SUNSHINE IN KOREA: The South Korean Debate Over Policies Toward North Korea, by Norman D. Levin and Yong Sup Han. Rand Center for Asia Pacific Policy, 2002, 143 pp. (paper).

Although Kim Dae Jung is no longer president of South Korea, his "Sunshine Policy" toward North Korea lives on. His successor, President Roh Moo Hyun, has continued the policy, although he has dubbed his approach the "Policy for Peace and Prosperity." It's unclear how the new policy differs in substance from its predecessor, but the name change is significant: It is an attempt to insulate Roh's approach to the North from the controversy and intense partisanship that surrounded Sunshine. This important new book from two of the Rand Corporation's foremost Korea scholars explains why distance is important.

Sunshine reflected President Kim's fervent belief that a new approach to North Korea was essential to unfreezing relations between the two Koreas. The policy took its name from the fable in which the sun bested the wind in a bet: The sun's heat forced a man to remove a coat that the wind could not blow off. In other words, engagement, not hostility, was the best way to bring about a change in Pyongyang's behavior.

Sunshine rested on several key assumptions: