The north and the south

Recently I attended a speech contest conducted by a local school featuring students ranging from grades one through five. The topic for the contest was the reunification of the Korean peninsula. This is not something new. I’ve seen this several times and the students (even if I can’t understand all that they are saying) clearly speak with passion in support of the idea that the North and South should be unified.

I’ve tried talking with some adults about the issue and they seem much more cautious about the idea, but it is still something that they would like to see come to pass.

I think that a unified Korea would be good for the world. The regime in the North is unstable in its relations internationally and it subjects its people to a level of suffering that we in the West simply can’t understand.

However if such unification was to be possible it must be done with eyes wide open to the realities that the South would face. Emotion must be put aside in the face of pragmatism.

The South has a population nearing 49 million. The North’s population is half that at 24.5 million.

The South is a relatively rich nation with an estimated GDP of $1.5 trillion that provides a GDP per capita number of $30,000.

The North by comparison is an extremely poor nation with a GDP of $40 billion which represents a per capita GDP of only $1,800.

Unification given these facts could not happen quickly. It would have to be a long drawn out process where the North was controlled politically by the South but its economy would have to be segregated from the economy of the South. This would be necessary so that the South could try to grow the economy in the North to bring it much more in line with the South’s economy so that the South did not suffer economic shock that could cripple it for years.

This would of course be a hard sell.

It would be easy for the South to accept as it would have little impact on their standard of living and so many would support it on economic grounds, but what about the human element?

Would those in the North accept being controlled by the South but still being subjected to extreme poverty for several more years or would they demand that the South spread the wealth and raise the standard of living for those in the North?

Would Southerners be willing to stand by and watch their Northern brothers and sisters continued to suffer all because the South was unwilling to make some sacrifices.

It would be a delicate situation to handle to be sure.

The economic reality though is that a combined economy would only raise the GDP from $1.5 trillion to $1.56 trillion, a mere 4% increase; however the population would increase by 50% from 49 million to 73.5 million.

The reality of this is that the GDP per capita for those in the South would change from $30,000 to a little over $21,000. This of course would be a dramatic increase in the standard of living for those in the North though. The sad fact would be that this $9,000 drop in GDPpc in the South would be most felt by the poorest in a country that already has 15% of its population living below the poverty line.

It’s a situation with no easy or simple answer. It’s a daunting situation and one that will take much effort and sacrifice to see fulfilled.