|
Quotes of the Day:
"He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper."
– Edmund Burke
"The golden way is to be friends with the world and to regard the whole human family as one."
– Mahatma Gandhi
"We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one… The North Vietnamese used their armed forces the way a bull-fighter uses his cape — to keep us lunging in areas of marginal political importance."
– Henry A. Kissinger,
1. U.S. not seeing indications of 'direct' N. Korean threat at this time: Washington official
2. Henny Penny, Chicken Little warn: N Korea's sky is falling
3. Inequality worsening in N. Korea's capital, rural areas: ministry
4. S. Korea, U.S. hold 1st joint cyber security drill
5. FM Cho discusses bilateral ties, N. Korea issues with visiting U.S. congressman
6. Foreign ministry shakes up 6 overseas ambassador posts
7. Kim Jong-un admits failure of rationing system, blames party officials for inaction
8. 'Anticipating continued growth in Korea-Japan relations throughout the year'
9. Chinese vice foreign minister visiting N. Korea: KCNA
10. US voices concerns over NK support for Russia prolonging war in Ukraine
11. Prepare for Trump 2.0 as early as possible
12. Pyongyang stops calling Seoul ‘South Joseon’
13. N. Korea could turn to nukes 'more easily' in crisis: US think tank report
14. What’s behind the exodus of Pyongyangites from the city center to the outskirts?
15. China sends top diplomat to Pyongyang amid N Korea’s economic woes
16. The Academy Was Right to Snub This Dehumanizing Documentary
17. Beyond Utopia: Another False Narrative About Korea
1. U.S. not seeing indications of 'direct' N. Korean threat at this time: Washington official
I think the ROK/US alliance should consider releasing information about internal conditions in the north and the possible internal threats Kim is facing.
Also, I think what we are seeing is in line with the assessment from the declassified January 2023 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)
(LEAD) U.S. not seeing indications of 'direct' N. Korean threat at this time: Washington official | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Song Sang-ho · January 26, 2024
(ATTN: UPDATES throughout with U.S. official's remarks; CHANGES headline, lead)
By Song Sang-ho
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (Yonhap) -- The United States is not seeing indications of a direct military threat from North Korea at the moment, a U.S. official said Thursday, after Washington officials were reported to have warned North Korean leader Kim Jong-un could take some "lethal" military action against South Korea in the coming months.
Earlier in the day, The New York Times (NYT) reported on the possibility of the North's military action as concerns rose over Kim's pugnacious rhetoric against the South and his regime's repeated weapons tests, including this week's launch of what it claimed to be a new strategic cruise missile.
"While we are not seeing indications of a direct military threat at this time, we continue to monitor for the risk of DPRK military action against the ROK and Japan, in close consultation with our ROK and Japanese allies," the official said in response to a question from Yonhap News Agency.
ROK stands for the South's official name, the Republic of Korea, while the DPRK is the acronym of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The official also stressed the strong state of security cooperation between Seoul and Washington and their trilateral cooperation with Japan.
"While the DPRK has continued its provocative and destabilizing actions in the region, under President Biden, the alliance between the United States and the Republic of Korea has never been stronger," the official said.
"In addition, the unparalleled trilateral cooperation between the United States, Japan and the ROK directly contributes to regional security amid the DPRK's destabilizing actions and rhetoric," the official added.
The NYT reported on the U.S. officials' assessment, noting that North Korean leader's tough rhetoric against the South has been more aggressive than his previous statements and should be taken "seriously."
Concerns about the North's future course of action have risen recently as Kim has called for beefed-up war readiness and preparations for a "great event to suppress South Korea's whole territory in the event of a contingency." Kim has also pushed for a constitutional revision to label the South as the "invariable principal enemy."
Last Friday, John Kirby, the U.S. National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, noted the need to take Kim's rhetoric "seriously."
"You have to take rhetoric like that seriously from a man in charge of the regime that continues to pursue advanced military capabilities, including nuclear capabilities," Kirby told a press briefing.
The North's provocative streak comes amid already heightened cross-border tensions following the North's exit from a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement aimed at reducing border tensions and preventing accidental clashes.
This photo, carried by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Jan. 16, 2024, shows the North's leader Kim Jong-un delivering a speech at the 10th session of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly held in Pyongyang the previous day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
sshluck@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Song Sang-ho · January 26, 2024
2. Henny Penny, Chicken Little warn: N Korea's sky is falling
Bradley Martin is riffing on the recent 38 North articles.
