Investment Bank Goldman Sachs suggested on Monday that if North and South Korea combined, they could surpass Germany, and maybe even Japan, in GNP in the next 30 or 40 years. North Korea’s large, cheap workforce, combined with South Korea’s technical and engineering ability, could create a SuperMegaKoreazord (which is my suggestion for the name of a Unified Korea) which would be able climb all those lovely international rankings Korea loves to measure itself upon. The north’s mineral resources would be a boon to the south, and (as one of my students said,) it’d be a nuclear state (as long as we can figure out a way to unify that doesn’t involve USING those nukes)… it’d be a whole different East-Asian theater, to be sure.
Would such a unification be feasible? Personally, between the differences in indoctrination and culture, and the political tendencies I’ve observed, I think a unified Korea would have 30-40 years of political and educational chaos, before starting to climb those ladders — from the divisive regionalism already observed in South Korea, compounded by the North/South orientation, and on top of that, the disillusionment of all those North-Friendly Lefties in the South, when they hear the stories about Camp 22, and can’t turn a blind eye anymore, and the huge rifts in education and indoctrination (can you imagine the first meeting of the Unified SuperMegaKoreazord Board of Education, trying to figure out how to tell the history of the two countries, and the responses when words like “Imperialist Lapdog” and “Cruel Tyrant” come out?)…
Well, I’m just saying that you can’t isolate economy when two countries unite, and Korea’d have more to sort out than just training all those cheap North Korean factory workers to make microchips instead of weaving cotton.
Anyway, here’s the article, and leave a comment: what do you think?
22/09/2009 at 1:10 pm Permalink
Germany’s unification was much less painful than people predicted, and a lot shorter as well.
But the DPRK is a lot more isolated than East Germany.
/thinking out loud
22/09/2009 at 1:37 pm Permalink
the major difference being that east germany was not a third world country, economically speaking, and even if it’s stature had fallen somewhat, it was a place that at one time had been a first world country, economically, socially, politically, to the extent that that distinction existed, at the time. even the very few remaining north koreans who remember korea before it was divided, remember little besides being a poor farmer or laboring under the japanese thumb. anyway, i wonder who’s padding this particular analyst’s wallet for coming up with such an optimistic forecast. i hope he was duly compensated.
22/09/2009 at 4:53 pm Permalink
North Korea’s economy was stronger than the South’s until the 1970′s.
But I agree that there are more hurdles due to ideology and poverty than West/East Germany had to face.
22/09/2009 at 9:18 pm Permalink
right, but even when that was true, north korean society was neither terribly well-educated nor particularly industrialized. the north’s position at that point stemmed mostly from the benefits of foreign aid and a populace that could be exploited and squeezed at the whims of it’s government, as well as the government’s ability to convince said populace that they were sacrificing personal gain for the glory of the country. at no point could the bulk of north korean citizens have considered themselves to be members of a modern industrial society.