For decades now, since the world came to agree with what South Koreans felt all along — that theirs was the better Korea — we have been figuratively peering across the DMZ, waiting for the failed side to accept the painful truth.

Experts have been on permanent alert for a clue, a hint, a wink, anything to signal the inevitable shift.

I wonder now, could the signs be there but getting misread? I wonder, has North Korea turned a corner and we have just not noticed?

I can’t say I’m sure, but here is what has triggered these thoughts.

As readers will know, at the end of last year, Kim Jong-un declared that North Korea would no longer pursue reconciliation and reunification with South Korea.

This was more than just words. Through January and February, there was nationwide follow-up. Laws were changed. Wording was tweaked. Songs were unsung. Government and party offices were closed, and people reassigned. Maps were airbrushed — like, weather reports changed from being the whole peninsula to just North Korea. Without enough time before the new school year to print new textbooks, students were recruited in the holidays to stick bits of paper over words like “unification” and anything that suggested South Koreans were compatriots.

Had Kim stopped there, we would have been left thinking he........

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