North Koreans still think of South Koreans as members of the same nation, but many now fear those words could slip out at the wrong moment. That fear has grown as Kim Jong Un’s “two hostile states” doctrine moved from party lecture halls into the country’s revised constitution in 2026.
“People still see them as the same people, but there’s a widespread fear of using those expressions without realizing it,” a North Hamgyong province resident said when asked about South Koreans.
The answer captures a quiet tension that runs through North Korean society today. The sense of shared ethnicity and kinship has not disappeared. Yet years of state education ordering people to treat South Korea as an enemy state have taught many North Koreans to police their own speech first.
This report is part of an ongoing Daily NK series on how North Korea’s constitutional revision is reshaping everyday life. The revised constitution was adopted in March at the first session of the 15th Supreme People’s Assembly. It removed all references to unification and added a territorial clause defining North Korea’s borders for the first time. The Supreme People’s Assembly is North Korea’s legislature, which formally approves laws and constitutional changes handed down by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.
Daily NK’s reporting found that words now absent from official meetings and political education are also disappearing from everyday conversation. Still, avoiding certain words is not the same as changing what people believe, and that distinction matters for anyone reading public sentiment inside North Korea.
According to a Daily NK source in North Hamgyong province, officials at meetings and lectures now call South Korea the “puppet Republic of Korea” or “puppet Korea.” In daily life, however, people avoid naming South Korea directly. When they must refer to it, they nod southward and say “over there” or fall back on the old nickname “the village down below.”
That nickname reflects a deeply ingrained habit of speech that has outlasted official policy. It cannot by itself prove that North Koreans still feel a sense of shared ethnicity. It does, however, show a clear gap between the terms the authorities demand and the words people actually use.
From textbooks to street slogans, unification fades from view
North Korea’s campaign to erase the ideas of unification and a single Korean nation began well before the constitutional revision. In April 2024, Daily NK reported that education authorities ordered teachers to cross out banned words in school textbooks ahead of a full rewrite. Teachers were also told to revise their lesson plans and avoid any mention of unification in class. Sources said at the time that teachers kept silent rather than raise objections.
The following year, the purge extended to the maps hanging in state institutions. In September 2025, authorities ordered state agencies to replace maps of the entire Korean Peninsula with new North Korea-centered maps that shade South Korea in gray. Agencies were also told to run ideological sessions teaching their staff to regard South Korea as a foreign country.
The constitution confirmed in March, with its deleted unification clauses and new territorial provision, put that line into the country’s highest law. Education and administrative measures had already spent years drilling it into the public.
In the border areas of North Hamgyong province, the source said, unification slogans began disappearing from the streets around spring 2024. Because the new line had already been explained at meetings, lectures and study sessions, no separate explanation accompanied their removal. For ordinary North Koreans, the change did not arrive overnight with a single amendment but unfolded as familiar words and symbols vanished over several years.
At workplaces, schools and neighborhood watch units, people have been taught that South Koreans are no longer the same people or their compatriots. Neighborhood watch units are groups of a few dozen households that the state uses to monitor daily life and relay political instructions. Lecturers argue that North Korea has preserved its unique national character while South Korea’s language and way of life have become corrupted. They even cite marriages to foreigners and the children born of them as proof that South Koreans have lost their national identity.
This education goes well beyond explaining that the two Koreas have different political systems. It rejects the very idea that South Koreans belong to the same community. It appears designed to replace decades of emphasis on shared ethnicity with the perception of South Korea as an enemy state.
The constitutional revision itself was explained only briefly at lectures. Officials there stressed that terms such as “unification,” “the Korean nation” and “one people” must no longer be used. The revised constitution does not explicitly name South Korea as a hostile state, but schools teach students that South Korea is the most hostile state of all. This kind of education is feeding a fear that using the old expressions could bring serious trouble.
Jung Kyo-jin, a visiting research fellow at Korea University’s Center for North Korean and Unification Studies, said the two-state theory collides with the unification teachings handed down by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. “Judging from the fact that official outlets such as the Rodong Sinmun have not offered a systematic explanation of the two-state theory, its theoretical foundation still appears incomplete,” Jung said.
