South Korean President Moon Jae-in speaks during a Memorial Day ceremony at the National Cemetery in Seoul, Thursday. AP-Yonhap

Stalled denuke talks affects sentiment

By Park Ji-won


South Koreans have become less supportive of President Moon Jae-in's North Korea policy compared to last year amid a deadlock in the denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington, according to the latest survey.

The survey, conducted by Hankook Research at the request of The Korea Times' sister paper Hankook Ilbo, showed 51.1 percent of 1,000 respondents support Moon's North Korea policy while 47.1 percent said they don't. The results possibly imply that an increasing number of people are viewing the government's inter-Korean policy negatively. A similar survey by the same pollster August last year showed that 67 percent out of 1,000 respondents said they supported the government's North Korea policy while 65 percent said they support the country's diplomatic policy.

The figure is likely a reflection of negative sentiment toward North Korea amid the stalled denuclearization talks and the North's recent test-firings of short-range projectiles, the pollster analyzed.

Jeong Han-ul, an analyst of the survey company, said, "More than 70 percent including conservatives supported Moon's North Korea policy last year when the two Koreas had three summits and Pyongyang and Washington held a summit in Vietnam on June 12. However, the Hanoi summit which ended without an agreement had a negative impact on the figure; now only 40 percent to 50 percent people support the policy."

He added, "The approval rating on the administration continued to drop as the government and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) lost the people's trust in their performance regarding the North Korea issue, which is one of the key political issues for them."

Specifically, by age, 64.8 percent of respondents in their 40s backed the policy while more than half of respondents in their 20s and 60s were negative about it.

About 74 percent out of 293 respondents, who called themselves liberal, said they support Moon's North Korea policy while 31.4 percent out of 234 respondents, who called themselves conservative, said they support the policy. About 51 percent out of 408 centrists said they don't support the policy.

Meanwhile, regarding which diplomatic policies the government should prioritize, 30.5 percent said it should build better ties between Seoul and Washington while 22.1 percent and said it should pursue multilateral diplomacy and 21.9 percent called for an improvement in inter-Korean relations.

Experts said the government should find a breakthrough by taking a realistic approach toward the North Korea policy.

"The government led people to have higher expectations on the success of the talks with the North last year. The failure of the Hanoi summit led to more disappointment against Pyongyang," Shin Beom-chul, director of the Center for Security and Unification at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, reportedly said.

"The government needs to find a balance between other diplomatic issues and the North Korea issue by setting realistic goals regarding the North."