Economically Engaging North Korea: A Story about Trust, Brotherhood, and Ally Since the Sunshine-Policy Era

How to engage North Korea has always been a key concern of South Korea's foreign policy makers since Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy era. Instead of provoking political or military confrontations in the traditional security arena, the engagement policy is believed to allow South Korea to seek possible breakthroughs in the nontraditional security arena. Moreover, engagement is expected to generate a spillover effect of enhancing inter-Korean mutual political trust and in turn promote political cooperation in long term. Through analyzing statistical data and political events in the past decade, this article examines South Korea's engagement policy in the nontraditional security arena and argues that the inter-Korean relationship still highly depends on political trust and regional political dynamic. The economic and cultural cooperation initiated by South Korea primarily targets to support North Korea in a patronizing manner instead of promoting equal cooperation, with the weak political trust foundation that any readjustment of regional political powers could generate chain effect on the inter-Korean cooperation dynamic. In the foreseeable future, improvement of mutual political trust and mindfulness to the regional power shift still present as the key to a peaceful and successful engagement of North Korea.

並列關鍵字

North Korea ； engagement policy ； trust ； South Korean foreign policy ； Korean Peninsula

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