Why did Kim Jong-un abandon his nationalist unification line?

Bongkeun Jun

Research Associate

jun2030@mofa.or.kr 

The North Korean leadership's push for national reunification has been a strong point of confidence and a proprietary strategy against South Korea. With two de facto states on the Korean Peninsula, each determined to defend its political system and values, and neighboring power's favor on the status quo, consensual, armed, or absorptive reunification was not a realistic option. However, North Korea has consistently insisted on the unification of the Korean people and the federal unification of the country. However, in late 2023, Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un abandoned the national unification idea and characterized the relationship between North and South Korea as "hostile interstate relations." Why did North Korea suddenly abandon its traditional unification policy? This paper will analyze its intentions below.

First, some analyses view North Korea's abandonment of national unification as a defeatist position. In the 75-year-long "unification race" between North and South Korea, North Korea has lost. In the international community, South Korea is viewed as an advanced middle power and North Korea as a rogue state. South Korea's population is twice that of North Korea, its economy is 50 times that of North Korea, and its position in international society is in the top 10 while North Korea is in the bottom 10. With chronic economic and food crises and North Korean defections, it's obvious the regime fears an absorptionist unification with the South. It is nuclear-armed, but there is no guarantee that it will not collapse like the former Soviet Union due to internal discontent caused by a widespread economic crisis.

Therefore, it is possible to analyze that North Korea aims to escape the fear of absorption through a complete political and international legal break with South Korea. It would also want to deny South Korea's right to intervene in North Korea in the event of the justification for reunification. Kim Jong-un's highly aggressive comments are a weak excuse to abandon the "reunification race" and to go different ways, unlike South Korea, much like Kim Yo-jong's 2022 statement, "My sincere wish is that we can live without being conscious of each other."​