Korean tourism oils peace levers
There are few places that carry the air of threat and mystique as North Korea and the infamous demilitarised zone that separates it from South Korea.
An international flashpoint for decades, the heavily-fortified border is lined with soldiers from both sides, who stand guard within metres of each other at the joint security area (JSA) where the demarcation line is drawn.
It is not so long ago that nuclear testing by the rogue nation North Korea sparked the threat of war.
But as tensions ease and both countries work towards disarming the border, talk has already turned to making the area a major tourist attraction.
With the dust barely settled on a series of explosions to blow up guard posts, North Korea is reportedly developing a tour programme for foreigners.
South Korea is also making plans to turn the JSA into a major tourism attraction themed on peace. The tours would take tourists across the demarcation line and the 50cm-wide cement slab where North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea’s President Moon Jae-In embraced during their historic meeting earlier this year. Demilitarised zone (DMZ) tourism is already a big revenue earner for South Korea and a constant stream of tour buses delivers 1.2 million foreigners and South Koreans to surrounding tourist attractions daily. Jostling for their attention among the more sombre memorials to the decades-long Korean conflict, are traditional Korean food stalls, souvenir shops, coffee bars and high-end make-up stores.
There is also a children’s fun park and mock-ups of the JSA, where tourists queue for photographs. At a hill-top observatory tourists can gaze across at North Korea but for now that is as close as it gets after the JSA was closed to news media and tourists due to heightened sensitivities around the current peace talks.
But while the area has potential to be a lucrative tourism earner for the two Koreas, that is not the only motivation for Moon, who has provided much of the impetus for the current peace process.
It is hoped opening the border to tourists will ease tensions in the Korean peninsula which has long lived under the threat of war. After years of punitive sanctions, an impoverished North Korea is in desperate need of new sources of revenue.
Moon has used that to reach out to his impoverished neighbour and seed the promise that with peace there will be greater prosperity.
On Friday, a South Korean survey train crossed the heavily guarded border into North Korea with a survey team on board to assess repairing the country’s decrepit rail network.
But Moon has had to walk a careful line in his engagement with North Korea, which runs counter to the United States’ policy of ‘‘maximum pressure’’ until such time the international community is satisfied it has fulfilled its promise to denuclearise. The rail excursion required a special United Nations exemption and South Korean officials have been at pains to point out it is for the purposes of a survey only.
That is because any efforts by South Korea to help the North upgrade its railway would flout the current sanctions.
Officials insist, however, that the survey is a goodwill gesture to the North and a promise of things to come if it complies with the demands to disarm.
Moon – who arrived in New Zealand for a visit yesterday – is fresh from a G20 summit where he met with US President Donald Trump in the hope of the US bending on his policy of engagement. But he reportedly came away empty handed, with the US concerned that despite North Korean rhetoric there are few visible or concrete signs of denuclearisation.
Moon is also expected to raise the issue of sanctions with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Foreign Minister Winston Peters.
New Zealand air force planes play a role in enforcing the sanctions, alongside our traditional allies, the US and Australia. Any repositioning by our government in favour of Moon’s call for greater engagement would put us at odds with those allies.
That is because the US view is that tough new sanctions were what brought North Korea to the table and any relaxation now would ease the pressure on Kim to comply.
There is also concern that the ‘‘give a little, get a little’’ approach with North Korea has failed in the past, which is why the US is insisting on full and verifiable de-nuclearisation before the international community considers any relaxation in its sanctions.
Tracy Watkins travelled to Korea with funding from the US Department of State, the public affairs unit of the US embassy in Seoul and Meridian International. Their stated purpose in funding foreign journalists is to examine the policy of the US and its allies toward North Korea.