TR EMERITUS

OPINION During the recent China-Japan-South Korea summit at Jeju island, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expressed his support for the eventual unification of the two Koreas when South Korea President Lee Myung-bak said his country's goal is to get North Korea to open up its economy and strive toward peaceful reunification through that process. Wen's pledge of support seems to contradict China's official policy towards North Korea regime which has been on Chinese life-support for over a decade since a series of famines wrecked the economy of the Stalinist state in the 1990s. Above: North Koreans pay their respect to their "Great Leader" Kim Il-Sung whose statue towers over the capital Pyongyang. Without China's generous aid and support, Pyongyang would grow increasingly dependent on South Korea thereby paving the way for eventual dialogue and reunification between the two sides. The rising tension in the Korean peninsula today is caused partly by China's reluctance to rein in the excesses of North Korea from its blatant refusal to return to the six-party talks and its periodic schizophrenic outbursts against the south. Despite evidence pointing to North Korea's involvement in the sinking of the South Korean corvette "Cheonan", China has refused to express a clear stance in the matter, calling for both parties to "exercise restraint". A few days earlier, the North's "Dear Leader' Kim Jong-IL had travelled to Beijing probably to secure economic assistance from China again after its botched currency reform in the beginning of the year. China's undivided loyalty to its communist ally is a crucial factor in keeping the latter from a much feared self-implosion which would have accelerated the pace of re-unification. A paper published in May by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC, written by two American academics, Bonnie Glaser and Scott Snyder, details the possible consequences in the event of a regime collapse in North korea: refugees pouring into China and South Korea, insecure weapons of mass destruction and the threat of uncoordinated military actions taken in North Korea by South Korea, China and America. [Source: The Economist, June 2010] Though it was never mentioned publicly, few leaders in Beijing would relish the prospect of a unified Korea right on China's doorsteps which would disrupt the power-balance in Northeast Asia. China prefers to have a weak North Korea perennially dependent on it for handouts as a neighbor and a buffer against the prosperous South and its American ally rather than a unified Korean nation which is both economically and militarily strong. In less than five decades, South Korea managed to recover from the destruction brought about by the Korean War and transformed itself into an economic powerhouse in the world, a remarkable feat considering that South Korea has a GDP below that of Singapore in the 1950s. If South Korea were to unite with the North, it would come to the possession of a one-million strong army and a nuclear arsenal, a scenario which Beijing will want to pre-empt from occuring. China's innermost fears and insecurities of the reunification of Korea and the subsequent emergence of a strong Korean state stem partly from historical rivalries and animosities between the two nations as manifested by China's banning of two Korean historical dramas - "Ju Mong" and "Dae Jo Young" in 2007 as well as a diplomatic spat with South Korea over the historical status of the ancient Korean kingdom of Gorguryeo (37BC to 668AD), sparking a massive flame war between Chinese and Korean netizens. (read more here) (The Koreans have always regarded Gorguryeo as a great Korean kingdom and accused China of revising history by portraying it as another Chinese state founded by one of its ethnic minorities through its Northeast Asia Project. Incidentally, "Ju Mong" was the founder of Gorguryeo while "Dae Jo Young" of Balhae, its succeeding state.) Above: At the height of its power, Gorguryeo occupied two-thirds of the Korean peninsula and large chunks of Manchuria including today's Liaoning and Jilin provinces in China. Korea's English name is derived from Gorguryeo. In the first millenium, China was in constant conflict with two powerful Korean states on its northeastern frontier. The short-lived Sui dynasty (581 to 617 AD) fought three disastrous wars with the Korean kingdom of Gorguryeo, a state only one-tenth of its size which eventually led to its downfall. The succeeding Tang dynasty only managed to conquer Gorguryeo after three unsuccessful attempts with the loss of millions of lives. Even then, its attempt to govern the Korean peninsula was short-lived with another Korean state Balhae emerging from the ruins of Gorguryeo to challenge its supremacy in the Northeast by launching an audacious naval assault on Shandong in 733 AD. The relationship between the two countries only start to normalize during the Joseon dynasty (1396 to 1910 AD) when Korea effectively became a vassal state of the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644 AD) after it relinquished all claims to the lands north of the Yalu river. (The Yalu and Tumen rivers mark the border between China's Jilin province and North Korea. Though Korea lost all its lands in Manchuria after Balhae was annexed by the Liao dynasty in 926AD, the succeeding state of Goryeo continued to lay claims on it). China's northeast is home to a significant number of ethnic Koreans, most of them residing in the Yanbian autonomous county bordering North Korea. Above: The Chinese city of Yanji near North Korea, of which over 60 percent of its inhabitants are ethnic Koreans.  Notice that the road signs are in both Chinese and Korean as mandated under the city's law. While a rising proportion of the Korean population has been effectively sinicized over the years thanks to some shrewd government policies, the situation may change with a prosperous Korea as its neighbor rather than the present improverished North. Increased exchange between the two sides may spark off separatist tendencies in areas with a Korean majority such as the "Gando" corridor which is still viewed by some Korean historians as an inseparable part of Korea. Many Korean heritage sites and relics are found there such as the famous Goguryeo wall murals and the Gwanggaeto Steele in the border town of Ji'an along the Tumen river. (where the two American journalists were captured by North Korean border guards last year) Above: The famous Gorguryeo wall murals found in Ji'an, Jilin province. Ji'an was a former capital of the Korean kingdom of Gorguryeo, known then as Guknae. Nationalists in South Korea also resent China's control over part of a mountain considered sacred in Korean mythology. It is considered as the cradle of the Korean civilization. (together with the Manchus, the rulers of China's last dynasty) Known as Paektu in Korean and Changbai in Chinese, the mountain straddles the China-North Korean border, part of which was ceded to China by North Korea in 1963. A strong and unified Korea may become more assertive in managing its territorial disputes with its neighbors especially with growing nationalist sentiments among its fiercely patriotic citizens. South Korean speedskaters caused a diplomatic tiff with China when they held up signs saying "Mount Paektu is our Land" at the Asian Games in 2007, prompting the Chinese Foreign Ministry to summon a South Korean embassy official to complain about what Beijing considered a political act at a sports event. One prominent historian from Seoul University wrote in a research paper in 2007 that "Korea was a strong nation when it was in possession of Manchuria and became weak and oppressed only after it lost the lands north of the Yalu" triggering another minor diplomatic spate with China. With trouble brewing in Tibet and Xinjiang, Beijing will not risk starting a fire in its own backyard especially when the three northeast provinces have been ear-marked for economic development as part of a greater plan to revive China's industrial dustbelt.  A weak and dependent North Korea will not only help to secure its own borders, but will come in handy as a useful pawn to check on South Korea as well in order to maintain the strategic equilibrium in Northeast Asia.   Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Please use our online web form to contact us.  Read More →

