SEOUL -- The relationship between local autonomy and unification is becoming an increasingly hot topic in South Korea, as more and more local authorities aspire to an active role in the process of rapprochement with the North. It is clear that this nation is passing through a historic moment. Hardly a day goes by without an announcement of yet another new -- often stunning -- development on the diplomatic front of North-South relations. What until just a few weeks ago seemed next to impossible has become political reality virtually overnight: Consider, for example, the upcoming meeting between the two countries' defense ministers or the ongoing talks aimed at allowing members of long-divided families to exchange letters. In these moving times -- and I use the adjective to describe the personal as well as the historical dimension of this process -- the question is not whether the two Koreas will be united. The question at the forefront of the many current debates -- private, academic and political -- is when and in what form the two countries will come together as a unified state.

Many Koreans believe that in this fascinating situation Germany is the ideal model. (This of course refers to Koreans in the South, as we know very little about what is happening in this regard in the North.) Although many South Korean scholars acknowledge that there are important differences between the German situation at the time of that country's unification and Korean circumstances today, they consider Germany to be -- in the words of a political scientist who spoke at a seminar here recently -- "the only example we can learn from."

South Korean President Kim Dae Jung once said that the Koreans are fortunate to be "late-comers," as it gives them a chance to study the developments leading up to German unification and the process followed in reuniting two such diverse countries. It is to be hoped that this study may help the Koreans to learn some key lessons and prevent them from repeating some of the mistakes that were obviously committed in Germany before and after its the triumphant union 10 years ago. Germany's unification surely does not constitute a blueprint that merely needs to be copied. The political, social and economic conditions of contemporary Northeast Asia are too different from those prevailing in the heart of Europe a decade ago.