The Korea Centre at Mahatma Gandhi University was pleased to host a special lecture titled “Korean Peninsula at a Crossroad: Developments in Inter-Korean Relations and the Prospects of Unification” on Wednesday, August 13, 2025, at the School of International Relations and Politics (SIRP). The lecture was delivered by Prof. Ma Sang Yoon from the Department of International Studies, Catholic University, Republic of Korea. This event was organised in collaboration with the UNIKOREA Foundation.
Prof. Ma started his lecture by reflecting on the 80 years of division on the Korean Peninsula as a Paradox. Despite countless efforts and periodic breakthroughs, the division has persisted, making the unification a “ Sisyphean Task”. The situation has arguably worsened in recent years, making it more complex to solve. Pyongyang has formally abandoned unification as a policy goal, and South Korea’s younger generations increasingly favour peaceful coexistence over an integration process. Detailedly discussing the shifting landscape, Prof. Ma posed three guiding questions: Why has unification become more elusive? Should it still be pursued? And if so, through what strategies?
The professor traced the origins of division to the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945, when Korea was split along the 38th parallel under U.S and Soviet occupation. By 1948, two rival states had emerged, setting the stage for the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953. The conflict drew in both the United States and China, and ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the region to endure an unresolved hostility between North and South. For the decades that followed, the two Koreas engaged in an endless competition, where South Korea pursued modernization, while North Korea consolidated its communist system. Yet South Korea’s eventual system victory did not lead to unification, demonstrating that success in rivalry alone was insufficient to overcome division.
The end of the Cold War sparked great expectations of change. Unification was hoped for by the German reunification in 1990. Again, the 1988 Nordpolitik of South Korea, the 1991 Inter-Korean Basic Agreement, and the subsequent acceptance of both Koreas into the United Nations all welcomed a fresh wave of interaction. But this hope was dimmed soon. Facing serious crisis, North Korea started to develop nuclear weapons to ensure its survival by controlling the country at home and employing the nuclear deterrence policy on the international stage.
Prof. Ma added that the peninsula is the most complicated it has ever been in the present. North Korea has come to adhere to the so-called hostile two-state doctrine, which is the explicit abandonment of the possibility of unification. In South Korea, in the meantime, the younger generation has lost enthusiasm for integration. Stability and coexistence, even in the case of division, are now favored by many. Add these internal pressures to the external pressures, and you are dealing with some serious problems. The deepening U.S.-China rivalry and the currently ongoing Russia-Ukraine war have changed the region. North Korea has strengthened its relations with Beijing and Moscow and is losing less and less through UN sanctions. In the case of South Korea, this changing environment has compelled policy-makers to pay extra attention to the issues of proximate security and risk management rather than to the long-term project of unification.
In his closing statements, He has tried to emphasize that even though the long-term goal should be unification, the immediate action that must be taken is to change the existing unfriendly format of a two-state relationship into a friendly relationship. This co-existence would not resolve the division but would give a temporary balance that would lessen the danger of escalation. Prof. Ma, however, warned that this balance is not a piece of cake. Unless there is a long-term vision of unification and resolving the reconciliation issues at home, as well as in international politics, the peninsula will continue to be the subject of tensions and conflicts.
In brief, the lecture by Prof. Sang Yoon Ma provided a very insightful overview of the Korean Peninsula, where the local conflict can be viewed as part of the global confrontation. His argument revealed that even though realization of unification could be far-fetched, it could not come detached from the quest for sustainable peace in Northeast Asia. The event broadened the knowledge of the participants on various forces underpinning inter-Korean relations that are both difficult to unpack and quick to change – historical baggage and domestic politics to changing global power balances.