The thorny issue of reunification has been shrouding the Korean Peninsula for decades. As next year will be the 70th anniversary of the division of Korea, South Korean President Park Geun-hye announced in February a committee preparing for reunification with the North to "explore ways for a systemic and constructive direction of reunification." The committee directly under the presidential office, due to be officially launched in mid-April, was postponed given recent nuclear test threats from Pyongyang.

Tensions have been running high between the two Koreas in the past couple of months owing to a slew of incidents ranging from the annual joint military drills between Seoul and Washington, the fourth anniversary of the sinking of the Cheonan, Pyongyang's rocket and missile tests, to the exchanges of artillery fire.

Amid the strained bilateral relations and the increasingly complicated international landscape, what is the significance of the preparatory committee for reunification?

Reunification with the North has been a governing philosophy of the conservative Saenuri Party and it is reasonable for the Park administration to set up such a committee, which is expected to serve as a critical step to the final goal of reunification. A state formulates policies or envisions initiatives based on its own national reality, after all.

In the first place, Park's government drew up the blueprint with the purpose to reverse the young generation's increasing apathy toward reunification on the peninsula.

The dream of reunification is fading in South Korean society. Numerous polls show that young South Koreans have become indifferent to this cause that is a dream cherished and pursued by senior generations, especially those who suffered from seeing their families divided 69 years ago.

Younger South Koreans do not even consider reunification with Pyongyang a necessity for Seoul, claiming that an eventual unification will neither restore order nor salve old wounds but will instead turn the prosperous South into a chaotic country. Park hopes to raise the consciousness in young people of this long-held dream that once had broad appeal.

Apart from rebooting the Korean reunification drive at home, the Blue House plays a soft card by forming a committee in the competition with the North. Seoul makes a much smarter choice to not only appeal to the public at home but also gain the moral high ground in the international community.

Achieving reunification in different ways has dominated Pyongyang-Seoul relations in the past decades particularly when their bilateral ties are extremely acute and complicated.

Park unveiled the Dresden Declaration during her visit to the former East German city of Dresden late March, proposing to base Korean unification on the German experience by "preparing step by step."

German reunification was brought up with the intact West absorbing the faltering East through a spectrum of economic and political means including humanitarian aid. This represents a rare and special case in the post-WWII era and is not duplicable.

Therefore Park's policy to draw on the experience of the German model is completely untenable because there is scant possibility that Pyongyang will collapse. During the past 20 years the theory of a North Korean collapse has been lingering, but the world's last frontier of the Cold War is taking on some positive signs of development.

Any policy formulated or organization established on account of such an assumption that the North is no more than a passive and pathological state dragged by a defunct economy is a mistake by the Blue House.

It is praiseworthy that both Seoul and Pyongyang have a strong desire for reunification, but they must readjust their policies to refrain from unification through absorption.

As Korea's split had its unique reasons and went through a unique process of evolution, the two countries must figure out a unique way toward ultimate reunification. But under the current circumstances, reunification on the Korean Peninsula remains a distant dream.

The article was compiled by Global Times reporter Wang Xiaonan, based on an interview with Yang Xiyu, senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies and former head of the Office for Korean Peninsula Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China. wangxiaonan@globaltimes.com.cn