Henny Penny, Chicken Little warn: N Korea's sky is falling - Asia Times
Is Kim Jong Un’s declaration of war for real, or is he merely trying to reignite his love affair with Trump?
asiatimes.com · by Bradley K. Martin · January 24, 2024
Is Kim Jong Un about to go to war, sending his fancy new missiles to wreak havoc on one or more enemy countries? Will the first target be in Japan? South Korea? The United States (specifically Guam, which is within range)?
Two longtime North Korea watchers – why do I want to call them Henny Penny and Chicken Little? – warn in a seriously light-on-evidence January 11 think tank article that “we must seriously consider a worst case.”
The North Koreans, they say, “may target the weakest point – psychologically as well as materially – in what the three capitals hope is a watertight US-ROK-Japan military position.”
Their claim that “Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war” has gone viral, scaring the bejesus out of commentators around the world.
The evidence cited is mainly North Korean propaganda:
At the start of 2023, the war preparations theme started appearing regularly in high-level North Korean pronouncements for domestic consumption. At one point, Kim Jong Un even resurrected language calling for “preparations for a revolutionary war for accomplishing … reunification.” Along with that, in March, authoritative articles in the party daily signaled a fundamentally and dangerously new approach … putting South Korea beyond the pale, outside what could be considered the true Korea and, thus, as a legitimate target for the North’s military might.
The two American authors, Robert L Carlin and Siegfried S Hecker, also psychoanalyze Kim from afar:
The June 2018 Singapore summit with President Donald Trump was to Kim the realization of what his grandfather had envisioned and his father had attempted, but never attained – normalization of relations with the United States. Kim poured his prestige into the second summit in Hanoi. When that failed, it was a traumatic loss of face for Kim. His final letter to President Trump in August 2019 reflects how much Kim felt he had risked and lost.
Overcoming that psychological barrier would never have been easy, and it goes a long way in explaining the huge subsequent swing in North Korean policy. This was not a tactical adjustment, not simply pouting on Kim’s part, but a fundamentally new approach – the first in over thirty years.
Hardly any outsider is prepared to claim to have been privy to what the secretive, self-isolated Kim family of absolute rulers is really up to. Readers looking for reasonably informed views on whether it’s time to make a canned goods run to stock the family bomb shelter are left to rely on guesses by experienced North Korea watchers who know at least a little.
A former Cold War nuclear bunker in Cornwall, United Kingdom, is up for auction. Photo: Auction House Devon and Cornwall / Facebook Screengrab
Pyongyang watchers generally can be divided into two factions. Members of the faction that I usually land with – call us realists – are a hard sell for any claim that the North Korean leaders deviate significantly from the playbook bequeathed to them by the late founding Supreme Leader Kim Il Sung. The senior Kim had some chances to go for a replay of the Korean War but he never bit.
Kim Jong Un, although he’s had a half-brother and an uncle put to death, has not made it a practice to kill South Koreans, much less Japanese, Americans or other foreigners.
Thank you for registering!
An account was already registered with this email. Please check your inbox for an authentication link.
Many of us realists see Pyongyang’s resort to warlike noises now as its US election season version of a half-century-old policy of alternating threats with cajolery – a policy that’s always been targeted at getting Washington to withdraw American troops from South Korea.
In 2024, the short-term goal likely would be to reestablish Kim’s hand-holding relationship with Donald Trump, in hopes the former president will win reelection and once again consider troop withdrawal.
Without seeing the backs of the American GIs, who deter invasion by acting as a human tripwire, the Kims are unlikely ever to achieve the founding grandfather’s goal of controlling South Korea.
The other faction of Pyongyang watchers – which we may call The Sky is Falling – is forever urging us to work harder at understanding what’s in the Kims’ heads. The assumption is that the Kims can and do change and we can make a deal with them – or suffer grave consequences for failing to do so.
The authors of the scare piece anticipate that realists in and out of government will respond with “the by-now routine argument that Kim Jong Un would not dare take such a step” as starting a war, “because he knows Washington and Seoul would destroy his regime if he does so.
“If this is what policymakers are thinking,” they write, ” it is the result of a fundamental misreading of Kim’s view of history and a grievous failure of imagination that could be leading (on both Kim’s and Washington’s parts) to a disaster.”
Understanding the mind of the ruling Kim is a worthy goal indeed, gentlemen. But how much time did you spend with the current Kimster as you explored his view of history? We’d been told that the basketball star Dennis Rodman was the only American who became Kim’s drinking buddy.
Kim and Rodman in Pyongyoang. Photo: NBC
In the article, you don’t relay any telling conversations with Kim. Instead, you cite some particularly bombastic language he and his regime have used publicly lately.
