Stop fantasizing about North Korea collapse

John Feffer, author of ''North Korea, South Korea," and
a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus, writes: "It's
time for the United States to stop fantasizing about an
imminent North Korean collapse. Let's support instead
the Korean reunification happening right before our
eyes.

Something extraordinary is happening in Korea, and
Washington appears to be paying no attention. The two
Koreas have plunged headlong in to unknown
territory: reunification. For 50 years, aside from the
occasional defector, it was impossible to cross the
demilitarized zone dividing the Korean Peninsula.

Today a bus leaves the capital of South Korea every day
to bring workers to an industrial complex just north of
the DMZ. There, at the Kaesong complex, North and South
Koreans labor together at new factories that produce
kitchenware and clothing. South Korea has stretched
electricity lines across the DMZ to power the facilities
and laid an optical cable for direct phone calls. Raw
materials and finished products are passing back and
forth along what was once considered a major invasion
route.

True, the heavily militarized DMZ that separates the two
Koreas is still there. North Korea hasn't given up its
nuclear weapons. The Bush administration still
considers North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, a
disreputable negotiating partner and Pyongyang an
''outpost of tyranny." North Korea recently labeled Vice
President Dick Cheney a ''bloodthirsty beast."

But despite this inauspicious atmosphere, the two Koreas
have departed significantly from business as usual with
their slow-motion reunification. As South Korea's
president, Roh Moo Hyun, meets this week with President
Bush, the fate of the Korean Peninsula hangs
precariously between war and peace. The two leaders see
peninsular politics very differently.

Bush has refused to negotiate seriously with North Korea
in the hopes that it will collapse just as East Germany
or the Soviet Union did. Roh's government is making the
case for a peace agreement that pairs economic
incentives with nuclear disarmament. South Korea has
beefed up engagement efforts while the United States
continues its drift toward confrontation.

Read the essay by John Feffer by a click on the title