He added that defining South Korea as an enemy state “is also aimed at blocking the spread of the Korean Wave inside North Korea.” The goal, he said, is to make people see the consumption of South Korean culture as a hostile act. The Korean Wave refers to the global popularity of South Korean dramas, music and films, which circulate in North Korea on smuggled USB drives despite harsh penalties.
The source also described cases in which people who used the banned expressions were made to write self-criticism reports for long periods. Others were sent to labor training camps after their remarks were bundled together with other offenses. Labor training camps are short-term detention facilities where people found guilty of minor offenses perform forced labor, usually for several months, without a formal trial.
Because the exact grounds and procedures could not be confirmed, it is hard to conclude that anyone was punished solely for saying “unification” or “compatriots.” Even so, the source said, fear runs high that such remarks could make someone a target for exemplary punishment. Steering clear of talk about unification is partly a way to stay out of trouble. Daily NK previously reported that teachers in North Pyongan province were summoned by state security after criticizing the new textbooks and maps at a drinking party.
Will a new generation accept the two hostile states line?
North Korea’s reversal on unification overturns an official line maintained since the country’s founding. That puts it at odds with explanations ordinary North Koreans have accepted for decades.
Sung Ki-young, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Strategy, examined the shift in a June 2024 report on rethinking South Korea’s unification discourse. The institute is a Seoul think tank affiliated with South Korea’s National Intelligence Service. Sung argued that Pyongyang had fully abandoned the unification policy sustained under Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. He also warned that the shift could undermine the foundation of existing inter-Korean agreements.
If that report examined the shift at the national level, the source’s account shows how it is playing out in daily life. Confusion has set in now that terms the authorities emphasized for decades can no longer be spoken. “People are bewildered that after stressing unification for so long, the authorities now won’t even let us use the word,” the source said. A change in the official line, in other words, does not instantly erase familiar expressions and memories.
Not all of North Koreans’ past hopes for unification can be read as goodwill toward South Korean society, however. State slogans and lessons once also stressed unification by force. For many North Koreans, the word may carry a mix of state-instilled ideas, hopes for a better life and wishes to reunite with separated family.
For North Koreans with relatives or acquaintances in South Korea, the rejection of shared ethnicity is far from an abstract political line. “As South Korea is defined as an enemy state, attitudes toward the families of defectors are also turning negative,” the source said. The worry is that the worldview the state demands could bring harsher judgments from neighbors and greater daily strain for these families.
Information about South Korea and direct experience with it also shape how people think, according to the source. “In areas along the China-North Korea border, exposure to South Korean videos and products influences how people see things,” the source said. Hearing what the state emphasizes and accepting it, the source added, are not necessarily the same thing.
In a society where open expression is suppressed, it is difficult to tell whether North Koreans agree with the new line, fear it or quietly resent it. This reporting found that people have become guarded about unification. That alone, however, is not enough to judge how deeply they have internalized Kim Jong Un’s two-state doctrine.
A generation growing up with virtually no memory of South Korea, while being taught it is an enemy state, may respond very differently. In August 2025, Daily NK reported that Kim had described young South Koreans as foreigners while reorganizing North Korea’s psychological warfare against the South. This year, authorities also ordered a campaign to erase South Korea from the minds of young North Koreans.
If propaganda and education along these lines continue, young people with no experience of the old unification education may come to see South Koreans as foreigners. That prospect is raising concern among many longtime North Korea watchers.
“For the older generation, who were long exposed to the unification discourse of previous leaders, unification remains the legacy of those leaders, so the two-state theory will not be easily accepted,” Jung said. Over the long term, however, he said the theory “could take root in people’s minds through education emphasizing Kim Jong Un’s ideology and leadership system.” Young North Koreans, in that case, may come to see South Korea as a separate country as a matter of course.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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November 6, 2026 at 06:46PM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)