Editor’s Note: Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
At the beginning of the year, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared that the North and South should live as two separate and hostile states, repudiating the vision of the reunification of the Korean nation. Kim has also raised tensions by threatening to conquer, subjugate, subdue, and annex South Korea if it begins a war.
Ulterior motivations
Newspaper reports in South Korea and other countries have cited experts who emphasize that Kim’s comments amount to a strategy of stirring up conflict inside South Korea around its general election in April and pressuring the US in the lead-up to its presidential election in November. Leading experts such as Robert Gallucci, America’s top envoy in its nuclear talks with North Korea in Geneva, have expressed fears that war on the Korean Peninsula is more likely than ever before.
But in addition to such goals, I think Kim has other, less obvious, motivations. I see the steps he has taken as reflecting anxiety about the downsides of exchange and cooperation and the ideological laxness that is spreading among North Korea’s younger generation. I see those steps as being similar to the emergency measures taken by Park Chung-hee, former president of South Korea, during his “Yushin” self-coup in October 1972.
Gains and losses
I have explained in a previous article that Kim’s extreme hardline measures have given him an excuse for tightening internal controls while also providing a grist for his struggle against the government of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol. One notable aspect is that Kim is laying the groundwork for strengthening ties with China and Russia. Considering that China and Russia are already locked in strategic competition with the U.S., they are sure to quietly welcome Kim’s embrace of a permanent division of the Korean Peninsula, which will reinforce North Korea’s status as a buffer zone against the U.S.
Also of note is the fact that North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui visited North Korea on Jan. 15-17 instead of attending the Supreme People’s Assembly. Given the use of the expression “putting [. . .] bilateral relations on a new legal basis” in North Korea and Russia’s joint statement, the two countries have likely discussed not only Putin’s visit to North Korea, which has already been announced, but also restoring the “treaty of friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance” (including automatic military invention in the event of a war) that was scrapped after South Korea and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations in the 1990s.
“They also reached a consensus and satisfactory agreement in the discussion of practical issues of putting the bilateral relations on a new legal basis in the direction of strategic development and expanding and developing them in an all-round way.” — press release from the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Jan. 20, 2024
We should remember that Kim’s loss is our gain. While Kim has gained the three things described above, in so doing he has lost three important things. Namely, he has (1) surrendered the initiative for reunification to South Korea; (2) made the blunder of rejecting the policy line of his father and grandfather, the source of the legitimacy of his succession; and (3) undermined the position of pro-North Korean forces in South Korea and other countries.
“The peaceful reunification of the Korean nation” — that was the trusty slogan of North Korea’s “united front” tactics for 79 years since the division of the Korean Peninsula into north and south. That was also a key phrase in the parting messages of Kim’s father Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung. But now Kim Jong Un has dispensed with the infallibility of the two previous leaders and completely abandoned one of the two pillars of North Korea’s unification line, which has relied not only on force but also on collaboration (that is, “united front” operations).
This obviously must be very disconcerting for the North Korean populace as well as North Korean sympathizers in South Korea and elsewhere in the world. Some of them even seem to be in a state of shock.
That was eloquently illustrated by a Jan. 22 report in the South Korean daily the Joongang Ilbo about members of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (better known as Chongryon) hurriedly asking the United Front Department of the Workers’ Party of Korea whether Kim’s remarks mean that reunification is no longer the goal. When Chongryon members asked what they were supposed to do now, they did not receive any response from the department.
How South Korea should respond
What should the Yoon administration do about this? Is it time to abandon South Korea’s stated goal of reunifying the nation and relinquish the view, established in the Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-aggression and Exchanges and Cooperation Between the South and the North in December 1991, that despite their separate names, their relationship is not “a relationship between states” but “a special interim relationship stemming from the process towards unification”?
- Reject the “two states” narrative
The answer is no. Just because Kim Jong Un has abandoned the reunification of Korea does not mean we should do the same.
At first blush, the “two states” narrative might look like a plausible way for South and North Korea to go about their business without interfering with each other’s internal affairs, but we need to approach this from the point of view of history, strategy, and the future. We need to stay consistent on this question, which is directly connected with several critical issues—the identity and future blueprint of a nation with a proud history stretching back five millennia, the ability to immediately take in North Korean defectors as South Korean nationals, and the legitimacy of intervening in a sudden crisis in North Korea without the consent of the U.N. or another country.
Our government, therefore, ought to maintain its current position on the following key issues: the Republic of Korea is the only legal government on the Korean Peninsula; nobody can arbitrarily sever relations of blood, culture, or history; and reunification is the historical destiny of the Korean nation. At the same time, it should be flexible about incorporating some aspects of the relations between separate states, such as adopting each country’s official names (e.g., “ROK-DPRK relations,” rather than “South-North relations”), making treaties, and establishing official delegations. That could be summed up as the provisional and partial acceptance of the North Korean state.
