President Moon Jae-in of South Korea launched a historic visit when he landed in Pyongyang, North Korea on September 18, 2018 to broker a deal with his northern counterpart, Chairman Kim Jong-un. Koreans both north and south of the Demilitarized Zone, and observers around the world, watched the highly documented and publicized events with great anticipation for the final outcome–a joint declaration signed on September 19. The summit and declaration were products of much preparation and effort on the part of the Moon administration since he was elected. Moon’s image as a steadfast and successful broker of peace has been instrumental to his recognition on the world stage and his initial high approval ratings among the South Korean electorate. Despite the touted success of the agreement, however, a plethora of skeptics from South Korea and its allies argue that North Korea will ultimately renege on whatever concrete deal comes from the inter-Korean summits. Claims that North Korea, particularly under the “mad” and “paranoid” Kim dynasty rulers, will always be a bad actor and purposefully break promises when convenient have long dominated both South Korean and international discourse about inter-Korean relations.
Is it time, however, to begin doubting the South, rather than the North? Though the agreement seemed to offer pathways to reunification, recent trends and events on the southern half of the peninsula raise important questions about whether South Korea is able to shoulder the responsibility and costs of increased engagement and potential reunification. Worsening economic malaise, rapidly diminishing political will for reunification, and explosive backlash against Yemeni refugees do not inspire confidence in South Korea’s capacity to handle sensitive inter-Korean relations. In fact, rather than assuming that the North will hinder plans for peace, we should take a harder look at whether the South is even able–in terms of both economic and political capital–to follow through on its policy towards North Korea.
The picture of South Korea’s economic health alone should give even the most optimistic analysts pause. President Moon himself was elected on a wave of massive anxiety and discontent about the state of the South Korean economy, symbolized concisely in the business corruption scandal that brought down the preceding President Park Geun-hye. The scandal implicated several of the large business conglomerates (most notably Samsung) known as chaebol which have historically monopolized much of the South Korean economy, stifled competition by squeezing out start-ups and small businesses, depressed wages for workers along the supply chain and engaged in bribery and other forms of back-door deals to obtain preferential treatment from the government of the day. This corruption and monopolization in the economy, among other factors, has contributed to a growing unemployment rate (especially for youth), some of the longest working hours in the developed world and the highest income inequality in Asia. No wonder many young South Koreans now call their homeland “hell Joseon,” a nod to the Joseon dynasty period of Korean history characterized by oppressive feudal hierarchy and strict class immobility.
In his campaign, Moon directly responded to these economic and corruption challenges by dubbing himself the “jobs president.” He ran on a platform promising anti-graft reform against the chaebol and government-business collusion, a minimum wage increase, a surge in public sector hiring and the expansion of welfare benefits and workers’ protections (including a reduction of working hours). But so far the policies that his administration has implemented have failed to stem the economic downturn afflicting South Koreans, with unemployment reaching heights not seen since the 2008 global recession and youth employment at a two-decade low into the second year of Moon’s presidency. Fiscal spending designed to boost hiring has raised fears about the growing national debt, which reached an all-time high last year. Global economic headwinds, most prominent of all the looming US-China trade war, are also picking away at South Korea’s economic growth rate.
All of this economic woe is especially damaging for the momentum generated by the Pyongyang joint declaration, given that the task of reunification will not be cheap. Estimates for the total fiscal cost of a reunification by 2020, for example, put the number at almost $600 billion USD over a decade, a figure that represents nearly 40% of the national GDP in 2017 in lump-sum terms or about 4% of annual GDP for ten years. Even one of the most promising measures proposed in the Pyongyang joint declaration–railway projects linking the two halves of the peninsula–is alone expected to cost upwards of $35 billion USD. Though economic initiatives connecting the two halves of the peninsula inevitably will bring some economic benefit, the majority of the profits–an estimated $149 billion over 30 years–will likely go to the North, not the South. With these costs on top of increasing demand for economic stimulus and mounting debt, the Moon administration–or indeed future South Korean governments–might find itself scrambling to cover the price of engagement with the North.
Beyond the mere fiscal difficulty of supporting engagement and reunification with North Korea, however, exists a far greater problem: waning political support from the South Korean electorate. Consider how voters in the South reacted to the worsening economic news. Economists of different political stripes have identified numerous factors for the continued economic decline, ranging from the negative effect of Moon’s minimum wage increase on small businesses’ ability to hire to the lack of innovation in response to shifts in global market demand. But the buck ultimately stopped at President Moon, who suffered drastic drops in approval ratings–a shocking 34 percentage points from May to September this year–mostly attributed to the country’s poor economic performance. Spending precious state funds on economic reunification with the North will seem enormously unappealing to many South Koreans living in an economy already beleaguered with intense competition over jobs, poor labor protections and rising youth unemployment.
