U.S. to gain most from unified Korea: scholar

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 (Yonhap) -- The United States will be the biggest beneficiary
of a unified Korea, unlike China and Japan that are less favorable to the
peninsula's reunification due to its potential to become a major regional power,
an American scholar said Wednesday.
Peter Beck, Pantech research fellow at Stanford University's Walter H.
Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, also predicted that once the process of
unification begins China would close its border to contain the fallout of a
failed North Korea.
"The U.S. has the most to gain from a unified Korea," Beck said during a forum
held at KORUS House, the public relations section of the Korean embassy here.
"A unified Korea will remain a friend of the United States," he said. "U.S.
troops are unlikely to leave a unified Korea. They don't trust Chinese, they
don't trust Japanese. And we are far away. American companies will rush in to
take advantage of the opportunity in North Korea."
The U.S. maintains 28,500 troops in Korea as a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War
that ended in a fragile armistice rather than a peace treaty, technically leaving
the Korean Peninsula at war.
A Goldman Sachs report said last September that a unified Korea, with a
population of over 70 million, would surpass Japan and most other G-8 advanced
economies by 2050 in terms of gross domestic product -- helped by South Korea's
capital and technology and North Korea's natural resources and competitive labor
force.
Beck expressed some skepticism that a unified Korea would overtake Japan, though
he said it is the one country most opposed to Korea's unification.
"One of the countries most opposed to the unification is Japan. Japan certainly
does not want a unified Korea," Beck said, but added Tokyo would ironically
contribute to the development of a unified Korea with up to US$10 billion worth
of economic assistance in reparations for its 1910-1945 colonial rule of Korea.
The comments were in reference to reparations amounting to some $800 million that
Japan provided to South Korea in 1965 to help it pursue development of
infrastructure. Beck expected that similar reparations would be provided for
North Korea when Pyongyang and Tokyo normalize relations.
North Korea and Japan have held several rounds of normalization talks in past
decades, which included discussion of war reparations, though both sides failed
to resolve differences over the North's explanation of the kidnapping of Japanese
citizens by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 80s.
As far as China is concerned, Beck said that once the procedure of unification
begins, whether due to the collapse of North Korea or other external factors, the
first measure China will take may be to block its border with the North and
establish a kind of "buffer zone" there.
China has refused to talk openly about its contingency plans for such a scenario
in North Korea, despite calls from the U.S., in order not to provoke its
communist ally, he said.
Talk of such contingency plans abounded early last year amid rumors of a power
transition to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's third and youngest son Jong-eun,
26, after the senior Kim apparently suffered a stroke in the summer of 2008.
Some analysts say China is ready to acquiesce to North Korea's possession of
nuclear weapons, although Beijing has been ostensibly trying to denuclearize the
North through six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan
and Russia.
China prefers the status quo to Korean reunification led by South Korea helped by
the U.S., they say, noting China's strategy does not aim simply at North Korea,
but includes Washington on a long-term basis.
China, whose output is expected to have surpassed Japan's last year to become the
world's second biggest economy after the U.S -- and is forecast to outperform the
U.S. within a couple of decades -- is believed to abhor any regional instability
that could undermine its long-term strategy to emerge as a superpower.
In that context, "China has been giving them trade and economic assistance worth
US$3 billion a year," Beck said, adding, "North Korea will still hang on for a
considerable time, which looks more like Burma in terms of its economic
development."
China is said to have invested heavily in North Korea in recent decades despite
the on-and-off North Korean nuclear crisis that first began in the early 1990s.
Beijing has long been reluctant to join punitive actions on North Korea despite
the fact that the North relies heavily on China for food, energy and other
necessities.
Russia, meanwhile, will not take a meaningful role in Korea's reunification, Beck
said.
"Russia's role is irrelevant," he said. "We can basically ignore Russia. They
really don't have a meaningful role to play in the unification process."
"Economically bankrupt Russian companies have no interest in North Korea," he
said. "They have plenty of opportunity within Russia. They don't want to take a
risk. Talk about a pipeline is imaginary unless someone else is paying for it."
The analyst urged the U.S. to join forces with South Korea in helping rebuild the
impoverished North Korean economy to reduce the burden after reunification.
"Unification is going to be exttremely expensive," he said. "North Korea needs
$67 billion a year... $2 trillion over 30 years."
hdh@yna.co.kr
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