In other words, there are lessons we can learn from West Germany’s adherence to the line of one nation being reunified under one state and one system, in rejection of East Germany’s insistence on the idea of “two states.” Furthermore, we need to frame a strategy for orchestrating change in North Korea by incorporating it into the international community (to motivate North Koreans themselves to reject the dictatorial regime and desire to join the South Korean system), all while retaining reunification as a vision, rather than an immediate goal or plan of action, in imitation of West Germany.
On a similar note, we must continue working toward projects related to inter-Korean exchange and cooperation, even though such projects are not immediately feasible in light of North Korea’s rejection. In other words, we should keep knocking on the door as part of our effort to change the North Korean system, as well as to achieve universal human values (and hold the moral high ground along the way). To achieve that, we need to keep supplementing laws and systems and expanding partnerships with international bodies such as the U.N. Humanitarian aid should be fundamentally predicated on fraternal affection and global citizenship, and economic cooperation on state-to-state transactions.
2. Strengthen preventive and data-gathering activities
Since the beginning of this year, Kim Jong Un has been lobbing megaton bombs toward us by characterizing South and North Korea as “belligerents,” describing South Korea as the North’s “primary foe,” and threatening war and territorial conquest. So while North Korea is likely to stoke tensions with fiery rhetoric, incursions across the Northern Limit Line, and provocations with strategic weaponry based on increasing cooperation with China and Russia while gauging the response from South Korea and the international community, I expect that North Korea will focus more on internal affairs than external affairs for the time being.
That is, North Korea will likely focus on carrying out the objectives laid out in Kim’s speech (which include amending the constitution, eliminating terms and removing symbolic structures related to reunification and Koreans’ shared national identity, and laying plans for the “20×10” policy of regional development) and on holding ideological indoctrination, study sessions, and motivational rallies to instill the sense that South Korea is the enemy.
North Korea will not refocus its attention on the outside world until after the Supreme People’s Assembly is convened to add territorial language to the constitution. The first test of North Korea’s “two states” narrative in terms of its relations with South Korea and with the U.S. is expected to come after mid-March, a period packed with major political and diplomatic events including the yearly U.S.-ROK joint military exercises, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to North Korea, and South Korea’s general election on Apr. 10.
That is also the season of the southeastern wind that is ideal for sending balloons full of propaganda leaflets into North Korea, a practice that always enrages the North Korean authorities. We need to imagine a range of potential provocations across the “five fronts” of land, sea, sky, cyberspace, and outer space and to be proactive in our preparations through cooperation, where appropriate, with the U.S. and Japan and through strategic diplomacy with China and Russia.
3. Draft a new plan for reunification
The new reunification plan that is currently being prepared by the Ministry of Unification needs to take these changing circumstances into account. In that process, we need to be aware of the following three points: (1) Kim Jong Un’s “two states” line is a short-sighted policy that rejects our shared identity as Koreans; (2) Rejecting reunification and our shared national identity is a gambit for maintaining power and prolonging national division—the same gambit that was already attempted, without success, by the government of East Germany; and (3) South Korea needs to seize the initiative on reunification going forward.
This can be regarded as a heaven-sent opportunity. The South Korean government needs to have the wisdom to use Kim Jong Un’s goals and policies against him by continuing to proclaim the legitimacy of a free and unified Korea and publicizing our blueprint for the future.
In that respect, one of our key targets should be the “20×10” regional development plan that Kim announced as a key policy since organizations around North Korea will be fully mobilized as part of that plan. More specifically, we should make use of North Korea’s new plan to achieve genuine change in North Korean society and to bring it in line with global standards.
Toward that end, the three stages of the “Plan for Reunification of the Korean Community” (reconciliation and cooperation, federated country, unified state) should be augmented with a “stage zero” of effecting change in the North Korean system. I also suggest changing the name to the “Plan for Reunification as a Liberal Democratic Community.”
“Stage zero” basically involves steadily implementing a fivefold strategy, both openly and clandestinely, of denuclearization, liberalization, marketization, globalization, and affinity for South Korea, regardless of whether or not North Korea is open to those initiatives. The goal is not to bring down the North Korean regime, but to bring it more in line with liberal democracies and to bring some degree of improvement to the lives of its people. That is the only way that the reconciliation and cooperation of stage one can be achieved meaningfully and without interruption. (For more details, see the author’s book Toward the World, the Future, and Reunification).
As I conclude, there is one issue I would like to reiterate. What we need to do as South Koreans is trust our government and military without being swayed by the fear of war being fomented by North Korea and certain media outlets and politicians, while also avoiding self-serving and complacent calls for peace and unification.
The time has come to deal directly not with the North Korean leadership (with whom any discussion of peaceful cooperation would only prolong the de facto division of our nation) but with the North Korean people (through the formation of a genuine community). That is the path to true peace and reunification.
Reunification is not achieved through slogans and songs, or dialogue and negotiations, but through the power of the people and the state. Reunification is not merely a moral imperative or a fervent dream—it is a matter of practical reality.
As German reunification teaches, we need to always “remain awake” because reunification may come “like a thief in the night,” in the words of the Bible.
That day is not far off. Every crisis is its own opportunity!
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Please send any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
