According to a report by Yonhap News Agency on the 21st, a survey released by the Seoul Municipal Government on the same day showed that nearly 70% of Seoul people believe that South Korea should be reunified, but believe that it is less likely to achieve reunification or change North Korea’s attitude.
Another 60% of the respondents supported the North-South Olympic Games in 2032.
The Seoul Municipal Government conducted a unified awareness questionnaire survey of 2,000 citizens between the ages of 19 and 69. The results showed that 67.6% of the respondents answered that it was necessary for reunification between South Korea and North Korea, a decrease of 6.6 percentage points from the same period last year.
The results of the survey also show that the older the age, the higher the proportion of support for the reunification of the peninsula. Among respondents aged 50 to 59, 73.6% thought that the harmonization was “necessary”, 64.4% of respondents aged 30 to 39 believed, and 58.5% of those aged 20 to 29. Regarding the unified time, 24.7% of respondents answered “less than 20 years” and 23.2% replied “will not achieve”.
At the same time, negative comments on inter-Korean relations have also increased. Regarding the outlook for inter-Korean relations over the next five years, 53.5% of the respondents said that it would “no change”, an increase of 5.3% over the same period last year, while 34.8% answered that “will improve”, 4.7% less than last year.
Regarding the possibility of North Korea’s denuclearization, 72.8% of respondents answered “low”, but more respondents regard North Korea as a partner (45.4%) rather than a “vigilant object” (28.0%). Some analysts believe that the long-term stagnation of inter-Korean relations has had a certain impact on the need for reunification and the prospect of inter-Korean relations among South Korean citizens.
However, most South Koreans still support the co-hosting of the Olympic Games between South Korea and the continuous promotion of humanitarian assistance to North Korea.
62% of the respondents supported the idea of “2032 Seoul-Pyongyang co-hosting the Olympic Games” being promoted by the South Korean government and the city of Seoul; in terms of humanitarian assistance to North Korea, more than half of the respondents (53.1%) thought that the issue should be dealt with separately from political and military issues.
58.1% of the respondents believe that Seoul should promote inter-Korean exchanges, and 58.8% believe that this move will help improve inter-Korean relations.
On the topic of the highest priority of inter-Korean exchange and cooperation, the highest proportion of answers to “economic and industrial cooperation” is 24.0%, followed by “social and cultural exchanges” (20.7%), “forming a unified culture” (18.2%), “health care cooperation” (16.1%), etc.
