[Column] Is North Korea’s ‘two states’ doctrine really a response to Hallyu’s influence?

Artists from the 2 Koreas that participated in a joint efficiency titled “We Are One” in Pyongyang’s Ryugyong Jong Ju Yong Gymnasium on April 4, 2018, pose for a photograph. (pool picture)

Did the DPRK* select to redefine the inter-Korean relationship as that between “two states hostile to one another” out of concern that the influx of South Korean tradition and concepts would result in regime collapse and reunification by means of absorption by its southern neighbor? Or did Pyongyang develop hostility towards Seoul and search to embed this hostility in public and social life? 

This query of causality is essential not just for correctly understanding the fact within the DPRK but additionally for devising inter-Korean coverage.

If it’s the previous, there may be little to be finished apart from anticipate a change within the DPRK. It’s because regardless of how a lot South Korea says it has no intent to induce instability within the DPRK or pursue reunification by absorption, the federal government in Pyongyang fears that bilateral exchanges and cooperation may end in South Korean tradition and beliefs flowing in. 

But if it’s the latter, South Korea has a major alternative to drive change by itself, as enhancing relations with the DPRK — which has severed ties with Seoul and is reinforcing that place institutionally — would require a brand new method.

Analyses by many media retailers and specialists give attention to the DPRK’s concern issue. The argument is that by declaring the 2 Koreas to be separate and hostile states, Pyongyang seeks to dam and management the publicity of its populace to the Korean Wave, or Hallyu, and their consequent longing and envy for South Korea. 

Giving weight to this view is the DPRK’s declaration of a associated coverage in late 2023, following the enactment of the Rejecting Reactionary Ideology and Tradition Act in 2020, the Youth Schooling Assure Act in 2021 and the Pyongyang Cultural Language Safety Act in 2023. 

DPRK chief Kim Jong-un elevated this angle to the extent of certainty in his report back to the ninth Congress of the Staff’ Celebration of Korea in late February this yr. 

“From the very starting, the successive ruling forces of the ROK didn’t need real reconciliation and unity with us, however have labored laborious to unfold their tradition inside our nation by abusing the alternatives for reconciliation and cooperation in a sinister try to result in its change and the ultimate collapse of its social system,” he mentioned. 

Observers, nevertheless, warning in opposition to leaping to conclusions, as there may be ample room for different interpretations when tracing the trajectory of inter-Korean relations and the DPRK’s decisions. The aim of the DPRK’s ban on South Korean tradition clearly lies in inner crackdowns and management. However the idea of the 2 hostile states provides rise to a different potential interpretation. 

The early 2000s noticed Hallyu start to seep into North Korea, each formally and unofficially. The regime cracked down on the Korean Wave coming into by means of channels branded as unlawful and punished residents who possessed or distributed it, however many within the nation had been nonetheless uncovered to such content material. The defection to South Korea by many DPR Koreans was additionally a supply of envy. Regardless of this, Pyongyang underneath Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un didn’t sever inter-Korean relations.

The shift to hostility towards South Korea began in 2018. 

Earlier than the inter-Korean summit on April 27 that yr within the truce village of Panmunjom, a South Korean performing artwork troupe of roughly 190 members held two main performances in Pyongyang. This contingent included many well-known singers and Ok-pop acts comparable to Cho Yong-pil, Lee Solar-hee, Choi Jin-hee, YB, Kang San-eh, Paik Ji-young, Jung In, Ailee, Kim Kwang-min, Seohyun and Crimson Velvet. 

In September that yr, then-President Moon Jae-in, who was in Pyongyang for the summit, delivered a seven-minute speech on the Rungrado 1st of Might Stadium in entrance of 150,000 DPR Koreans. The occasion was broadcast dwell on tv there, permitting a lot of the inhabitants to see it. After giving his handle, Moon mentioned he had “grown assured in denuclearization,” indicating that this was the core theme of his handle. 

All this goes to point out that the Kim Jong-un regime was open to South Korea on the time and even prolonged a heat welcome.

Instantly afterward, nevertheless, uncommon indicators started showing. Representatives from civic organizations who visited Pyongyang in October 2018 mentioned the DPRK’s perspective towards the South had turned inexplicably unusual. Was it attributable to sudden concern stemming from the unfold of the Korean Wave? 

That’s unimaginable to substantiate, however one other clue lies in a private letter despatched by Kim Jong-un to US President Donald Trump instantly after the Pyongyang summit, which included a line about “excluding” the Moon administration. 

Although the precise purpose is unknown, the DPRK chief reportedly felt confused as a result of what he heard from Washington differed from what he was informed by the Moon administration, which had positioned itself as a mediator. Beginning within the second half of 2019, Kim Jong-un started unleashing vitriol in opposition to South Korea, calling the Moon administration’s overtures “remarks that make the boiled head of a cow provoke a side-splitting laughter.”

