Category: North Korea

I have long been a supporter of flooding North Korea with as much outside information as possible to challenge the propaganda the regime indoctrinates its people with. However, the number of defections though up this year are still too small to say the regime is crumbling:

A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea, Tuesday, by walking across the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) on the heavily fortified inter-Korean border. The defection occurred about two weeks after a North Korean resident crossed the maritime border in the Han River estuary on the west coast.

In recent years, North Korea’s elite, including high-level diplomats stationed abroad, have also defected to the South. The latest defector, Ri Il-gyu, fled from Cuba to South Korea in November of last year.

North Korea watchers and defectors residing in South Korea say these defections might indicate increasing economic hardship in the North and a growing desire for freedom among its residents, driven by access to information about the outside world. (…..)

Kim Seung-chul, president of North Korea Reform Radio who defected from the North in 1993, said President Yoon Suk Yeol’s policy of embracing defectors has stirred up complex feelings in the minds of North Koreans.

“South Korea celebrated its first North Korean Defectors’ Day on July 14, and President Yoon’s outreach to 26 million North Korean citizens in his speech is affecting the minds of North Koreans. The loudspeaker campaign and anti-Pyongyang leaflets have also been effective in bringing about change,” Kim said.

Socio-economic factors, such as economic hardship and political oppression, continue to drive North Koreans to flee their country. In the first half of the year, the number of North Korean defectors arriving in South Korea reached 105, a slight increase from 99 in the previous year.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but there has never been a coordinated and sustained effort to flood North Korea with outside information. This is probably the lowest cost way to pressure the Kim regime. Just their reactions to the propaganda balloon launches by the defector group Fighters for a Free North Korea demonstrates that what they are doing is having an impact within North Korea.

I am sure Ms. Stephens feels like she is doing something positive, but in my opinion she is just enabling the Kim regime to receive tourism dollars that ultimately goes to funding their nuclear and missile programs that threatens regional peace:

When British traveler Zoe Stephens, 30, decided to tour North Korea for the first time in 2017, she didn’t think she would be doing it for a living.

“I went to North Korea as a tourist first, pretty much the same way as everyone else. I realized it’s nothing like what the media says,” she told The Korea Herald. She said “the real North Korea” took her by surprise and charmed her.

“So I decided that I wanted to start doing tours to show everyone what the media wasn’t showing — the human side to North Korea.”

Since then she has visited North Korea more than two dozen times, staying as long as a month at a time until the pandemic shut down the borders. She eventually began working as a tour guide for a Beijing-based company Koryo Tours, which mainly offers travel programs to North Korea.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but Ms. Stephens claims she has free access to go around the country and take pictures. However, I doubt they are taking her to the labor camps and firing squads. Keep that in mind every time someone tells you how great North Korea is to visit.

It is pretty clear if Kim Jong-un wants something he will get it despite the sanctions on North Korea:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appears to be using a new model of a Mercedes-Benz SUV in a move snubbing international sanctions banning North Korea’s imports of luxury items.

Photos carried by the Korean Central News Agency on Saturday showed a black Mercedes-Benz SUV on a special train that Kim used to visit flood-hit areas of Uiju County in the northwestern province of North Phyongan last week.

The SUV is presumed to be the top-class model of the face-lifted Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 4MATIC that was launched in April in South Korea. The price tag started at 279 million won (US$204,000).

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is a low cost provocation that North Korea could probably keep doing indefinitely to keep the pressure on the Yoon administration over the propaganda balloon launches:

North Korea launched balloons presumed to be carrying trash toward South Korea again Saturday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, marking a resumption after more than two weeks.

The JCS said it detected the launches, noting the possibility of the balloons traveling toward the northern part of Gyeonggi Province that surrounds Seoul despite winds blowing in northern and northeastern directions.

It warned the public of falling objects and not to touch the balloons if discovered, requesting they report them to the military or police.

North Korea has launched more than 3,600 trash balloons since May 28 in a tit-for-tat move against balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets flown by North Korean defectors and activists in South Korea. Pyongyang last sent the balloons on July 24.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This should not be really surprising that North Korea has rejected international flood aid. The international community should not have been offering it anyway because if North Korea has money to build nuclear weapons and ICBMs they can provide their own disaster relief:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has pledged to bring victims of recent heavy downpours to the capital city of Pyongyang to take care of them without outside help, state media said Saturday.

Kim made a two-day trip on Thursday and Friday to Uiju County in the northwestern province of North Pyongan to meet flood victims staying at a temporary shelter and offered support, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. 

He announced “an emergency system” to bring children, the elderly, disabled soldiers and mothers in North Pyongan, Jagang and Ryanggang provinces to Pyongyang to provide support in the next two to three months until the reconstruction and repair of their homes are completed, saying about 15,400 people could be brought to the capital city.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The Kim regime will definitely do something around the Presidential election time period, but a nuclear test seems pretty high on the provocation meter for them to use:

South Korea is not ruling out the possibility of North Korea conducting a nuclear test before or after the U.S. presidential election in November to bolster its leverage, Seoul’s defense chief said in a media interview published Monday.

South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik made the remarks in an interview with Bloomberg in Tokyo on Sunday as he was in the Japanese capital for a trilateral meeting with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts, Lloyd Austin and Minoru Kihara.

“North Korea has completed preparations to conduct a nuclear test when a decision is made,” Shin said. “We cannot rule out the possibility of that decisive moment being right before or after the U.S. presidential election to raise its leverage against the U.S.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It seems in a society with so many old male military figures that Kim Jong-un’s daughter would have a hard time consolidating power if Kim Jong-un was to die within the next 10-20 years:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Ju-ae, is being groomed to succeed her father, though the selection is not final and he could ultimately choose someone else, two lawmakers quoted South Korea’s spy agency as saying Monday.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) made the report to the parliamentary intelligence committee, saying North Korea has suggested Ju-ae is a strong candidate to succeed her father by adjusting the frequency of her public appearances to gauge public sentiment, Rep. Lee Seong-kweun of the ruling People Power Party and Rep. Park Sun-won of the main opposition Democratic Party said during a press briefing.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

North Korea’s statement is not entirely true because Trump and Kim’s personal relationship ushered in an era where there was far less provocations and antagonism compared to prior years:

North Korea on Tuesday dismissed former US President Donald Trump’s repeated boasts about his close relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a “lingering desire,” stating that their personal bond did not bring about “any substantial positive change.”

The statement, delivered through the state-run Korean Central News Agency, which is tailored more to external audiences than domestic ones, marked Pyongyang’s first official reaction to Trump’s campaign trail remarks. (…..)

“It is true that Trump, when he was president, tried to reflect the special personal relations between the heads of states in the relations between states, but he did not bring about any substantial positive change,” the commentary read.

“The foreign policy of a state and personal feelings must be strictly distinguished,” it added.

Pyongyang reiterated its stance that the ball is in the US court, urging the US to abandon what it labeled as a “hostile policy” toward North Korea in the commentary. Pyongyang considers the US extended deterrence commitment to South Korea in response to mounting threats from North Korea, such as the deployment of US strategic assets to the peninsula, as part of the hostile policy.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.