- Oskar Pietrewicz
One Korea?
Korea. One peninsula, two different worlds separated by the 38th parallel. However, this was not always the case. The division of the peninsula is a relatively new thing, dating back to the aftermath of the Second World War. Before its division, Korea had functioned as a politically unified state for thirteen centuries. Therefore, raising the question of Korean reunification should not be surprising. What are the arguments for and against reunification? What might it look like, and what would it mean for the balance of power in the region?
Bitter Independence
August 15th is celebrated in both Korean states as the day of liberation from Japanese occupation. On this day in 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan. The defeat of the Empire of the Rising Sun rekindled the Korean people's hopes of regaining their independence after 35 years of occupation. These proved to be in vain as Korea's future was decisively influenced by the major powers of the then-emerging bipolar world: the USA and the USSR.
During the Second World War, during the Cairo, Yalta, and Potsdam conferences, the Allies discussed the future of Korea. They were keen to introduce a period of transition and top-down management in the country before it regained its independence. Following the USSR's declaration of war on Japan on August 8th 1945, and the Red Army's lightning offensive in Manchuria, the Americans, a mere two days later, on August 10th, offered the Soviets a sphere of influence on the Korean peninsula. The proposal was along the 38th parallel and was immediately accepted. Thus, Korea came under a new American-Soviet occupation. In their respective zones, the Americans and Soviets established order against the independence aspirations of the Koreans.
The division was to be only a temporary solution. According to the decisions of the Moscow Conference of December 1945, a general election was to take place in Korea within five years and the elected authorities were to proclaim a single independent Korean state. However, the realities of the emerging Cold War meant that the Americans and Soviets failed to agree on the future of Korea. In May 1948, elections under the auspices of the UN were held exclusively in the American zone. They were won by the American-backed Syngman Rhee while north of the 38th parallel, the Soviet-backed Kim Il-Sung was consolidating his influence. As a result, the Republic of Korea was proclaimed in the south on August 15th, 1948 and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north on September 9.
The governments in Pyongyang and Seoul did not recognize the division and each claimed control of the entire Korean peninsula. Using the support of the Soviet Union and the just-formed the People's Republic of China as well as the withdrawal of American forces from South Korea, the North launched a full-scale invasion of the South on June 25, 1950. Kim Il-Sung's attempt to forcibly reunite Korea failed and the three-year war, which ended only with an armistice, deepened the differences between the two Korean states.
After the war, both North and South concentrated on consolidating and developing their own statehoods. However, they did not forget about reunification, outdoing each other with unification concepts and similarly appealing to Korean nationalism. Despite the systemic competition for supremacy on the peninsula, the governments in Pyongyang and Seoul, especially after the end of the Cold War, were able to open themselves to dialogue, realising the impossibility of forcible reunification.
We saw this most recently in 2018-2019, when South Korea, under President Moon Jae-in, embarked on an extensive dialogue with North Korea, ruled by Kim Jong-un. Moon's administration was not the first South Korean government to show determination and conviction about the correctness or even necessity of diplomatic action towards the North Korean regime.
Moon drew on the experience of the so-called Sunshine Policy which dominated the South's approach to the North between 1998 and 2008. Its originator was liberal President Kim Dae-jung who made no secret of his inspiration from Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, which resulted in the normalisation of relations between West Germany and East Germany during the 1970s. The aim of the Sunshine Policy was to bring about an improvement in inter-Korean relations through measures in the spirit of national reconciliation, cooperation, and peace. These included top-level meetings, limited economic cooperation, cultural contacts, and reunions of family members separated during the Korean War.
While the overarching goal was to develop peaceful co-existence, progressive cooperation in subsequent areas was expected to pave the way for Korean unification in the following decades. Advocates of the Sunshine Policy suggested a three-stage formula for unification, resulting from the stable development of peaceful relations and cooperation that would reduce the differences between the Korean states. The first stage was to see the formation of a confederation of the North and South, the second to establish a federation, and the third to see complete unification under a unitary state.
However, this did not happen. North Korea proved to be a more difficult partner than the founders and continuers of the Sunshine policy had thought. Not only has it failed to open up to further areas of cooperation, but it has also developed a missile arsenal with nuclear capabilities thus becoming an increasing threat to the South. Therefore, both the conservatives ruling South Korea from 2008 to 2017 and the current president Yoon Suk-yeol who has been in office since 2022, abandoned dialogue with the problematic neighbour.
