What do south koreans think of north korea

North Korea may be able to capture the attention of American and South Korean intelligence, but capturing the continued attention of most South Korean citizens may be more elusive. If you're interested in writing for International Policy Digest - please send us an email via submissions intpolicydigest. This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible.

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You will receive a link to create a new password via email. Send Email. Sign in Sign up. The South Korean public was somewhat receptive to the diplomatic overture embodied by inter-Korean summits in , but many of them maintained reservations about denuclearization. This dichotomy and disconnect between what South Koreans think about the state of inter-Korean ties and what they think of the prospects for denuclearization is quite revealing.

Unsurprisingly, Public expectations of a denuclearization road map increased to some degree after the June U.

Triumphantly but mistakenly, U. President Donald Trump tweeted after his first meeting with Kim that the North Korean nuclear threat was effectively removed.

In a June Asan Institute poll conducted just after the summit, more than 62 percent of survey participants said that North Korea would end up actually denuclearizing, while nearly 32 percent said Pyongyang would refrain from doing so. As figure 11 shows, the spike in optimism in South Korea following the June U. Among this age range, To help understand why, it is worth knowing that the post-democratization era of the s and the early s was a formative period for South Koreans in their thirties and forties, with more open discourse and more free-flowing information on North Korea.

By contrast, slightly older South Koreans who are now in their fifties were schooled in the s and s, during the dictatorships of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan, when information was far more restricted. In the late s and early s, the radical student movement in South Korea intensified, and many in this age group maintain their earlier more progressive ideological inclinations to this day. One of the most revealing insights from figure 11 is that those respondents in their twenties were among the most skeptical that North Korea would agree to denuclearize.

Brought up during a period of unparalleled economic success, these millennials are not geared toward political movements, nor do they embrace North Korea as a supposedly pure manifestation of Korean nationalism. This link between North Korea and Korean nationalism more broadly may sound surprising to outsiders, but Pyongyang has parlayed extreme nationalism as a powerful propaganda tool since its inception.

Some members of the far left in South Korea, for example, believe that North Korea espouses a supposedly more pure conception of Korean nationalism defined through a mixture of extreme ethnocentrism, a so-called cleansing of the tarnish of Japanese colonialism, and a constant reaffirmation of patriotic self-reliance amid the powerful foreign powers that surround the peninsula.

Seoul and Pyongyang signed a significant military agreement on confidence-building measures. As a result, many South Koreans at least momentarily took another look at Kim. By the time Kim rolled out the red carpet for Moon in September, the South Korean public had been exposed to a very different North Korean leader. He seemed to be at ease with the media. Every step was choreographed and pre-planned to make sure that the Supreme Leader was at the top of his game, and some were wondering whether this ensuing hype was similar to the mania surrounding former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that swept through the United States and Western Europe in the late s.

But the rosy assessments of this brief window did not ultimately last. Even at the height of this optimism about denuclearization, there were limits to how good South Koreans felt about North Korea.

A February Asan Institute poll that tracked prospects for denuclearization from to did show a significant, albeit limited, improvement in The number of respondents who said prospects for denuclearization looked promising jumped roughly 20 percentage points in one year, from 4. Unsurprisingly, while the flurry and pageantry of the inter-Korean and U. Kim engaged in psychological warfare with Trump and hinted that if the United States continued its hostile policy toward North Korea, Kim would have little choice but to revert to his old ways.

Pyongyang threatened to show the world a new strategic weapon in early As seen in figure 12, South Koreans had very negative feelings toward Kim until the beginning of By May , his favorability ratings had briefly skyrocketed to 31 percent. But by November , that figure had plunged back down to 9 percent.

Polls over the coming years will reveal if the surge in optimism about Kim and denuclearization was an outlier or a more significant trend. Given the subsequent drop in numbers, it seems highly likely that it was a temporary blip, but it is impossible to categorically rule out the possibility that such optimism could resurface if Trump wins reelection and decides to pursue personalized diplomacy again.

Either way, despite the enormous political capital Moon has spent on placating Kim since early and whatever dividend he was able to accrue from his three summits with Kim, the year is unlikely to result in any more key summits between Kim and Moon or, more importantly, between Trump and Kim. Moon initially had hoped that Kim would make a return visit to Seoul before the April National Assembly elections.

But the outbreak of a strain of coronavirus beginning in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December and its subsequent spread as a worldwide pandemic likely has thwarted that hope. The ongoing U. The issue of foreign interference only compounds the multitude of questions about what a unified Korea would look like. The Korean Peninsula is surrounded by powerful countries that, if they wish to, could easily have undue influence on the unification process.

The impact they could have would be clear in any scenario involving outright conflict—the outcome of which the powerful Chinese, Russian, and U. But even if the ultimate outcome was peaceful coexistence—a scenario that was both favored by In addition, policy goals such as opening trade between the two Koreas by gradually removing sanctions would increase the potential for greater interactions between North Korea and South Korea, as well as between North Korea and many other countries.

Even in a scenario involving some form of peaceful unification, regional powers would attempt to use any opening of the North, be it by force or through reconciliation, to further serve their interests. That means it is important to consider how South Koreans might react to foreign involvement, regardless of the scenario. When asked if Korean unification should be solely a Korean issue, This sentiment was shared by many progressive, centrist, and center-right respondents alike to some degree see figure 13 , although conservative respondents were more likely than any other group to disagree.

