Hyeong Jung Park, a visiting research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, examines North Korea's policy toward South Korea under Kim Jong Un, linking it to the legacies of Kim Jong Il’s regime. While Kim Jong Il advanced nuclear and missile capabilities, it was not until Kim Jong Un's rise of power that North Korea began adopting increasingly hardline policies, including internal purges to eliminate elites loyal to his father’s strategies, strengthened top-down party control, and heightened hostility toward South Korea. With North Korea now characterizing inter-Korean relations as those of two hostile states at war, Park argues that South Korea must responding strategically to provocations while weakening the North until the balance of power shifts in South Korea’s favor. He warns that North Korea’s ultimate goal is domination, not mere deterrence, and stresses that South Korea should avoid entering negotiations from a position of weakness.
*Also available for download in Korean. |