Two Countries, One Nation
Nevertheless, this does not mean that Koreans have given up on their unification aspirations which are historically rooted in a common ethnic, national, and cultural identity. Before its division, Korea had functioned as a politically unified state entity for an impressive 13 centuries. Koreans, characterised by a unique ethnic and cultural homogeneity, had for centuries shaped their identity through a common heritage of tradition, language, religion, and institutions. As a result, despite the vast differences between the North and the South, the societies of both Korean states inherit the same centuries-old cultural legacy. They speak the same language, albeit slightly different, due to the separate language policies of the North and South, as well as imported words and terms from different languages.
Added to this are political and economic factors. Both Korean states have the goal of Korean reunification enshrined in their constitutions, a political commitment that successive leaders in the South and North take on board. Moreover, supporters of the unification drive argue that reunification would ultimately be economically and politically viable. A unified Korea – after many years of bridging its huge North/South development gap – could theoretically become one of the leading economic powers. North Korea's natural resources and manpower could be harnessed into the modern economy of South Korea. Economic integration could greatly contribute to the improvement of the population in the North, whose influx could in turn solve the demographic problems of the South. Reunification, closing decades of confrontation between the Korean states, would mark the end of the threat of war and donate to stabilising the region. According to extreme South Korean nationalists, a united Korea could also be a nuclear-capable military power with its inheritance from the North.
Yet there are far more arguments that a Korean-initiated peaceful reunification is just wishful thinking. The confrontational nature of inter-Korean relations remains a fundamental problem. North Korea is not only continually developing missile and nuclear capability, but also treats its southern neighbour as a threat due to its competitive socio-economic model among other things. The scenario of the North voluntarily opening up to dialogue with the South, including a vast flow of information and people-to-people exchanges, is downright improbable given the totalitarian nature of the North Korean regime. South Korea has not been passive and is developing military capabilities and strengthening its alliance with the US in response to North Korean threats. Another problem is the lack of continuity in the South's policy towards North Korea stemming from the internal conflict between South Korean liberals and conservatives.
Additionally, there is a massive development gap between North and South which would give rise to enormous costs in the event of unification. South Korea, with a population of 51 million, is one of the most technologically advanced and globalised economies, while North Korea, with a population of 26 million, is economically backward and closed due to its policies and sanctions. Even in 2013, its record-breaking year, North Korea exported in a whole year only as much as South Korea did in a mere day and a half. North Korea's GDP is estimated to be less than 2% of South Korea's and the average annual income of a South Korean is 52 times that of a North Korean. By comparison, at the time of German reunification, the GDP of the 16-million-strong German Democratic Republic was more than 1/6 of that of the 62-million-strong Federal Republic of Germany. German reunification cost $1-3 trillion, but in the case of Korea it would be many times higher and would probably ruin the South Korean economy. Added to this are the socio-cultural differences after decades of living in extremely different social conditions and the lack of contact between people living on opposite sides of the 38th parallel. This can be seen in the numerous adjustment problems faced by many of the 30,000 Northern refugees in the South. Despite government support programmes, most of them have elementary difficulties in finding their way in the capitalist reality.
Is It Worth It?
Awareness of the immense costs of reunification translates into increasingly low support among South Koreans for reunification. This is reflected in the results of surveys conducted since 2007 by the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University. While support for reunification was 64 per cent in 2007, it was only 46 per cent in 2022. Moreover last year, a record 32% of those surveyed expressed the belief that reunification would never happen. The survey results show not only a growing awareness of the difficulties in inter-Korean dialogue, but also the increasing indifference of the younger part of South Korean society which, in particular, sees no bond with the North and sees no point or even need for reunification.
Therefore, the South Korean public is becoming less and less interested in the ideas of peaceful integration through jointly developed agreements. Still, Korean reunification could theoretically be achieved in other, but far more costly, ways. For example, as a result of absorption, i.e. taking control and integrating the acquired part into the dominant Korean state's existing political, economic, and social system. At present, the only realistic scenario seems to be an absorption implemented by South Korea. The most likely trigger for such a scenario would be a 'hard landing', i.e. the implosion and collapse of the North Korean regime as a result of economic destruction, social destabilisation, tensions within the power elite, and the weakening of the central authority and control apparatus. Such an option was often contemplated in the early 1990s when, according to many observers, the North Korean state was not expected to survive in the new international environment. However, the regime proved to be more durable than thought and currently there are few signs that it is in decline.
