Dr. Cho Soon-sung, a senior advisor to South Korea's ruling Millennium Democratic Party, says economic sanctions could induce North Korea's regime to abandon nuclear weapons development.
Cho said China, a longtime economic and military supporter of North Korea, will not oppose the moves by the United States and Japan to punish Pyongyang with economic sanctions. "North Korea will discard its nuclear program if economic sanctions are imposed on the country," Cho said.
This same fellow appears to have been arguing against sanctions less than two weeks previously.
"We should not cut off economic aid. There is a humanitarian problem: The people in North Korea are starving," said Cho Soon-sung, senior adviser to South Korea's ruling party.
Perhaps Robert Koehler can explain?
By Randall Parker at 2003 June 15 03:07 AM KoreaThere is no way one can explain such an about-face, other than point out that it seems to be a specialty of the President. If the Noh administration has shown us anything since it took power at the beginning of the year, it's that even the President doesn't know what policy is going to be from one day to the next. South Korea has supposedly agreed to join Japan and the US in interdicting suspect shipments from the North - the foreign minister had complained that an invitation was not originally extended to Seoul when Japan and the US announced their intention to stop North Korean ships. President Noh is being castigated here for his indecisiveness while the whole situation goes straight to hell, and if I had to guess, this might mean that Noh is trying to look like he's actually doing something. Still, don't get too excited - we could all wake up in the morning and hear that Noh has ruled out participation in any sanctions regime. Heck, even last week, he ruled out any moves against the North other than talks during his visit to Japan, only to march one of his advisers out the next day to say that the Prez had been misunderstood because, well, he speaks too fast (which he does, by the way, and in a pretty funky Pusan dialect which is really quite cute when spoken by women).
Dear Cho, Soon Sung:
I was one of your students at Mizzou, and your apartment mate in Seoul from 1984-85. Please let me know your phone number, e-mail address, etc. I still write and photograph Korean subjects, among many types, and my son, Matt, is half-Korean.
David J. Marcou, Tel. 608-784-2796 (USA).