Korea is One!

Democratic Korean leader Kim Jong Un took a giant step for peace last week when he crossed the Armistice line in Panmunjom for talks with the south Korean leader, Moon Jae In. Their joint declaration and modest first steps to north–south normalisation that have followed will, hopefully, pave the way for the “new era of peace” that both leaders have pledged to work for.

Moon Jae In is responding to the demand for peace on the street that propelled him into office at the last election whilst his party reflects the views of realistic circles within the south Korean ruling class that want an end to American-inspired confrontation and a return to economic co-operation with the people’s government in the north.

Kim Jong Un is following in the footsteps of great leader Kim Il Sung, who first proposed the establishment of a united confederal republic based on the principle of ‘one country, two systems’ back in 1980. That’s the principle that led to the peaceful return of the former British and Portuguese colonies of Hong Kong and Macau to People’s China in 1997, and it’s one that clearly would end the imperialist imposed partition of the Korean peninsula.

Last week’s summit showed that the Korean people as a whole can resolve their problems without outside interference. Whether or not they will depends on US imperialism, which has regularly intervened in south Korean politics since 1945 to prop up venal, puppet leaders willing to do the bidding of Washington, and whose troops continue to occupy south Korea and threaten the north.

US president Donald Trump has been claiming credit for the north–south summit and some of his supporters are campaigning for a Nobel Peace Prize for the war-lord in the White House. The peace prize is discredited by the fact that past recipients include former US president Barack Obama, Henry Kissinger – the chief henchman of disgraced US president Richard Nixon – and Mikhail Gorbachov, as well as three Israeli leaders. But the immensely vain Donald Trump clearly wants it as another trophy achievement. Well, if he wants it let him earn it when he meets Kim Jong Un in the near future by taking genuine steps for peace on the Korean peninsula and withdrawing all US troops from south Korea.