Kim Dae-jung Quotes

Democracy is the absolute value that makes for human dignity, as well as the only road to sustained economic development and social justice.

Only the truly magnanimous and strong are capable of forgiving and loving.

Unification is not our present goal. That is a future program.

I think a major cause of present Asian economic difficulties that mainly come from, you know, lack of market economy.

You know, North Korea situation is far worse than East Germany, and South Korea is weaker than West Germany.

American presence is, you know, the major cause of balance of power and the stability in this region.

Unification is one thing, and stability in Northeast Asia is another thing.

And also, we are providing, you know, a nuclear power plant in the north, two light water systems, so some 4 or 5 billion dollars we are providing to meet with North Korean requests on the condition North Korea will not produce a nuclear weapon.

So in Asia I want to make - I want to succeed to make a model of what success, practicing democracy, and market economy. Then that will give a good influence over Asian countries.

There is some sign that North Korea is changing recently. There is ongoing successful negotiation to have a military talk to Pyongyang, which has been stopped for seven years.

Well, that is very imperative to let North Korea open door to outside.

But such IMF pressure is very much helpful for me to push such a, you know, reform. So in this sense I think IMF is very much helpful for alien society.

So South Korean ability is very much limited to handle North Korean, you know, difficulties. So we don't want to see an immediate collapse of the North Korea regime.

So now we are pushing economic reform, bank reform and enterprise reform. So we can finish that reform this year, in September or October. Then our economy may be much more, you know, normalized.

So such an American troops presence in Korea in the South and Japan, total some 100,000 should stay there forever, even after unification of Korean peninsula.

To realize peace on the Korean peninsula, and to develop exchange, cooperation between both Koreas, they are the, you know, immediate target of our government.

If America would withdraw from South Korea, there could be a power struggle between such as China and Japan.

So if North Korea continues present isolation, then with such economic difficulties the North Korean government must meet a very serious situation in the future.