Can Koreas be reunified?

In 1950, the Korean Peninsula has been divided into two countries affected by the cold war; the communist authority in the north and the democratic state in the south (Wikipedia, 2014). There are some people, especially with Koreans who also have their families in the other state, that really want North totalitarian regime be unified with the South regime, which will bring peace to the peninsular after long disputes for seven decades. However, this is such a difficult issue to deal with while there are more players in the scene than we might thought before.

In Charles Scanlon's article "North and South Korea exchange fire across western sea border" (Scanlon, 2014), North Korea held live-fire drills in seven parts of the border area while South Korea returned fire after North Korea shells landed in its territorial water, which both sides, according to Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-soek, exchanged hundreds of shells. Historically, there were numbers of incidents which both countries had borderland disputes over five-year period, which there is still unclear on the North Korea's nuclear threat.

Despite of difficulties of how Koreans emerge their two authorities in one, there are so many superpowers who still play in this "proxy war" which made this more complicated though the cold war era have ended for near three decades. China, for example, is still supporting North Korea as the major trade partner in order to solve her borderland risk around the peninsular area from the US which has influenced in the South for more than sixty years ago. Managing such "buffer state" is much safer than confronting with the US's ally and would be a good strategy from the bird-eye view; to let the North Korea do anything to protect China in return, then she will have more time and resources to focus on another border and ethnic conflicts with others such as Tibet, Russia, Xinjiang Uyghur ethnic and islands conflict with Japan, Chinese Taipei and several South East Asian countries; Viet Nam, Malaysia and Philippines.

Also, USA is another major state actor in this conflict. Although she has won the cold war after the collapse of Berlin wall in 1989 (Wikipedia, 2014), it seems that USA have planned to seize opportunity to take control China and Asia-Pacific countries in order to restore her hegemony power again. There are several multilateral and bilateral negotiations among six countries such as North and South Korea, USA, Russia, Japan and China, however, the situation is unsatisfactory for the USA and her allies. Once my friend who studied in international relations had told me a radical comment that USA doesn't really want to solve this conflict but maintain it in order to make stability in US internal politic, which this reason can be applied to explain the Iran's nuclear threat as well.

I have no idea with these conspiracy theories in the international politics. Perhaps I should think about the Southern Thailand and compare it with this case. If there will be a new state in the south, I think it will be better than what had occurred in the Korean Peninsular because of there is no such intervention from the superpowers as like as in the Korea, which means that peace negotiation between stakeholders (Thai government and the new one) is easier than both Koreas and their players. Also, this case can be applied with our recent political conflicts in Thailand; broken glass cannot be the same one and early negotiation between each sides is required. However, there are some problems which still exist and to find the truth may cause more conflict than what had occurred nowadays.

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Reference

Cold War. (2014, March 31). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 13:53, March 31, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cold_War&oldid=602108253.

Korean War. (2014, March 30). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 13:24, March 31, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Korean_War&oldid=601964898.

Scanlon, C. (2014, March 31). North and South Korea exchange fire across western sea border. BBC News. Retrieved March 31, 2014 from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26815041.