KoreaToday S-N Ties Through Vitamin C Diplomacy
By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
The carrot-and-stick approach is an old tactic to induce good behavior by offering a combination of rewards and punishment.
Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, known as a tangerine-producing area, chose the fruit over a stick in a bid to help warm icy inter-Korean relations.
This month, it sent 300 metric tons of tangerines and 1,000 tons of carrots to the famine-hit communist state.
The municipal government's assistance received acclaim from the foreign media, which called it ``vitamin C diplomacy.'' But it faces a financial burden, as the Ministry of Unification in charge of inter-Korean affairs in Seoul stopped subsidizing delivery costs.
Jeju says the annual event must go on to deliver Jeju residents' fraternal love for North Koreans regardless of political and social hurdles.
11 Years of Tangerine Aid
This is not the first time that Jeju has sent more than 1,000 tons of organic assistance. The so-called tangerine campaign has taken place for 11 years in efforts to help North Korea, which has been suffering from a chronic food shortage.
``By 1994 and 1995, reports said the North was hit by a great flood and famine. Jeju people considered humanitarian support and decided to deliver tangerines, full of vitamin C,'' Kim Doo-il, an official of the Jeju Center for Inter-Korea Exchange and Cooperation, told The Korea Times.
Back in 1998, the amount of the first shipment only reached 100 tons.
A year later, however, the shipment jumped to 4,336 tons and carrots were included in the aid program in 2000.
In 2005, when the biggest island in South Korea was designated Island of Peace, its people also sent 5,000 articles of clothing to the Stalinist state.
The humanitarian aid has amounted to 47,828 tons of tangerines and 17,100 tons of carrots so far.
North Korea is not the only beneficiary of vitamin C diplomacy.
Jeju can also balance demand and supply of the little fruit by sending surpluses and help tangerine planters guarantee reasonable prices, he added.
Shipping Costs Burdensome
Expensive shipping costs due to distance figure prominently.
This year's shipment was actually supposed to be nearly 10,000 tons, allowing every North Korean two tangerines, according to an official of the Unification Ministry.
However, the amount shrunk, as the department refused to subsidize the two billion won ($1.5 million) in shipping costs.
The ministry said on Dec. 26 that it was inappropriate to support the shipment, as discussions on transparent distribution had not fully taken place.
Last year, it gave approximately one billion won from the government's inter-Korean economic cooperation fund, designed in 1991 to support inter-Korean projects.
As South-North relations became frosty, Seoul stopped sending food aid directly or indirectly to Pyongyang for nine years.
Despite the tough situation, Jeju decided to carry out the assistance program, cutting aid to 1,300 tons.
It required 600 million won for delivery costs, supported by municipal governments and donations from various individuals and organizations, the official said.
North Korea, which has not responded to Seoul sending 50,000 tons of corn, indicated its intention to accept the tangerines, ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun said.
The center used to dispatch three to four agents with the second shipment in a bid to monitor fruit distribution to children in kindergartens and elementary schools in Pyongyang but the decreased aid was delivered through only a single shipment, rendering it impossible to send monitoring agents this time, according to Kim.
The tangerine campaign will go on no matter what happens, he said.
The shipment reportedly arrived at the western city of Nampo Tuesday.
Jeju's black pigs to be bred in the North
Jeju's black pigs will also arrive in the North soon.
The center said it plans to send 100 pigs to the isolated state by April or May and help establish a pig farm by providing breeding facilities worth 220 million won.
The island is famous for its clean environment, conducive to raising healthy cattle, and its black pigs have received praise from local people and even foreigners for their meat.
The agency seeks to share Jeju's livestock quarantine system and widen the market for the pork by delivering it to the joint Gaeseong industrial park or exporting it, officials of the center said.
The pig aid was originally discussed in November, 2007 but delayed for more than a year due to the shooting death of a South Korean tourist last July.
Park Wang-ja, a 53-year-old housewife, was killed by a North Korean soldier near a Mt. Geumgang resort as she allegedly strayed into a military restricted zone during a pre-dawn stroll.
The incident prompted the suspension of tours to the resort.
The pig program resumed last September following North Korea's request.
Under the agreement, signed by the two sides on Dec. 12, Jeju promised to complete three pig farms and provide facilities in the first quarter of this year.
If the center secures subsidies from the inter-Korean fund, it will, the officials said, offer additional facilities for breeding the pigs.
However, it remains to be seen whether or not the Seoul government will approve this.
Inter-Korean relations have soured since President Lee Myung-bak took office about a year ago vowing to toughen Seoul's stance toward the secretive regime.
As a retaliatory measure, Pyongyang began to restrict border crossings and expelled South Korean workers from tourism enclaves and a joint industrial complex from Dec. 1.