Expression of Calling the North an Enemy Will Disappear in the White Paper on National Defense

It is expected that an expression describing North Korea as a major enemy will be eliminated after all in the 2004 White Paper on National Defense.

On October 29, Ahn Kwang-chan, deputy minister for policy in the National Defense Ministry, said, “We have postponed the publication of the White Paper on National Defense until January 2005 in order to finalize our national defense situations such as our plan to pursue a cooperative self-defense, rearrangement of the U.S. troops in South Korea, and the dispatch of troops to Iraq. However, the White Paper on National Defense will be officially published as a 2004 edition.

Concerning whether to eliminate an expression calling the North a major enemy, Deputy Minister Ahn suggested a plan to eliminate the notion of “major enemy” by saying, “It is not decided yet. The White Paper on National Defense is characterized as a subordinate paper of the ‘Plan for Security Policy of the Participatory Government,’ a strategic paper for the national security, which is published in March.”

It is known that the government is currently considering alternative expressions such as a “major threat,” a “military threat,” and a “security threat” instead of a “major enemy.”

Ho-Won Choi bestiger@donga.com