The controversy touched off by former Foreign Minister Song Min-soon’s memoir exposes – once again – how naive, censurable and risky the South Korean government’s policy toward North Korea has been. 

Song, who served as the top diplomat under Roh Moo-hyun who succeeded Kim Dae-jung’s engagement policy toward the North, said in the memoir that Seoul sought the view of Pyongyang before abstaining from the 2007 UN vote on a resolution about the human rights infringement in the North.

This promptly spawned a war of words between the rival parties and some of those involved in the decision give conflicting testimonies about what happened at the Blue House in November of 2007. But Song, now head of a graduate school specializing in North Korean affairs, insists that the truth is as it is in his memoir.

According to the memoir, determining Seoul’s position on the UN vote was an important issue in November of 2007, but Roh’s key aides were having difficulty reaching an agreement.

Then Kim Man-bok, then the head of the National Intelligence Service, proposed asking the North what it thought about it. Moon Jae-in, then the Blue House chief of staff and now the leading potential presidential candidate of the main opposition party, accepted Kim’s proposal, Song said, adding that Seoul did seek out the opinion of the North and accordingly abstained from the vote.

It was about 40 days after Roh met then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang for the second summit between leaders of the Koreas, which boosted the reconciliatory mood on the peninsula.

By any account, this is ridiculous. It is like a member of the jury or a judge asking a defendant charged with domestic violence whether he would like be found guilty or not guilty. Would anyone who was not insane ask for his own punishment?

Song’s testimony – Moon and the other participants in the 2007 Blue House meeting do not deny the North-South contact in itself – is another piece of evidence that the much-touted engagement policy of the Roh government – and the Kim Dae-jung government before it – resulted in nothing but appeasement and concession. 

Kim started the engagement policy -- naming it the “sunshine policy” -- which led to the historic inter-Korean summit in 2000 and earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. Indeed, the scene of the two Korean leaders shaking hands raised hopes for real reconciliation and eventual unification in the near future.

Under the sunshine policy, the Kim administration poured aid into the North. It sent cash, part of which was in return for agreeing to hold the summit, rice, corn and other relief. The giveaway campaign reached its peak with the start of the Kumgangsan tour program and the opening of the Kaesong Industrial Complex.

But what have we got out of those reconciliatory efforts made by the Kim and Roh administrations -- which were partly continued by the conservative governments of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye?

Using some of the money that we provided, the North has acquired or is close to acquiring the capability to launch a nuclear strike, which raises the fear of war on the peninsula.

The problem is that even the conservative governments led by Lee and Park were bound by impatience to improve relations with the North, while the rogue regime in Pyongyang was obsessed with enhancing its nuclear and missile technologies.

Lee had his top aide hold secret negotiations with the North to set up what could have been a third inter-Korean summit. Upon her inauguration, one of Park’s most cherished slogans was “trustpolitik,” which calls for the two Koreas to build trust through engagement and cooperation so that they can eventually achieve unity.

All told, South Korean leaders and their chief men on the North were too naive and a lot less smart than their North Korean counterparts, who took turns taking reconciliatory and hostile stances to maximize Pyongyang’s political and economic interests.