PAP ministers have been indulging in plenty of self-praise lately perhaps to justify their impending hefty pay hike with the strong "rebound" of Singapore's economy. Coming right after PAP minister without portfolio Lim Swee Say who is currently sharing his famous "upturn the downturn" slogan at an international meeting, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan had lavished generous praises on Singapore's healthcare system. Khaw was hospitalized lately for a heart bypass which convinced him that "Singapore's health system is of a high standard." He claimed that this was the feedback he received from patients of all classes during his frequent visits to the hospital to attend his cardiac rehabilitation programme and it made him "proud" both as a Singaporean and a Health Minister. With due respect to Mr Khaw, he is likely to receive VIP treatment from the hospital staff which is quite different from the reality on the ground. Had he suffered a minor heart attack and sent to a particularly busy public hospital in Singapore, he might have to wait for a few hours before being attended by a doctor. Should he require angioplasty in the middle of the night, he might be told that there were no trained doctors available to perform the procedure and he needed to be transferred to another hospital. And if he was admitted to a subsidized ward, he may not see his cardiologist even once throughout his entire hospital stay. While Singapore arguably has one of the best healthcare systems at least in the region, the acute shortage of doctors and nurses in public hospitals may compromise the quality of care of in subsidized wards which are often overcrowded with patients. Do you agree with Mr Khaw that Singapore's health system is of a high standard? Post your comments below.   Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Please use our online web form to contact us.  Read More →

Under-fire National Library Board (NLB) has issued an official statement explaining why former ISD detainee Vincent Cheng was removed from the panel of speakers at an event hosted by the History Society. Mr Cheng was originally slated to speak at the seminar, entitled "Who writes the script" to be held this Friday, but its organizers were told last-minute to remove his name by NLB. The fiasco sparked a massive outcry in cyberspace with many netizens lampooning NLB for "political censorship." NLB claimed that Mr Cheng's inclusion went against the original intent of the event and added that the society did not consult the board to include his name. "As part of our partnership and sponsorship conditions with all our programme partners, the content and details of the programme, such as the panel of speakers, need to be in line with the intent of the event and jointly agreed upon," NLB said in a terse statement. It did not elaborate more on why Mr Cheng's inclusion will not be "in line" with the intent of the event. Mr Cheng was accused by the PAP of masterminding a "Marxist Conspiracy" to overthrow the government in 1987 and was arrested and detained without trial under the draconian Internal Security Act.   Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Please use our online web form to contact us.  Read More →