How much costs a Nobel Peace Prize?

I will start now with a subject that is very exotic and interesting as well for me, regarding North Korean-
South Korean relations along time.

We all (namely the people interested in global political subjects about crisis) know that North Korea is
one of the most isolated countries throughout the world. The Korean war broke out in 1950. Then the
Soviets and Stalin himself sustained the Workers Party into the North and the Americans were
sustaining the south. In 1953 the two parts signed a cease-fire treaty and the two states were officially
formed but they never went into peace accords. The situation remained accordingly until today.

Both joined UN in 1991. Coincidence or not?

Still, there were some periods of relaxation between North and South.

In 1998, Hyundai Asan, one of Hyundais subsidiaries, which was among the largest industrial and
commercial groups of the world had the intention to build several projects in North Korea. This was a
result of the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the necessity of restructuring the business and lowering
the costs of productions. The president from that time, the newly elected South Korean President Kim
Dae-Jung, was aware of this opportunity and through his Sunshine Policy, an attempt of relaxing the
situation in the region, intermediated through his key role statesmen, e.g. the minister of Culture Park
Jin Won, a negotiation for establishing commercial links between North Korean state and Hyundai.

This was a success. First Hyundai opened his empire in NK through tourism, specifically sightseeing
tours. Later on they were developing projects for the Kaesong Industrial Park, railroad and highway
projects. The climax was the summit meeting in June 15, 2000 between the two leaders.

Later that year, Kim Dae Jung received the Nobel Peace Prize for the establishment policies and
cooling-down the situation into the peninsula. His sunshine policy seemed to give results.

However the situation is much more complex. For Hyundai to open factories inside North Korea, its
leader Kim Jong Il asked a billion dollar payment in advance. They settled for 500 million $. The summit
was delayed for two days because North Koreans acknowledged a payment of only 400 million $, due to
a miscommunication fault. This was not far from the South Korean president, who took part in these
negotiations, the trio (the chairman of Hyundai, the South Korean and North Korean president) being
photographed together. Now, the person who intermediated this, was the South Korean government.
He (Kim-Dae Jung) could not have been far from any of the details. The North Koreans needed currency
and offered in return skilled and very cheap labor, 4-5 times cheaper than the Chinese and up to 10
times cheaper than the equivalent south Korean workers.

Hyundai needed low cost employment and it seemed the perfect win-win situation. The situation
offered a competitive advantage in front of the Chinese and a bailout of the financial crisis.

North Koreans needed also some humanitarian help and strong foreign currency after years of famine,
the deal being that the transactions would not be established in Korean won (W) but in US dollar.
As such, with all the details put in place, the South Korean president secured his summit in exchange for
intermediate currency help, of course partially in exchange for concessions on some North Korean
national projects.

This is indeed a brilliant move, since Kim Dae-Jung never paid a cent to North Korea but in fact secured a
500 million $ payment for his meeting to be realized and further his Nobel Peace Prize. This is a very rare
case of win-win-win strategy.

We will study further other Nobel Peace Prize winners and their business and pragmatism throughout
the world and I will continue with Juan Manuel Santos.