Kim Dae-jung is widely remembered as a peacemaker today, so it’s not as well known that his presidency (1998-2003) didn’t start off on such friendly footing with North Korea.

In fact, for his first two years, North Korean state media treated him more or less the same as his center-right predecessors. They greeted his arrival by declaring no mere change of government could resolve inter-Korean differences, regardless of how lofty the talk coming out of Seoul was. 

The Korean Central News Agency, in fact, declared that if Kim wanted better ties he should tear down the wall between the two