In January 2020, the DPRK successfully sealed its borders to stop the unfold of COVID-19. This lockdown lasted for almost 4 years, ensuing within the close to disappearance of not solely official cultural exchanges but additionally the unfold of Hallyu, which used to circulation in by means of the Sino-North Korean border. Why, then, did Pyongyang enact a sequence of legal guidelines round that point to ban and punish the inflow and unfold of South Korean tradition and concepts?

One clue might be in an announcement dated June 13, 2020, from Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, who was then first deputy director of the Propaganda and Agitation Division of the Staff’ Celebration, six months previous to the enactment of the Reactionary Tradition and Ideology Rejection Act. 

“I really feel it’s excessive time to certainly break with the south Korean authorities,” Kim Yo-jong mentioned, declaring that the DPRK would “quickly take a subsequent motion.” Shortly thereafter, the DPRK destroyed the inter-Korean liaison workplace in Kaesong, eliminated the South Korea part from the each day Rodong Sinmun and commenced erasing traces of inter-Korean summits.

Over time, the Kim regime went from being inviting to being confused, dissatisfied, and hateful towards the Moon administration, ultimately culminating within the declaration of inter-Korean relations to be “fully mounted into the relations between two states hostile to one another and the relations between two belligerent states, not the consanguineous or homogeneous ones any extra.”

Because of this whereas this stance turned official in the course of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration in late 2023 — which, it needs to be famous, made no effort to disguise its open hostility towards the DPRK —inter-Korean relations had already taken a flip for the adversarial by 2020.
 
This pattern exhibits that the DPRK didn’t select to outline relations with South Korea as hostile as a result of it was afraid of Hallyu, however as an alternative imposed a ban on South Korean tradition exactly as a result of it wished to bolster the concept there was no altering the truth that South Korea was basically hostile to it. 

It’s believable that Kim’s feedback in the course of the ruling get together congress in February had been made to help its perception that, no matter who’s within the Blue Home, South Korea’s invariable purpose is unification by means of absorption.
 
The largest downside lies within the “prescription.” When specialists diagnose the DPRK’s declaration of inter-Korean relations as hostile as stemming from a concern of Hallyu, their advised plan of action is for Seoul to easily anticipate a change in circumstances throughout the DPRK. By a “change in circumstances,” they’re usually referring to the financial development-focused Kim Jong-un regime instantly coming to its senses and realizing that financial progress is barely attainable through improved inter-Korea relations and thus searching for to enhance relations with South Korea.
 
Nevertheless, this really helpful plan of action is each contradictory and extremely fanciful. First off, arguing that the DPRK selected to treat South Korea as a hostile state as a result of it’s afraid of the affect of Korean tradition, solely to then declare that it’s going to restart inter-Korean change and cooperation when its financial system falls on laborious occasions, is much from logically sound.
 
Furthermore, despite the fact that Kim Jong-un shed tears over the hardship his folks needed to endure because of the failure of his financial improvement technique in 2020-2021, he didn’t waver in his determination to impose the ban on South Korean cultural content material.
 
One level price noting is that even when the Kim Jong-un regime blamed itself for the failure of the nation’s financial methods, it printed outcomes fairly totally different from these of exterior assessments.
 
In July 2021, the DPRK said that the “annual common development charge of GDP in 2015-2019 [was] 5.1%” within the voluntary nationwide evaluate it submitted to the UN Financial and Social Council’s high-level political discussion board. That determine is 6 proportion factors larger than the Financial institution of Korea’s estimate for a similar interval. 

The DPRK additionally reported a mean annual grain manufacturing of roughly 5.67 million tons in 2016-2020, which is about 1.05 million tons greater than the estimate by South Korea’s Rural Growth Administration for a similar interval.
 
It’s seemingly that the disparity between the numbers reported by the DPRK and estimates by different nations grew even wider in 2021-2025, when the Kim Jong-un regime claimed that it had exceeded the objectives set at a celebration congress in January 2021.
 
The DPRK said that its gross home product in 2023 was 1.4 occasions larger than in 2020. Calculated as an annual common development charge, this quantities to a surge of 11.9%. Making use of this determine to the next two years widens the hole between the DPRK’s outcomes and the BOK’s estimates to round 10%.
 
Whereas the Rural Growth Administration’s common annual estimate for the DPRK’s grain manufacturing throughout this era is 4.74 million tons, Pyongyang reported that its grain manufacturing in 2021 was 5.5 million tons, claiming that it exceeded its goal by 3% in 2023 and seven% in 2024. It additionally reported that it skilled a bountiful harvest in 2025.
 
