The vast majority of South Koreans polled believe that North Korea will not surrender its nuclear arsenal, according to a recent survey from the Korean Institute of National Unification (KINU).

The annual KINU unification survey, which was published on Thursday, polled more than 1,000 South Korean citizens age 19 and older between May 20 and June 10 of this year.

In total, 89.5% of respondents said that North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons — a higher portion than in 2016 and 2018, when “inter-Korean relations were in one of the worst states in history,” the report stated.

Dr. Sang-sin Lee, corresponding author of the 2020 unification survey, told NK News that South Koreans’ perceptions of the North Korean nuclear issue typically fluctuate in tandem with the overall state of inter-Korean relations.

“When inter-Korean relations get better, people tend to have higher hopes [about nuclear negotiation],” Lee told NK News in a phone interview on Friday.

“But even when people are more positive, still this number remains around 72%,” he added. In other words, even when South Koreans are optimistic, three quarters of those surveyed still tend to believe North Korea will not denuclearize.

However, general concerns over North Korean nuclear weapons and their possible impacts on everyday life has decreased, Lee said.

According to the survey, 41.7% of respondents agreed with the statement that “there isn’t much the [South Korean] government can do” about North Korea’s nuclear weapons development — a 7% increase from November 2019.

Many South Koreans instead believe the nuclear issue relies significantly on international cooperation, Lee said.

“Perception is growing that … North Korea and unification are realistically not closely connected to everyday South Korean individuals’ lives,” he stated.

Also, apathy on North Korea in general may be increasing, results showed. People are, to some extent, thinking that the possibility of an actual armed conflict between the North and South is low, Lee explained.

The KINU survey also underscores a significant decline in trust towards Kim Jong Un among South Koreans: 23.8% of respondents found the North Korean leader trustworthy in November 2019, compared to 15.6% in 2020.

Even so, support for dialogue and engagement increased, with nearly half of survey participants — 45.7% — viewing it positively, compared to 38.1% in November 2019.

A NEW OUTLOOK ON REUNIFICATION

While trust for Kim Jong Un has waned and fewer believe that North Korea will ever denuclearize, South Korean citizens’ vision for realistic reunification may be transforming.

For the first time in its annual survey, KINU included a new question asking what unification could possibly look like.

About 40.2% of respondents said they preferred a “confederation” as opposed to total reunification, with younger respondents particularly in favor of this idea, the report stated.

Nearly half of respondents agreed with the statement that “even if the two Koreas do not become one nation, it can be called unification as long as the people of both sides can freely visit each other and engage in political and economic cooperation.”

“The reason we designed the question this way is because it seems that there is no serious discussion happening in South Korea yet on what unification really is,” Lee told NK News.

“We were wondering how respondents would react if the format of unification is not a unitary system of ‘one people,’ but something else.”

Starting this year, South Korean President Moon Jae-in used the phrase “a community of life and peace” instead of “people’s [minjok] community” to refer to the Korean peninsula as a whole. This could be an attempt to break away from the traditional idea of national reunification, Lee said.

More than half of South Koreans —54.9% — said that they would be more comfortable with a “peaceful coexistence” rather than being unified as “one people,” after all.

“We do not have any intention to force our system onto the North. We pursue peace and intend to live well together,” Moon stated in a speech on Thursday night that commemorated the 70th anniversary of the Korean War.

“We will continuously search for routes that are mutually beneficial for both Koreas through peace. Before speaking of unification, I hope that we can become friendly neighbors first.”

Edited by Kelly Kasulis