As South Korean scholar Moon Chung-in told a Seoul newspaper, you are
talking about premeditated attempts to launch a war on the Korean Peninsula on a scale similar to the Korean War. But Kim’s statements are actually conditional. He’s essentially saying, “If we have to go to war, we will not shy away from it. We will use all of our weapons, including our nuclear arsenal, to defeat the South and reclaim the land for our regime.” If we look at those words from a different angle, it means that the North will not be the ones to instigate war.
Thomas Schäfer, who served twice as Germany’s ambassador to North Korea, has dismantled the Carlin-Hecker argument in a rebuttal published by the same think tank that posted it originally. Schäfer writes that, basically,
there is nothing new in Pyongyang, but – and here I agree with the authors – recently, there has been an increase in this kind of violent language. This recent propaganda increase has nothing to do with a policy shift after Hanoi, but the timing is related to the coming US presidential elections….
I thus believe that Pyongyang, following a well-established negotiating pattern … will continue to increase tensions until after the US elections, but that at the height of tensions it will finally be willing to re-engage with a Republican administration in the hope to get sanctions relief, some sort of acceptance of their nuclear program, and – as main objective – a reduction or even complete withdrawal of US troops from the Korean Peninsula.
That would be an understandable objective in view of what Trump said about Kim at a West Virginia rally in October 2018: “I was really being tough. And so was he. And we’d go back and forth. And then we fell in love. OK? No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters. And they’re great letters. We fell in love.”
Bradley K Martin first traveled to North Korea in 1979 as a foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. He is the author of a prizewinning history of the country during the reigns of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty, as well as a novel set in North Korea during the Kim Jong Un era, Nuclear Blues.
Sign up for one of our free newsletters
asiatimes.com · by Bradley K. Martin · January 24, 2024
3. Inequality worsening in N. Korea's capital, rural areas: ministry
Obviously we need to be observing for indicators. What we also need to look for is when military units start being significantly prioritized and if "competition" for resources begins.
Inequality worsening in N. Korea's capital, rural areas: ministry | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · January 26, 2024
SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Yonhap) -- The economic gap between Pyongyang and North Korea's provincial areas appears to be further widening in terms of food rationing, housing and health services, South Korea's unification ministry said Friday.
The assessment came as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to develop the regional industrial economy by building modernized factories in 20 counties each year over the next decade.
"There are reportedly different benefits for residents in Pyongyang and regional areas in terms of their rationing experience or the amount of rationed food," Kim In-ae, deputy spokesperson for the ministry in charge of inter-Korean affairs, said in a regular press briefing.
"Such inequality has worsened due to gaps in the level of infrastructure and access in areas of education and health services," Kim said, adding that the North's ongoing housing projects in rural areas appear to be sluggish.
In a Workers' Party meeting earlier this week, the North Korean leader said the country's regional economy is in a "terrible situation" in which basic living necessities are not sufficiently provided to residents.
North Korea has been emphasizing the importance of economic development and strengthening the role of the cabinet as the "economic control tower" as the country grapples with prolonged economic difficulties.
The North has been under tightened U.N. sanctions, which call for, among other things, a ban on the country's exports of coal and other mineral resources to cut off North Korea's access to hard currency.
Kim In-ae, deputy spokesperson for South Korea's unification ministry, speaks at a press briefing on Jan. 26, 2024. (Yonhap)
mlee@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · January 26, 2024
4. S. Korea, U.S. hold 1st joint cyber security drill
Exercises are good. Defensive operations are better. Offensive operations are what is really needed.
S. Korea, U.S. hold 1st joint cyber security drill | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Eun-jung · January 26, 2024
SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and the United States have conducted their first cyber security drills to bolster their joint posture against rising cyber threats, the defense ministry said Friday.
The Cyber Alliance drill, held from Jan. 15-26 at South Korea's Cyber Operation Command, focused on training agents from both nations with the skills to share information regarding hacking attempts and the cybersecurity response guide.
The ministry said the two countries will continue to expand cyber security exercises, professional training and technology exchanges to enhance their collaboration in the cyber domain, the ministry said.
Seoul and Washington have been exploring ways to counter North Korea's cryptocurrency theft and other illegal cyber activities aimed at financing its nuclear and missile development programs.
The Cyber Operation Command logo (Yonhap)
ejkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Eun-jung · January 26, 2024
5. FM Cho discusses bilateral ties, N. Korea issues with visiting U.S. congressman
(LEAD) FM Cho discusses bilateral ties, N. Korea issues with visiting U.S. congressman | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · January 26, 2024
(ATTN: ADDS more details in paras 7-9, photo)
SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Yonhap) -- Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul met with U.S. Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) on Friday, and discussed the bilateral alliance and other common issues, including mutual cooperation with Japan and North Korea, Cho's office said.
