desperate situation with the famine. The society was in upheaval with the central government losing its ability to totally dominate the people because hunger was pushing them forward…
…Give the setting of the day, maybe Kim’s Sunshine Policy push was worth a shot?
I simply can’t dismiss it out of hand due to the fact it failed miserably to adjust to the reality that the North was never going to reform and open up…
- Even Kim giving Pyongyang a ton of money to agree to the NK-SK Summit is not a completely red mark in my book. It was bad and to be criticized, but the US and others were willing to pour material wealth into the North at the same point in order to prevent collapse at the tailend of the famine.
If Kim’s gift of hundreds of millions of dollars in cash had come in 2002 or 2003 instead of 2000 – it would have made a big difference in my book. But coming in 2000 – I can cut him a little slack there.
- My biggest knock on Kim Dae Jung is that he refused to publically wise up.
He became president in 1998. He bought the summit in 2000. But, he was advocating his early version of the Sunshine Policy until his death today…
He should have soured on it by the end of his term in office in 2002.
He had seen enough out of the North to know that 1. it had withstood the worst of the famine period and 2. showed no sign at all that it was serious about reform or a better relationship with the South.
Kim’s duty as president was to recognize this and shift his policies.
He gave detente a good try, and it failed. Not because of him but because of Kim Jong-Il…
But Kim Dae-Jung’s failure was one of leadership: He refused to adjust to reality and take his government policies in a more productive, correct direction where it concerned the North.
