Seoul Survivors

North Korea is back in the news these days, and (as usual) for troubling reasons: The Kim regime's nuclear and missile programs are making rapid progress. Given that Kim Jong-un has already used weapons of mass destruction in his short tenure as North Korean dictator (the assassination of his half-brother Kim Jong-nam was conducted using VX nerve agent, an internationally banned chemical weapon), these developments are deeply worrying, to say the least. So is the fact that the Pyongyang regime is now in the habit of making threats to attack South Korea.

That's not to say that life is any different from usual here in Seoul, some 25 miles from the DMZ. Restaurants are busy; stores are doing brisk business; the capital's stellar subway system is packed, as always, with suit-wearing office workers, hipster college students, and old ladies sporting bulging shopping bags. And the capital's legendary 24-hour party culture remains in rare form: When this jet-lagged correspondent stumbled out for a 3:00 am breakfast of kim chi jiggae on Monday morning, the restaurant I finally settled on was crowded with soju-swilling revelers. These are people who refuse to be terrorized.

There's a political parallel to Seoul denizens' fierce commitment to maintaining normalcy: The North's belligerence is apparently having little to no effect on the presidential race here either. (Koreans vote on May 9.) Left-wing candidate Moon Jae-in, who supports "engagement" with the rogue regime, still looks set to win the race easily.

That is to say, the North's belligerence is not having the impact one might expect: a boon to national security-centric conservatives. Indeed, the South Korean electorate may be literally unique, in that voters don't reflexively move to the right here when external threats are mounting.

That's because South Koreans' attitudes toward the North are already priced in, Professor Jung Kim at the University of North Korean Studies tells me. Barring an actual missile attack on Seoul, he says, South Koreans' attitudes toward North Korea are pretty much set. And they're split, too, with about half the country supporting engagement, and the other half backing policies aimed at containment. Unfortunately, right now, the pro-engagement side has the upper hand.