Here is some more information about the ROK intelligence agent that was leaking the identity of undercover agents in China:
A military intelligence official indicted for allegedly leaking the identities of undercover South Korean agents has admitted to working for a Chinese operative since 2017, military prosecutors said Wednesday.
The 49-year-old official, who worked for the Defense Intelligence Command before his suspension, initially denied leaking military secrets but eventually told investigators that he was recruited by Chinese intelligence in 2017 during a visit to Yanji, the capital of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province, to meet his contacts.
According to military prosecutors, the official claimed he was detained by Chinese officials at the Yanji airport and offered a chance to work for a Chinese intelligence agent in exchange for his family’s safety.
Military prosecutors indicted the official on Tuesday on charges of bribery, aiding the enemy and violating the Military Secrets Protection Act by leaking classified information.
While the official said he began selling military secrets in 2017, prosecutors said they were able to confirm he had received payments since 2019 and leaked classified information since June 2022, two years before counterintelligence officials caught wind of his suspicious activities.Total payments to the suspect that have been tracked thus far by South Korean counterintelligence amount to 160 million won ($120,000).
Prosecutors said the suspect gathered secrets by taking photos and screenshots of information on computer screens at the Defense Intelligence Command’s headquarters in Seoul, which he then uploaded to a Chinese cloud server at home.
You can read more at the link, but I have to wonder how real the supposed threats to his family were? I would not be surprised if he was looking for money from the start. Considering he only got paid $120,000 he sold out his country for a paltry sum.
These have to be some strong horses to haul Kim Jong-il around on:
North Korea has reportedly imported more than 20 Russian horses, known as “Kim Jong-un’s Ama.”
According to the US Radio Free Asia (RFA) on the 27th (local time), Russia’s Primorsky Krai Agricultural and Fisheries Supervisory Service sent 24 Orlov Trotter horses to North Korea on the 25th. (….)
Orlov is known to be the preferred breed of the Kim family as a handsome, obedient, and patient Junma. Kim Jong-un, chairman of the State Affairs Commission, is also called “Kim Jong-un’s Ama” because he was seen climbing Mount Baekdu on an Orlov Junma at the end of 2019.
In February last year, a white horse appeared that Chairman Kim’s daughter Joo-ae was riding at a military parade commemorating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Army.
You can read more at the link.
ROK authorities need to put this guy away for a very long time to deter anyone else from leaking information like this. Hopefully none of these ROK agents were killed due to these leak:
The defense ministry’s prosecutors’ office on Tuesday indicted a military intelligence official for allegedly leaking information of South Korean espionage agents operating overseas.
The official at the Korea Defense Intelligence Command, whose identity is withheld, was arrested earlier this month on allegations of handing over personal information of “black agents” to a Chinese national of Korean descent, who is possibly an informant for North Korea’s intelligence agency.
The defense ministry said the prosecutors indicted the official on charges of aiding the enemy, bribery and violating the Military Secrets Protection Act, believing that the individual leaked confidential information in exchange for financial gains.
You can read more at the link.
In a new book written by H.R. McMaster he discusses his time working in the Trump administration and the friction with the Moon administration over the North Korea nuclear issue:
In the book, titled, “At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House,” H.R. McMaster, who served as national security advisor from 2017-2018, revealed a series of anecdotes where the administrations of former Presidents Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump diverged on North Korea and other issues. (……..)
“Moon said that, just like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Khadafi, Kim believed that he needed nuclear weapons for defense,” McMaster wrote.
“Pence asked Moon, ‘Why does Kim Jong-un need nukes when he has conventional artillery in range of Seoul? We have to consider the possibility that Kim wants the weapons for offensive purposes,'” he added.
Why can’t it be both? Clearly Kim saw what happened to Khadafi and Saddam and does not want that to happen to him. His conventional artillery is enough to deter the ROK and the U.S. as long as USFK is in South Korea. However, if USFK is ever withdrawn that then gives the U.S. more flexibility to strike North Korea without fear of instant retaliation against U.S. troops.
Nucelar weapons combined with their missile program are clearly aimed to deter the U.S. by threatening to launch nuclear weapons against bases in Japan, Guam, and eventually the U.S. mainland if they develop a reliable ICBM. This is why the Kim regime has been wanting to sign a peace agreement with the U.S. during the Moon administration. If there is peace why is USFK still needed? North Korea strategy is to get USFK out and then deter the U.S. with nuclear weapons.
If North Korea feels the U.S. is deterred then tactical nukes could then be used during any offensive operation into South Korea. However, I believe this would actually be a last option for the Kim regime. During the Moon administration the Kim regime was trying to push a confederation policy with South Korea that ultimately failed, but would not be surprised if it came up again in the future.
I would not be surprised if Kim Jong-un is developing and showcasing his suicide drones in hopes of selling them to Russia:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has overseen a performance test of various drones, calling for the development and production of more suicide drones to enhance war preparedness, state media reported Monday.
Kim supervised the test organized by the Drone Institute of the Academy of Defence Sciences on Saturday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
In the test, the drones flew along various preset courses and correctly identified and destroyed the designated targets, as they have missions to attack enemy targets on the ground and in the sea, the report said.
You can read more at the link.
The shots that Kamala Harris recently made against Donald Trump demonstrates that her administration would just continue what the Biden administration has already been doing:
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has said she will not “cozy up to” dictators like North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, whom she cast as “rooting for” her Republican rival Donald Trump.
In her nomination acceptance speech in Chicago on Thursday, Vice President Harris took aim at former President Trump, who has long boasted about his personal ties with Kim, stressing she knows “where I stand” in the “struggle between democracy and tyranny.”
“I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong-un who are rooting for Trump,” she told a cheering crowd of Democrats on the fourth and final day of the Democratic National Convention.
“They know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favors. They know Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself,” she added.
The remarks reinforced expectations that Harris, if elected, could focus on working together with allies to bolster deterrence against North Korean threats while leaving the door open for dialogue with Pyongyang — largely in line with President Joe Biden’s approach.
You can read more at the link.
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.
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.
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.
