United States and South Korea Policies Essay -- Foreign Policy

The United States (US) and the Republic of South Korea (ROK) has had several significant policy agreements and disagreements between each other for several decades after the Korean War. During President George W. Bush’s tenure in office at the White House, a couple key policy agreements between the US and ROK came to light, such as President Kim Dae Jung’s â€Å"Sunshine Policy1† officially known as the Policy of Reconciliation and Cooperation toward North Korea. The Sunshine Policy did not fare to well with Bush’s administration and they considered Kim naà ¯ve and completely annulled the Policy all together. This was due to the ROK’s passive stance on North Korea’s ongoing nuclear program. The title of â€Å"The Sunshine Policy† originates from a fable told by Aesop called, â€Å"The North Wind and the Sun2.† This fable is how the sun and the wind competed with each other to take off a man’s coat. Eventually, the sun won this challenge by just using his sunlight on the man, caused the man to become hot, which resulted in him taking off his coat. On the other hand, the wind used his brute force in an attempt to blow off the man’s coat, which only had him hold on to it tighter. This analogy was to compare the hard and soft approaches of power to counter the North Korean threat to the ROK and the rest of the world. Kim led the way to culminate and drive the ROK towards a bilateral forum between North and South Korea, which eventually held place in Pyongyang in 2000 between the two leaders of the Korean peninsula. The policy bears six characteristics to be used accordingly with North Korea3: 1. â€Å"First it is a policy with historical precedence in its favor.† Policies that attempted to utilize a hard approach in seceding authoritarian... ...a/1999/reunification22.html Assessed May 11, 2012. Syner, Scott A. â€Å"South Korea’s Roh Moo hyun: An Impossible Idealist.† Council of Foreign Relations, May 23, 2009. Web: http://www.cfr.org/south-korea/south-koreas-roh-moo-hyun-impossible-idealist/p19487 Assessed May 6, 2012. United States Institute of Peace. â€Å"Six-Party Talks: Defining a Roadmap for Success.† Web: http://www.usip.org/publications/six-party-talks-defining-realistic-roadmap-success Assessed May 10, 2012. Wald, Mary. â€Å"Kim Dae Jung: A Hero for Peace.† Huff Post World, August 18, 2009. Web: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-wald/kim-dae-jung-a-hero-for-p_b_262296.html Assessed May 10, 2012. Yang, Sung Chul. â€Å"South Korea’s Sunshine Policy.† Asiansociety.org, December 4, 2000. Web: http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/unpan005966.pdf Assessed May 7, 2012.