A positive from the North Korean perspective that has come out of Kim Jong-un’s extended time out of the spotlight was that these recently elected defector lawmakers have been greatly discredited:
Ji Seong-ho
The ruling party on Monday urged two North Korean defectors-turned-lawmakers-elect of the conservative opposition parties to stay away from the National Assembly committees that handle top-secret security information.
Rep. Kim Boo-kyum of the Democratic Party (DP) made the request to Thae Yong-ho, elected as a lawmaker in last month’s general elections for the main opposition United Future Party (UFP), and Ji Seong-ho, a proportional lawmaker-elect of the satellite Future Korea Party (FKP) affiliated with UFP.
Thae and Ji are the first North Korean defectors to be elected to the National Assembly by South Korean voters.
“You must never again mix your wishful thinking with false information and spread it to the media,” Kim said in a Facebook message, criticizing Thae and Ji for claiming that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was in a critical health condition.
As the young dictator of the reclusive communist state conspicuously remained out of the public eye for nearly three weeks, Thae and Ji fueled media speculation by saying Kim was gravely ill. Ji even claimed that he was “99 percent certain” that Kim was dead and predicted that the North would formally announce his death in the coming weekend. Thae also said Kim “could not stand up by himself or walk properly.”
Here is at least one positive highlight from the parliamentary election beatdown South Korean conservatives took in this week’s voting:
Thae Yong-ho, the former No. 2 diplomat at North Korea’s Embassy in London, sheds tears while singing the national anthem after he was elected in the Gangnam A constituency in Seoul in the general elections on April 16, 2020. He changed his name to Tae Ku-min in a show of his will to “rescue North Korean people,” known as Ku Min, timed with the elections. (Yonhap)
A high-profile North Korean defector won a constituency seat in this week’s general elections, becoming the first person hailing from the communist nation to be chosen directly by South Korean voters as their representative.
Thae Yong-ho, a former No. 2 diplomat at North Korea’s Embassy in London, was elected to the National Assembly as the main conservative opposition United Future Party’s candidate in Seoul’s southern affluent district of Gangnam.
Thae received 58.4 percent of the votes cast Wednesday in the Gangnam constituency, one of the conservative party’s main strongholds, far ahead of his opponent Kim Sung-gon, a four-term lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Party who earned 39.6 percent.
“I plan to devote the best of my ability so that our parliament and government can face the reality, and implement sustainable and feasible policies on North Korea,” Thae said Thursday when his election victory became almost certain.
You can read more at the link, but Thae is going to be a rule thorn in the side of the Korean left in the parliament as they likely attempt to reopen the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the Kumgang Resort, and other projects with North Korea to circumvent international sanctions.
It is going to be interesting to see how this turns out because Thae Yong-ho only has two months to campaign for a parliament seat and he is running on an issue, North Korean defectors, that many in the Korean public are apathetic about:
Thae Yong-ho, former senior North Korean diplomat, announces his bid to run in the April 15 parliamentary elections at the National Assembly in Seoul on Feb. 11, 2020. (Yonhap)
A high-profile North Korean defector officially announced his bid to run in the April parliamentary elections Tuesday, vowing to work for inter-Korean unification if elected.
Thae Yong-ho, a former senior North Korean diplomat, joined the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) and will run in a constituency in Seoul for the April 15 elections, not for a parliamentary proportional representation seat.
Thae, who defected to South Korea in 2016, said his potential victory could give hope to North Koreans aspiring for freedom and help the two Koreas move toward unification.
“I solemnly promise to devote myself in building a unified Korea through parliamentary activity,” Thae said at a press conference at the National Assembly.
NKorean defector and ex-diplomat Thae Yong Ho says Pyongyang never posed real threat of war but “Trump fell into Kim Jong Un’s trap” by seeking peace before denuclearization pic.twitter.com/3LY9UuTeUU
The former deputy North Korean ambassador to the United Kingdom who defected from the Kim regime had this to say about Kim Jong-un’s recent New Year’s speech:
Thae Yong-ho
Thae Yong-ho, one of the highest-ranking North Korean defectors in the South, told reporters in Seoul on Tuesday that Kim’s speech had two strategic purposes. These are to drive a wedge between South Korea and the United States in regards to economic cooperation with the North, and to complicate the verification process of North Korea’s denuclearization by initiating multilateral negotiations over a formal peace treaty to end the 1950-53 Korean War.
“If summarized in a single sentence, Kim Jong-un’s address shows he wants to narrow down the scope of the nuclear negotiations between the United States and North Korea to arms reduction and push off international sanctions, while retaining the status of a nuclear-armed country,” Thae said.
According to Thae, who used to be North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom, the “new path” Kim mentioned the North would take if the United States does not respond with corresponding measures to its denuclearization efforts would be a return to its old pattern of making nuclear provocations. In the speech, Kim said the North would not “make and test nuclear weapons any longer nor use and proliferate them.” Thae said “a new path” would mean reneging on this pledge.
You can read more views at the link, but the consensus seems to be building that Kim Jong-un does not plan to denuclearize and instead inspects the Trump administration to drop sanctions first.
This is all in line with the “pretend denuclearization” strategy that I believe the North Korean’s are hoping to achieve. Once sanctions are dropped the regime will be flushed with cash that it can then funnel back into its weapons programs. While doing this they can do superficial things to give the appearance of heading towards denuclearization without actually fully denuclearizing.
They will drag this out as long as possible and then by the time someone calls them out on their duplicity, they will make up reason to blame the US for the breakdown in the agreement. By the time this happens they hope to have an agreement to end the Korean War in place and US troops withdrawn from the peninsula.
The regime is betting that by this time the US and the international community will just want to treat them like Pakistan and let them keep their nukes because it isn’t worth the trouble to forcefully make them denuclearize. By keeping the nukes this then allows them over time to coerce the ROK into the confederation agreement they have been demanding to implement.
In a city filled with riot police, why can't (or won't) the South Korean government protect the safety & freedom to speak of its most prominent dissident in exile? https://t.co/znChDnwAzT
Prominent North Korean defector Thae Yong-ho who is also a candidate for the most hated person by South Korean leftists who they haven’t put in jail yet, has started his own English language blog. In his recent posting he discusses how Kim Jong-un has no intention to denuclearize and is strengthening the Anti-Imperialist Education within North Korea against South Korea:
Thae Yong-ho
The reality is that when North Korea’s Kim Jong-un came out to the inter-Korean Summit and US-North Korean Summit, he had no intention of giving up his nuclear weapons. It was simply a way to earn time to hold onto his survival by putting on a ‘show’ of pretending to be interested in denuclearization.
While Kim Jong-un thinks that as long as he is in possession of nuclear weapons he will be able to continue the hereditary rule of the Kim family, in actuality, as long as North Korea has nuclear weapons it will not be treated as a ‘normal state.’ In fact the nuclear weapons will be the malignant tumour that leads to the collapse of the North Korean system.
At this moment in time, South Korean citizens are delighted at the start to an era of forgiveness and cooperation between the two Koreas and think that through these inter-Korean exchanges, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un will change.
However, while Kim Jong-un is pretending to be interested in inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation on the outside; internally, he is intensifying the ‘Anti-Imperialist Education’ and warning his people about getting swept away with the exchange and cooperations with South Korea. [Thae Yong-ho]
Great interview with former North Korean official Thae Yong-ho. One big takeaway relevant for US summit: Kim can’t reform NK into a benign state without risking collapse https://t.co/zQ0IenCKQ0
