Nearly 56 percent of North Korean defectors who participated in a recent South Korean survey said they thought Korean reunification was impossible while living in the North. 

The Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies asked 132 defectors who fled to South Korea last year, and 55.7 percent of respondents said they were pessimistic about unification before coming to the South. It marked an increase by 11 percentage points compared to the previous year’s survey. 

The poll also found that 26 percent saw reunification as feasible within a decade, a large drop of about 18.9 percentage points from last year, while 9 percent believed it would take at least 30 years to achieve reunification. 

“The findings suggest a marked drop in public expectations for the reunification to occur in the near future after watching leader Kim Jong-un consolidating his grip on power,” researchers said. 

Kim, in his early 30s, succeeded his father Kim Jong-il upon his death in 2011. Under his dictatorship, the North has been accelerating nuclear weapons and missiles program, making itself a top concern for peace in not just Northeast Asia, but also the United States. 

With regard to the prospects of Kim Jong-un staying in power, 28.2 percent of respondents said Kim would maintain his dictatorship for more than 30 years, up 11.5 percentage points from last year. Those who said less than five years went down from the 10.1 percent last year to 7.6 percent. 

The poll also showed that almost 70 percent of defectors said they were not in favor of what Kim Jong-un was doing as the leader before they defected to the South, while just 7.6 percent said that the North Korean leader was doing “very well.”

By Kim Da-sol (ddd@heraldcorp.com)