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On Feb.10, President Park Geun-hye declared that the Gaeseong Industrial Complex would be closed. This declaration effectively means that all inter-Korean cooperation has ended, at least for the time being.
This decision, in my opinion, is a long-term strategic mistake. However, there is little doubt that the decision is popular ― according to polls, between 55 percent and 67 percent of South Koreans support the decision.
One should not be surprised because of this. In recent years, the average South Korean has become annoyed with Pyongyang's behavior, and has little enthusiasm for inter-Korean cooperation. It is quite difficult to believe that a mere 15 years ago, the South Korean population set great store in intra-Korean cooperation projects which were seen as the start of a bright future for the peninsula, presaging eventual peaceful unification.
Such days are long gone indeed. The major force behind the push to cooperate with North Korea used to come from the so-called "386 Generation": those who were born in 1960s and attended college in the heady revolutionary days of the 1980s. Many of these people were influenced by the 1980s radicalism ― nationalism, of a post-colonial and ethnic variety (read: racial), and socialism/communism, of the Leninist or Stalinist variety. They were thus predisposed to entertaining many illusions about North Korea.
However, most of the 386 generation have long since abandoned any sense of kinship or belief in the North Korean system. Residual sympathy remains to some extent, but has diminished much in the last decade.
The young are far harsher. It is not incidental that public opinion polls consistently indicate that over half of South Koreans in their twenties do not believe that unification is necessary. What's more, most of them are reluctant to spend any money on North Korea. For them, North Korea is a bizarre country that, by some kind of accident of birth, just happens to speak the same language, but whose culture and daily life are strange and irrelevant.
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The younger generation, born in the late 1980s and 1990s, have been raised in a democratic and peaceful society. Their experiences are of an advanced, rich country that they think of as being part of the developed world. North Korea to them is a throwback to long ago, an anachronism.
At the same time, however, they have little sympathy for common North Koreans, their suffering remains an abstraction (unlike, say, the poor of their own country or even the less fortunate population of the third world).
In this new environment, the popular attitude to North Korea has changed markedly. Some, mainly of the 386 generation, now in their 50s, still cherish a dream of combining the "good features" of both political systems (their ideas of what is "good" are usually remarkably naive and based on fantasies). Some others still hope that North Korea can be pushed toward Chinese-style reforms. There are even people who believe that the collapse of the Kim family regime should be encourage or somehow induced.
However, all of these people form a minority. The majority just hope that North Koreans will leave them alone and create as little trouble as possible for mainstream South Korean society. Essentially, nowadays the South Korean public expects that their own politicians handle North Korea cheaply and in such a way as to prevent excessive military or political problems.
This is a demand that the current administration is more than happy to meet. The Gaeseong Industrial Complex has never been a particularly large burden on the South Korean government budget, but it has always been the beneficiary of public subsidies. Hence, the public has grown annoyed about its existence and generally has greeted the government decision to close it favorably. Rightly or not, they saw the Gaeseong Complex as a channel by which money went from South Korean taxpayers to the menacing and ugly regime in Pyongyang.
Of course, the closure of the complex might lead to complications and even military clashes. However, the South Korean public now has come to believe that the credible threat of tough retaliation is what is called for in such an eventuality, discouraging North Korea from engaging in provocations and violence.
Thus, South Koreans want to forget about North Korea, isolating it and ignoring it until it mends its ways. This is perhaps rather unrealistic, but this is the reason why President Park's (perhaps, regrettable) decision to close Gaeseong was met with such sympathy and support.
Professor Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. Reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
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