North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un can launch a rocket this month in defiance of international opprobrium and still look forward to better relations with South Korea’s next president.
The candidates in the Dec. 19 election to head Asia’s fourth-biggest economy are outdoing each other in pledges to re- engage with the totalitarian state, undeterred by Kim’s plan to fire a rocket as soon as next week. The ruling New Frontier Party’s Park Geun Hye vows to help the regime join global organizations and opposition nominee Moon Jae In promises to boost tourism and invite North Koreans to his inauguration.
Ties have soured during the five-year term of outgoing President Lee Myung Bak, highlighted by North Korean missile and atomic bomb tests and two clashes in 2010 that killed 50 South Koreans. Mending fences may offer companies in the South expanded access to a joint industrial zone while bringing aid to Kim, whose economy is one-fortieth the size of his rival.
looking beyond borders 