Publications

Last quarter's summary indicated that 2008 could go either way. For almost the whole of the first quarter of 2008, official inter-Korean relations remained suspended in an uneasy limbo. As of late March, that void was the story. That changed on March 27 when the North expelled 11 Southern officials from the Kaesong Industrial Complex, unleashing a war of fierce words – and some deeds. Pyongyang has begun to criticize the new South Korean leader calling him a “traitor,” has expelled South Korean officials from Kaesong, and threatened to turn South Korea to “ashes” as a sign of its discontent with Lee's harder line stance. So, just as the bitter Korean winter gave way to warm spring, the political weather looked headed the opposite way. Hopes that ten years of the “sunshine” policy had rendered such wild swings and squalls a thing of the past may thus have been premature after all.