The Korean Odyssey

*The spread of COVID-19 in North Korea is ironically strengthening the state's social control system  ⓒ iStock Il Young Jeong Research Professor_Institute of Social Sciences_Sogang University As COVID-19 began to spread around the world in 2020, North Korea closed off its borders and had, until recently, claimed to be Covid-free. However, as the North Korean government discusses the ‘fate of the nation’ in the face of the spread of COVID-19, a sense of impending crisis is palpable both inside and outside the country. It is difficult to determine the exact number of confirmed cases, but, according to North Korea’s official numbers, the cumulative number of fever patients had reached about 1.71 million with 62 deaths as of May 17, 2022. The spread of COVID-19 is clearly a national crisis. However, the tendency to connect the current North Korean situation with theories about the state’s collapse and to approach and interpret this situation politically is quite worrisome. As some in

  *Banners  hanging on the border fence with  wishes  for the reunification of the two Koreas  ⓒ iStock Il Young Jeong Research Professor_Institute of Social Sciences_Sogang University The situation on the Korean Peninsula is, to put it bluntly, grim. Talks have been cut off, and North Korea has expressed its willingness to guarantee its security through nuclear armament. We need to re-evaluate our efforts for peace on the Korean Peninsula in the face of a new South Korean government. We need to begin asking and finding answers to questions about the structural issues at play. Dialogue on the Korean Peninsula has been cut off because the two sides do not trust each other. In the past 30 or so years since the signing of the “Declaration of Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” in 1992, we have worked hard to move towards the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, all to no avail. In addition, the inter-Korean economic cooperation represented by the Mt. Kumgang Tourist Region and