[이철희 칼럼]Is it time to treat mergers like ‘sour grapes’ or ‘unstable persimmons’?

From two hostile countries vs. free progress to the North’ to ‘abandonment theory’
South and North Korea’s ‘Political Transformation’ Amidst the Gap Between Right and Reality
If you look away you will get lost, and if you look away, you will only get further away.
What you really need to worry about is the denuclearization of North Korea.

Editorial Writer Lee Cheol-hee: When there’s an emergency like a robbery, shout out, “Fire!” There are experts who tell us to scream. It is said that everyone is paying more attention to matters involving their own safety, but the plea of ​​former Chief of Staff Lim Jong-seok, “Let’s not unification,” also an attempt to attract public attention by turning a problem that. itself into confusion into a strange ‘motivational exhibition’ I think was a mind mountain there

As a lifelong unification activist, he may have felt a sense of urgency in a situation where North Korea’s ‘two hostile countries’ and South Korea’s claims of ‘freedom advancing north’ against each other. He surprised many people with his claims which were 180 degrees different from his previous life. However, there was no reflection or introspection before such self-denial. Instead, only the subtle transformation of the rationalist stood. Only once again did he prove how the progressive left was lighting too many flames, which always crosses the appropriate line and thus undermines trust in itself.

However, the effect of word of mouth (sound marketing) grew unexpectedly due to Yongsan’s knee-jerk reaction. The glorious right wing, which cannot tolerate any sound that was considered impure, responded harshly. In particular, an official from the Office of the President rejected the application during the president’s trip abroad, and even President Yoon Seok-yeol himself at the Cabinet meeting. Some in the government have said, “Is it necessary to respond to the complaints of unemployed politicians?” However, said the president, who had emphasized the fight against ‘pseudo-intellectuals and agitators’ and ‘anti-freedom and anti-unification. forces’ while presenting the unification plan under Yoon Seok-yeol, So it must have been difficult to resist the temptation to respond.

In this way, the union debate appeared suddenly. It was a case that gradually lost public interest, but once the political turmoil grew, the consequences were dire. Of course, in inter-Korean relations, unification was a variable that was left as a promise for the distant future, but at the same time, we had to be careful about abuse and prepare for situations that could come at any time. As a result of this gap between need and reality, the more North and South Korea talk about unification, the more suspicious they are about unifying with an enemy or taking in the other side.

Integration was an even more difficult and sensitive issue in South-South relations. Every time the government changed, the union theory went back and forth. When inter-Korean relations were good, they put it back, putting peace instead of unification out of fear of offending the North, but when inter-Korean relations turned cold, unification was portrayed as an attack against North Korea. . In fact, shouting that ‘unification is like a thief’ or ‘unification is a jackpot’ was more or less a solution as a last resort because of strained inter-Korean relations.

The same goes for the current government’s unification doctrine. The offensive unification theory presented under the three main strategies of domestic ideological warfare, psychological warfare against North Korea, and international public opinion warfare is also an internal content aimed at attacking a bring on the ‘false peace’ of the previous government. Initially, the government aimed to review the national community integration plan, which is now 30 years old. However, it was impossible from the beginning to replace the unification plan prepared by agreement between the ruling and opposition parties and which is followed by both progressive and conservative administrations. It is even more impossible in the political reality of the strengthened opposition between the ruling parties and the opposition parties.

North Korea’s attitude was also a factor discouraging the government’s willingness to revise the unification plan. Kim Jong-un’s declaration of ‘two hostile states’ is a by-product of his external strategy to reject the demands of the international community for denuclearization and to gain recognition for his status as a nuclear state. North Korea enacted its nuclear force policy two years ago and mandated the possession of nuclear weapons in its constitution last year, and this year deleted unification-related phrases from the constitution. This is a North Korean-style deterrence strategy that further increases the ‘credibility of the threat’ that it could launch a nuclear attack on non-ally South Korea at any time. .

In the current international situation, what stands out as unification, which is increasingly distant, is the reality of North Korea’s denuclearization, which is increasingly further away. Not to mention Russia, which says that “denuclearization is a problem already over,” and China, which is reluctant to even mention denuclearization, the issue was raised by the Secretary-General of the Atomic Energy Organization International (IAEA), which emphasized diplomacy with North Korea, “a state with de facto nuclear possession,” and the Democratic and Democratic Party of the U.S. We need to be more concerned about how the phrase denuclearization, which has to disappear from the platform policies of both Republican parties, published in the future.

Integration cannot be ignored, but obsessing over it will only push it further. The same goes for the left, which has been stabbed again by North Korea while it is just at the beginning of reconciliation and cooperation, and the right, which just wants unification as a fluke without even entering that level at all. Shallow perspective change or conventional self-hypnosis cannot be used. If we turn a blind eye and say, ‘It’s just sour grapes anyway,’ or click on inedible persimmons, we will only be swayed by North Korea. again and again, deepening our inner wounds. Instead of dwelling on premature unification debates, it is time to think deeply about ways to revive fading denuclearization.