By Michael Ha
Staff Reporter
The 2008 edition of the government's North Korean report contains major changes that reflect the new administration's conservative leaning.
In previous editions, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was referred to as National Defense Committee Chairman Kim Jong-il. But the new edition drops that title, referring to him simply as Kim Jong-il.
``If previous administrations approached this report with a progressive perspective, then the new edition shows it now has a more conservative perspective," said an official from the Institute of Political Education for Unification, a think tank for the Ministry of Unification.
Since President Lee Myung-bak took office in late February, North Korea has stepped up its offensives against the Lee government for its repeated call for the North to denuclearize and improve its human rights conditions. The conservative government has taken a tougher stance on Pyongyang after 10 years of liberal governments led by Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun.
There are several other noticeable updates in the 2008 edition, titled ``Understanding North Korea," published last week.
In the first chapter, titled Perspectives on Understanding North Korea, previous editions said the first-ever inter-Korean summit in 2000 was the ``major turning point in South-North relations." But the new report cites the Basic Agreement signed between the two Koreas in 1991 as the turning point.
According to last year's edition: ``The last half century was a time of feud and hatred between the South and the North. There existed a sense of conflict between the two Koreas amid the Cold War framework. But the first inter-Korean summit began changing the tense antagonistic relation."
However, the 2008 report says: ``Following the armistice was a time of feud and hatred between the South and the North. But as the Cold War framework began to break down in the 1990s, the two Koreas adopted the Basic Agreement and thus began to change their respective awareness about the other side."
The new edition goes on to say that ``after 2000, as the two Koreas increased their bilateral cooperation, the two sides could, to an extent, leave behind their antagonistic relations and the Cold War logic. The two sides could now view each other from the perspective of reconciliation and cooperation."
But the new report does not make a reference to the 2000 summit in that section.
The new edition also takes a different perspective in explaining inter-Korean relations.
The 2007 edition described inter-Korean relations in the following way: ``The South-North relations do not constitute relations between two distinct nations. Rather, they are interim, provisional relations that are oriented toward unification. They are exceptional relations."
But the new edition takes out this section about the exceptionality of the bilateral relations. Instead, it emphasizes the need for a balanced perspective and the need to understand the realities in North Korea as they really are.
Also, last year's edition said the South needs to recognize the North as a partner in Korean people's co-prosperity and that ``the North may be viewed with caution, given the opposing military setup. But there is also the need to understand that North Koreans are our brethrens who will share the future together."
The new edition adds caution: The new perspective of cooperation toward the North should not distort the realities in North Korea.