North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Should Seoul formally abandon the goal of reunification with North Korea?

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

A year and a half ago, North Korea made waves when it announced that it was abandoning the goal of inter-Korean reunification. Now, South Koreans are getting ready to head to the ballot box to elect a new president, with their pick set to shape Seoul’s policy toward a neighbor that now views the South […]

You're listening to an exclusive episode of the NK News podcast available only to subscribers. You can listen to this and other episodes from your preferred podcast player by accessing the Private Podcast Feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide on the NK News website at nknews.org slash private dash feed uh... hello listeners and welcome to the NK News Podcast. I'm your host, Jaco Zwetsloot and this episode is recorded here in the NK News studio on the afternoon of Tuesday the 13th of May, 2025.

Now South Korea, as you may be aware, will soon elect a new president and all signs point to that being Lee Jae Myung, quite probably, a figure once known for his outspoken support of engagement with North Korea, but who now says very little about the issue on the campaign trail. Is this strategic silence or is it a quiet admission that the dream of unification is over? And that is the question that we're here to tackle today, whether South Korea, under under new leadership should formally abandon unification as a national goal. With us are two guests who represent sharply opposing sides of this debate. Stilling right in front of me is Dr. Tomasz Wierzbowski, who is an adjunct professor at Han Guk University of

Foreign Studies and also at the same time the career representative of Euraccess, a European Commission initiative supporting research and mobility. Now completely by coincidence in late 2023, shortly before Kim Jong-un himself said that he was no longer interested in peaceful Korean unification, Tomas published an op-ed here in NK News arguing that Korea should give up on unification, describing it as a romantic illusion that no longer makes geopolitical or practical sense. Welcome on the show, Tomasz. Hello, Jakob. Thank you for having me. And on the other side, to my left, is Dr. JR Kim, who's been on the show twice before. JR Kim

retired as Director General at South Korea's Ministry of Unification. He's now active in his retirement years as the President of the Korean Council for Peace and Cooperation. He's still a passionate supporter of unification even though young Koreans under the age of 40 are less and less interested each year. Welcome back on the show JR. Thank you, Jacko, for having me on the show again. So let's start with a question that gets to the heart of it. I'm going to throw this one first to Tomasz and then to JR with a new South Korean president all but confirmed in just a few weeks.

And as I said before, it's likely going to be E.J. Myung based on poll figures today. I mean, I could be wrong. But here's the big question to start us off. Tomasz, should South Korea use this opportunity to finally let go of the dream of unification? Not delay it, not soften it, but walk away formally and forever? I believe so, yes. I believe so. Engagement cooperation is different between two Koreas or between different parties. But unification itself, as you quoted me, is a romantic illusion that should be abandoned because it doesn't have any future and there is no rationale for it. There are no reasons, practical reasons or even political

reasons for unification of the two Koreas. So yes, South Korea, regardless the administration, should abandon the idea. Okay, a strong and short and clear statement there. JR, why or why not? I guess the question depends on what you mean by South Korea. If you mean the nation South Korea, it's a bit different from when you ask the same question to the next South Korean administration, whoever is going to be the winner out of election, as the president, as the politician, whether it is beneficial for him to formally give up the policy of pursuing nationalization,

those two are different stories. So you're making a difference between an administration that lasts for a period of five years and a national dream, is that right? Yes, what I'm trying to say is that no matter who becomes the next president of South Korea, both strategically and for the practical reasons, I don't think it's wise for him to give up the policy of pursuing

national unification. But? But as a nation, and maybe even for the new administration, I don't think it will be wise, as Thomas mentioned, to pursue as a top priority policy national education, because there is something more important than pursuing national education, and which has been true all along, regardless of ideological orientation of the administration in the past. Okay, but are you asking for,

or pleading for a delayed unification? I'm saying that yes, there must be different stages in which different emphasis is given on different strategic goals or political goals. Okay, Tomasz? And I believe that this goal of unification should be abandoned because if we all agree that the modern concept of nation state emerged

sometime after Westphalia Treaty in 1648, it's not about the administration, it's about the concept of nation state itself, and we have nations that are divided into different nation states and they do not pursue unification. I don't know. Can you think of an example? Canada and US. You know those countries share similar culture, almost the same language, similar features and they do not pursue unification. I don't want to even look

into Europe but Austria and Germany also very similar history, the same language almost and still they are two different nation states. I am ignorant myself but New Zealand and Australia, you know, I have difficulties to recognize flags of those two countries because they are so similar and still nobody's talking about unification of New Zealand and Australia. Okay, so turning to current candidate, Lee Jae Myung, he was, as I said, once a vocal advocate for engagement with North Korea even when he was, as I said, once a vocal advocate for engagement with North Korea. Even when he was the governor of Gyeonggi Province, he himself was

involved in ways of trying to promote economic cooperation and engagement with North Korea. But during this campaign, he hasn't said much about it. What does that silent signal to you, JR? Well, Lee Jae-myung, he didn't have that much time to talk about his policy toward North Korea yet because official campaign period to start last, uh, this Sunday, this Monday. But I just learned that, you know, there are people working on it within the Democratic Party, no party platform and the election purchase. And there are people, they have formed a committee to work on North Korea policy

along with other foreign policy areas. So they, and Lee Jae-myung has recently mentioned a few times during the interview that he will restore the military agreement made by Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un. And also he will promote inter-Korean exchanges and dialogue just like the Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un. And also he will promote inter-Korean exchanges and dialogue, just like the Moon Jae-in administration did in the past. So he made it very clear that he pursued this policy of engagement with North Korea when he became president.

