N.K. shows no change for 2 decades since Kim Il Sung’s death

Tuesday marks the 20th anniversary of the late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung’s sudden death while preparing for a summit meeting with the then South Korean President Kim Young-sam. Mentioning that Kim signed a document on reunification of the two Koreas on the eve of his death, the North issued on Monday a statement, reading, “It is our stance to continue to open new transformative chapter in improvement of inter-Korean relations and independent unification.” Pyongyang said, “The North and the South should never allow unjust interference of foreign forces that seek to intervene in internal issues of the Korean people, and should form united front to counter them,” in expressing discontent over Chinese President Xi Jinping’s expression of objection to the North’s nuclear weapons development during his visit to Seoul last week. The North has launched harsh criticism over the South’s Korean Peninsula Trust-building Process and the Dresden Declaration by saying, “Our nuke is neither obstacle to unification nor a stumbling block to improvement of inter-Korean relations,” which reveals that Pyongyang has no intention whatsoever to give up its nuclear weapons and has no change in its recognition of reality.

On slander by the North’s Kim Jong Un regime of "South Korea’s conservative administration," and "halt to the drills for war to invade the North (South Korea-U.S. joint military drills)," demands that the South cannot afford to accept, the South Korean government is right to refute them by saying, “Rather than repeating irrational claims, Pyongyang should come to the negotiating table sooner rather than later.” However, Seoul has no reason to reject Pyongyang’s offer to dispatch a cheering squad “to prepare mood for unity of the Korean people” together with its national athletic team to the 2014 Incheon Asian Games to be held in September.

The North dispatched cheering squads comprised primarily of young women to the South during the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, the 2003 Summer Universiade in Daegu, and the 2005 Asian Athletic Championships in Incheon. Kim Jong Un’s wife Ri Sol Ju also visited Incheon as member of the North Korean cheering squad. Back then, their beautiful appearance and act of showing irrational respect to the then North Korean leader Kim Jong Il became hot topic of conversations in the South.

The problem is that the North has hardly shown sincerity. In its special suggestion on June 30, the North’s National Defense Commission demanded the South cancel the South Korea-U.S. joint military drill "Ulchi Freedom Guardian" to take place in August, which it claims is necessary to create mood in advance. If the North is to participate in the Asian Games with such political intent hidden behind, this will be only construed as its attempt to create internal conflict within the South.

Watchers in South Korea and elsewhere raised the possibility for the North’s collapse since Kim Il Sung’s death, but the Kim family continues its one-man rule through the regimes of Kim Jong Il and the incumbent Kim Jong Un. The North has not changed ether in its random use of dual-tactics of peace and provocations against the South in line with its own interest. How long the North will be able to maintain its regime through oppression and exploitation, and escalation of tension with the South? If Kim Jong Un seriously wants peace on the Korean Peninsula, which his grandfather and father blocked, he should change by himself. Inter-Korean exchange should no longer be mere a one-time event to show off.