One Martial Art, One Name on the List: How Taekwondo’s UNESCO Moment Went to Pyongyang First

South Korea has spent decades turning taekwondo into a global sport. It hosts World Taekwondo, which counts 215 national associations; it saw the art become an Olympic medal event at Sydney 2000; and it is home to Kukkiwon, the discipline’s world headquarters. Yet the first UNESCO recognition of taekwondo now looks set to carry North Korea’s name alone.

This week the evaluation body that advises UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage recommended inscribing Pyongyang’s nomination, filed in March 2024 under the title “Taekwon-Do, Traditional Martial Art in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” The committee takes the final decision at its 21st session in Xiamen, China, from November 30 to December 5, and it rarely overturns such recommendations.

The joint bid that never came together

Seoul’s hope was a joint listing. Huh Min, head of the Korea Heritage Service, conceded on social media before the announcement that this was “virtually impossible at this point”, citing strained inter-Korean relations among other hurdles. His agency went further, saying it regretted that the previous administration had not taken significant steps toward a shared inscription.

The record shows a long series of near-misses. South Korea first explored a nomination in 2016. In 2018 the two international taekwondo bodies linked to the Koreas agreed to cooperate on a joint bid, but no formal application followed. A Kukkiwon task force formed in 2021 ran into disagreements over domestic procedures and over whether taekwondo first needed national intangible heritage status — a step stalled by academic debate about the art’s origins. When Seoul opened its nomination round in 2023, it chose hanji paper-making instead.

Calendar arithmetic now works against a quick fix. UNESCO limits how often countries with many inscriptions can have nominations examined; South Korea effectively gets one every two years. With hanji scheduled for 2026 and insam (ginseng) culture submitted for 2028, a standalone South Korean taekwondo file might not be examined before 2030.

Not ownership — but still a sting

The heritage service stresses that inscription does not confer ownership. The list recognises how communities practise and pass on a tradition, and the two Koreas have already shown that separate entries can coexist: South Korea’s Arirang was inscribed in 2012 and the North’s in 2014; South Korea’s kimjang kimchi-making in 2013 and the North’s kimchi tradition in 2015.

There is also a practical difference behind the politics. Decades of division have produced two distinct systems. North Korea follows the International Taekwon-Do Federation tradition, with its own rules, training methods and emphasis on traditional discipline and direct striking, while the South’s Olympic-style sport has evolved separately. Experts quoted in Korean media say that gap, plus the very different stages of the two nominations, rules out a merger like the one UNESCO approved for ssireum wrestling in 2018 — still the only joint listing by the two Koreas.

Seoul says it will keep pursuing its own inscription. For the estimated 200 million people who practise taekwondo worldwide, little changes on the mat. In the record books of heritage diplomacy, though, the North will be first.