North Korea’s position on unification

Daniel Pinkston, Ph.D. l Expert Advisor, KCPC

In late December 2023, the Korean Workers' Party convened the 9th Enlarged Plenary Meeting of the 8th Central Committee in Pyongyang. The meeting covered routine Party reports on politics, the economy, agriculture, and military affairs, among other topics.  However, General Secretary Kim Jong-un's plenary report included a surprising shift in the party's position on the issue of Korean unification. According to the Korean Central News  Agency, North Korea's official news agency, Kim declared:

It is not suitable to the prestige and position of the DPRK [North Korea] to discuss the  issue of reunification with the strange clan [South Koreans], who is no more than a colonial stooge of the US, just because of the rhetorical word [of] the fellow countrymen (sic).

South Korea at present is nothing but a hemiplegic malformation (sic) and colonial subordinate state whose politics is completely out of order, whole society tainted by Yankee culture, and defense and security totally dependent on the US.

The north-south relations have been completely fixed into the relations between two states hostile to each other (적대적 두 국가) and the relations between two belligerent states, not the consanguineous or homogeneous ones anymore (emphasis added).”

Kim's plenary report signaled a significant change in the regime's previous official policy  towards the South. This has left many analysts, pundits, and policymakers grappling to  understand Pyongyang's new posture. Some have surmised that Kim has closed the door on inter-Korean relations and that the party leadership is not longer interested in Korean unification, regardless of the process or type of outcome. Some foreigners with little knowledge of Korea have asked whether this means the two Koreas will remain divided as  two separate sovereign countries forever. Others have wondered whether the situation will  become more stable and sustainable since Kim is "no longer interested in Korean unification." In other words, some people have interpreted Kim's declaration as an acknowledgement that it would be impossible to continue with the past objective of unifying Korea under KWP rule, KWP rule, and therefore, we have reached a new equilibrium under a permanent "two-state solution."

However, a closer examination indicates that the December 2024 KWP shift in Korean unification policy is not an abandonment of unification; the KWP leadership still seeks to unify Korea on its terms. Instead, Kim Jong-un has recognized that the regime's previous unification strategies have failed miserably.

When Korea was divided in August 1945 following the defeat of the Japanese empire, the  division was intended to be a temporary arrangement to facilitate the surrender of Japanese military forces in Korea. After Korea's division at the 38th parallel, Kim Il-sung, with Soviet support, was able to eliminate all opposition through united front co-optation and violent purges. The Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland, established in the North in July 1946, was instrumental in sidelining political challengers in the North, but these same tactics ultimately proved unsuccessful in the South.

Although internal subversion created turmoil in the newly independent Republic of Korea,  Seoul withstood the North's efforts to delegitimize the ROK government. Notably, Kim Il-sung was encouraged by the Chinese Communist Party's civil war victory and establishment of the People's Republic of China in October 1949. Kim had concluded that international geopolitics had shifted in his favor, and that the South was ripe for conquest and "liberation  from American imperialism." Thus, Kim Il-sung embarked upon his second strategy for national unification: the use of force on June 25, 1950. This strategy also failed when the United States and supporting countries under the U.S-led United Nations Command unexpectedly intervened to repel the North Korean invasion. The Korean War Armistice remains seven decades later, leaving both Pyongyang and Seoul dissatisfied.

Following the Korean War stalemate, North Korea implemented its third strategy for  unification, which lasted roughly from 1953 to 1990. This phase continued and expanded the united front tactics that had begun under the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the  Fatherland. While seeking to undermine the legitimacy of the ROK in the South and  internationally, the KWP established numerous "liaison institutions" to promote Pyongyang's vision of national unification, which Kim Il-sung formally presented in 1980. In October that year, Kim proposed the establishment of the "Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo" in his report to the KWP Central Committee at the Sixth Party Congress. Although Kim asserted Although Kim asserted this was a blueprint for peaceful unification, the North continued its  subversion campaigns using violence, propaganda, and terror until the end of the Cold War.

The end of the Cold War ushered in a new era as the KWP faced internal instability following  the first leadership transition to Kim Jong-il and the devastating famine. Kim Jong-il had to focus on navigating international challenges an reorienting external relations after the collapse of the Soviet Union and socialist bloc in Eastern Europe. During this period, South Korea Korea experienced continued economic growth, prosperity, and democratic consolidation. The international and domestic environment in the 1990s was not favorable for effective North Korean efforts to advance the KWP's agenda of unification under its leadership.  Instead, Pyongyang cautiously engaged with the outside world to address its pressing food and energy crises.

The post-Cold War period until the COVID era marks North Korea's fourth failed unification strategy While maintaining many of the tactics and operations from the previous periods, this strategy included cyclical engagement and cooperation with the South and the international community to address economic problems in the short-term, while nominally pursuing the establishment of Kim Il-sung's Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo. The early stage of this period was marked by uncertainty and significant shifts in the  international system that required the KWP leadership to reassess its unification strategy. Although some tactics were adjusted on the margins, the KWP remained committed to Kim Il-sung's unification vision despite its impracticality.

Kim Jong-un now understands that the previous four unification strategies formulated by his grandfather and father have failed. He acknowledged this publicly at the December 2023  Party Plenum, and the party leadership is in the process of developing a new strategy. This  reassessment is taking place as the world is entering an era of greater uncertainty, with the  rules-based liberal order being contested by revisionist powers. Kim's policy review is based on the belief that fundamental geopolitical shifts are underway in the international system.  Just as his father believed systemic trends in 1949 meant that the South was "ripe for  liberation" in 1950, Kim Jong-un could perceive that systemic conditions are shifting in a way that makes the use of force to unify Korea potentially plausible.

North Korea, Russia, China, Iran, and some countries in the Global South are aggrieved  revisionist states celebrating the “decline of the West, the end of imperialism, the waning of  U.S. power, and the beginning of a new multipolar world,” that they believe will provide  opportunities to resolve their grievances. These aggrieved revisionist states have different  goals and visions for the future, but they are increasingly cooperating to undermine the  liberal world order (peaceful settlement of disputes, universal human rights, open market-based competitive economies, and the institutions to support these principles). For North Korea, despite Kim Jong-un's plenary report in December 2023, the KWP's greatest grievance and perceived injustice is Korea’s national division.

If the liberal order collapses, that means the first principle (peaceful settlement of disputes) is no longer an ideal to maintain or pursue.  The use of force to resolve international disputes  would become a legitimate instrument of statecraft. We see this in Ukraine today, and under the right conditions, Kim Jong-un could decide to use force to "complete the revolution and achieve the final victory” by subjugating the South.

Under Kim’s directives, North Korea is revising its ideology to decouple the South Korean  people (한국인) from North Korea (조선) and the North Korean people (조선민족;  김일성민족; 우리민족끼리). The psychological change, if successful, would make it easier for the [North] Korean People's Army (KPA) to use force against "other people" rather than fellow Koreans (조선인). However, this attempt at ideological reorientation in the North has risks.

Some analysts have assessed that Kim Jong-un already has already decided to launch a war against the South to achieve his strategic objectives. However, I believe this assessment is incorrect. While the use of force to unify Korea on KWP terms is being put back on the table as an option, it is contingent on the right geopolitical conditions. If the liberal world order  collapses, Kim probably believes the use of force to change the status quo would be a  plausible option. The possibility of war is real, but fortunately, North Korea can still be  deterred and contained. Therefore, international cooperation to deter and contain North  Korea is more critical than ever.

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