SEOUL -- "Sooner or later, the North Koreans will return to the negotiating table," said South Korea's former Foreign Minister Lee Joung Binn in an interview on the eve of his resignation. At this moment, political realities on the Korean Peninsula don't seem to justify his optimism. As the government in Pyongyang cancels one inter-Korean event after another, some analysts wonder whether it's time to declare the Korean peace process DOA. I don't share the pessimism, but it is obvious that the process has suffered a major setback.
What has dissipated last year's political euphoria and raised the suspicion that we're back to square one and all the old rhetoric and verbal abuse? The Korean media commentators have several explanations. One camp attributes the near-collapse of the Sunshine Policy to the lack of domestic support. According to this argument, the public isn't behind the strategy of engaging the Northern communists, so the policy has to fail. This line of thought originates among conservatives and is articulated by those who from the very beginning of the Kim Dae Jung administration set out to discredit the conciliatory approach.
But the argument is incorrect. It is simply not true that a majority of the South Korean people do not support the engagement policy. Recent opinion polls show that about four-fifths of the population support engagement with North Korea. This is a remarkable success for the government, considering the unceasing hostile commentary from the biggest and arguably most influential newspapers.