In Friday's talks, Cho noted the bilateral relations between South Korea and the United States have become stronger in all areas from security and economy to people-to-people exchanges, and expressed hope that the two countries will further develop the ties based on close coordination.
Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul (L) shakes hands with U.S. Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) ahead of their meeting at Seoul's foreign ministry building in Seoul on Jan. 26, 2024, in this photo provided by Cho's office. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
Cho thanked the U.S. Congress for sending a strong message about the South Korea-U.S. alliance and asked for Wilson's continued attention to Korea issues as a representative foreign and military expert who has long supported the bilateral alliance.
Cho also pointed out the importance of "predictability and sustainability" in business environments for South Korean companies investing heavily in the U.S. market.
"The minister emphasized the need for U.S. legislation to expand the visa quota for professional workers as a way to resolve the workforce shortage and help businesses to operate smoothly," Cho's office said.
Cho told the congressman that the trilateral cooperation among the U.S., South Korea and Japan will serve to effectively respond to North Korea's nuclear and missile threats, and maintain peace and stability in the region.
Defense Minister Shin Won-sik also held talks with Wilson at his office in central Seoul, where they discussed efforts to develop the bilateral alliance and the security situation on the Korean Peninsula and in the region, according to Shin's ministry.
During the talks, Shin stressed the need to strengthen cooperation with countries that share common values, as well as enhancing deterrence efforts against North Korean threats through the South Korea-U.S. alliance, it said.
Wilson shared the view that North Korea's nuclear and missile development is a threat not only to the Korean Peninsula but also to the international community, and the two sides agreed to cooperate to further develop the bilateral alliance, according to the ministry.
Wilson is known for his keen interest in the South Korea-U.S. alliance, bilateral economic cooperation and Korean Peninsula issues.
Wilson is serving on the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Armed Services of the House of the Representatives, and also co-chairs the Congressional Korea Caucus, a bipartisan group for promoting the bilateral ties and awareness of Korea-related issues in Congress.
Defense Minister Shin Won-sik (L) holds talks with U.S. Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) at the defense ministry in central Seoul on Jan. 26, 2024, in this photo provided by Shin's office. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
elly@yna.co.kr
yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · January 26, 2024
6. Foreign ministry shakes up 6 overseas ambassador posts
Hmmm... Director General of North American Affairs to become the Ambassador to Iran.
Foreign ministry shakes up 6 overseas ambassador posts | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Yi Wonju · January 26, 2024
SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Yonhap) -- South Korea appointed new ambassadors to Iran, Germany and four other countries, the foreign ministry said Friday.
Kim Jun-pyo, director general for North American affairs, will head the South Korean Embassy in Iran and Lim Sang-beom, former presidential secretary for national security strategy, will serve as the ambassador to Germany, the ministry said in a press release.
Jeong Yeon-doo, a former ambassador to the Netherlands, has been appointed as the top envoy in Turkey and Park Kyong-sig, the former deputy consul general in Hong Kong, will lead the embassy in Ghana.
Others include Park Ji-hyun, new ambassador to Madagascar, and Noh Won-il to Uruguay.
Five others were appointed to lead the consulate general of San Francisco, Niigata and Sapporo in Japan, as well as Chengdu and Qingdao in China.
President Yoon Suk Yeol (L) poses for a photo with new South Korean Ambassador to Iran Kim Jun-pyo after presenting him with a letter of appointment at the presidential office in Seoul on Jan. 26, 2024. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)
julesyi@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Yi Wonju · January 26, 2024
7. Kim Jong-un admits failure of rationing system, blames party officials for inaction
An important indicator that Kim is facing challenges. Of course he can never take the blame even though the root cause is his deliberate policy decisions to develop nuclear weapons and missiles and provide luxury goods to the elite over the welfare of the Korean people in the north. The people sacrifice and suffer because of the false enemy threat Kim portrays from the South and the alliance so he can justify developing weapons and denying the human rights of the Korean people in order to ensure he remains in power.
It is these internal threats that are driving Kim's rhetoric to and actions to raise external tensions and portraying an external threat. This is right out of the Kim family regime playbook.