Contrasting perceptions of history and political legitimacy lie at the heart of the inter-Korean debate in South Korea. By contrast, South Korean conservatives overwhelmingly believe in the legitimacy of the ROK including the Rhee presidency. They argue that, while national partition was something no one wanted, there was little choice but to create the ROK in the face of relentless Soviet efforts to create a separate North Korean state.

Key policies such as strengthening the ROK-U. Although Rather, the most common reason for disagreement was that some participants believed some type of foreign involvement would be unavoidable see table 1. Another For this question, respondents could select multiple answers. On the other end of the spectrum, of the Even the support of survey participants that did believe foreign powers should be involved was a reflection of pragmatism rather than a desire to allow foreign influence.

Respondents could also choose multiple answers for this question. Before turning to South Korea in more detail, it is worth briefly touching on how North Koreans, like their neighbors to the south, would dislike the prospect of foreign involvement in Korean unification. North Korea has used the inculcation of extreme nationalism or jingoism as a powerful tool of indoctrination since the end of the Korean War.

For its part, South Korea advocates a less extreme position than North Korea, but South Koreans are also intensely nationalistic. Indeed, the task of contemplating how the country should balance the twin forces of nationalism and internationalism is never far from the surface. All told, roughly 73 percent of respondents replied that they would not trust China at least to some degree see figure Widening and deepening South Korea—China ties have paid major dividends for South Korea in certain respects in the post—Cold War era, but many South Koreans still harbor considerable mistrust toward China.

When Seoul opted to deploy the U. More recently, the rapid worldwide spread of the coronavirus outbreak from China to South Korea and the vast majority of other countries around the globe has been another source of Chinese diplomatic pressure on Seoul. While the majority of cases were still in China, Beijing pressured the South Korean government not to block the entry of Chinese nationals into South Korea.

Meanwhile, as the virus has continued to spread, the Chinese government has enacted travel restrictions on South Koreans and citizens of other countries traveling to China; indeed, in late March, Beijing temporarily closed its borders to most foreigners from all countries to prevent a resurgence of the pandemic in China.

The corresponding shares of South Korean respondents who said they did not trust Japan a staggering An overwhelming 89 percent of respondents said they did not trust Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, while Only Under Moon, relations with Japan took a sharp turn for the worse, as Japan excluded South Korea from a technology whitelist of preferred trading partners, and South Korea retaliated by threatening to scrap an important bilateral intelligence-sharing agreement.

The way that China has rapidly eclipsed Russia in terms of power has also contributed to how South Koreans view Russia and its potential role in Korean unification. While Moscow has tried to ramp up its ties with Pyongyang, the reality is that Russia simply cannot provide North Korea with significant political, economic, or even military support.

Objectively speaking, it makes sense for South Korea to deepen and strengthen its ties with both Russia and Japan as counterweights to an increasingly powerful and assertive China. Although it is virtually impossible to foresee any scenario in which South Koreans would welcome the idea of Japan playing a role on reunification, indirect Japanese assistance through the U.

Ignoring these two critical powers—Japan and Russia—in any future Korean political configuration would be a major oversight for South Korean foreign policy. When asked whether or not they trusted the United States to be a supportive partner in unification, This was the case even though Progressive respondents those from zero to three on the ten-point scale were split nearly down the middle: About Of all the countries that Carnegie survey respondents were asked about, the United States is the only one that is currently a South Korean security partner.

While participants recognized that other powers were likely to have a role in unification discussed below , the United States is the only country whose role the South Korean public seems ready to accept—or at least tolerate. This insight is critically important to U. By virtue of its security alliance with Seoul and its military presence in South Korea, the United States would be immediately involved in the event of a conflict or North Korean regime collapse—two scenarios that could result in Korean unification.

China, Japan, Russia, and the United States would all have an incentive to support unification outcomes that suit their own respective economic, security, and political interests. In a conflict scenario, all parties would have a common interest in prioritizing stability—they would want to prevent the loss of life, economic disruptions, and disorder. However, each of these external actors also would have an incentive to sway the regional balance of power in favor of their own strategic goals.

The strategic interests that each country has in supporting a stable and unified Korea would differ. Washington values Seoul as a close ally, particularly in terms of its utility for U.

After Hanawon, defectors are assigned a public rental home. Ms Kim was left with a box of food - ramen, rice, oil and condiments - to last for the first few days:. A counsellor or a defector who has already settled helps clean the house and provides additional support. North Koreans who settle in South Korea are assigned a police officer who keeps an eye on them. They're typically older officers, more of a father figure.

Their role is to check in - almost like a social service. The officers sometimes work in tandem with associations or churches. Free education in public schools and universities. In terms of mental health support, Mr Park says that there are some counselling services available but it's an area which requires improvement.

The issue was put in the spotlight in when defector Han Sung-ok and her son were found dead in an apartment in Seoul. They are believed to have starved to death. Neighbours described her as as distracted and anxious. Many defectors will have suffered extreme trauma but are unlikely to seek help or know where to find it. Fyodor Tertitsky, a North Korea analyst, says that life in South Korea can be isolating for defectors, and not just because they've entered a completely different society.

They are seen by many as "others". Arriving in the South and finding work can be difficult.