MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th February, 2021) More than 60 percent of South Korean school-age students believe that unification with the North was necessary, a survey found, as reported by state news agency Yonhap.
The survey was conducted in November among 68,750 students in elementary, middle and high school across the country's regions, the news agency reported.
The survey, which was conducted by the ministries of education and unification, found that 62.4 percent of respondents said that the two Koreas need to unify, a full 6.9 percent more than a similar poll from the previous year.
Of those who wanted unification, a quarter cited common ethnic roots, while nearly 30 percent said the reduction of a war threat is the reason for their choice, the agency reported.
Those who saw unification as unnecessary also rose to 24.2 percent, up from 19.4 percent in 2019. About half of those cited social and economic problems that may arise from unification as the reason for their opposition.
Just over 13.4 percent of the respondents were undecided, Yonhap reported.
The survey also found hostility markers decrease, with an 11 percent rise in respondents who believed North Korea was a partner for cooperation, reaching 55 percent. While those who said the nation could not be trusted decreased also by� 11 percent, to 24.2 percent.
The two Koreas have been split since the inconclusive conflict between the two, with the involvement of world powers the US, the USSR and China, ground to a standstill and prompted a truce which holds to this day. The two capitals could not have taken more different paths, with the north forging its own path and focusing on self-reliance, subsequently becoming a pariah due to its outsized military capabilities. The south, meanwhile, was ruled by military dictatorship for several decades but eventually turned to free-market capitalism which saw it become a technological giant and one of the so-called Asian tiger economies.
