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South Korea's Lee Dae-hoon, left, competes with Mali's Seydou Fofana during the taekwondo men's 68kg match during the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, July 25, 2021. AP-Yonhap — South Korea’s Lee Dae-hoon, left, competes with Mali’s Seydou Fofana during the taekwondo men’s 68kg match during the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, July 25, 2021. AP-Yonhap

In 2023, despite freezing inter-Korean relations and heightened cross-border tensions, North Korea proposed a joint UNESCO heritage listing for taekwondo — only for the South Korean government to sit on the offer and miss a crucial window, according to a key advocacy leader.

Choi Jae-chun, head of the KOREA Taekwondo UNESCO Promotion Committee, revealed Wednesday that Pyongyang suggested a collaborative inscription modeled after the successful joint 2018 UNESCO registration of “ssireum,” traditional Korean wrestling.

However, the lack of response from the Yoon Suk Yeol administration allowed North Korea to press ahead with a standalone application that is nearing final approval next month, raising fears that Seoul is ceding historical leadership over its national martial art.

“In 2023, North Korea reached out to me,” Choi said. “Inter-Korean relations were extremely strained at the time, but Ri Yong-son, president of the North Korean-backed International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF), sent word suggesting that filing separate applications first and merging them into a joint listing later would be the best path forward.”

Choi said he immediately alerted key ministries — including the Ministry of Unification, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Korea Heritage Service (KHS) — and even visited the presidential office to urge an expedited submission.

“I emphasized the extreme urgency, but government officials treated it casually, suggesting South Korea could simply apply after North Korea completed its process,” Choi recalled. “When presidential aides suggested revisiting the issue in five years, I strongly warned them of the fallout. The government’s passive stance ultimately caused us to miss a critical window.”

Efforts toward a joint UNESCO inscription date back to 2018, when South Korea’s World Taekwondo (WT) and the ITF signed a written agreement to cooperate on global heritage recognition. However, cross-border dialogue halted following the inauguration of the Yoon administration in 2022.

While North Korea submitted its standalone application for taekwondo to UNESCO in March 2024, South Korea did not file its own listing application until 2026.

With UNESCO set to evaluate Pyongyang’s application next month, public criticism has intensified over concerns that South Korea — where modern taekwondo was formally established and named — could see its status as the sport’s primary homeland compromised.

In a statement released Wednesday, the KHS expressed regret over the outcome, pointing to administrative delays.

“North Korea submitted an application for the standalone listing of taekwondo to UNESCO in March 2024, but it is regrettable that no effective countermeasures or timely responses were implemented at the time,” the KHS stated.

Choi is calling for an immediate diplomatic intervention ahead of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee meeting in December.

“Taekwondo was born and named right here in the Republic of Korea, and North Korea itself had favored a joint listing,” Choi said. “It is deeply heartbreaking that our national martial art ended up in this situation due to official complacency.”

“If the government had mobilized its full diplomatic weight to raise formal objections based on historical origin, the evaluation could have been deferred,” Choi said. “Now, the foreign ministry and South Korea’s ambassador to UNESCO must actively persuade the 24 committee member states to defer North Korea’s individual listing and pave the way for a joint inscription.”