By Michael Breen
Now that North Korea has decided to send some athletes and artists here for next month's Winter Olympics, two questions occur: Why is South Korea paying North Korea's costs? And, second, does this payment violate the United Nations' international sanctions on North Korea?
Those are reasonable questions that merit a reasonable response. So, here goes. First, the reason that I and my fellow taxpayers in South Korea are paying the North Koreans' fees is because their country is a useless, impoverished dictatorship that can't rub two cents together.
Seriously. It's a mess. I could run it better and I can't tell if a balance sheet is upside down or not.
When you consider how pathetic and shameful it is that a country of 23 million can't afford to rent the buses for its team, let alone pay for the hotels and buffet breakfast, you have to ask why its leaders weren't fired decades ago for incompetence, ineptitude, mismanagement and fiduciary irresponsibility? (Those words all mean the same thing but it sounds better in court if you pile them on).
I don't wish to sound triumphant, but when two countries are so competitive that they have the same name and are only distinguished by the words "North" and "South," it's hard not to conclude that the one that puts on the Olympics and picks up the tab for the other is the winner.
And you know what? It is. The rivalry that started in 1948 is over. South Korea has won and North Korea has lost. So it's as if the North Korean athletes are the prodigal son who is broke and coming home.
Their leaders won't see it like that, though. They're still proud and defiant. You'd think the sound of the South Korean coin rattling in their can would embarrass the leader up there and force him to do some explaining. But, no. Not necessary. There's the advantage of dictatorship for you.
So, that's the reason they're not paying their own way. But it doesn't explain why we are paying for them. Why are we? This is a question that doesn't need to be asked in South Korea because we intuitively know the answer. (I'm just asking rhetorically for alien readers). We're doing it because we want them to be here for our own reasons ― peace, love and all that good stuff.
And to prove that we have the moral high ground, we're not even expecting the North Koreans to say, "Thank you." In fact, knowing them and knowing us, they'll probably say, "Is that all?" and we'll drop more coins in.
As to our second question about whether sponsoring North Korea's delegation violates U.N. sanctions, our view in Seoul is, "You what?"
Let me explain. In international relations, there is a concept called "exceptionalism." Take America, for example. Although now just another country, it was once a shining light in the world for freedom and democracy. In that capacity, it acted as a combination of missionary and policeman, both roles which allowed it to behave in ways which would get other countries into trouble. Like, invading badly behaved countries ― It did this because it was exceptional.
Korean exceptionalism comes from a different source. In foreign policy, Korea is an innocent. For example, I once heard the representative of a Korean chaebol tell an American presidential candidate that, should he win, he should bomb North Korea. It occurred to me that the man giving this counsel ― which surprised the American gentleman ― did not take any responsibility for his words. It was as if he was a child.
Another example is the folk who put those statues of "comfort women" in front of Japanese diplomatic missions. Nobody else in the world does political installation art like this because they couldn't get away with it. Even more exceptionally, Koreans do it to Japan, which is one of their closes allies. This is naughty to the point of being cute.
Similarly, all those people in the United Nations in those sanctions meetings, with male interpreters speaking in their earpieces when women delegates are talking, are for the grown-ups. Are we violating U.N. sanctions? I don't know. They're not important to us when we don't want them to be.
Michael Breen is the CEO of Insight Communications Consultants, a public relations company, and author of "The New Koreans" and "Kim Jong-il: North Korea's Dear Leader."
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Those are reasonable questions that merit a reasonable response. So, here goes. First, the reason that I and my fellow taxpayers in South Korea are paying the North Koreans' fees is because their country is a useless, impoverished dictatorship that can't rub two cents together.
Seriously. It's a mess. I could run it better and I can't tell if a balance sheet is upside down or not.
When you consider how pathetic and shameful it is that a country of 23 million can't afford to rent the buses for its team, let alone pay for the hotels and buffet breakfast, you have to ask why its leaders weren't fired decades ago for incompetence, ineptitude, mismanagement and fiduciary irresponsibility? (Those words all mean the same thing but it sounds better in court if you pile them on).
I don't wish to sound triumphant, but when two countries are so competitive that they have the same name and are only distinguished by the words "North" and "South," it's hard not to conclude that the one that puts on the Olympics and picks up the tab for the other is the winner.
And you know what? It is. The rivalry that started in 1948 is over. South Korea has won and North Korea has lost. So it's as if the North Korean athletes are the prodigal son who is broke and coming home.
Their leaders won't see it like that, though. They're still proud and defiant. You'd think the sound of the South Korean coin rattling in their can would embarrass the leader up there and force him to do some explaining. But, no. Not necessary. There's the advantage of dictatorship for you.
So, that's the reason they're not paying their own way. But it doesn't explain why we are paying for them. Why are we? This is a question that doesn't need to be asked in South Korea because we intuitively know the answer. (I'm just asking rhetorically for alien readers). We're doing it because we want them to be here for our own reasons ― peace, love and all that good stuff.
And to prove that we have the moral high ground, we're not even expecting the North Koreans to say, "Thank you." In fact, knowing them and knowing us, they'll probably say, "Is that all?" and we'll drop more coins in.
As to our second question about whether sponsoring North Korea's delegation violates U.N. sanctions, our view in Seoul is, "You what?"
Let me explain. In international relations, there is a concept called "exceptionalism." Take America, for example. Although now just another country, it was once a shining light in the world for freedom and democracy. In that capacity, it acted as a combination of missionary and policeman, both roles which allowed it to behave in ways which would get other countries into trouble. Like, invading badly behaved countries ― It did this because it was exceptional.
Korean exceptionalism comes from a different source. In foreign policy, Korea is an innocent. For example, I once heard the representative of a Korean chaebol tell an American presidential candidate that, should he win, he should bomb North Korea. It occurred to me that the man giving this counsel ― which surprised the American gentleman ― did not take any responsibility for his words. It was as if he was a child.
Another example is the folk who put those statues of "comfort women" in front of Japanese diplomatic missions. Nobody else in the world does political installation art like this because they couldn't get away with it. Even more exceptionally, Koreans do it to Japan, which is one of their closes allies. This is naughty to the point of being cute.
Similarly, all those people in the United Nations in those sanctions meetings, with male interpreters speaking in their earpieces when women delegates are talking, are for the grown-ups. Are we violating U.N. sanctions? I don't know. They're not important to us when we don't want them to be.
Michael Breen is the CEO of Insight Communications Consultants, a public relations company, and author of "The New Koreans" and "Kim Jong-il: North Korea's Dear Leader."
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