CORRECTION APPENDED

“Win-win” was the key phrase for former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung as he described his manner of international negotiations during his speech at the John F. Kennedy, Jr. Forum yesterday.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner spoke before a full audience at the Harvard Kennedy School about the “sunshine policy,” his strategy of using peaceful dialogue to achieve outcomes beneficial to all countries involved in a negotiation.

Kim highlighted what he said were the successes of his policy—for instance, changing the attitudes of the North Korean people from “hateful” to “friendly” by distributing food and fertilizer bearing the names of South Korean companies to the North Korean people.

He pointed to the relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union as an example of how the components of the sunshine policy have been implemented in other parts of the world.

“Though they could not take off communism with a cold wind,” Kim said, “they did it with sunshine.”

Kim emphasized the need for the U.S. to employ the sunshine policy in its foreign activity.

He said that during the Clinton administration, the U.S. was more friendly in its foreign relations, but this changed when President George W. Bush took over the White House and ushered in what Kim called the “ABC Policy”—Anything But Clinton.

“The days of warm sunshine were replaced by those of a cold north wind,” he said.

Kim added that it took Bush six years in office to realize his strategy in the Pacific was not working, prompting his recent openness to discussions with North Korea.

He also warned that it could be catastrophic if the U.S. and Japan put too much military pressure on China, predicting that it would cause Chinese nationalism to explode. Rather, Kim said, implementation of the sunshine policy would be the best way to encourage democracy in China.

After Kim was charged with treason in North Korea in 1980, the United States intervened, allowing him to enter U.S. territory. [CORRECTION APPENDED]

During his exile in the U.S., Kim served as a visiting fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard.

He returned to South Korea in 1985 and was elected to the presidency in December 1997.

The former president was optimistic about the potential for a reunification of North and South Korea.

“We cannot remain divided,” he said. “We cannot survive in this competition age.”

He also noted that the Korean peninsula has only been split for 50 years—after being united as one country for 1,300 years.

Eunji Kim ’11, a native of South Korea, said she was not sure that reunification would be as easy as the former president made it appear.

“Yes, we have been divided for 50 years,” said Ms. Kim. “But a lot of changes have happened in 50 years.”

—Staff writer Lauren D. Kiel can be reached at lkiel@fas.harvard.edu.


CORRECTION

The March 23 story, "IOP Hosts Former South Korean Head," said that former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung was charged with treason in North Korea in 1980. In fact, he was charged with treason in South Korea.