Will sunshine policy revive a sunset group?

By F.J. Khergamvala

TOKYO, OCT. 19. The South Korean President, Mr. Kim Dae Jung will lobby 24 of his summit colleagues from East Asia and Europe to contribute to the inter-Korean reconciliation process, when they meet for a two-day heads of government meeting in Seoul from Friday.

A Seoul Declaration for Peace on the Korean Peninsula is to be issued separate from the summit declaration, Mr. Kim told the South Korean Yonhap News Agency. Mr. Kim will also face some non- government organisation protests for not granting visas freely or investigating them before entering what was until recently a tightly regulated State.

The Asia-Europe Meeting, or ASEM as it is known holds its third biennial summit in the South Korean capital. Fifteen European Union member-nations and 10 East Asian countries form the ASEM, though it is unclear if the beleaguered Philippines' President, Mr. Joseph Estrada will make it. The European Commission President, Mr. Romano Prodi will also attend. The ASEM will issue a document called ``ASEM Cooperation Framework 2000.'' The ASEM summit could not have been better timed for this year's winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace, even if events in West Asia could take the shine off the meeting. A separate summit document endorsing Mr. Kim's sunshine policy on the peninsula will add to the internationally prestigious award and help Mr. Kim take on a strong conservative element within South Korea that is deeply sceptical of his rapprochement policy, seen as one-sided.

Quite a few European nations too share this scepticism, notably Germany but they are unlikely to obstruct Mr. Kim exercising his influence as conference chairman. Mr. Kim will find a strong ally in Italy, which has established diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. Mr. Kim's broader intention is to mobilise the richer Western world to spur as well as finance a North Korean economic opening, so that the South carries a lesser burden but derives the fruits of economic integration.

It remains to be seen if anything will move beyond a declaration on paper because, unlike east Asian societies, European corporations do not necessarily move in the wake of their governments' decisions. In fact, even European governments are far more reluctant to aid closed regimes than is the U.S. or Japan. Indeed, the fact that the ASEM is to issue a separate document on the North-South Korean reconciliation suggests it is searching for a new rationale. Some critics have commented on Mr. Kim trying to use his sunshine policy to revive a sunset organisation, initially founded with an economics and trade purpose. One of the rationales for South-East Asian nations taking Singapore's lead in starting the ASEM in 1996 was to use Europe as a balancing foil to the U.S. and Japan which were all too aggressive at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC). The South-East Asian nations were then booming. East Asia was a bigger potential market than was the U.S., and Europe readily welcomed the opportunity to discuss mutual trade and investment concessions with these successful emerging markets in an area which promised to dominate the 21st century.

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Section  : International
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