The historic Trump-Kim Summit in Singapore last week that resulted in an agreement to reunite and denuclearize Korea has generated a lot of criticism and accolades. On the one hand, the criticism accused Trump of leaving the summit empty-handed, legitimizing a pariah-human rights violator — and for agreeing to stop the U.S.-Korea war games and removing U.S. forces from South Korea without a quid-pro-quo. On the other hand, the compliments praise him for giving peace a chance by bringing Korea back from the precipice of a nuclear war and pushing the pariah-hermit kingdom into the 21st-century.
The denuclearization and economic issues aside, what about the political solution?
How does a divided country with two extreme opposite political systems, a totalitarian dynastic-ruthless communist North, supported from its founding by China and Russia, and a democratic South supported by America unite as one? Can they?
There are only two other examples of a divided country like Korea that united. Germany and Vietnam. Germany united peacefully with the democratic west political system running a united Germany. In Vietnam, the country united after an ugly protracted war with America supporting South Vietnam and China and Russia supporting North Vietnam. The North’s communist political system won and a united Vietnam today is run by a communist political system modelled on China.
China gave us the One Country Two Systems model in Hong Kong. A model it is hoping to convince the rebellious democratic province of Taiwan to embrace and reintegrate with the motherland like democratic Hong Kong — an idea Taiwan is resisting.
The difference to North Korea is Hong Kong and Taiwan do not have nuclear weapons and are not a military threat to the mainland. They are political threats to China’s Communist Party — just like South Korea is to Kim’s dynastic communist party. Therefore, the German model won’t work and the Vietnam model will only work if the two Koreas go to war.
The alternative, a modified Hong Kong model of One Country Two Systems that suites a united Korea — or a divided peninsula with two independent countries.