The Sunshine Policy was the foreign policy of South Korea towards North
Korea from 1998 until Lee Myung-bak's election to presidency in 2007. Since
its articulation by South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, the policy
resulted in greater political contact between the two States and some historic
moments in Inter-Korean relations; the two Korean summit meetings in Pyongyang
which broke ground, several high-profile business ventures, and brief meetings of
family members separated by the Korean War.
In 2000, Kim Dae Jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his successful
implementation of the Sunshine Policy. Overview
The main aim of the policy was to soften North Korea's attitudes towards the
South by encouraging interaction and economic assistance.
The national security policy had three basic principles:
No armed provocation by the North will be tolerated
The South will not attempt to absorb the North in any way
The South actively seeks cooperation These principles were meant to convey
the message that the South does not wish to absorb the North or to undermine its
government; its goal was peaceful co-existence rather than regime change.
Kim's administration also outlined two other major policy components. The first
was the separation of politics and economics. In practice, this meant that
the South loosened restrictions on its private sector to invest in North Korea,
limiting its own involvement essentially to humanitarian aid. This was initially
meant both to improve the North's economy and to induce change in the
North's economic policy, though the latter goal was later de-emphasized.
The second component was the requirement of reciprocity from the North. Initially
it was intended that the two States would treat each other as equals, each
making concessions and compromises. Perhaps most criticism of the policy
stemmed from the significant backpedaling by the South on this
principle in the face of unexpected rigidity from the North. It ran into
trouble just two months into the Sunshine era, when South Korea requested
the creation of a reunion center for divided families in exchange for
fertilizer assistance; North Korea denounced this as horse trading and cut
off talks. A year later the South announced its goal would be "flexible
reciprocity" based on Confucian values; as the "elder brother" of the
relationship the South would provide aid without expecting an immediate
reciprocation and without requesting a specific form of reciprocity. The South
also announced that it would provide humanitarian assistance without any
expectations of concessions in return. The logic of the policy was based on the
belief that, even in light of its continuing shortages and economic
duress, North's Communist regime will not collapse, disintegrate, or reform
itself, even if the South were to apply strong pressure. It was believed that
military tensions can be lessened through bilateral and multilateral
frameworks. This emphasized the normalization of political and economic
relations between both the United States and North Korea as well as Japan.
The term sunshine policy originates in The North Wind and the Sun, one of
Aesop's fables. Kim Dae-jung administration
Under Kim Dae-jung's administration the Sunshine Policy was first formulated and
implemented. North-South cooperative business developments began, including a
railroad and the Mount Kumgang Tourist Region, where several thousand South
Korean citizens still traveled until 2008, when there was a shooting incident
and the trips were cancelled. Though negotiations for them were difficult,
three reunions between divided families were held.
In 2000, Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il met at a summit meeting, the first
conference held between leaders of the two States after the Korean War. After
the summit, however, talks between the two States stalled. Criticism of the
policy intensified and Unification Minister Lim Dong-won lost a
no-confidence vote on September 3, 2001. After the terrorist attacks of September
11, 2001, the US called North Korea part of the Axis of Evil and the North cut
off talks with the South. In 2002 a short naval skirmish over disputed
fishing territory killed four South Korean sailors, further chilling
relations. Credible allegations later came to light
that Kim's administration had arranged the 2000 summit meeting with payments
worth several hundred million dollars to North Korea.
Roh administration President Roh Moo-hyun continued the
policy of his predecessor, and relations on the divided peninsula warmed somewhat
from 2002. In 2003, the issue of the North's possession of nuclear weapons
surfaced again, with both North Korea and the U.S. accusing each other of
breaching the Agreed Framework. Nevertheless, Roh stayed committed to
the policy and his government continued to supply the North with humanitarian
aid. The two governments continued cooperation on the projects begun under
Kim Dae-jung and also started the Kaesong Industrial Park, with South
Korea spending the equivalent of just over $324 million on aid to the North in
2005. There appeared to be a pro-unificational
Korean trend in public attitudes during the Roh administration, though there are
significant differences between generations, political groups, and
regions. But the ruling Uri Party, which strongly supported it, suffered
electoral defeats and in 2008 the party lost its majority in the government. The
new government took a harsher stance toward North Korea.
Both the North and South Korean Governments agreed to hold a summit in
Pyongyang on August 20, 2007, but this was later postponed to October 2 to 4
due in part to an internal crisis within North Korea. Unlike his predecessor Kim
Dae-jung who travelled to Pyongyang by plane, Roh travelled from Seoul to
Pyongyang overland by car on October 2. Roh made a stopover at Panmunjeom and
crossed the Military Demarcation Line by foot, stating that his gesture would
symbolize the future reunification of Korea.
