Thursday, November 15, 2007

Day Thirty-Five: closer Koreas

The gradual coming together of North and South Korea was given significant impetus today, as the respective governments announced plans for a new inter-Korean rail link to begin in December. Though limited to freight transport initially, it will be the first rail service to link the two countries in over half a century. The deal forms part of a broader programme of co-operation between North and South Korea, including in specific industrial sectors – this may in turn contribute to at least partial amelioration of the grinding poverty in which so many North Koreans find themselves. Such outcomes may be slow in coming. But the train has left the station.

3 comments:

Harry said...

Building bridges is always a hopeful sign, especially when it is into and out of one of President Bush’s “axis of evil” countries. It is difficult to see what goes on in North Korea. News seems to escape, furtively and in bits. Giving up nuclear ambitions a year after a “successful test” was certainly a very hopeful bit of news. Not only for the rest of the world, but for North Koreans themselves – they now won’t need to spend anything like the UK’s investment of £26billion on updating Trident.
There are worrying things about North Korea. Sometimes it is difficult to ascertain just how worrying because of the lens through which they are filtered, but Amnesty International do regularly report widespread political imprisonment, torture, ill-treatment and executions. Listening to foreign news broadcasts can lead to imprisonment with forced labour. So, anything that can bring North Korea out of its self-imposed exile is a very good reason to be hopeful.

eazibee said...

I completely agree, Harry. And one can't help feel that South Korea is the key to greater openness and security, in the same way that South Africa is key Zimbabwe's future.
E

eazibee said...

And I note, today, that there is renewed pressure on East Asian countries (ASEAN, basically) to play the same role in relation to Burma.
All these examples represent a kind of cross-border 'neighbourhood peer pressure', which of course we've seen in Europe many times over the course of history.
E