Koreas ought to stop trading insults,
dialogue
It was not
, but still disappointing, to see North Korea ``officially” turn down President Park Geun-hye’s recent unification initiatives.
On Saturday, the North’s National Defense Commission cited two major reasons for rejecting President Park’s ``Dresden initiatives,” named after the German city where she made the proposal last month: the idea came without any prior consultation with Pyongyang, and it envisions the South ultimately absorbing the North.
There were elements that could
the North’s angry reaction, in the way Park made her initiatives and in its content, which called for providing humanitarian aid, establishing infrastructure to help improve North Koreans’ livelihood and restoring homogeneity of Koreans.
Although these proposals are largely well-intentioned, they had one, unchanged precondition, namely North Korea’s giving up its nuclear programs, making it hard to tell the difference from her predecessor’s denuclearization-first policy. Moreover, one could not help but wonder whether the South Korean leader had to explicitly point out Pyongyang’s failed system and effectively encourage North Koreans to revolt.
South Korean leaders can always criticize the North Korean regime _ but not when they make proposals expecting a sincere response.
President Park, despite her supporters’ wishes for a hard-line policy against the North, has called for, rightly, cooperation and exchange between the Koreas. Yet the president seems to share a thought with her conservative backers and former President Lee Myung-bak: North Korea is on the verge of imploding and the South needs to speed it up. That may also explain why Park chose the former East German city where a popular uprising led to eventual
of the socialist state.
Can the two Koreas be compared with the two Germanys, however?
There are several differences that are too clear to ignore between the two cases, such as the former West and East Germany had never fought a fratricidal war, unlike the two Koreas. Moreover, the gap in economic power between Germanys was about four times, but that between the Koreas is almost 40 times. All this makes us wonder on what President Park’s ``unification is bonanza” theory _ and numerous similar assertions in conservative newspapers which say the benefits far outweigh the costs in Korean unification _ are based.
Most importantly, current North Korea is far from former East Germany, whose residents were almost completely exposed to a capitalist system and its advantages thanks to painstaking efforts by West Germany through profuse aid and persistent exchanges.
Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae was right in this regard when he told lawmakers Friday that Seoul was ``willing” to lift its economic sanctions on the North imposed since the two naval conflicts in the West Sea three years ago, albeit not without some strings attached, and also may consider ``declaring” that it has no intention of unifying the Koreas by absorbing the North. Seoul needs to propose the resumption of high-level talks before long.
By most appearances, the unification of the Korean Peninsula will be much harder than German experiences, requiring far more patience and more
approaches, provided leaders in both capitals have genuine wishes for it. The leadership in Pyongyang is all but out of the question. The only way to deal with such a regime is for Seoul to become much more mature and flexible.
This is The Korea Times editorial for Tuesday, April 15, 2014.
※ 다음에 나오는 문제들은 본 기사에 나오는 중요한 어휘들로 구성된 토익, 토플, 텝스 기출 및 예상 문제입니다.
※ Choose the one word or phrase that best keeps the meaning of the highlighted part or fill in the blank with a suitable one.
1. Since none of the polls had predicted the winner, everyone was
by the results of the election.
① delighted
② encouraged
③ surprised
④ pleased
2. After eight days of intensive negotiations, the two sides agreed to take a break and
the talks on Monday.
① continue
② commence
③ call off
④ postpone
3. Their small protest
a mass demonstration.
① set aside
② set up
③ set off
④ set down
4. The middle class has taken the brunt of the currency and stock market
.
① construction
② breakdown
③ intrusion
④ change
5. Modern weaponry is
① crude
② simple
③ easily operated
④ very complicated
[해설 및 정답]
1. [번역] 어떤 여론조사도 그 승자를 예측하지 못했으므로, 모든 사람은 선거결과에
[정답] ③
2. [번역] 8일간의 집중적인 교섭이 있고 난 다음, 양측은 휴식을 하고 월요일 회담을
로 합의했다.
[정답] ①
3. [번역] 그들의 소규모 항의가 대규모 시위를
4. [번역] 중산층은 통화(외환) 및 주식시장
의 가장 큰 타격을 입었다.
[정답] ②
5. [번역] 현대적 무기는 (정교)
다.
[정답] ④