From March 31 to April 3, South Korean singers and entertainers performed in Pyongyang for North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un and other high-ranking North Korean government officials. This concert marked the first time in over a decade that South Korean artists performed in North Korea, and marked a major reconciliatory gesture in an otherwise tense geopolitical struggle. The concerts were comprised of 160 entertainers and performers, including popular K-pop girl group Red Velvet.
After major events in the Olympics, in which North Korea and South Korea marched under a united flag during the opening ceremonies, relations between the two countries appear to be thawing and moving towards a positive direction. Furthermore, on April 27, the leaders of North and South Korea have planned to meet at a joint summit in the border village of Panmunjom. These type of summits have occured in the past, generally during periods of detente between North and South Korea. It should be noted that these series of concerts are not only interesting in their implications in the calming of relations between North and South Korea, but also the fact that the concerts were received quite warmly from a North Korean audience. This is true despite the fact that it is a punishable crime for North Koreans to consume South Korea popular culture including music, movies and soap operas. Kim Jong Un also had high praise for the K-pop groups, reporting to a North Korean News station that “[I] was deeply moved to see our people sincerely acclaiming the performance, deepening the understanding of the popular art of the south side.”
At the end of World War II, North and South Korea were separated into two occupational zones. The United States administered the southern half of the peninsula while the Soviet Union administered the area north of the 38th parallel. This led to the creation of two distinct, separate governments: a Communist Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Westernized Republic of Korea. Both of these governments claimed to control Korea, and after North Korea invaded its southern neighbor, the Korean War broke out in 1950. The Korean War resulted in the solidification of the status quo, as neither the South nor the North were able to conquer the other side of the peninsula. After the Korean War, relations between North and South Korea continued to become increasingly strained, and culminated in a series of low-level armed clashes known as the Korean DMZ Conflict. Tensions were at their highest in 1968 in the aftermath of the Blue House Raid, an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the South Korean President Park Chung-hee. After the division of North and South Korea, distinct and contrasting governments and societies have developed in these two nations. South Korea now is ranked the twelfth largest economy in terms of GDP (gross domestic product), while North Korea pales in comparison, with a rank of 125. Furthermore, tensions between North and South Korea have exponentiated due to the development of nuclear weapons in North Korea. Because of this, any sort of developments towards discussion of peace in Korea has much deeper implications not only in Korean affairs, but in global international relations.
K-pop may be the unexplored medium towards the beginnings of peace in North and South Korea. In fact, South Korea’s Unification Ministry has confirmed that Kim Jong Un’s wife was previously a singer in the North Korean Unhasu Orchestra, and this group traveled to South Korea to perform. This may be the cause of the lenience in Kim Jong Un’s decisions to invite South Korean artists to North Korea, and may have been partly responsible for their warm reception. Music has the ability to transcend conflict and serve as a means to unite, rather than incite and divide, people from warring nations. In the past year, K-pop groups have risen to a new level of popularity in numerous countries around the world, including in America and in Europe, drawing many people into this new genre of music. K-pop groups have ranked highly on global social media charts, and have been able to infiltrate new markets largely untouched by western music. K-pop may have the pervasive power to ease tensions between North and South Korea, and spur dialogue between these two warring nations.