67% of Koreans Say "Next Year's ROK-US Joint Exercises Should Proceed as Scheduled"

The Top Priority in Inter-Korean Relations is "Special Envoy Dispatch"
6 out of 10 Say "A Declaration to End the Korean War is Necessary"

South Korea-US Combined Military Exercises

As the Biden administration in the United States is about to take office, there are speculations that North Korea may provoke around March next year, and seven out of ten citizens believe that the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises should proceed as scheduled.

According to the '2020 4th Quarter National Unification Opinion Survey' released by the National Unification Advisory Council (Democratic Peaceful Unification Advisory Council) on the 27th, 66.5% of respondents answered that "the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises in the first half of next year should proceed as planned." Opinions favoring reducing the scale or postponing the exercises accounted for only 28.7%.

Regarding current inter-Korean issues, 59.8% of the public agreed on the necessity of a declaration to end the Korean War (31.4% strongly agree, 28.4% generally agree). Those who disagreed accounted for 36.3% (20.3% somewhat disagree, 16.0% strongly disagree).

For managing the Korean Peninsula situation and restarting the peace process in the first half of next year, the public identified restoring inter-Korean dialogue channels, such as dispatching a special envoy to North Korea (38.2%), as the top priority task for the South Korean government. This was followed by ▲ cooperation in health and medical fields such as COVID-19 prevention (34.8%), and ▲ humanitarian cooperation such as food aid (11.8%).

Seventy-three point nine percent of the public responded that the improvements in North Korea-U.S. relations, peace on the Korean Peninsula, and denuclearization agreed upon between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean State Affairs Commission Chairman Kim Jong-un should be maintained under the new U.S. administration. Those opposed accounted for 17.3%.

A majority of the public (73.9%) also agreed that South Korea should play a facilitator role in resuming North Korea-U.S. dialogue. Those who disagreed accounted for 21.7%.

This survey was conducted by the National Unification Advisory Council through the Korea Society Opinion Institute, a professional polling organization, targeting 1,000 adult men and women nationwide over two days from November 20 to 21.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.