韩国有个统一部，这就像Macey's百货里有个圣诞老人，可以拿来哄小孩。就算是到首尔匆忙走一趟，也会发现，对统一真正感兴趣的韩国人为数极少。让失散多年的亲人团聚，说起来不错（1953年结束的内战害得亲人们生生分隔两地）。可在现实中，很多韩国人看不起“土包子”北方佬，也害怕把自己富裕、一片光明的国家和落后、锈迹斑斑的“废铁桶”朝鲜硬是结合在一起，会带来惨重的社会和经济成本。
韩国现任总统李明博抛弃了与朝鲜亲善的“阳光政策”，转而奉行总体上来说更加冷淡的疏远政策，但去年有一次接受采访时，他依然述说着虚幻的统一前景：“最终朝鲜半岛将实现和平统一，这一点从来没有变过，也仍是我们的目标。”说到这里，他停顿了一下，接着话峰一转：“不过，虽然是这么说，但我并不认为在不远的将来能够实现和平统一。”
不远的将来永远不会到来。民调显示，多达半数的韩国人表示希望最终实现统一；但也有接近半数的人希望“长久友好共存”，这不就是“绝对不行”的意思吗？当朝鲜人真的跑到韩国（很多人历尽艰辛、甚至冒死取道中国或者蒙古才到达韩国）后，往往发现自己没有受到热情欢迎。韩国有5000万人口，而跑到韩国的朝鲜人只有1.5万多一点。就算是这样，还是有韩国人抱怨政府太慷慨接济新到来的朝鲜人。
芭芭拉•戴米克(Barbara Demick)在《没什么可嫉妒的》(Nothing to Envy)一书中，讲述了韩朝两国在半个世纪的分隔中是如何变得疏远的。新近抵达韩国的朝鲜人看到广告牌上全然陌生的代码——HDTV, MTV, MP3, MP4, XP, TGIF, BBQ,等等——会大为吃惊。17岁的韩国男孩说的是不同的语言，满嘴从英语里借用过来的词语，他们的个子也比朝鲜的同龄人高出5英寸。
就连提出与朝鲜建立“共同经济区”的韩国已故前总统卢武铉，当年在这个问题上也是小心翼翼的。2005年在柏林发表演讲时，卢武铉表示：“德国为实现国家统一付出了高昂代价，至今还在承受着这一负担。我希望朝鲜半岛不会重蹈这个覆辙。”从韩国的角度来看，统一的经济代价太过惨痛，让人望而却步。1989年德国实行统一时，东德的人均国内生产总值(GDP)是西德的三分之一。而韩朝两国的人均GDP至少相差15倍。
现在就连提统一话题都是异想天开。韩国仍在为3月份一艘军舰沉没、造成46人死亡的事件心痛不已。这件事嫌疑最大的就是朝鲜。在怪罪朝鲜问题上，李明博表现得十分谨慎。在“天安舰沉没事件”六周后，韩国上周举行了最高军事会议，李明博在会上说出的最严厉的话是，沉船事件“不是意外事故”。他承诺要采取“明确、坚定”的措施。
假如调查员不知怎的竟然找到了铁证，证明朝鲜真的是罪魁祸首——但愿不是这种结果——李明博将会十分难办。他要么下令展开空前的军事报复，要么什么都不做。在前一种情况下，行事诡异（且拥有粗糙的核武器）的朝鲜可能会以牙还牙，甚至升级冲突。后一种情况就是把问题提交到联合国，促使国际社会严厉谴责朝鲜。
不论韩国怎么做，朝鲜似乎始终抱定“核勒索”策略。就连实力强大、唯一能够对朝鲜施加些许影响的中国，也似乎一直找不到连贯的战略。上周，北京欢迎朝鲜领导人金正日秘密访华，似乎再次宽恕了平壤方面。金正日到访中国两个大港口，引发了如下猜测：中国将进一步投资于朝鲜东北部的罗津港，以便获得进入日本海的途径。对中国来说，选择之一也许是逐步扩大这种影响力，进一步使朝鲜处于自己的控制之下。
除了让中国逐步扩大影响力之外，唯一的选择就是实现统一之梦（或者说噩梦）。高盛(Goldman Sachs)去年在一项研究报告中指出，如果运作得当，统一事实上可能是有利的，韩国将可得到矿产和劳动力，这正是其老龄化且资源贫乏的经济所需要的。这种观点可能有点过于乐观。但让人纳闷的是，统一怎么就变成了如此虚幻的命题呢？根据一些记载，这两个国家从公元前两千多年起就是一体的，不过是分开了60年左右。与其提议轰炸朝鲜或者进一步制裁其本已摇摇欲坠的经济，李明博真的可以掀起一些风浪。他可以提议韩朝统一。
译者/杨远
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001032522
South Korea has a Ministry of Unification in the same way that Macey's has a Father Christmas. It is something nice to tell the children. Even a cursory trip to Seoul reveals that very few South Koreans have much stomach for reunification. It is nice to talk about a yearning to be reunited with one's long-lost family, cruelly separated by a civil war that ended in 1953. But in reality, many South Koreans are sniffy about “country-bumpkin” northerners and fearful about the wrenching social and economic costs of welding their rich, shiny country to the backward rust-bucket that is North Korea.
