North Korea sees South Korean young people’s lack of interest in reunification and their weaker sense of ethnic unity as a “strategic opportunity” and has launched comprehensive changes to its psychological warfare operations against the South. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has personally directed the Institute of Enemy State Studies to develop new strategies, explaining that “reunification and ethnic unity no longer exist now.”
A Daily NK source in North Korea reported recently that the Institute of Enemy State Studies recently determined that “disinterest in reunification is rapidly spreading among South Korean youth and the very concept of ethnic unity is collapsing,” based on analysis of perception trends and changing social attitudes among young South Koreans.
The Institute concluded that young South Koreans have already “otherized” North Korea and consider climate, economic issues and other personal priorities more important than Korean ethnic unity. “Young South Koreans don’t want reunification,” it stated. “They’re not even interested in it.”
These findings were reported to North Korea’s top leadership, and Kim Jong Un — who has been personally involved in this issue since last year, ordering the strategic shift — recently called young South Koreans “foreign youth who are no longer the same people as us and who can never be on our side.”
Kim Jong Un orders new approach
Kim views young South Koreans’ disinterest in reunification not as a simple opinion change but as justification for North Korea to abandon ethnic unity and adopt a “two hostile nations” strategy. He called for using this disinterest as crucial evidence supporting the party’s policy to make the “hostile division” of the two Koreas permanent.
“Outdated approaches based on ethnic unity will fail,” Kim said, urging officials to “boldly burn old reunification slogans and launch new psychological warfare operations tailored to generational and cultural changes.” He specifically instructed officials “not to even use the word reunification and adopt terms that encourage psychological distance.”
Following these orders, the Institute of Enemy State Studies has dropped terms related to inter-Korean cooperation or reunification from existing propaganda materials and begun developing indoctrination content that emphasizes “cultural and genetic differences.” Researchers have even proposed the novel approach of describing young South Koreans as “biologically foreigners who mimic the Korean language but have completely different identities.”
North Korea is also planning to naturally spread the perception among South Koreans that North and South are entirely separate countries through YouTube and other media. The main goal is to organically instill the message that reunification “would cause headaches” and that coexistence “is also impossible.”
“In the past, North Korea viewed young South Koreans as targets for national solidarity, emphasizing they were fellow Koreans, but now they’re seen as targets for psychological warfare and potential assets if South Korea were occupied, as well as subjects of strategic analysis,” the source explained. “Moreover, authorities are accelerating ideological restructuring to use South Koreans’ attitudes to spread arguments that they should ‘acknowledge the national division and go their separate ways.'”
Observers note that this directive connects to moves to reorganize North Korea’s psychological warfare organizations ahead of the Ninth Party Congress. This means young South Koreans’ disinterest in reunification has been incorporated into North Korea’s new offensive strategy against the South.
“The reorganization of psychological warfare activities represents a strategic response based on South Korean social perception trends as systematically analyzed by North Korean authorities,” the source said. “In particular, they’re converting young South Koreans’ disinterest in reunification into an ‘offensive weapon.'”
“This could permanently widen the perception gap between North and South Korea, but the government believes this creates favorable conditions for North Korea,” the source added. “We need to watch for moves to systematize arguments for permanent division starting with the Ninth Party Congress.”
