Sunshine Policy

rdf:langString Sunshine Policy

rdf:langString The Sunshine Policy (Korean: 햇볕정책) is the theoretical basis for South Korea's foreign policy towards North Korea. Its official title is The Reconciliation and Cooperation Policy Towards the North (Korean: 대북화해협력정책), and it is also known as The Operational Policy Towards the North (Korean: 대북운영정책) and The Embracing Policy (Korean: 포용정책). The policy emerged largely in the context of the growing economic gap between the two Koreas, where the South was moving in the path of strengthening its nation powered by the economic prosperity achieved from president Park Chung-hee's administration in the 1970s throughout the 1990s while the North was falling into severe economic decline. Facing bankruptcy and spending an excessive portion of its budget on its military along with its nuclear program, North Korea faced widespread starvation among its people at the time. Sunshine Policy was aimed at mitigating this gap in economic power and restoring lost communication between the two States. Furthermore, the background to South Korea's decision to engage North Korea through cooperation rather than maintaining a conservative stance in the past hints to a change in the domestic politics as well. According to Son Key-young, Sunshine Policy emerged ultimately as an evidence of evolving South Korean national identity since the Cold War which "ushered in an era of unprecedented confusion in South Korea over whether to define North Korea as friend or foe" (p. 4) The policy resulted in greater political contact between the two States and some historic moments in Inter-Korean relations; the three Korean summit meetings in Pyongyang (June 2000, October 2007, and September 2018) and two meetings in Panmunjom (April 2018 and May 2018), as well as several high-profile business ventures, and brief meetings of family members separated by the Korean War. In 2000, Kim Dae-jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his implementation of the Sunshine Policy. Following the election of Moon Jae-in in 2017, South Korea began reconciling with North Korea once more, thus beginning a revival of the Sunshine Policy. Moon Jae-in's effort in improving inter-Korean relationship resulted in three inter-Korean summits in a year, including two summits held in Panmunjom (April 2018 and May 2018) that marked the first inter-Korean summits to be held outside of Pyongyang, and one in Pyongyang (September 2018). In recognition of Moon's endeavor in inter-Korean relationship as the first president to hold multiple summits in a year, his version of Sunshine Policy became known as "Moonshine Policy".