Korea

SOUTH KOREA REUNIFICATION: SOUTH KOREA REUNIFICATION WITH NORTH KOREA

PLAYERS: SOUTH KOREA REUNIFICATION WITH NORTH KOREA


Until the 1980s, South Koreans yearned for reunification with North Korea, but that changed after the German reunification of 1989.

At the time if its reunification, West and East Germany were respectively much stronger economically than South and North Korea are today. East Germany was the powerhouse of the East European economy and the income gap between West and East Germany was only 4:1. Yet following the reunification, the economic burden of rebuilding the former East Germany staggered the reunified Germany and the rest of Europe for a decade.

The current income gap between South and North Koreas is 17:1. North Korea is bankrupt, its infrastructure is obsolete, its technology and labor forces are generations behind the rest of the world. Even if reunification could be achieved peacefully, rebuilding the North will cost South Korea 15-20 years and much of its wealth.

With that realization and as the pre-war generation continues to die off, neither the South Korean government nor the majority of its people now favor reunification in the near future and is leery of anything that could destabilize North Korea to implode, let alone launch another war.

Today, the South Korea's government will fly out and grant citizenship to North Koreans who make it to its embassy or those of nations with which it has diplomatic ties. But it will not help North Koreans reach those embassies, the entrances to which are heavily guarded by the police in China.

What about the South Korean Christians?

Some South Korean Christians today live in or travel to northeast China to feed the North Koreans, buy back North Korean women from sexual slavery, and keep escape routes open, as well as teach the Gospel and equip those who wish to return to North Korea as missionaries.

But the vast majority of self-declared Christians in South Korea turn a blind eye to the plight of their people north of their border. As in the rest of the developed world, the "Christianity" in South Korea is dominated by health, wealth & prosperity false gospel. True disciples willing to serve Christ, let alone risk danger are a sadly small fraction of the millions of church goers in South Korea today.