The Peninsula

President Yoon’s Vision of Unification: Liberation, not Engagement

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol offered a dramatically different vision of Korean unification in his Liberation Day speech on August 15, an annual observance in South Korea that marks the end of Japanese colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula. In his speech, President Yoon framed unification as completing the unfinished task of liberation and the triumph of “freedom” over the North Korean system. “The freedom we enjoy must be extended to the frozen kingdom of the North, where people are deprived of freedom and suffer from poverty and starvation,” Yoon said. “Only when a unified free and democratic nation rightfully owned by the people is established across the entire Korean Peninsula will we finally have complete liberation.”

His vision clearly rejects the legitimacy of the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” and the idea of unification through a gradual process of integration and extensive cross-border cooperation – a concept that was famously embodied in the progressive Sunshine Policy of the late President Kim Dae-jung but also largely embraced by conservative successors such as Park Geun-hye in her hallmark 2014 speech on unification. Furthermore, Yoon’s speech occurred amid heightened inter-Korean tensions, growing domestic partisanship, and Japanese actions that risk bilateral uncertainty.

Shifting Visions of Unification

President Yoon laid out a set of proposals to accomplish this goal, such as the creation of a new inter-Korean working group to hold talks on a wide range of issues from economic cooperation to disaster relief. But the thrust of his speech focused on efforts to actively support human rights in the North, deepen the flow of information into the closed society, and support those who have defected to the South. The intent is to build support within the North for what amounts to, though it is not directly stated, de facto regime change. “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.

Yoon’s unification policy is a response to, and perhaps ironically a mirror of, the equally dramatic shift in the policy of the North Korean regime. In a speech to the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea in late December, Kim Jong-un declared a “new stand on north-south relations and the reunification policy.” South Korea was now to be regarded as a “hostile” and “belligerent” state under the control of the United States. All references to peaceful unification were ended, and he directed the North Korean military to prepare “to subjugate the whole territory of the south.” Since Kim’s policy shift, there has been an uptick in tough rhetoric and military buildup directed against the South. The North Koreans have conducted a series of short-range ballistic missile tests and, earlier this month, announced the delivery of 250 nuclear-capable missile launchers to frontline units along the border with the South.

Partisanship Surrounding Liberation Day

Yoon’s address had a decidedly partisan tone as well. He assailed “pseudo-intellectuals” and others who circulate “fake news” to “undermine free societies,” labeling them as “anti-freedom, anti-unification forces.” The increasingly polarized atmosphere in South Korea was manifest in the unprecedented decision of the opposition parties and groups representing the descendants of anti-Japanese “freedom fighters,” such as the Heritage of Korean Independence, to hold separate ceremonies.

Liberation Day has traditionally been a moment of national unity to honor the spirit of the Korean independence movement against Japan’s colonial rule. The decision of the opposition parties and their allies to boycott Yoon’s address was intended to protest perceived attempts by the government to distort the history of resistance and justify Japanese revisionism of its colonial rule. The controversy over the Korean government’s support of the Japanese application for World Heritage Site status for the Sado Gold Mines, where Korean forced labor was employed during the war, has fed this mood.

The decision to boycott the official ceremony was also triggered by the government’s appointment of figures associated with the “New Right,” an intellectual movement that has offered an alternative view of Korea-Japan history, to key posts. Such moves include the appointment of Kim Hyoung-suk as president of the Independence Hall of Korea, the major museum commemorating this resistance. “Our society has recently been thrown into confusion by widespread vulgar historical attitudes that are tainted by a pro-Japanese view of history and distortions of the truth. We couldn’t just stand by and watch this historical regression and disparagement,” said Heritage of Korean Independence leader Lee Jong-chan, explaining the group’s decision to hold their own separate ceremony.

Simmering Korea-Japan Tensions

Yoon’s Liberation Day speech was also notable for its almost complete absence of references to Japan, other than noting that the day marked the end of Imperial Japan’s rule and comparing Korea’s economic achievements to those of Japan. In his speech last year, Yoon offered an extensive discussion of the improvement of relations with Japan, including the establishment of closer trilateral security cooperation with the United States and Japan. It is unclear why Japan disappeared from this year’s Liberation Day address – perhaps as a nod to the use of anti-Japanese issues by the opposition or as an indirect acknowledgment of ongoing tensions between the two countries over wartime and colonial history.

For Japan, August 15 is also an important historical moment, one that marks its surrender and the end of the war. In his speech to commemorate the anniversary of defeat, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio pledged to maintain Japan’s pacifist resolve to “never again repeat the devastation of war.” He noted the 3 million Japanese who lost their lives in the war, including in the Battle of Okinawa, the bombing raids on Japan, and most of all, the atomic bombings. But he carefully avoided mentioning Japanese aggression across Asia. At the same time, three members of Kishida’s cabinet, including Defense Minister Kihara Minoru, visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine to honor Japan’s war dead. The gap between how Korea and Japan mark this moment in history offers a reminder of the way the past continues to color the present.

Conclusion

The dangers of renewed conflict on the Korean Peninsula can never be underestimated. The warring visions of unification offered by President Yoon and North Korean leader Kim are likely to lead to even greater inter-Korean tensions. Against a backdrop of global uncertainty, the intensification of partisan conflict within South Korea further complicates any effort to reshape relations on the Korean Peninsula.

 

Daniel Sneider is a Lecturer of International Policy and East Asian Studies at Stanford University and a Non-Resident Distinguished Fellow at the Korea Economic Institute of America. The views expressed here are the author’s alone.

Photo from the Office of South Korean President

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