Half of South Koreans in Their 20s and 30s View North Korea as a "Hostile Target"

A survey has revealed that half of South Koreans in their 20s and 30s perceive North Korea as a "hostile target."

The National Unification Advisory Council (NUAC) commissioned Korea Research, a public opinion polling agency, to conduct an online survey of 1,200 people aged 19 to 39 nationwide from May 27 to June 1.

According to the results released by the NUAC today, when asked whether they consider North Korea a "hostile target," 21.1% of respondents answered "strongly agree," and 28.7% answered "somewhat agree."

This means that 49.8% of the respondents view North Korea as a hostile target.


When asked whether they consider North Korea a "partner for cooperation," only 7.2% answered "strongly agree," and 20.1% answered "somewhat agree."

Those who answered "neutral" accounted for 30.0%.

Meanwhile, 25.8% answered "somewhat disagree," and 16.9% answered "strongly disagree," indicating that 42.7% do not view North Korea as a partner for cooperation.

Regarding the "desirable direction" for inter-Korean relations, the most common response (36.8%) was that "unification should be pursued in the long term, but peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas should be prioritized for the time being."

This was followed by "unification should be pursued in the long term, but the two Koreas should live as separate nations for the time being" (20.3%), "rather than aiming for unification, the two Koreas should establish a relationship as separate nations" (19.4%), and "unification should be the primary goal and actively pursued" (11.8%).

The survey has a 95% confidence level with a maximum margin of error of ±2.83 percentage points.


(Photo: Provided by NUAC, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.