I talked to a "wall expert" in college who mentioned the severe strain East Germany was on West Germany after reunification, because of the economic disparity.

Her theory was that reunification of the Koreas would be very messy given the economic disparity between the two nations, and that SK doesn't want it.

That being said I would hope that NK actually goes along with joint projects with its neighbors. Not like the aid will stop if they're more amicable.

The politics become a bit less rough if we're still talking about 2 regimes I think

I was in West Germany during and after reunification. It definitely turned out to be much more difficult and expensive than most people expected. Considering that East Germany was much wealthier than North Korea I expect building them up will be even more difficult. Some people will benefit greatly but overall it will probably a massive expense for South Korea without any benefit for most citizens.

An end to the looming spectre of war seems like a gigantic benefit to the citizenry.

Sure. But there is a also a big price to pay by regular citizens. From West Germany it didn't feel like a triumph or something worth celebrating.

NK rare earth minerals are fuel for the tech industry in SK. Probably worth 6-10 trillions USD [0]. Well enough to pay any bill.

[0] https://www.google.de/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/ljkelly/201...

But NKers moving to SK is akin to refugees since the culture shock could be huge. SK may end up having another brexit.

Germany is now an economic powerhouse. The unification paid off big long term.

It was a powerhouse before. From my memory the mood in the West got worse. There were tax raises and a lot of uncertainty when it became clear that it wasn't as easy as initially planned to get the East going economically. There was a substantial number of people on both sides who wanted the wall back.

I am not saying the reunification wasn't worth it but it was much more difficult than people may think.

For what it's worth, the West German government did honor East German marks 1-to-1, even though there was a gigantic disparity in value of both currencies. That alone was an enormous cost of the unification.

A lot of people thought that was a huge mistake. After the wall fell there was also a democratic East Germany for 2 years (?). I think a lot of people would have been OK with keeping them separate for a while but chancellor Kohl wanted to put his name on history and forced the reunification.

That (about Germany) is only partially true. Sure, the whole german state made the reunification financially possible but most of the state owned stuff (economic land & buildings etc) ended up being owned by the Bund and not the federal states. Most of it was (and still is) privatized while the federal states, citites and people having not much money which lead to many (somewhat richer) people from the west being able to buy cheap property, land and some profitable companies.

So to sum my points up: I could totally be in the South Koreans interest to reunify in order to buy cheap property in the north (and at the same time a very good reason for North Koreans to not want it, even though they would gain an immediate financial benefit through it).

Most property owned by private people before the GDR was founded was repatriated to the former owners, which was a messy process and as can be seen in Berlin, took up to now (goes for houses, gardens, fields, small shops etc.) This was further complicated because Jewish property also needed to be repatriated - with most owners murdered - as it wasn't given back by the GDR after the Nazis confiscated it.

Public land in the GDR is now owned by the German state.

"some profitable companies"

Most companies were transfered to an institution ("Treuhandanstalt") founded by the GDR. Most of these folded, because people in the GDR stopped buying former-GDR products and bought from West companies as soon as the Mark was introduced with a stupid 1:1 exchange rate instead of the real 1:7 (but it got the chancellor reelected). Additionally all export markets in Eastern Europe broke down. Imagine a company losing ALL it's customers and in the need to find new ones while still having thousands of employees. I'm not sure many companies today would survive this.

With an 1:1 exchange rate no company was profitable, most due to not enough machines working and too many people (many machines were run down in the 80s and couldn't be repaired). Funny story from former left-terrorist (RAF) members who fled to the GDR and when working in companies there (VEB) thought "this never works" because the whole company owned one xerox.

I don't think NK has a lot of functional companies though, with most people being farmers, so this should be mood.

do you have jabber or something i could talk to you on?

Reunification is probably off any conceivable timeline for now, but opening up immigration would be nearly as big a shock. As you mention, the economic disparity is massive - probably the starkest of any neighboring countries in the world. It could give rise to an even more complicated and acrimonious immigration debate than exists in the US or EU today.

If I was to design a reunification strategy, I'd probably start with limited emigration/immigration into and out of the country. Open up trade as much as possible (except for defense). Start allowing the people of the North to build up capital, and have a reason for staying. When the country is more stable, then I'd open up immigration more widely.

I'd also ensure basic human rights are currently being addressed. I don't have a solution for past violations, that's a tough issue.

Basically, I'd go with the China model.

SK and NK could do it differently. Germany didn't have to subsidize the East so much.

Also, German unification was a huge burden on all of Europe, not just Western Germany.

I was in S. Korea for a bit and I heard a North Korean ex-patriot speak and she said something I thought was really wise. Which was - what's in it for S. Korea when it comes to reconciliation? N. Korea is way behind in terms of technology, infrastructure, standard of living. If there were any sort of reunification, it would fall mostly on S. Korea's shoulders to build N. Korea up to a reasonable standard of living, and that would involve committing to an enormous public expenditure for a very long time.

S. Korean leaders may publically speak about the desire for reconciliation, but it's unlikely that they would seriously pursue it considering the economic and political strain it would place on S. Korea.

N. Koreans have a much greater interest in reunification than the South does. But that interest doesn't extend to those in power in the North who would certainly be reluctant to give up that power.

So while reunification might seem like a nice sentiment, it doesn't seem like something that those in power of either side actually want.

Economically speaking, it would add millions of people to the working stock of south korea, plus extensive land to build new cities and such. It would guarantee decades of profitable investment and growth.

The Wikipedia article for East/West German unification has a quote of a cost for reunification of about 10% of South Koreas GDP/year over a 20 year period. And North Korea 2018 appears to have a lot more catching up to do than Eastern Germany had in 1989.

Long-term I'm sure it would be profitable, but would South Korea dare make that investment in their current period of tremendous growth? The opportunity cost loss is massive. Would US/China help invest?

If N.Korea liberalized its economy private capital will do wonders, from everywhere in the world. The costs of the bureaucrats to create passports and the sort is negligible. It would be different if the government wanted to build schools, cities, buildings and the such, but that is an option not a necessity.

In principle, I would not make the government pay for anything significant and it would sort itself out.

But South Korea does not need more working stock. They already have a tough time keeping their younger population employed.[0] Also as North Korea is mostly mountainous there's not a whole lot of new "city-building" area.

[0] https://tradingeconomics.com/south-korea/youth-unemployment-...

Strange is the person that disdains the fruits of other's labor.

South Korean willingness is also a question mark for re-unification. From polls and interviews I've heard with young South Koreans, both the culture divide and the economic burden make them unenthusiastic about the idea.

Perhaps a slow process that starts with closer economic and social ties?

> I never thought I'd see this happen.

Why? Societies/nations/etc always change. Given the state of NK, what's shocking is that it didn't happen sooner.

> I'm not incredibly familiar with the situation as it stands, but is re-unification a legitimate possibility?

Reunification is inevitable just like it was between east and west germany. The only question is when.

In the meantime, if all goes to plan, it looks like the koreas + US/China are going to officially end the korean war and relations between north korea and south korea + US are going to be normalized and we will ostensibly get the "unofficial" end of the cold war. Of course the biggie being north korea giving up their nukes.