On December 3, the expression “follower forces like Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Australia…” was seen in North Korean media.

They started calling South Korea by its official name without even adding the square brackets.

The change in the Kim Jong-un regime’s perception of the South and its unification policy should be noted with great interest, as it was unimaginable in the era of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.

North Korea has consistently referred to the Republic of Korea (ROK) as “South Korea” since its founding in 1948.

To North Korea, the only legitimate government on the Korean Peninsula is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and they do not recognise the existence of the ROK.

“South Korea” is a region name, not a country name. Likewise, the ROK side has also referred to the DPRK as “North Korea”, as it is part of its own country.

During the Cold War, the expression “North’s puppet regime” was often used, referring to the puppet regime of the Soviet Union.

However, beginning July 2023, Kim Yo-jong, deputy director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Defence Minister Kang Sun-nam, and other high-ranking officials began to successively refer to South Korea as the Republic of Korea.

From the end of August, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission Kim Jong-un also referred to South Korea as such multiple times.

Even so, from the standpoint of not recognising ROK as a sovereign nation, the term “Republic of Korea” was only used in square brackets. This time, surprisingly, they removed the brackets and placed the Republic of Korea on the same level as foreign countries such as Japan and Australia.

It appears that South Korea is now a foreign country that is not even part of “Korea.” Furthermore, it is thought that they took a hard-line stance that if they were not of the same ethnicity, they would not hesitate to launch a preemptive strike if the conflict deepened further.

It can also be taken as a message that South Korea should not interfere with North Korea since it is a foreign country.

There were several stepping stones to this change. The use of the term “South Korea” in North Korean media has drastically decreased since around March 2023.

The term “puppet region” was adopted in its place. It’s a strange way of saying it, and it doesn’t even include a place name.

At the Asian Games held in Hangzhou, China in October 2023, North Korea’s women soccer team faced the ROK team in the semi-finals.

Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Workers’ Party of Korea, reported, “They defeated the puppet team by an overwhelming score of 4 to 1.”

The term “puppet,” which ridicules the ROK for becoming a stooge of the United States, has been used on a daily basis since the Kim Il-sung era, but it was used as a phrase such as “South Korean puppet rebels.”

In other words, it has simply been used as a derogatory term for ROK’s conservative government and government agencies.

From there, “South Korea” was removed and the name changed to “puppet” and “puppet region.”

Major changes were also seen in the institutions in charge of inter-Korean relations in North Korea.

The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland and the Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, which had served as liaisons with South Korea for many years, have disappeared from the public eye since 2020.

The relationship between North and South Korea has been defined not as a relationship between nations, but as a “special relationship that has been temporarily formed in the process of aiming for unification.”

For this reason, even in ROK, the point of contact for North Korea is the Ministry of Unification, not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In January 2020, Ri Son-gwon, who was Chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, was transferred to Minister of Foreign Affairs, and no successor has been appointed to this day.

Sixty years after its establishment in 1961, the committee appears to have completed its role.

From January 2021, the party secretary in charge of the South has also been absent. Furthermore, since the beginning of this year, whenever North Korea issues official statements to the ROK, it has increasingly used the name of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It is highly likely that the contact point with ROK has also been centralised at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 2018, three inter-Korean summits were held in one year.

The appeasement President Moon Jae-in seemed to have made major concessions to North Korea. However, no matter what agreement is reached between the North and South, coordination with the United States is essential, if it is to be implemented in terms of security and economics.

The basis of the ROK’s national defence is the US-ROK alliance, and lifting economic sanctions requires the consent of the United States, which is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

After his direct talks with President Trump failed in 2019, Chairman Kim Jong-un seems to have realised that there can be no progress in inter-Korean relations without progress in US-North Korea relations.

In that case, since US-North Korea relations are at a stalemate, South Korean policy can be put on the back burner.

In the current situation, where there is no hope for progress in inter-Korean relations, it has been decided that it would be better to leave South Korea alone and tell them not to interfere, since it is a foreign country.

(Atsuhito Isozaki is Professor at Keio University, Japan.)