So basically he wants to continue from where Moon Jae-in finished in 2019? More or less like that. More or less like that. We built this narrative surrounded by election in South Korea and South Korean administration, but as we all know, it takes two to tango. And North Korean leadership does not want any engagement. They clearly showed it over time. So whatever the future administration policy is, it might or it will not work because the North Korean part doesn't want it.

It does seem to be the case, JR, that at least since the failure of Hanoi, let's say shortly after the DMZ mini-summit when Kim and Trump and Moon went together in, gosh was that June 2019, so since that time it does seem that Kim Jong-un has signaled that he's not interested in talking. And that's even before he said in December 2023 at the party convention or party conference or party meeting, whatever it was, I'm not interested in peaceful unification. How do you respond to that? Two comments I'd like to make on what you just raised and also what Thomas said just a little while ago. One is that, yes, I agree with Thomas in that it's not appropriate, I guess, anymore to pursue the course of national unification just based on the fact that both South Koreans

and North Koreans are one people. They have the same ethnic commonality. Yes, it's true that there are other countries in the world, like the United States and Canada and Germany, Australia and others, that you have mentioned that one nation does not necessarily have to be one state. But Korea is, I guess, a little bit difficult when you compare Korean case with all the other cases. Maybe Korea is an Oriental country, Asian country. That's one probably way you can distinguish that with all the Western countries, quote unquote you just mentioned. And beside that, I mean, Korea has been divided for a very short period of time. Up until now, it's been only 80 years or so, whereas the United States and Canada has been

divided for over 200 years, or should Germany longer than that. So maybe it'll take a little more time for Koreans to get over this sense of common national heritage. And another thing is that it's not true that we are actually pursuing or trying to pursue the national education based on the fact that we are one people, South and North Koreans. Because since, remember, since Park Geun-hye administration, we talk about benefits of unification, there are other strategic, practical, political, economic benefits we can enjoy from unifying the country.

And based on that, I guess the administrations following Park Geun-hye's have tried to pursue national education. Of course, not all the politicians have the same emphasis on that course of policy, but those who have put emphasis on unifying the country, has think unifying the country in terms of actual benefits we can enjoy from unifying the country. And other thing is that, yes, Kim Jong-un has recently talked about maintaining two sovereign states and calling South Korea as our enemy and had no intention whatsoever to do anything with North Korea, not to mention just not trying to unify the countries.

But we are not sure what his real intention is at this point, whether he really intends... It doesn't mean permanent change in North Korea's policy toward South Korea in terms of unifying the country or not. Also is it a temporal... Could be a temporal policy. We haven't still understand what he really means. And there are two variables, I guess, we have to come... Before we coming into...

Jumping into a conclusion. One is the war in Ukraine, and the other one is a new administration coming in the South Korea. Those are the two variables that may bring some changes in Kim Jong-un's policy toward North Korea. So I guess it's a little too early for now for us to jump into any conclusion that North Korean seemingly, uh, the change in policy is permanent at this point. Okay. Thomas, how would you like to respond to that?

There's a lot of points there that jam. There are a lot of points indeed. Let's start with the division. Yes. Korea has been divided for a relatively short period of time in modern history. 80 years this year. Eight years this year. 8 years, yes. However, if you look at the history of the Korean Peninsula, the overall history, let's say 3,000 years with Tang and Harabongi as a founder and so on, Korea,

Korea's or Korean Peninsula had been divided almost as long as it was unified, you know, three kingdoms and so on. I learned from you JR that during the Korea dynasty Guarding posts were exactly in the same positions where the current guarding post of South and North Korean are in DMZ So this 38 parallel seems like a natural border of two Koreas or more Koreas when you look into Into free kingdoms. I totally agree that the policy of North Korea can change because of different variables like war in Ukraine. But the second point you mentioned,

the benefits of unification, I can see them, but it's a very, very long process. It is something that non-administration will pursue because we have election circles and decision makers are waiting for votes in the next elections and nobody will look into the future of next generations. And if we see, I hate this comparison of German unification, but if we see how long it took,

it has been taking Germans to a balance between the two economies. And the economic difference between East Germany and West Germany was much smaller than it is between North Korea and South Korea. So yes, there are benefits of unification that I can agree with on. However, it will take generations after generations to reach them. And that is why it's not achievable, I believe. JR, do you see unification of Korea as sort of a moral and a historical obligation, like a kind of almost a destiny of the Korean people?

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