South Korea’s 51 million people have been under existential threat for so long that they’ve largely normalized the risks posed to them by North Korea. After all, Seoul has been the target of Pyongyang’s espionage plots and tunnels and artillery since Korea split in two more than 60 years ago.
Today’s South Koreans, in public opinion surveys, don’t think highly of North Korea’s regime — if they think about it at all. As for their views on Washington, South Korea’s ally and military guarantor, confidence has plummeted in recent years. A Pew Research Center survey shows South Koreans’ confidence in the U.S. president dropped from 88 percent in 2015, while Barack Obama was in the White House, to 17 percent in 2017, the first year of the Trump administration.
Now, pushed by South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his administration’s fast-paced diplomacy, North Korea and the U.S. seem poised to meet in a historic summit. And many South Koreans are reacting with cautious optimism.
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