Two Koreas Draw Closer Over Hostility To U.S.

by Ahn Mi-Young

"I feel humiliated by the United States' high-handed attitude," says Kim Young-Chull, a 15-year-old student who joined one such demonstration in this country long touted as a U.S. ally. "My friends, (Shim) Mi-sun and (Shin) Hyo-sun, were killed by U.S. solders but our nation was unable to try them in a Korean court."

This was so because the soldiers were among the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea under a Status of Forces Agreement that gives U.S. officials jurisdiction over crimes committed by troops while on duty.

Similar angry sentiments have been coming from North Korea in radio broadcasts monitored by South Korea media. "So do we share the outrage of South Korea against U.S. arrogance who let go of the U.S. soldiers who killed our students and should be punished," said North Korea's state-run broadcaster.

In short, the rising hostility against the United States in South Korea has been warming its ties with the North.

Of late, North and South officials have been talking amiably about opening a special industrial zone in eastern Gaesung in the north, some 70 km north of Seoul.

If the plan goes ahead, both Koreas hope that, by early 2004, about 300 South Korean companies would be employing 250,000 Northerners and 360,000 Southerners working together at textile, leather and metal factories in Gaesung.

"I am considering moving to Gaesung, as it offers a cheap but quality labor force, who are also our brothers," said Hwang June-Ho, a textile manufacturer and distributor in Seoul.

This warmth in North-South ties comes at a crucial time for North Korea, the object of international suspicion after it admitted that it is undertaking a secret nuclear weapons program in breach of international commitments.

As a result of that admission, Pyongyang's two Cold War-era "big brothers" -- Japan and China -- have been putting pressure on it to drop its nuclear program.

Japan has been giving less food aid to the Stalinist state that is one million tons short of food to feed its 22 million people.

China recently went arrested flamboyant flower magnate Yang Bin on charges of fraud and other commercial crimes, just two months after North Korea named him head of a new free-trade enclave near the Chinese border.

But despite these setbacks in international diplomacy, North Korea says it would push ahead with all joint projects with South Korea, including plans to reconnect rail and road lines across their border.

Analysts say however that there is a limit to how much results the current North-South warmth can bring to Pyongyang's crippled economy in the wake of its nuclear admissions.

Luring capital into the North Korea remains elusive as long as the U.S. remains hostile to international trade with North Korea, they point out.

"Even if a South Korean company makes a shoe cheaply in Gaesung and tries to export it to the U.S., the company would face much higher import duties that the U.S. will slap on the North Korean-made products as part of its economic sanctions against the North Korea," said Shin Ji-Ho, a researcher at the state-run Korea Development Institute.

Lately, North Korea banned the use of U.S. dollars and replaced it with the euro -- in a move seen as a snub to the U.S. decision to halt fuel aid to it.

The ban is also seen as a move to flush out dollars secretly hoarded by North Koreans. Dollars are smuggled in by Chinese traders and used widely in the black market.

The currency switch is the latest in a string of economic reforms by North Korea this year. In July, it increased prices and wages closer to market values so that North Koreans would rely less on state-doled rations.

"North Korea is running out of options, as it is internationally shunned," said Lee Won-Sup, a journalist with the liberal 'Hangyere' newspaper.

"That's why North Korea is nervously watching who will be the next president in South Korea. South Korea appears at the moment to be the only economic helper to North Korea, as all of the U.S., Japan and China have turned insensitive to the North Korea's painful shortage of food," he pointed out.

Roh Moo-hyun, the leading ruling party candidate in South Korea's presidential election this month, supports President Kim Dae-Jung's 'sunshine policy' with the North.

Roh takes a tougher stance on the hardline U.S. policies toward North Korea than his conservative rival Lee Hoi-chang, candidate of the opposition Grand National party.

Lee's policies toward Pyongyang sound similar to Washington's, when he says aid to Pyongyang would be made conditional on a halt to its nuclear program.

Conservatives criticize Kim's 'sunshine policy' as "giving too much only to get little in return". But in truth, "the 'sunshine policy' has made something that we could hardly ever have imagined, happen," said Kim Geun-Shik, professor of Kyongnam University.

Experts say that Kim's doggedness has led to mix of initiatives, be it the reunification of relatives of families split between North and South, or the distribution of goats from South to help farmers in the North.

How far the current closeness between North and South, aided by fresh hostility from both Koreas, remains to be seen.

Anger among student activists has also spilled over to the latest James Bond film, 'Die Another Day', which they say depicts North Korea as a cruel evil and a "shabby nation that the South once was in the 1960s" and humiliates Korean culture.