In an interview last year, Lee Myung-bak, the South Korean president who has ditched the sunshine policy of warmer relations with Pyongyang for an altogether icier stand-off, maintained the fiction. “The endgame is peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula. That has never changed and that will remain our objective,” he said. There was a pause. “However, having said that, I do not foresee peaceful reunification in the near future.”
The near future never comes. Opinion polls suggest that up to half of South Koreans express a wish for eventual reunification. But nearly as many would prefer “prolonged friendly co-existence”, which looks suspiciously like code for “not on your life”. When North Koreans actually do make it south – many after arduous, sometimes death-defying journeys through China or Mongolia – they often find anything but a warm welcome. Only a little more than 15,000 North Koreans have made it to a country of 50m. Even so, some South Koreans resent what they regard as overly generous state handouts to the new arrivals.
In her book, Nothing to Envy, Barbara Demick describes how the two countries have drifted apart in their half century of separation. One recent arrival to South Korea is astonished by the billboards advertising things in an altogether unfamiliar code: HDTV, MTV, MP3, MP4, XP, TGIF, BBQ. The average 17-year-old South Korean male speaks a different language,
peppered with expressions borrowed from English, and is five inches taller than his North Korean counterpart.
Even the late Roh Moo-hyun, a former president who floated the idea of a joint economic bloc with the North, took a cautious approach. Speaking in Berlin in 2005, he said: “Germany paid a high price to realise national unification and is still suffering from it. I hope Korea will not undergo the same.” From Seoul, the economic pain of national fusion looks prohibitive. At the time of their reunification in 1989, East German gross domestic product per capita was one-third of that in West Germany. In the case of the Koreas, the difference is 15 times or more.
It seems almost fey to bring up the subject at all. South Korea is still reeling from the sinking of one its warships in March with the loss of 46 lives. The prime suspect is North Korea. Mr Lee has been enormously circumspect about laying the blame on Pyongyang. Six weeks after the downing of the Cheonan, the most he could muster during a gathering of his country's top military brass this week was to say that the sinking was “no accident”. He promised “clear and resolute” measures.
If, God forbid, investigators somehow turn up incontrovertible proof that Pyongyang really was to blame, Mr Lee will be in the tightest of corners. Either he orders an unprecedented military retaliation, with the risk that an unpredictable (and crudely nuclear-armed) Pyongyang responds in kind – or worse. The alternative is to do nothing, which is to say take the issue to the United Nations in pursuit of a stern global ticking off.
Pyongyang seems hell-bent on its policy of nuclear extortion whatever Seoul does. Even the mighty China, the only country with a smidgen of leverage, has fumbled for a coherent strategy. This week, Beijing appeared to be cutting Pyongyang yet more slack by welcoming Kim Jong-il, North Korea's leader, for a secretive visit. His tour of two large Chinese ports has led to speculation that Beijing will invest further in Rajin port in north-east North Korea, giving it coveted access to the Sea of Japan. One option for China might be gradually to extend such influence, bringing North Korea more firmly under its control.
The only alternative to creeping Chinese influence is the dream – or nightmare – of unification. A study last year by Goldman Sachs found that, if properly handled, reunification could actually be of benefit, providing South Korea with the minerals and labour force its ageing, resource-poor economy needs. That view may be a little too rosy. But it is strange how reunification of two countries – by some accounts one entity since the third millennium BC and apart for just some 60 years – has become such a fantastical proposition. Rather than proposing to bomb North Korea or to impose yet more sanctions on its already crumbling economy, Mr Lee could really set the cat among the pigeons. He could propose marriage.
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