Chung Dong Young

Here is the man who I believe will win the next presidential election in South Korea.

Currently Chung Dong Young is the Unification Minister of South Korea (or "anti-unification Minister," as he is lovingly referred to by most ex-pat K-bloggers; see the Yangban for a detailed argument, and this piece as well).

For those not in the know, Chung is one of the Sunshine Boys in Korea who openly believes that the North Korean government should be supported to prevent its collapse. Their view of diplomacy with North Korea can be summed up by saying that if North Korea cannot be influenced by the carrot, the answer is to apologize and offer an even bigger carrot.

Over on the Ministry of Unification's Homepage, I found this in the FAQ section which will give you a good idea of Chung's philosophy. Some comments of my own included.

Q.6 Isn’t South Korea's assistance to the North actually contributing to the strengthening of the regime?

o The South’s economic assistance to the North is not intended to help maintain the regime. We provide economic assistance not only as a humanitarian gesture to relieve the North Korean people from human suffering but also a means to induce the North’s change... [Yes, just like how police get the mafia to change by offering them economic assistance and counseling] - Economic assistance serves as a leverage for inducing the North to participate in inter-Korean dialogue and economic cooperation. [Yes, economic assistance does have a tendency to encourage people to come to further "dialogues" in which even more economic assistance will be given. Also, "ecomonic cooperation" means the South agrees to foot the bill for everything and North Korea agrees to accept it.] Furthermore, it has an educational effect of bringing about changes in thinking and attitude of the North Korean leaders by helping them see how much the outside world has developed. [Oh, I finally get it! Kim Jeong-il just doesn't know that he made his country into a repressive shit-hole! If he only knew how well other countries are doing everything would change in a snap of his chubby little fingers.] o Although there are views that the South's economic assistance could be diverted for military purposes and that the process of distribution is not transparent, we believe that transparency is on the rise. [Here it comes, proof of transparency...]   - There are about 90 people from various international organizations, including the WFP, residing in North Korea for monitoring purposes. Out of 206 cities and gun(counties), monitoring of 162 cities and counties is possible. [90 people with heavily restricted travel monitoring an entire country. Ok, that's good enough for me.] - When we delivered 400,000 tons of rice to North Korea in 2003, not only did North Korea notify us of the details of the distribution, but workers from the South were allowed to visit the actual distribution sites as well. Yeah, right. "Visit" does not mean "monitor." So some South Korean workers went to a distribution point and saw the rice there at that moment. Maybe they even saw some North Koreans get some rice. Now perhaps all was as it appeared, but how easy would it be for NK to stage something like that? Were any of the "distribution details" independently verified? Of course not. NK puts on a show and the Sunshine Boys pee their pants in delight. And are we to assume that was the only time NK allowed any sort of verification of where aid went? Nothing in 2004? And to this day does South Korea have any idea where the 500 million dollars (US) that was given to Kim Jeong il for the 2000 Summit has gone? Yeah, didn't think so.

Read through the "Do you think the Sunshine Policy has resulted in any change in North Korea?" question for even more laughs.

Beginning in 2007, expect 5 more years of this kind of bullshit. Chung also ensures that there will be no more mass defections from North Korea, saying, "We disapprove of the mass defections. There will be no more large-scale arrivals
of defectors in Seoul.''

They wouldn't want to put the brakes on all of this great "progress" they are making changing the North Korean government, you see.

Chung Dong Young's special message to the little girl who is watching her parents getting dragged back to North Korea where imprisonment, starvation and possible public execution await: Fuck you and the empty rice bowl you came with.

For Kim Jeong-il and co., these indeed are the best of times.

Here is Chung as a fresh-faced, well-fed 18-year-old boy right out of high school.

Way back then did he ever dream that one day he might have the chance to damn 10's of thousands of North Koreans to starvation, torture and death?

Chung got into the eye of the public at large through the ill-fated impeachment proceedings last year (I believe that's him in the back of this tearful group-hug). Chung managed to get more coverage on the news than any other Woori party member.

Great show, folks. You can always fall back on an acting career in tear-jerking Korean dramas if this politics thing doesn't work out for you.

A friend of mine met Chung at an international conference held a few weeks ago. She worked at the event as an assistant who helped the dignitaries (including Adrian Foster Carter). She was very excited to meet Chung (she's a Woori party member) but was disappointed when he was rude to her and everyone else who wasn't a dignitary or from the press.

What? Chung Dong Young? Champion of the masses?  Truly shocking. 

By contrast, she was very impressed with Adrian Foster-Carter and Prime Minister Koh-gun who were genuinely friendly and treated everyone, even the "commoners," very well.

Chung also got himself in the news during the political campaigning
that followed the impeachment debacle. He stated that old people in
Korea didn't know much about politics and should just stay home. That
got him in a lot of trouble, leading him to making some "heartfelt" public apologies to some randomly selected old people.

Don't worry, Chung, by the time elections roll around in 2007 a lot of those "ignorant old people" will have died off, leaving only the "knowledgable" youth of Corea to sweep you into office and undo everything the old generation worked so hard to build.

So here he is, Korea: Your future leader.

Yay Me!!!