Korean Border Lines Being Crossed

North Korea is one of the most private, cut-off countries in the world. After the Korean War (1950-1953), fought between North and South Korea, the peninsula was left in disarray. The countries are technically still at war since no official treaty was signed (only an armistice called an end to the fighting).

Currently, North Korea has only one political party, the Workers’ Party, and dictator Kim-Jong Un is the ruler. Most North Korean citizens are cut off from the world and have never learned the principles of freedom and democracy. They are left in extreme poverty and struggle to survive. Meanwhile, South Korea is a republic, where the people freely elect their leaders. The president has a five year term limit with no possibility for re-election. The country’s GDP is in the top 15 of all the countries in the world. As a result of these differing political ideologies and the Korean War, the only border between the two countries, the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), is heavily guarded. Yet recently, North Korea has been opening up to the world and has taken a step out of its isolationist ways.

On April 27, 2018, Kim Jong-Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met at the DMZ to discuss how to  improve relations between the two countries. For the first time since the Korean War, a North Korean Leader stepped into South Korea. After shaking hands and crossing the boundary, the two leaders talked about the denuclearization of North Korea.

To discuss the same topic, President Donald Trump met with Kim Jong-Un in Singapore on June 12, 2018. Just six months before, Trump and Kim notoriously exchanged threats, with Kim said to have developed a missile that could reach any part of the United States. Yet after the meeting, Trump said, “We fell in love, okay? No, really — he wrote me letters, and they’re great letters.”

While the idea of having a healthy relationship with North Korea is nice to imagine, the reality of it is nonexistent. How can the United States have friendly relations with a country that goes against the very principles that America was founded upon? Denuclearization would prevent North Korea from being a threat to outside countries, but not to its own people. Trump and other Americans seem to forget the unfortunate citizens of North Korea who live in eternal poverty, with no foreseeable escape. Even denuclearization is becoming less promising as little progress has been made since the summits.

In fact, in the beginning of January 2019, a report from Beyond Parallel (a project sponsored by the defense think tank CSIS) found an undisclosed North Korean missile site. The base is 130 miles north of the DMZ and has missiles capable of reaching Japan, South Korea, and Guam. Researchers estimate that North Korea has another 20 similar hidden missile sites. This news comes in the wake of the announcement of a summit in Vietnam between Trump and Kim Jong Un at the end of February. While Trump has been applauding himself that progress has been made as North Korea has not been testing their missiles, he fails to realize that just because they are not testing, does not mean that they are not developing.

North Korea opening up to the world could be a positive action but for whom? Its citizens still live in constant fear of Kim Jong-Un and are jailed for speaking their mind. Yet Americans applaud a meeting with this Dictator, where he makes promises that are unlikely to be kept.