President Yoon Suk Yeol’s newly unveiled vision for unification with North Korea highlights a push to bring about change within North Korea, experts said Thursday, amid increasingly strained ties between the two Koreas.

Yoon unveiled the initiative in his Liberation Day address in an update to the government’s 1994 vision that had sought unification by reconciling and cooperating with the North and respecting the country’s political system.

In the new vision, Yoon laid out three key tasks: defending freedom in South Korea, bringing about changes in North Korea through human rights improvements and outside information, and strengthening cooperation with the international community.

“If more North Koreans come to recognize that unification through freedom is the only way to improve their lives and are convinced that a unified Republic of Korea will embrace them, they will become strong, friendly forces for a freedom-based unification,” he said.

He also proposed an official dialogue platform with Pyongyang t
hat could take up any issue, from reducing tensions to economic cooperation, as part of the vision dubbed the “Aug. 15 unification doctrine.”

“Instead of simply hoping for the North Korean regime’s goodwill, we now need an action plan to preemptively act upon and lead,” Principal Deputy National Security Adviser Kim Tae-hyo said in a briefing.

Yoo Seong-ok, board chairman of the Institute for National Security Strategy, described the vision as setting the target for unification as the North Korean people rather than simply the country’s leadership.

“While North Korea’s regime appears to reject freedom, the North Korean people want freedom,” Yoo said.

Other experts, however, warned against such a push that could be seen by the North as “unification by absorption,” noting that it would only encourage Pyongyang to increase hostilities against Seoul.

“The more our government emphasizes unification by absorption, the more North Korea will strengthen the ‘two countries system,'” Yang Moo-jin, president of the
University of North Korean Studies, said.

He said such efforts would likely push the North to speed up efforts for a hereditary leadership succession system and tighten its grip over the public, worsening the lives of ordinary North Koreans.

Cross-border ties have recently fallen to one of the lowest points in years amid North Korea’s continued weapons development push and increasingly hostile rhetoric against the South.

Late last December, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un defined inter-Korean ties as those between “two states hostile to each other,” saying that he would no longer consider South Korea as a counterpart for reconciliation and unification.

The next month, Kim called for revising the constitution to define South Korea as its “invariable principal enemy” and to codify the commitment to “completely occupying” the South Korean territory in the event of war.

The North has also pressed ahead with weapons tests, launching 48 missiles this year alone, and has staged a trash-carrying balloon campaign
since late May in retaliation against anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent by activists in the South.

South Korea has hit back against the balloon launches, resuming broadcasts of anti-Pyongyang propaganda through its border loudspeakers in June for the first time since 2018.

Considering the strained ties, Yoon’s proposal for dialogue is unlikely to be accepted by the North, experts said.

“It is difficult to expect North Korea’s response, but it demonstrates a resolve to manage inter-Korean relations,” said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University.

Other experts, however, remained skeptical over the initiative.

“(The vision) is filled with content that rejects the North Korean regime. Why would North Korea respond for a working-level dialogue platform?” questioned former Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun. “The Aug. 15 unification doctrine will not help much in improving inter-Korean ties or reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.”

While the two Koreas had mai
ntained regular communication through their military and liaison office hotlines, the North has remained unresponsive to the calls since April last year.

Source: Yonhap News Agency