By Steven Borowiec

At first glance, Park Geun-hye and Kim Jong-un don’t appear to have much in common. Park is around twice Kim’s age, and she’s a slender, unimposing woman while Kim is a bloated man with a cartoonish haircut and chipmunk cheeks.

Park leads a technologically advanced democracy while Kim lords over a backward one-party state. Kim seems happy in front of cameras, chuckling with underlings and bouncing small kids on his lap. Park is reclusive and appears in public as little as possible.

While their differences are numerous and easy to spot, in following both of their times in power, I’ve noticed one intriguing tactic they both employ: when taking the podium at key moments, when they’re trying their best to be convincing, both leaders regularly call for “unity”, asking their countries to come together as one in pursuit of a common goal.

When Park took office in early 2013, she pledged to bring about a “grand era of national unity.” When she gives speeches on public holidays, there is nearly always some mention of the need to find unity amid social divisions. She often dismisses criticism of her policy decisions as being “divisive”.

This summer, Park is dealing with one of her biggest challenges as president, after announcing plans to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) system to a rural town, in what Park says is a necessary bulwark against North Korea’s growing missile capabilities. The decision to go with the missile system has ramifications beyond national security. China has strongly objected to THAAD being deployed in Korea, and opting for THAAD amid Beijing’s displeasure amounts to a turn away from that country and a reaffirmation of reliance on the U.S.

Though poll data show around half of South Koreans being in favor of the deployment, there is strong resistance in Seongju, the small town that has been selected as the site where THAAD will be deployed.

After hearing of the central government’s decision, Seongju county mayor wrote a letter in his own blood opposing the decision. Locals have held protests just about every day expressing concern that electromagnetic waves from the THAAD radar may pose a health risk, and that hosting the anti-missile hardware will make the town a target for North Korea. South Korea’s prime minister and defense minister were met with a raucous reception when they went to Seongju for a meeting with locals, getting pelted by eggs and water bottles.

Park’s response was to release a statement calling for “national unity”. While facing down a threat from North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile arsenals, division over the THAAD decision would be just what North Korea wanted, she said in the statement.

On the northern half of the peninsula, unity is a touchstone of North Korean ideology. The state’s propaganda routinely calls on the country’s people to move as one to build national strength. At the Workers’ Party Congress in May, Kim said, “The entire party and all the people have achieved the single-minded unity of the whole society in which they are united closely around the leader in thinking and purpose and sense of moral obligation.”

Unity is an implied reason why North Koreans don’t enjoy individual rights; there is no room to act as individuals when the country needs to remain united. I once had a South Korean pro-North Korea activist tell me that North Korea was the most democratic country in the world because its entire population was united by love for the leader. Unity, this gentleman argued, meant that North Korea could guard its autonomy against a hostile outside world, and not have to rely on a bigger country for protection, as South Korea does with the U.S. He found it sadly ironic that technical democracies like South Korea are full of different factions that spend their time bickering instead of cooperating.

Appeals to unity are hardly unique to these two leaders. Spend a little time googling national leaders’ names alongside the word and it’s easy to see that almost everyone with power at some point urges their charges to be unified in tackling one challenge or another.

Barack Obama called for unity when three police officers were shot dead in Baton Rouge earlier this month. After putting down a military coup that tried to push him out of power, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan emphasized the need for national unity in response.

Such appeals can be useful. They tap into our instinctual longing to belong to a tribe, to forego individual wishes for the good of a group. And indeed, South Korean history has examples of collective sacrifice, such as when regular people donated their own gold jewelry to pay down the national debt during the financial crisis of the late 1990s. At the same time, many North Koreans probably believe they’re making a meaningful contribution to their country through lives of thankless toil in factories or farm fields.

I often wonder if the South Koreans of today would go into their own pockets to bail their country out of debt, or for how much longer North Koreans will accept their limited life prospects without more organized resistance. In this age of dislocation and polarization, and when governments push policies that aren’t necessarily in the public’s best interest, appeals for unity, by leaders of all stripes, in Korea and elsewhere, will have diminishing returns. 

*Steven Borowiec covers Korea for the Los Angeles Times