ⓒ YONHAP News

Busan will be the first South Korean city to host the World Table Tennis Championships in February 2024. The event will be held under the slogan of “One Table, One World,” hoping to unite the world through table tennis. 

2024 will mark the 100th year of the sport’s history in Korea, as the “Ping Pong Competition” hosted by Gyeongseong Daily in January 1924 is seen as the beginning of table tennis in the country. There are expectations for a unified team between South and North Korea for the 2024 championships, since the two Koreas have formed a joint team in this sport before. 

Today, we’ll review the history of inter-Korean joint sporting teams with Dr. Heo Jeong-pil at Dongguk University’s Institute for North Korean Studies. 

South and North Korea have occasionally participated as one team in international sporting events, including the Olympics. The inter-Korean joint sporting teams have great significance both internally and outwardly. 

Although South and North Korea use the same language and share the same culture, they haven’t communicated with each other for decades due to national division. But unified sporting teams can encourage athletes and officials from the two sides to talk with one another for the same goal and form a sense of community. Athletes fiercely compete at international events. During the moment, people cheer, express worries and root for their team together. In the process, they can restore national identity and homogeneity. Joint inter-Korean teams will show the example of cross-border peace and cooperation and also contribute greatly to advancing Korea’s unification. 

When hearing a unified team of South and North Korea, many people might recall the joint ice hockey team at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. 

During the opening ceremony, South Korean ice hockey player Park Jong-ah and North Korean athlete Jong Su-hyon carried the Olympic torch together to touch viewers around the world.

South and North Korea began discussing the formation of a joint team as early as 1963, one year before the 18th Olympic Games in Tokyo. North Korea could not participate in the Olympics as an independent country because the International Olympic Committee or IOC recognized only one National Olympic Committee per country. At the time, a unified inter-Korean team never materialized. 

North Korea engaged in talks about a joint inter-Korean team for political purposes. South Korea was recognized at the IOC session in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1947, to represent the Korean Olympic Committee. 

The East German National Olympic Committee had been admitted by the IOC alongside West Germany’s on the condition that both German committees would create a unified German team for the 1956 Summer Olympics. North Korea hoped to be recognized by the IOC by undergoing the same process. That’s why it proposed that the two Koreas field a unified team. To discuss the matter, inter-Korean working-level talks took place in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Hong Kong. At the IOC session in Baden-Baden, West Germany, in 1963, North Korea finally became the official member of the IOC. 

North Korea participated in the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, for the first time as an independent country. 

South and North Korea attempted to create a unified team for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, holding talks on three different occasions. But Eastern bloc countries, led by the Soviet Union, decided to boycott the Games, and North Korea joined the move. Inter-Korean talks on their unified team fell apart. Ahead of the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South and North Korea again held talks, under the arbitration of the IOC, to field a single team. But North Korea refused to participate in the Seoul Olympics, and the two sides failed again to create a joint team. Before the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing, the two Koreas again discussed the same issue. 

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc around 1990 had a significant impact on North Korea. To maintain its socialist system and transfer power to heir-apparent Kim Jong-il, while avoiding the extreme confrontation with capitalistic countries including the U.S., North Korea actively used sports. For example, it discussed co-hosting the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the formation of a unified team for the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing. 

During several rounds of talks, South and North Korea reached an agreement on many parts. For instance, they agreed that their unified team would use the name, Korea, carry the flag that shows the image of the Korean Peninsula in blue against a white background and play the folk song “Arirang” as the anthem. Unfortunately, the talks fell through. 

During the period of the Beijing Asian Games in 1990, sports ministers from South and North Korea made contact and a friendly football match was held in Pyongyang and Seoul in October the same year. The two sides announced a joint statement and agreed to hold sports talks to discuss a joint team for international events and inter-Korean sports exchanges. 

South and North Korea formed a unified team for the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba, Japan. It was the first unified Korean sporting team ever. In the women’s team event, the joint Korean team beat the world’s best China, led by Deng Yaping, to win the title. 

North Korea’s Ryu Soon-bok and South Korea’s Hyun Jung-hwa beat their Chinese opponents in the first and second round of women’s singles, respectively. But in the women’s doubles, where Hyun and North Korea’s Li Pun-hui were paired up, Korea lost the game it had been winning. Hyun again lost the following game in the singles. In the team event, a team that wins three games out of five achieves the victory. So, Korea should win the fifth and final match by all means. In the fierce match, Ryu from Korea beat China’s Gao Jun to bring Korea a gold medal. 

Hyun won the gold medal in the team event at the 1986 Asian Games and also the gold medal in the doubles at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Li is a prominent North Korean player who won the silver medal in the team event at the 1985 World Championships. Ryu, on the other hand, had been unknown to the outside world. Interestingly, Ryu played a great role in the finals, where the inter-Korean team faced China. The Chinese team had the world No.1 Deng Yaping and the world No.2 Gao Jun. In the team event, Korea won three games out of five to grab the gold medal. It took 18 years for Korean athletes to win the title in the team event again since the South Korean women’s table tennis team earned the gold medal at the 1973 World Table Tennis Championships in Sarajevo. Inspired by the dramatic victory of the first-ever joint inter-Korean team at the 1991 championships, a film titled Korea was produced in South Korea to attract many viewers. 

