“개성공단 폐쇄해야” WSJ

월스트리트저널(WSJ)이 박근혜 대통령에게 개성공단의 폐쇄(閉鎖)를 주문하고 나섰다.

WSJ는 10일 ‘Good Riddance to Kaesong(개성과의 좋은 작별)' 제하의 사설을 통해 “김정은 정권의 연장에 도움을 주는 개성공단을 북한이 차단한만큼 이 기회를 활용해 영원히 폐쇄해야만 한다”며 강경보수언론으로서의 색채를 드러냈다.

저널은 서울의 맞은편 비무장지대 북쪽에 ‘햇볕정책’의 일환으로 문을 연 개성공단엔 123개의 기업과 5만3천명의 종업원들이 일하고 있다고 소개했다. 개성공단 기업들은 직접 북한정부에 임금을 지불하고 근로자들은 적은 지분만을 받으며 직원들은 정치적 충성심을 고려해 선발해서 북한 정부가 뽑는다고 덧붙였다.

많은 한국인들은 개성공단을 통해 북한이 평화적으로 중국스타일의 경제개혁으로 나아갈 것이라고 믿었지만 이같은 희망은 날아가버렸다고 지적했다.

개성공단에서 매년 지급되는 임금은 9천만 달러에 달하고 한국 기업들은 공단에 8억4천500만 달러를 투자했다. 이는 2011년 40억 달러의 상품을 수입한 헐벗은 전체주의 정권에 의미있는 도움이 되고 있다는 것이다.

저널은 또 개성공단이 북한에 한국인 직원 400명이 만약의 사태 발생시 인질(人質)이 될 수 있다고 우려했다. 신문은 “박 대통령이 개성공단 중단 사태가 북한에 대한 미래의 투자에 악영향을 미칠 것이라고 했지만 이것만으로는 충분치 않다”면서 “한국 근로자들을 돌아오게 하고 입주업체에 투자손실을 보전해주는 게 덜 손해를 보는 결과가 될 것”이라고 주장했다.

뉴욕=임지환특파원 jhlim@newsroh.com

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Good Riddance to Kaesong <WSJ>

Pyongyang blocked South Korean managers and supplies from reaching the Kaesong Industrial Complex last week, and on Tuesday the North's workers "boycotted" the special economic zone. This is one more part of Kim Jong Eun's plan to create a crisis to force Seoul and Washington to sue for peace by paying blackmail to Pyongyang. Instead, South Korean President Park Geun-hye should seize this opportunity to declare Kaesong a misguided experiment and shut it down for good.

Kaesong opened in 2004 as part of the "sunshine policy" of engagement with the North pursued by former South Korean Presidents Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun. Some 123 companies employ 53,000 workers in a city-sized area north of the Demilitarized Zone opposite Seoul.

At the time, many South Koreans still believed that the North might respond to peaceful overtures and pursue Chinese-style economic reforms. Very few remain so naive after the North torpedoed a South Korean ship and shelled a fishing village in 2010. Hopes that the North's young new leader would rein in the military and encourage private enterprise were dashed over the past year.

Kaesong might have a better claim as a model for the North if it followed the South's labor laws. Instead the companies pay wages directly to the government, which lets workers keep a small fraction. That may still be more than most in the North earn. But then the workers are also hand-picked by the government, no doubt for their political loyalty.

Experts on the North's mercurial ways speculate that it is squeezing Kaesong to prove that it doesn't depend on the foreign exchange income earned there. Perhaps Pyongyang's leaders were insulted by South Korean media reports to that effect. The illusion of the North's superiority over the capitalist South must be maintained at any cost, so Pyongyang claims it was doing the South a favor by providing cheap labor.

Back in the real world, the complex brings in $90 million in wages annually, and South Korean firms have invested a total of $845 million so far. Those are considerable sums for an impoverished totalitarian regime that in 2011 imported goods worth $4 billion. The South currently provides less than $20 million in humanitarian aid annually.

Kaesong provides the North with access to another valuable commodity: hostages. Some 400 South Koreans are still inside the complex, and while there is no indication so far that they can't leave, their presence gives Seoul less room to maneuver. The companies that have invested there are also a vocal lobby for avoiding any action that might offend Pyongyang.

President Park warned Tuesday that the suspension of operations at Kaesong would deter future investment in the North. That's true, but it doesn't go far enough. She has been handed an opening to call the North's bluff and order the South Korean employees to come home. Paying off the companies for their lost investment would be a small price to remove this prop for a murderous regime.