a conflict which reflects the harsh ideological divide, uneveneconomic development and the build-up of menacing military forces, including nuclearcapabilities.Can Korean standoff and confrontation continue? Will the break-up of the Soviet Union, thedisappearance of its Communist Party, the ensuing policies towards the market economy, theeconomic reforms in China and new diplomatic alignments in the region trigger Koreanunification? What are the lessons from the German experience? I will attempt to shed light onthe these and numerous other issues associated with the Korean unification process.Germany and Korea Similarities and Differences for UnificationWhile the unification of Germany was treated as a national issue, it actually has and willcontinue to have considerable international implications. Germany grew overnight from acountry of some sixty million people to a nation of eighty million. Germany today is one andhalf times the size of Britain, France or Italy.(Dept. Of State and Foreign Affairs) Although todayGermany has enormous economic problems which will remain for at least the next 10 years, allof Germany’s neighbors believe that in the end Germany will come out on top economically. German unification has demonstrated that the re-establishment of the unity of a country evenafter a long period of division and difficulties is possible and that unification can be achieved ina democratic, peaceful way. But despite similarities between the two cases, there may also bemany differences regarding internal and external aspects. Germany and Korea were both divided in the wake of World War II against thebackground of rivalry between capitalist West and the communist East. In both countries, thehope for reunification was slim during the Cold War period. Unlike Germany, North and SouthKorea had fought a ferocious war. The two Germanys, unlike the two Koreas, concluded asystem of treaties to regularize relations at the offici...