It is usually price monitoring that the weight loss plan of individuals within the DPRK has develop into diversified — not is it restricted to easily grains, nevertheless it now consists of meat, seafood, numerous processed and luxurious meals, in addition to greens and fruits.
 
That is the place we are able to see how the mainstream South Korean perspective on the DPRK turns into distorted. Many praised Kim Jong-un for being trustworthy when he admitted to the failure of his financial coverage. Nevertheless, when he toots his personal horn to say that his insurance policies have reaped nice achievements, there’s a robust tendency to dismiss such claims or to easily state that one can not take Kim “at his phrase.”
 
This has important coverage implications, because it undermines the notion that the DPRK will ultimately come to rely on South Korea after experiencing financial hardship, revealing it to be little greater than wishful pondering. In the course of the WPK congress in February and the Supreme Individuals’s Meeting in late March, Kim mentioned, “We efficiently carried out several-year improvement plans for the primary time in many years [and] laid down foundations for enhancing manufacturing within the financial discipline.”
 
Not solely has it made enhancements to its self-reliant financial basis, however its financial cooperation with China and Russia can be gaining momentum. This implies that the DPRK is extra more likely to obtain sustained financial development than be incapacitated by one other financial disaster.
 
Whereas I could also be dashing to conclusions right here, I consider that the DPRK’s determination to outline its relationship with South Korea as a “hostile” one between two separate states displays the nation’s confidence slightly than its anxieties. Whereas it nonetheless has an extended option to go, it has improved its financial system and the standard of lifetime of its folks, acquired a “self-defensive nuclear deterrent” by means of the strengthening of its nuclear capabilities, and believes that its strategic place in an more and more multipolar world is being bolstered by its stronger ties with China, Russia, and others. The DPRK not has to fret an excessive amount of about unification by means of absorption.
 
If that’s the case, then why does the Kim Jong-un regime hold claiming that South Korea intends to pursue unification by means of absorption no matter who’s in energy right here? As an alternative of being an expression of concern, one may argue that that is extra of an try to impress upon the DPRK’s residents the explanation the Kim Jong-un regime deserted unification with its compatriots on the Korean Peninsula and as an alternative selected to deal with South Korea as a hostile state.
 
In doing so, it seeks to ascertain its nationwide identification as a socialist state severed from the capitalist nation of South Korea. Irrespective of how a lot we insist that we now have no intention of attaining unification by means of absorption, our voices will solely fall on deaf ears.
 
Moreover, the DPRK’s “two hostile states” method depends on perilous logic: it seeks to justify using nuclear weapons within the occasion of a disaster by asserting that South Korea shouldn’t be thought-about a “consanguineous” state nor be handled as a rustic to carry unification talks with.
 
Below these circumstances, this can be very tough to formulate an efficient coverage for the way Seoul ought to method Pyongyang. Nevertheless, as I’ve persistently argued in earlier columns, we have to have a honest and open dialogue about modifications we in South Korea must make — extra particularly, recognizing the DPRK’s statehood and ruling out the potential for unification by means of absorption in a means that’s tangible slightly than merely rhetorical. 
 
In fact, there’s no assure that the DPRK will reply positively even when we make these modifications. Nevertheless, these modifications will profit us, whether or not the DPRK responds or not. 

If we redirect the huge human and materials sources dedicated to absorption-based unification plans — rooted in our historic declare to the territory north of the DMZ — towards addressing home challenges, it may result in nice change. 
 
This is the reason I as soon as once more wish to emphasize the significance of embracing the idea of a “post-North Korea” — in different phrases, letting go of preconceived notions of North Korea to just accept the DPRK for what it’s, and aiming to profit each ourselves and inter-Korean relations.
 
Based mostly on these two attitudes, I consider it’s now time to undertake an method based mostly on change.
 
By Cheong Wook-Sik, director of the Hankyoreh Peace Institute and director of the Peace Community

Editor’s notice: The official English title of North Korea is the Democratic Individuals’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK for brief. However in Korean, the nation refers to itself as “Choson” slightly than utilizing “Hanguk” like South Korea. Within the authentic Korean piece, the writer makes use of the time period “Choson” in an try to cast off the bags of utilizing the time period “North Korea,” which might indicate that it’s an extension of South Korea. In translation, we render this as “DPRK” for the sake of intelligibility to readers whereas sustaining the spirit of referring to the nation by the title it makes use of for itself. South Korea is retained. For extra on why the writer makes use of “Choson,” learn his column right here: [Column] ‘Choson’: Is it time we begin referring to N. Korea in its personal phrases? https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/english_editorials/1137832.html 

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