Nonetheless, if this were to happen, it would give rise to a myriad of problems, such as internal conflicts and their possible spillover into South Korea, the triggering of an international conflict by the failing authorities in Pyongyang, the loss of control over weapons of mass destruction, and the possibility of proliferation or their use by confrontational stakeholders. In addition, there would be widespread social instability, including crime, humanitarian catastrophe, famine, internal displacement, and refugee flows into China and South Korea. Moreover, the collapse of the North Korean regime could prompt Chinese involvement, including military intervention. If the PRC were to set up a new government to replace the collapsed regime, this would negate any chance of reunification. A 'race for Pyongyang' between China and US-backed South Korea, thus seeking control of the capital, would not be out of the question. As a result, parallel interventions by China from the north and the Republic of Korea and the US from the south could increase the risk of tension and even war between them. Thus, a possible consequence of the North Korean regime’s collapse is a repeat of the 1950s when the Korean problem escalated into a de facto US-China war. Therefore, the "hard landing" scenario would only be favourable for the realisation of Korean reunification on the South's terms if the South Korean authorities, in cooperation with the US, comprehensively prepared for the gigantic costs of the collapse of the Kim regime.
The possibility of the North being absorbed by the South following one of North Korea's 'soft landing' options has also been considered. Here, the North Korean authorities introduce a policy of reform, open up, expand contacts with the Republic of Korea and negotiate the terms of absorption of the weaker North by the stronger South. This 'soft landing' option would be far preferable as it would avoid the costs of a regime collapse in the North and would likely involve an easing of tensions. Still, under the current circumstances, the likelihood of the North Korean authorities deciding on thorough internal reforms leading to an agreement on absorption by the Republic of Korea is basically negligible.
The Fight for a New Korea
Whatever the scenario, the reunification of Korea would entail huge changes in the regional balance of power. Depending on the course and nature of reunification, a unified Korea could be an opportunity, a challenge or even a threat to the interests of the major powers involved on the Korean peninsula, namely the US and China.
The reunification of Korea could be beneficial to the US. The scenario of the absorption of the North by the South or a peaceful agreement between the two Koreas would solve the decades-old problem of the North Korean threat. A favourable solution from an American point of view would be for a reunified Korea to form an alliance with the US or rather to adapt it to the new realities. Still, Korean reunification under any option would be an incredibly expensive process which would probably force the need for comprehensive support from the US.
What’s more, the future of the US-Korea alliance would be in question. The lack of the primary reason for the alliance, the North Korean threat, would raise questions about the sense of continuing the alliance. Korean reunification would imply the need for a new model of cooperation between the Americans and Koreans, taking into account, among other things, the context of relations with China. For example, an American withdrawal from the peninsula could hypothetically be a condition for the Chinese to normalise relations with a newly unified Korea and de facto receive a green light from Beijing.
For China, reunification under the option of absorption of the North by the South or peaceful reunification through integration and dialogue would only be positive if it ended the long-standing nuclear crisis and the cycle of tensions on the peninsula. But mostly if it would lead to the end of the Korean-US alliance and the withdrawal of US forces from the peninsula.
Either way, it seems that Korean reunification would be a huge problem for China. Reunification on the South's terms would upset the balance of power in the region, and the loss of North Korea as a strategic buffer would risk the appearance of US military forces on China's borders. This, in turn, would seriously complicate China's reunification plans with Taiwan. The collapse of a socialist state, such as North Korea, and the emergence of a free market democracy would arguably pose a challenge to the Chinese Communist Party. The new Korean state could also be a nationalist state, resulting in Sino-Korean tensions, including an intensification of historical and territorial disputes. The nationalism of a united Korea could spill over beyond the peninsula to include northeastern China, home to some 2 million ethnic Koreans.
A divided Korea remains one of the last relics of the Cold War. The emergence of radically different political and socio-economic systems on opposite sides of the 38th parallel still generates problems today. It is not surprising then, that every few years, South Korea attempts to ease tensions. It uses the narrative of reunification to do so, although it does not necessarily treat it as an achievable goal. For it is aware of the obstacles due to which the prospect of Korean reunification is incredibly remote, perhaps impossible. At the same time, it is aware of the terrible costs that would arise in the event of an uncontrolled turn of events, such as the collapse of the North Korean regime. That is why, despite the enormity of the doubts, the authorities in Seoul reach out from time to time to their counterparts in Pyongyang in the hope of de-escalating tensions and gradually preparing, over a period of years, for an eventual reunification, yet one whose burden would not collapse Korea.
The slogan of reunification is also a code word to open another door: to signal that the overriding role in bringing about reconciliation and peace on the Korean peninsula is to be played by both Koreas. In this way, Koreans are saying that the superpowers must align themselves to this. Every subsequent step towards reunification - whether real or merely feigned - will remind the US and Chinese of the enormity of Korean Reunification's challenges. And show that, even under conditions of division, it is the Koreans who have the final say over their peninsula.
