North and South Korea appear to be finally open to a reconciliation. But while people in the United States fight over the claim that President Donald Trump had anything to do with it, it’s clear that good relations between the sister nations are a better deal for everybody than North Korea remaining isolated and potentially ready for war.
As a demonstration of how serious the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is about this unity, the country will shift its time zone 30 minutes earlier. This, the state-run news organization said, is the “first practical step for national reconciliation and unity.”
During the meeting between Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday, the two leaders promised to finally bring an end to the Korean War. They also promised to work together to “denuclearize” the peninsula. To the region, this means that in a short while the borders could reopen for commerce, finally bringing prosperity to a people who have known nothing but misery in the past five decades.
To the world, this means one fewer ongoing war. And as such, one fewer reason for the United States to send its military abroad with the goal of being the world’s police.
Hurrah for that!
But while many are still skeptical, and with good reason, it isn’t too far-fetched to think that opening the lines of communication between the two Koreas could maximize, and not diminish, freedom over time. Even if it takes years, if not decades, to completely rid the North from the Kim dynasty. Until then, we must not forget the immense suffering North Korea’s current and past leaders have inflicted on their people. Criticizing and bringing up their crimes matters. Just as it matters to continue to bring up America’s long history of intervention abroad and the disastrous consequences that it entailed. But peace also matters.
As we know from Frédéric Bastiat’s teachings if goods and services are not free to cross political borders because of short-sighted and tyrannical governments, then it is much more likely that soldiers and violence will.Bringing the Korean war to an end will undoubtedly help to boost free commerce, weakening the military strain ruling the relationship of the two nations for the past decades.
As we enter a new era of peace in the Korean Peninsula, let us hope that the lessons learned from this decades-long conflict will remain fresh in the minds of U.S. elected officials for many decades to come.
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