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NKIDP Working Paper #2, “Overconfidence Shattered: North Korean Unification Policy, 1971-1975,” written by Bernd Schaefer (Woodrow Wilson Center), analyzes North Korea’s unification policy during the early 1970s, a period, as Schaefer argues, when North Korea held its last best chance to unify the Korean peninsula under its own auspices.

Relying on ample documentation from the archives of the former East German Foreign Ministry, Schaefer argues that:

- The inter-Korean unification drive during the early 1970s fueled the international competition between the DPRK and ROK to establish diplomatic relations with other countries;

- Changes in the Chinese-North Korean relationship and the prospect of Sino-American rapprochement in the early 1970s prompted North Korea's increased efforts to oust the U.S. military from South Korea and to peacefully reunify the Korean peninsula;

- South Korean President Park Chung Hee took advantage of the inter-Korean talks to provide grounds for the implementation of the Yushin Constitution in 1972;

- Throughout the inter-Korean dialogue, the DPRK entertained inaccurate and unrealistic perceptions of support for the Northern system in South Korea and wrongly equated sympathy for unification in South Korea with preference for the Northern system.

Appended to NKIDP Working Paper #2 are thirteen translated documents from (East) German archives that allow scholars and students to gain a deeper understanding of North Korea’s unification strategy in the 1970s and the surrounding environment and circumstances which shaped North Korean decision-making.

To download “Overconfidence Shattered: North Korean Unification Policy, 1971-1975,” please see the link below.

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DOCUMENT LIST

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DOCUMENT NO. 9

Note on Information by the Head of the 1st Department of the DPRK Foreign Ministry, Comrade Kim Jaesuk, on 31 October 1972 for Ambassadors and Acting Ambassadors of the GDR, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria

DOCUMENT NO. 10

Note on Information by DPRK Deputy Foreign Minister Comrade Ri Manseok on 8 November 1972 for the Ambassadors of Czechoslovakia and Poland and the Acting Ambassadors of the GDR in the Foreign Ministry

DOCUMENT NO. 11

Note on Information by DPRK Deputy Foreign Minister Comrade Ri Manseok on 28 November 1972 for the Ambassadors and Acting Ambassadors of Poland, Czechoslovakia and the GDR between 1200 and 1330 hours in the Foreign Ministry

DOCUMENT NO. 12

Note on Information by DPRK Deputy Foreign Minister Comrade Lee Jinmok on 9 December 1972 for the Ambassadors and Acting Ambassadors of Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and the GDR between 1000 and 1125 hours