Impossible dream?

Josh Smith -

Is unification of North and South Korea the solution or the problem?

The recent detente between North and South Korea has given new life to talk of unification for the two countries divided since the 1950s. It’s a term that conjours up visions of the Berlin Wall falling, families reunited and armies disbanded.

Both Koreas have repeatedly called for peaceful unification and marched together under a unity flag at the recent Winter Olympics.

And when a group of K-pop stars visited the North recently, they held hands with Northerners and sang, “Our wish is unification.”

But on a peninsula locked in conflict for 70 years, unification is a concept that has become increasingly convoluted and viewed as unrealistic, at least in the South, amid an ever-widening gulf between the two nations, analysts and officials say.

The South has become a major economic power with a hyper-wired society and vibrant democracy; the North is an impoverished, isolated country locked under the Kim family dynasty with few

personal freedoms.

Unlike East and West Germany, which were reunited in 1990, the Korean division is based on a fratricidal civil war that remains unresolved.

The two Koreas never signed a peace deal to end the conflict and have yet to officially recognise each other.

Those unresolved divisions are why seeking peace and nuclear disarmament are President Moon Jae-In’s top priorities in Friday’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said Moon Chung-In, special national security adviser to the president.

Unification — a key topic at the two previous summits, in 2000 and 2007 — isn’t expected to be discussed at any great length, he said.

“If there is no peace, there is no unification,” Moon Chung-In said.

In the past, some South Korean leaders have predicated their reunification plans on the assumption the North’s authoritarian regime would collapse and be absorbed by the South.

But under the liberal President Moon, the government has softened its approach, emphasising reconciliation and peaceful coexistence that might lead to eventual unity, current and former officials say.

Public support for reunification has declined in the South, where 58 per cent see it as necessary, down from nearly 70 per cent in 2014, according to a survey by the Korea Institute for National Unification.

A separate government poll in 1969 showed support for unification at 90 per cent. — Reuters