President Lee must step in to end the ‘two states’ confusion

SEOUL, Oct. 20 (UPI) — When Unification Minister Chung Dong-young declared last week during a parliamentary hearing, “I expect that the ‘two-states theory’ I am proposing will soon become the government’s official position,” he ignited a political storm.

He quickly added that his view “fully accords with the Constitution,” signaling that he had no intention of retreating. The reaction in the National Assembly was immediate and explosive.

Ahn Cheol-soo of the conservative People Power Party charged that Chung’s idea was unconstitutional, since Article 3 of South Korea’s Constitution defines the nation’s territory as “the Korean Peninsula and its adjacent islands.”

He further argued that any doctrine implying permanent division would directly contradict Article 4, which commits the Republic “to peaceful unification based on the liberal democratic order.”

Ahn pressed the point: “If you persist with this view, minister, you should resign and pursue it privately rather than as a representative of the republic.”

Even some members of the Democratic Party, Chung’s own political camp, balked. Yoon Hu-deok insisted that any shift so fundamental to the nation’s unification policy must be submitted to the public for consent.

Many Koreans wondered aloud how such words could come from the minister of unification — the cabinet officer charged by law with “formulating and executing policies on unification, inter-Korean dialogue, exchange and cooperation.”

For the head of that ministry to advocate what could permanently institutionalize division struck many as astonishing. One critic said it was “like asking a cat to guard the fish.”

A reversal hard to explain

The surprise runs deeper because Chung once held the opposite view. When former presidential chief of staff Im Jong-seok floated the “two-states” idea in 2023, Chung denounced it as “a violation of the constitutional spirit and a denial of decades of effort toward peaceful unification.”

Now, under President Lee Jae Myung, Chung has recast himself as its foremost evangelist. Despite bipartisan criticism, he defends his stance by citing the 1991 Inter-Korean Basic Agreement, which describes North-South relations as “a special interim relationship formed in the process toward unification.” He claims that formulation aligns with the Constitution.

Chung also invokes the 1972 East-West German Basic Treaty, arguing that because the two Germanys reaffirmed the inviolability of borders and mutual respect for territorial integrity, Korea could apply a similar logic.

A government divided

As the controversy spread, the presidential office tried to downplay it, saying Chung’s comments could be seen as “within the bounds of what a unification minister might say.” Yet, Chung has become isolated.

National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac clarified that President Lee’s END (Engagement, Neutrality, Development) initiative for peaceful unification — announced at the U.N. General Assembly — “does not recognize or endorse a two-states framework.”

Foreign Minister Cho Hyun likewise stated that he “cannot share such a position,” describing Chung’s remarks as “an emotional attempt to find a breakthrough.”

The administration now speaks in contradictory voices on one of its most sensitive national issues.

Pyongyang’s opening move

The true origin of the “two-states” notion lies in Pyongyang. At the end of 2023, Kim Jong Un declared that “unification with the Republic of Korea will never happen” and began referring to both Koreas as separate sovereign entities. He even replaced the North’s customary term “South Chosun” with “Republic of Korea” to underscore the divide.

Nine months later, in September 2024, former presidential chief of staff Im Jong-seok echoed Kim’s logic at a ceremony marking the sixth anniversary of the 2018 Pyongyang Joint Declaration, saying, “Let us live separately but together — respecting and prospering side by side. We don’t need unification.” The backlash then was fierce; Chung Dong-young has now picked up the same torch.

Legal and strategic dangers

Reports suggest that Chung’s ministry even commissioned a policy research project to provide theoretical backing for the “two-states” approach. Ahn Cheol-soo’s office revealed that a Unification Ministry document instructed researchers to “seek a compromise with the North’s position.”

The resulting analysis leaned heavily on the German precedent, but legal experts note that West Germany never regarded that treaty as an international accord between sovereign states, warning that any Korean imitation would clash with both domestic and international law.

Far more serious are the strategic risks. Should North Korea experience a sudden collapse and Chinese forces move across its border, Seoul would lose the legal grounds to intervene.

Son Kwang-joo, head of the North Korea Human Rights Coalition, identified this as the crux of the danger: Only if the entire peninsula remains constitutionally South Korean territory could Seoul claim the right — indeed, the duty — to act in defense of its sovereignty. Without that claim, South Korea would stand on the same footing as any other outside power, watching events unfold in what was once its own homeland.

The human dimension

The implications reach beyond geopolitics. Song Eon-seok, floor leader of the People Power Party, warned that recognizing two states would upend the legal status of North Korean defectors living in the South.

“Under our Constitution, they are citizens of the Republic of Korea,” he said. “If the North is treated as a foreign state, these people become foreign nationals detained within our borders. Are we then to send them back?”

Why the president must act

The “two-states” controversy may be only the beginning. Before it can become official policy, many procedural hurdles remain — but the political and social damage is already visible: deepening division, bureaucratic confusion and the erosion of national purpose.

This is precisely why Lee must intervene personally. Inter-Korean relations are not the private domain of any one minister or administration. After 80 years of division, they constitute a defining question of national destiny. The president must reconcile the conflicting voices within his own Cabinet, restore coherence to government policy and rally public consensus around a single, constitutional course toward peaceful unification.

If even that effort fails — if this confusion persists and the nation drifts between competing doctrines — then the question must be returned to the people themselves. But before it comes to that, Lee must act — clearly, decisively and now.

Nohsok Choi is the former chief editor of the Kyunghyang Shinmun and former Paris correspondent. He currently serves as president of the Kyunghyang Shinmun Alumni Association, president of the Korean Media & Culture Forum and CEO of the YouTube channel One World TV.