Hi Everybody,
When I lived in South Korea and when the Sunshine Policy was still alive I was often moved by the emotional relationship between North and South Korea. Every now and then you see the long lost relatives on Korean television sobbing when seeing each other after many years.
Also the many Korean movies show that deep in many hearts many people want to unify with the North , meaning the people and the family, not the Northern regime itself of course. My personal favourite remains "Shiri" when it comes to unification movies :)
It is also sad to see that the Sunshine Policy of former president Kim-Dae-Jung for a peaceful unification and much positivity has ended for many years. Although the missle tests of North Korea are unacceptable there remains a higher goal: helping the North Korean population by reunification. And for that ongoing dialogue will remain necessary. Not that the regime is fair, but because the current escalation will only result in more suffering and fighting to the death mentality by the Northern regime.
One can also wonder if the Trump administration will have a positive added value in a peaceful solution by sending more military power, while South Korea is already loaded with US soldiers, not mentioning the atmosphere in Itaewon during the evenings.
In that sense I wonder which country can help both Koreas better in the future: the US which is going for a military muscle approach or maybe China who is relatively on the side line but is the main military power in the region with clearly no interest in further escalation in its backyard and who earns some trust from North Korea? Could South-Korea give the Sunshine Policy a new chance with China as a middle man.
Feel free to comment on this and hopefully peace and unification might once become reality.
Brian