Koreas in 'fierce' cultural battle to win hearts of N. Koreans: minister

Seoul to thoroughly document Russia's oversight of NK's illicit actions, says unification minister

South Korea's Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho delivers his keynote speech at the 2024 International Dialogue on North Korean Human Rights, Tuesday in Washington, DC. The conference is co-hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Ministry of Unification of the Republic of Korea, the National Endowment for Democracy, and Human Asia. (Screen capture from the CSIS YouTube channel)

Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho on Tuesday emphasized that South Korea's cultural wave is fiercely battling the cultural indoctrination of the Kim Jong-un regime to win the hearts and minds of North Koreans.

"With the influx of external culture and information such as South Korean soap operas and K-pop, many North Koreans are consuming Juche culture by day, South Korean culture by night," Kim said in his keynote speech at the 2024 International Dialogue on North Korean Human Rights held in Washington.

Kim underscored in English that the pattern of cultural consumption signifies a "fierce competition between the regime's Juche culture and the people's South Korean Hallyu (Korean wave) culture over the consciousness and minds of North Koreans."

Juche, which translates to "self-reliance" via political, economic and military independence at the levels of the individual and nation state, is the state ideology of North Korea.

"The fact that more than half of the total 196 defectors last year are from the 2030 young generation (of those in their twenties and thirties) and high-ranking officials attests to the influence of South Korean culture, which is causing cracks in the rigid wall of Juche culture," Kim told participants during the first such event held overseas.

Kim explained that North Korea's "totalitarian dictatorship" places a high importance on stringent information control to exert comprehensive dominance over the minds and bodies of its citizens.

However, the Unification Ministry’s recent report indicates that these draconian measures did not stop North Korean people from accessing outside information.

The "Report on North Korean Economy and Society," based on a survey of 6,351 defectors, revealed a sharp rise in foreign video viewership: from 49.2 percent of those defecting before 2011 to 82.4 percent for those defecting after 2012.

"Considering these internal changes within North Korean society, the importance of cultural approaches is increasing alongside political and military approaches to strongly deter North Korea's military threats, making it a time to start discussions on this issue," Kim said.

Kim also noted that North Korea's continuous enactment of laws to ramp up indoctrination and ban external culture "reflects the North Korean authorities' sense of crisis regarding the rejection of Juche culture."

North Korea promulgated the Law on Rejecting Reactionary Ideology and Culture in 2020, the Youth Education Guarantee Law in 2021 and the Law on Protecting Pyongyang Cultural Language in 2023.

Kim also issued a strong message to the Russian government, condemning the detrimental effects of the "Treaty on the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership" signed between the leaders of North Korea and Russia in mid-June.

"Despite being a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the Russian government is leading efforts to undermine UN sanctions against North Korea to import its weapons," Kim said.

Kim underscored that any cooperation aiding North Korea's military development, or maintaining and expanding the dispatch of North Korean overseas workers, constitutes a blatant breach of UN Security Council resolutions.

Kim also cautioned that the Unification Ministry's Center for North Korean Human Rights Records will meticulously document Russia's complicity in, or passive acceptance of, North Korea's illicit activities and human rights abuses.

"The exploitative labor conditions and intensity of North Korean workers dispatched overseas, along with the exploitation by North Korean authorities and the neglect by host countries like Russia, will be thoroughly documented and preserved as cases of human rights violations," he said.

By Ji Da-gyum(dagyumji@heraldcorp.com)