A recent survey has shown that over half of South Korean citizens view North Korea as a separate nation.
The 2025 Unification Awareness Survey conducted by Seoul National University’s Institute for Unification and Peace on Monday revealed that 54.5% of respondents agreed with the statement North Korea is also a nation. Conversely, 14.3% disagreed, while 31.1% remained neutral on the issue.
The number of respondents recognizing North Korea’s nationhood has been steadily increasing in recent years. In 2023, the figure stood at 49.9%, rising to 52.1% last year and reaching 54.5% this year.
Notably, there has been a significant increase in the number of citizens who acknowledge North Korea’s nationhood while also supporting the need for unification compared to last year. This trend suggests a growing recognition that pursuing unification realistically requires viewing North Korea as a distinct nation from South Korea.
When asked about the government’s top priority for North Korea policy, 13.8% of respondents cited inter-Korean unification. Among those who identified North Korea as a separate nation, the percentage agreeing with this view rose from 53.5% last year to 65.4% this year, marking an increase of approximately 12 percentage points.
Recently, the Lee Jae Myung administration proposed the Two-Nation Theory as the cornerstone of its new North Korea policy. Last month, Minister Chung Dong-young stated that North and South Korea are effectively already two separate nations, expressing an intention to transform inter-Korean relations into a peaceful coexistence between two distinct countries.
However, this stance has sparked debate and drawn criticism from some political and academic circles, who argue that it contradicts the territorial concepts and unification values enshrined in the constitution.