# Does North Korea really still hope to reunify the Koreas? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 10, 2025, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601 "2025-12-10T20:43:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2025, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/21 "2025-12-12T07:46:29Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > I doubt the South really wants to deal with reunification and then caring for and educating their malnourished and backward brethren. (A little off-topic, but I think relevant) South Korea is facing an absolutely disastrous collapse of population. Thirty or 40 years from now, they might actually welcome additional people, (even if they are malnourished). At least they speak the language. (here are some numbers: The S. Korean birth rate is 0.6 per woman. This means that a group of 2000 people (1000 married couples) have only 600 children (300 girls), who will have only 180 grandchildren.) > **[Korean population could drop by 85% in next 100 years: study](https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10522978)** > > South Korea’s population could plummet to just 15 percent of its current level by 2125 if the nation’s ongoing demographic decline continues unabated, according ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2025, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/22 "2025-12-12T11:00:50Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > It’s saying something that seeing North Korea turned into a puppet state of China would be an _improvement_ on the current situation. Yep, pretty much anything would be. The main problem with being a puppet state would be a lot of countries would keep the sanctions / embargoes. (I mean, apart from the lack of sovereignty obvs, but it would still be a freer place than now) ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2025, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/23 "2025-12-12T12:47:29Z")
never mind, redundant ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2025, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/24 "2025-12-12T12:59:15Z")
If by North Korea you mean their maniacal leader, then yes. If you mean the rest of the sane world, I seriously doubt it. Any attempt by North Korea to unify by force could very well escalate into WW3. We step in to defend South Korea, China steps in to defend North Korea, and off we go. ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2025, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/25 "2025-12-12T13:21:24Z")
I thought Kim formally abandoned the goal of reunification a couple of years ago. Yeah, here it is… [North Korea’s Kim Jong Un abandons unification goal with South](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67990948) NK was instead going to write into their Constitution that destruction of their main enemy (the ROK) is their main goal now. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2025, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/26 "2025-12-12T14:46:44Z")
See also @Chad_Sudan’s post #12 in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2025, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/27 "2025-12-12T20:57:09Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I suspect a Chinese-dominated NK puppet government would last only a couple decades before its wheels started to fall off somehow. Minor disagreement, because China, being China, wouldn’t let it get to a couple of decades as a “puppet”. I suspect (of course, this is hypothetical) that a large number of NK Citizens would be given “work permits” in other places, including China, and never return. And Chinese “experts” would be sent in to educate and provide professional support for the government, to fix the economy and infrastructure and loot anything of worse. And by a few decades, it would be a de facto Chinese province and there wouldn’t be anyone left trying to pretend otherwise. Of course, I guess that would be a _different_ sort of “wheels falling off” scenario, where it went from puppet to province. And I also strongly suspect that would be a point where depending on SK population and political will, the Chinese NK could absolutely start promoting a “Korean” unification with the south, possibly successfully! ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2025, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/28 "2025-12-12T23:11:05Z")
The other issue is that there is a certain number of people in South Korea who also want a unified Korea, albeit on SK’s terms. They would be highly disgruntled about the prospects of China annexing North Korea, since it would mean the end of any such unification hopes - as if China took over land that ought to rightfully be Korea’s. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/29 "2026-01-04T02:01:01Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > The other issue is that there is a certain number of people in South Korea who also want a unified Korea That’s the only pathway I can see. And that’s if they’re willing to take an economic hit much larger than Germany’s reunification. Yet standing in the way is China being unkeen about it. And who is going to run this unified country after a mass migration to the South? Vietnam didn’t really have to “reunite” in these ways, and they have been extremely prosperous. The USA, following the Civil War, had some issues, yet we still have them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601.md?page=1)