In June 1991, a unified Korean team participated in the FIFA World Youth Championships in Portugal. The squad consisting of young football players from the two Koreas beat Argentina 1-0 and achieved a 1-1 draw with the Republic of Ireland in the group stage. Although Korea lost to Portugal, it was able to advance to the quarterfinals. 

During the opening ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, South Korean female basketball player Chung Un-soon and North Korea’s male judo coach Park Chong-chul led the joint inter-Korean delegation, together holding the blue-on-white flag portraying the Korean peninsula. Some 180 athletes from the two Koreas, clad in the same uniform, marched together, with the song Arirang resonating. 120-thousand spectators gave them a standing ovation, and the scene was broadcast by news media worldwide. 

Following the historic first inter-Korean summit in 2000, South and North Korea ended their decades-long conflict and created a favorable environment for cross-border peace and reconciliation. Encouraged by the upbeat mood, Seoul proposed to Pyongyang that the two Koreas enter the stadium together at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in September that year. At first, North Korea was rather lukewarm about the proposal. A week before the opening of the Olympics, former IOC member from North Korea Chang Ung(장웅) arrived in Sydney and showed a positive response to Seoul’s suggestion of the joint march, which marked the first such occasion. The memorable scene showed the entire world that South and North Korea were in pursuit of unification, even though they were divided. 

After the Sydney Olympics, athletes from the two Koreas entered the stadium together at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, the 2002 Busan Asian Games, the 2003 Asian Winter Games in Aomori, Japan, the 2006 Doha Asian Games, the 2007 Asian Winter Games in Changchun, China, and many other international sports events. But the joint inter-Korean team was not created until 2011, when South and North Korea competed as one team in table tennis at the Peace and Sport Cup in Doha, Qatar. At the time, the Korean team won the men’s doubles title and took second place in the women’s doubles. 

At the opening ceremony of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games, athletes from the South and the North marched together. Also, a unified inter-Korean team played in women’s ice hockey. Although the joint team failed to win a game, it did score the first Olympic goal by a Korean hockey team. 

Former North Korean IOC member Chang Ung was present at the 2017 World Taekwondo Championships in Muju, South Korea. While welcoming the North Korean delegation to the event, then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in invited North Korea to the PyeongChang Winter Olympics to be held in the South the following year. North Korea sent a positive signal to the South through its leader’s New Year’s message on January 1, 2018, facilitating the process of forming the historic unified Korean team in women’s ice hockey. After the PyeongChang Olympics, inter-Korean summit talks took place, followed by summit meetings between North Korea and China, between North Korea and the U.S. and between North Korea and Russia. The positive mood contributed to promoting relations among the two Koreas and the U.S. as well as North Korea-U.S. ties. 

At the 2018 World Team Table Tennis Championships in Halmstad, Sweden, South and North Korea played as separate teams. They were supposed to face off in the quarterfinals of the women’s event, but they agreed, in a surprising move, to field a joint team for the semifinals. The joint team eventually won the bronze medal. 

For the 2018 Asian Games in the Indonesian cities of Jakarta and Palembang, the Koreas formed unified teams in women’s basketball, dragon boat race, in canoeing and rowing, and earned four medals. It marked the first time that a joint inter-Korean team won medals at any international multi-sport event. Afterwards, the unified Korean team took medals at the 2019 World Judo Championships held in Baku, Azerbaijan, in September 2018, and at the 2018 Asian Para Games in Indonesia in October the same year. 

Experts say that sports will serve as a great solution to the current stalemate in inter-Korean relations. 

South Korean table tennis player Hyun Jung-hwa and North Korean player Li Pun-hui developed a friendship during the 1991 World Table Tennis Championships. Afterwards, it is said that they say hi to each other when they happen to meet at international competitions. South Korean shooter Jin Jong-oh and North Korean shooter Kim Song-guk often meet at international shooting events. When Jin won the gold medal and Kim took the bronze at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, they congratulated each other on the result. The heartwarming scene impressed many people. During the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, South Korean spectators cheered enthusiastically for North Korean short track speed skater Choe Un-song, even though he failed to advance to the next round. Reports say that Choe was deeply moved.

At present, South and North Korea are mired in conflict amid a prolonged deadlock in bilateral relations. A breakthrough like the PyeongChang Olympics will be necessary. I hope a breakthrough or positive momentum could be found in the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games in China. I think Seoul and Pyongyang should resume bilateral dialogue and communication, which should remain depoliticized. 

This year, inter-Korean relations have remained at a standstill, while political and military tension has been running higher than ever before. And next year, North Korea is forecast to continue to reinforce its nuclear arsenal. We hope South and North Korea will find an opportunity to get together through sports exchanges, like the formation of another unified Korean team, in the year 2023.