The way of Kim Jong Un
In late 2023, North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un declared he no longer wanted to reunify with South Korea. Seoul was now Pyongyang’s “principal enemy.” Since then, Kim has tested new and more powerful missiles, launched his navy’s first destroyers, and unveiled a nuclear-powered submarine under construction.
Kim made this shift when South Korea was ruled by President Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative who took a hard line against the North. But then on December 4, 2024, Yoon made a power grab: He declared martial law, disbanded the legislature, and said some members of the liberal opposition—the Democratic Party of Korea—were working with North Korea to undermine the South’s security.
Yoon’s gambit failed. Members of the National Assembly—including some from his own party—sneaked past soldiers that same night to meet in the chamber and revoke his declaration. Yoon eventually backed down, the legislature impeached him, and the Constitutional Court removed him from office in April. He’s now awaiting trial on charges of insurrection and abuse of power. On June 3, voters chose Lee Jae Myung of the DPK to replace him.
Lee has made conciliatory moves toward Kim—a major change from Yoon. He pledged to reopen communication channels with Pyongyang, suspended propaganda broadcasts into the North, and in August, the country dismantled some loudspeakers along the border.
How is North Korea responding?
Soo Kim is a former analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency and the RAND Corporation, where she tracked East Asia and the Korean Peninsula. Kim says that despite predictably bombastic rhetoric from Pyongyang about events in Seoul—and despite how hard it always is to know what’s really going on inside the North Korean regime—one thing seems clear: Kim Jong Un has no interest in engagement with South Korea.
The supreme leader is playing a long game, Kim says, and his primary interest is the survival of his family dynasty—not dissolving it in reunification. He sees nuclear weapons as his best tool for strengthening the regime, and his growing partnership with Russia is valuable too. He sees little to gain through diplomacy with the South—and meanwhile, the idea of reunifying the Korean Peninsula recedes further with each new generation in both Koreas.
Oliver Mills: In late 2023, Kim Jong Un said he no longer wanted reunification with the South and saw it as an adversary like any other. What do we know about why he did that?
