By Kang Hyun-kyung
President Lee Myung-bak in a speech Sunday marking the 65th anniversary of Korea’s liberation has prioritized pragmatism both towards Korean unification and Japan.
During the speech in front of the newly renovated Gwanghwamun in downtown Seoul, the President called for the adoption of a unification tax, saying that “unification will happen.” He also detailed a three-stage plan for this.
Just days after urging Japan to follow up with actions on Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s recent statement on annexation, Lee said the statement represented “one step forward” in bilateral relations.
Lee’s speech came at a time when tensions on the peninsula show few sign of subsiding after North Korea was found to have torpedoed the warship Cheonan on March 26. The maritime disaster killed 46 sailors.
In the speech earlier, Japanese Prime Minister Kan said the Korean people “were deprived of their country and culture, and their ethnic pride was deeply scarred by the colonial rule which was imposed against their will under political and military circumstances.”
Lee called on both Seoul and Tokyo not to forget history.
“I have taken note of Japan’s effort, which represents one step forward. However, there still remain issues that have to be resolved. The two countries are called upon to take concrete measures to forge a new relationship for another 100 years.”
Mixed assessment
Professor Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian studies at Temple University’s Japanese campus, told The Korea Times that the two leaders’ sharing of the need for building a future-oriented relationship will have a positive effect on the prospects for bilateral ties in the future.
“I think Prime Minister Kan has taken a very positive step. As the South Korean government reacted positively (to the statement), it will help improve Korea-Japan ties,” he said.
However, Katsuhiro Kuroda, Seoul bureau chief of the Japanese daily Sankei Shimbun, said that conservative Japanese were skeptical about the role of the Kan statement in improving bilateral relations.
“It is true that conservative people in Japan are cynical about the statement. They are wondering if the Japanese Prime Minister really had to release that kind of a statement 100 years after Japan annexed Korea,” he told The Korea Times over the phone.
“These people are wondering how many apologies will be considered to be enough.”
The Japanese journalist said that the people in the two nations now feel intimacy as Korean films, dramas and pop idols are popular in Japan and the two economies see growing trade.
His remarks were construed as meaning that political rhetoric will be less necessary as cultural exchanges and growing trade play a role in bolstering bilateral ties.
Unification cost
During the speech, Lee called on the nation to gear up for unification.
“Unification will happen. It is therefore our duty to start thinking about real and substantive ways to prepare for it such as the adoption of a unification tax,” he said.
“I ask that these and other issues related to this be discussed widely and thoroughly by all members of our society.”
The presidential office said a social consensus will be needed with regard to how much, to whom and how the taxes will be levied and where they will be used.
Among other issues, unification cost was a key topic concerning the process.
In a report, titled “Modeling Korean Unification,” published August 1999, Marcus Noland, one of the authors, noted that between $300-600 billion over ten years would be needed to raise North Korean income levels to 60 percent of the South Korean average and to prevent ruinous mass migration from North to South Korea.
Meanwhile, the Rand Corporation projected in 2005 that up to $670 billion would be needed to double the gross domestic product level of North Korea within five years in the wake of unification.
Germany, which achieved reunification after the sudden fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, spent an estimated 2 trillion Euros in costs from 1990 to 2009.
Private think tanks in Germany calculated the figure by defining the cost as public spending transferred from West to East Germany during the time period.
In the speech, President Lee said the new tax was to better prepare for the possible economic shock if the two Koreas are unified.
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