Especially dangerous for the Moon government is the considerable opposition against reunification coming from the youth electorate. A whopping 72.1% of South Koreans in their twenties reject reunification. Overwhelmingly, the reason that young South Koreans give for this opposition is a deep concern about the cost of rebuilding the North Korean economy, a burden that will inevitably fall upon the shoulders of the South. Flagging support from this demographic in particular spells trouble for both Moon’s political capital and the success of inter-Korean negotiations and agreements in the future.
The economic pessimism shared by many South Koreans has impacted their political support for reunification not only on a policy level, but also on a human level. Poor economic prospects in the South have made the acceptance of North Korean refugees a hard pill to swallow for many young South Koreans, who view North Korean defectors arriving in the South as additional competition for jobs and public entitlements. This, coupled with the lack of identification with North Koreans, has led many in the younger generation to view North Koreans not as co-ethnics, but as outsiders. The percentage of young Koreans who “support North Korean defectors” has fallen by 20% in recent years, contributing to an environment which has long rejected North Korean refugees. From the perspective of the defectors themselves, one in two North Korean refugees in South Korea have experienced discrimination for being from North Korea and, even more surprisingly, one in five refugees have considered smuggling themselves back into the North.
To see why anti-refugee politics and discrimination fueled by economic anxiety poses a threat to Moon’s reunification dream, we only have to look at the controversy around Yemeni refugees who arrived on the popular resort island Jeju that erupted this summer. Though fewer than 600 refugees arrived before the government removed Yemenis from the list of nationals who could arrive on Jeju visa-free on June 1, their presence sparked massive protests in Jeju and other urban centers throughout the country and garnered more than 700,000 signatures on an official online petition calling for the government to deport the asylum seekers. These public acts of opposition were unprecedented for the issue of immigration and refugees. Under the weight of such overwhelming pressure, the government announced that it would conduct a review of its asylum policy with the aim of making it harder for future asylum seekers to apply for refugee status.
Without a doubt, the most influential factors behind the protests are widespread racism and Islamophobia, which has been fanned by the influential myth of the homogenous, mono-ethnic Korean nation (dan’il minjok, taught in schools until 2007) and cross-pollination from burgeoning anti-Muslim discourse in the Western world. Islamophobic tirades on the supposed inability of Muslims to integrate into Korean society and the (extremely doubtful) existence of “terrorists” and “rapists” among the mostly male migrants have fueled much of the rage in protests and online forums that has made Korea an unwelcoming and hate-filled place for Yemeni and other asylum seekers from the Middle East. However, a significant and often overlooked piece of the anti-refugee psyche is the fear of the impact of refugees on the precarious Korean economy. Claims that the Yemenis are “fake refugees” seeking to make a quick buck in Korea reflect underlying narratives that refugees supposedly leech welfare benefits without contributing in return. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that Korean youth, who were instrumental in carrying the progressive human-rights lawyer Moon to electoral victory, were the most passionate opposers of accepting Yemeni refugees. Many young Koreans who protest against granting asylum seekers refugee status argue that the government should “put Korean citizens before refugees” and provide more “breathing room” (yeoyu) to youth facing high unemployment.
By virtue of convenience and predominant racist narratives, Yemeni refugees have become a convenient target for the economic malaise felt by South Korean youth. But it is not hard to see how North Korean defectors can easily fall victim to the same type of anger and xenophobia. Though the Islamophobic element makes the Yemeni refugee case unique, the unprecedented rapid mobilization against refugees this year lays the groundwork for the politicization of an already controversial North Korean refugee issue. If these widespread protests were able to force a relatively progressive government to shut its doors to refugees, who is to say that similar opposition to North Korean defectors–and to reunification, which will necessarily involve joining the citizens of North Korea with South Korean society–will not be just as effective? And what does this mean for the promises Moon signed in Pyongyang?
With reunification as a central focus of his presidency, President Moon risks alienating his base and losing political support for his inter-Korean negotiations and initiatives if he cannot prove to voters that reunification will not come at the expense of the household finances of the next generation. So far, young voters still generally support Moon despite their opposition to unification, but this support will be tested if Moon fails to deliver on the economy, his other governing focus. And if this year’s breakthrough protests and online campaigns against Yemeni refugees are any indication, future inability on the part of Moon to convince young South Koreans that his economic stewardship is sound will result in increasing public and forceful displays of xenophobic backlash.
Supporters and detractors of Moon’s policy of engagement towards North Korea have thus far continued to focus on the merits of the proposals brought forward by the inter-Korean summits or the unreliability of the North to keep promises. They miss the bigger problem staring them in the face. A South Korea which cannot accept Yemeni refugees and rejects the task of integrating North Koreans into the body and economy of the nation ultimately will fail to deliver on its side of the reunification bargain, no matter how hard the administration works on the terms of a peace agreement. It is time to stop worrying about what North Korea will do, and start paying attention to the question of whether South Korea will fail.
Photo: “Moon and Kim on Mt. Paektu”