Criticism North Korean defector and journalist
Kang Chol-Hwan, who spent nine years in a North Korean prison camp, claims that
Kim Dae Jung was mistaken in offering assistance to the North without any
conditions of improving human rights in return. Kang disagrees with claims that
the Sunshine Policy has led to a settlement of peace between North and
South and questions the concept of no-strings-attached humanitarian aid,
saying "it is important to understand that North Koreans are starving not
because of a lack of aid from South Korea or the U.S., but because they are
deprived of freedom. Giving aid only throws a line to the government, and
prolongs starvation, surely a perverse outcome."
Some critics of the Sunshine Policy contend that rather than increasing the
chances of reunification or undermining the regime in North Korea, it has been
used instead for political gain in domestic politics in the South. They
point to what they say are the continuing provocations and criminal
activities committed by the North, such as the 2002 sea battle that left several
South Korean sailors dead, the counterfeiting of American money, and
what they call the North's general unwillingness to reciprocate Seoul's
gestures of goodwill, as evidence that the North is interested only in
receiving money and aid to prop up the communist regime. Critics also believe
that, in exchange for providing humanitarian aid, the South should
demand that the North return detained South Korean citizens and the remains of
POWs from the Korean War. Some see the Kaesong Industrial Park as merely a way
for large South Korean companies to employ cheaper labor.
Many South Korean conservative-leaning observers see the weakening of the
US-South Korea alliance as being due in large part to the Sunshine Policy; they
say it has led the South to favor the North's interests over those of its ally
the United States and that it leads South Korean politicians to unreasonably
mute or censor criticism of the North and even to ignore the sacrifices of its
own soldiers so as to avoid upsetting the North. They say that this is harmful
to the South's national interest in being allied with the United States, and
actually damages the chances for a smooth and peaceful reunification.
Internationally and at home, the South Korean government has been criticized
for repeatedly abstaining from United Nations votes condemning the North's
human rights record. The government defends the abstentions by citing the
special character of inter-Korean relations.
Conspiracies have been alleged about South Korea's motivations for this
policy. One North Korean defector who worked on weapons systems claimed that
South Korean intelligence wanted to suppress his story, because it would
shed a bad light on the policy. According to the Wall Street Journal,
several US senators believe his story. Legacy and end
On October 9, 2006, before the nuclear and missile tests, South Korea suspended
aid shipments to the North and put their military on high alert status. There was
much concern regarding how South Korea can maintain a cooperative policy
towards the North when such provocative acts occurred. Nonetheless, the
government of South Korea insisted that at least some aspects of the Sunshine
Policy, including the Mount Gumgang Tourist Region and the Kaesong
Industrial Region would continue. From March 2008, however, the new
president of the South, Lee Myung-bak and his party took a more realistic
stance to North Korea, and the South Korean government stated that any
expansion of the economic cooperation at the Kaesong Industrial Region would only
happen if the North resolved the international standoff over its nuclear
weapons. Relations have again chilled, with North Korea making military moves
such as a series of short range ship-to-ship missile tests.
After the 2009 North Korean nuclear test, the relationship between Seoul and
Pyongyang was again strained. According to Jungmin Kang writing in the Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists, "Because of the post-1998 'Sunshine policy', many
South Korean nongovernmental organizations and the public weren't
concerned about North Korea's threats, believing that Pyongyang would never use
nuclear weapons against them." South Korea's response to the nuclear test,
although dampened by the recent death of its former President Roh Moo-hyun,
included signing the Proliferation Security Initiative to prevent the
shipment of nuclear materials to North Korea.
In November 2010, the South Korean Unification Ministry officially declared
the Sunshine Policy a failure, thus bringing the policy to an end.
See also Korean reunification
North Korea–South Korea relations Korean Peninsula Energy Development
Organization Hyundai Asan
List of Korea-related topics Nordpolitik
References External links
Sunshine Policy in a Nutshell, a publication of the Federation of
American Scientists. Sunshine policy warms old rivals, The
Guardian, 10 June 2000 The Bush Administration and the Korean
Peninsula: Interview with Dr. Suh Sang-mook, Stanford Journal of East
Asian Affairs, Spring 2001, Volume 1. Terrorism Eclipses The Sunshine Policy:
Inter-Korean Relations and the United States, Asia Society, March 2002
The Cost of Sunshine, Time, 3 February 2003
Excerpt from Rand Corporation monograph Despite U.S. Attempts, N. Korea Anything
but Isolated, Washington Post, 12 May 2005
No sunshine yet over North Korea, Asia Times, 13 May 2005
South Korea Formally Declares End to Sunshine Policy, Voice of America, 18
November 2010 Further reading
Oberdorfer, Don. The Two Koreas : A Contemporary History. Addison-Wesley,
1997, 472 pages, ISBN 0-201-40927-5 Levin, Norman D. "Shape of Korea's
Future: South Korean attitudes toward unification and long-term security
issues." RAND, 1999, 48 pages, ISBN 0-8330-2759-X