It appears that the Hyundai tours to different North Korean locations may end:
Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun on Monday publicly rejected a North Korean demand to reinstate Kim Yoon-kyu, the disgraced vice chairman of Hyundai Asan who had dealt with the North for many years in arranging their joint tourism projects. “I now seem to stand at a crossroads of whether to continue or quit our North Korea projects,” she said. Since Hyundai’s ouster of Kim, Pyongyang has applied pressure on the group by slashing the quota for the Asan’s Kumgang Mountains tours and blanking requests for negotiations on stalled projects to Kaesong and Mt. Baekdu. When Hyun visited the Kumgang Mountains, she says, authorities forced her to open her handbag, a gesture she interpreted as contempt, and she concluded, I’ll choose honest conscience rather than opportunistic servility.”
It is standard practice in inter-Korean economic cooperation to put up with Pyongyang’s demented behavior. That makes Hyun’s statement all the more significant. Her resolve not to allow North Korean pressure to meddle in her corporation’s managerial rights is the natural choice for a top executive, but in the reality of inter-Korean relations things rarely take their natural course.
I think this is great that someone is finally taking a stand and not kissing the North Koreans butts continuously. The Korean government can learn something from Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun. It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
