Jung Min-ho has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2012, mostly covering social and political issues. He currently belongs to the Politics & City Desk where he covers topics such as health, labor and human rights. Prior to joining the team, he was responsible for covering North Korea and sports. His article about a biosecurity breach of Middle East respiratory syndrome won him an award from the Korea Science Journalists Association in 2016. He is also the co-author of the book, "Medical Pioneers of Korea" (2019). He served as the head of the international relations committee at the Journalists Association of Korea from 2021 to 2023.
Experts call for placing human rights at center of NK policy
Hyun Jin Preston Moon, founder and chairman of the Global Peace Foundation, gives a keynote speech during the International Forum on One Korea at a hotel in Seoul, Friday. Courtesy of Global Peace Foundation
By Jung Min-ho
Pyongyang's drastic policy shift highlighted at International Forum on One Korea
Reunifying the Korean Peninsula into one nation has always been a challenging mission. But over the past year, skepticism has grown to an unprecedented level. After the North Korean regime officially abandoned its goal of unification late last year, some politicians in the South have also joined increasing calls for “peaceful coexistence.”
During this year’s International Forum on One Korea, co-hosted by the Global Peace Foundation (GPF), Action for Korea United and One Korea Foundation, political leaders, security experts and human rights activists urged the government and people in the South to reject that shift, saying that permanent division on the peninsula betrays Korea’s founding vision and would not bring lasting peace.
“The fact that (North Korean leader) Kim Jong-un abandoned unification, which was a key policy of both his father and grandfather, is an admission that he has already lost,” Hyun Jin Preston Moon, left, founder and chairman of the GPF, said at Friday’s event held in Seoul.
According to Moon, that decision was tantamount to abandoning the aspirations of modern Korea's forefathers who led the independence movement from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule and those who established the nation under the founding value of “Hongik Ingan,” interpreted as “to benefit humanity widely.”
“Who’s carrying the torch of those aspirations and staying true to our 5,000-year history and the destiny of the Korean people (now)? It’s you,” he said, calling on the government to reform its unification ministry as a pan-government, nonpartisan entity for that critical task.
North Korea’s attempt to leave the peninsula divided will not be supported by any countries, not even China, one of its most important allies, according to Hao Su, professor emeritus at Renmin University of China.
“The Chinese government has always supported the policies for the peaceful reunification of the peninsula led by the people of the peninsula. North Korea’s recent policy changes will not affect China’s perception, nor will it change China’s stance of supporting the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula,” he said.
Dignitaries, including security scholars and human rights experts, pose during the International Forum on One Korea at a hotel in Seoul, Friday. Courtesy of Global Peace Foundation
Dozens of prominent scholars and activists shared their insights and discussed ways to make the vision possible there. One thing they all agreed on was that prioritizing denuclearization of North Korea above the human rights of its people has achieved neither of the objectives.
“For 30 years, our North Korea policy has sacrificed human rights for the sake of addressing nuclear weapons. Both North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs have thrived. Sidelining human rights to appease the regime is not the answer, but a fundamental flaw in policy. Our task is to turn this record of failure into success,” said Robert Joseph, a senior scholar at the National Institute for Public Policy and former special envoy for nuclear nonproliferation in the U.S.
Given that the greatest vulnerability of the Kim regime is from within, from the alienation of its own people who suffer under its totalitarian repression, Joseph suggested placing human rights and a comprehensive information campaign at the center of a new strategy for North Korea.
His view was echoed by Suzanne Scholte, a U.S. rights activist and chief of the North Korean Freedom Coalition.
“Today, the people of North Korea are far more informed about the outside world than ever before. It is precisely why Kim Jong-un is using such draconian measures to isolate them from the outside world: It is the only way he can stay in power,” Scholte said. “He is terrified that he is losing control over their minds, which will mean the end of this triple family dictatorship.”
What those experts suggest is to maximize the international efforts to let ordinary people in North Korea know what the whole world already knows — the reality of their terrible human rights situation, the incompetence of their leaders and the world outside their borders.
David Maxwell, a GPF senior fellow and vice president at the Washington-based Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, said such efforts matter not just for the country’s peaceful unification but also for another important mission of creating a new Korea.
One of the subjects addressed during the forum was the economic cost of unification, which is one of the major reasons for growing skepticism, particularly among young South Koreans.
According to Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist, such worries are vastly overblown.
“First: the economic reconstruction of northern Korea will be an immense project — but if the returns on investment in this project are high, the project can basically pay for itself in the long run,” he said. “Second, thanks to generations of market-led modern development, both South Korea and the world as a whole are richer and more productive than ever before — better poised to mobilize and deploy the immense amounts of capital and know-how a successful Korean reunification will surely require.”
If reunification suddenly occurred today, the newly reunified Korean Peninsula would count as a fairly affluent country, he noted.
Rough calculations indicate that overall wealth per adult for a reunified Korea would be over $150,000 today, he added — about the same level as in much of Southern Europe.
“None of this will be easy of course — but all of it is surely doable,” Eberstadt said. “But Korean reunification is ‘unthinkable’ only if we fail to think about it.”