Kim Jong-un admits failure of rationing system, blames party officials for inaction
https://www.chosun.com/english/north-korea-en/2024/01/26/5QN3I7DM3RGRXCWRHS7RQTACX4/
Published 2024.01.26. 14:20
Updated 2024.01.26. 15:14
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attends the 19th enlarged meeting of the political bureau of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers' Party, held in Mount Myohyang from Jan. 23-24. / Yonhap News
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un acknowledged the failure of the state rationing system during a two-day Politburo meeting of the Workers’ Party held at Mount Myohyang from Jan. 23. to Jan. 24., according to the state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun.
“The failure to provide basic food and necessities to the people in rural regions is a serious political problem that the party and government cannot ignore,” Kim said. This was Kim’s first public admission regarding the dire state of the country’s economy. This is also the first time Kim held a Politburo meeting in the province - previous meetings were held in the capital city of Pyongyang. Experts say that a rare change in location may signal mounting public dissatisfaction in rural areas.
The Rodong Sinmun extensively covered Kim’s remarks on its Jan. 25. edition, dedicating its first five pages to the Politburo meeting. Kim criticized party officials for their lack of initiative and inability to offer realistic solutions, highlighting the North’s failure to establish regional industrial factories in most cities.
He also emphasized the “regional development 20x10 policy”, which entails building regional industrial factories in 20 counties every year for the next decade to improve the living standards of North Koreans.
Kim stated that the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party would assess the performance of provincial, municipal, and county party secretaries based on their loyalty, public service, and responsibility in implementing the rural development policy. Politburo members were also instructed to oversee cities and counties individually. The idea is to hold them accountable for poor performance in the future.
Experts say this strategy is unlikely to succeed, as there is a critical shortage of necessary materials and electricity to build the factories. “The idea is to set targets that are difficult to achieve in reality and then blame party officials for the lack of development in the provinces,” said a government official. “This kind of performance-based competition will likely cause adverse effects and further damage the local economy.”
The North’s infrastructure development, including roads, housing, and power supply, is concentrated in Pyongyang, leading to a significant disparity between urban and rural areas. The severe urban-rural gap has earned the North the nickname “Pyongyang Republic.”
Since the collapse of the state rationing system in the 1990s, most North Koreans have been forced to rely on local marketplaces for food. The North’s efforts to normalize the rationing system after October 2005 were largely unsuccessful, with only a few regions, such as Pyongyang, receiving rations. Following the November 2009 currency reform, attempts were made to reinstate the rationing system, but food distribution was centered on urban workers and party members.
8. 'Anticipating continued growth in Korea-Japan relations throughout the year'
Good. Keep improving relations.
'Anticipating continued growth in Korea-Japan relations throughout the year'
The Korea Times · January 26, 2024
Bilateral normalization enhances economic, diplomatic and military ties
Editor’s note
This article is the third in a four-part series that provides an analysis of South Korea’s diplomatic situation with neighboring countries at the start of 2024. ― ED.
By Kim Hyun-bin
Under President Yoon Suk Yeol's leadership, South Korea and Japan are witnessing a notable enhancement in their relations, marked by increased economic interactions, strengthened diplomatic ties and strategic alignment in the military domain. Many experts anticipate that this positive trend will continue throughout 2024.
"Up until this year, the relationship has consistently improved, and there is a high possibility that the level and depth of cooperation will continue," said Park Won-gon, a professor at Ewha Womans University.
"Not only in the defense aspect but overall, relations have improved to the point of shuttle diplomacy in all fields, the relationship has normalized."
On the diplomatic front, President Yoon's administration has undertaken high-level talks with Japan to bolster ties and address historical grievances. There has been increased dialogue on regional and global issues through diplomatic channels. Agreements on cultural exchanges and educational partnerships underscore a shared commitment to building people-to-people connections and mutual understanding.
“This year, due to the distortion of the South Korea-Japan relationship during the Moon Jae-in administration, I think there might be continuous efforts to address and resolve that distortion,” said Kim Young-ho, a political science professor at Yonsei University.
“There are new variables with the upcoming U.S. presidential election and our general elections; there may be various factors to consider. Still, I believe that Yoon government's approach to Japan will remain consistent.”
Progress has been made via efforts to address historical issues, with both nations acknowledging the importance of reconciliation. The establishment of a joint historical research commission signifies a joint commitment to confronting shared challenges transparently.
"Given the very different historical perceptions between South Korea and Japan, it's not possible to conclude or fully resolve them. The best approach is to manage these issues to prevent them from damaging the overall relationship," Park said.
In the military domain, South Korea and Japan have taken steps to enhance strategic cooperation in response to evolving regional security challenges. Joint military exercises and intelligence-sharing agreements address shared concerns over regional stability, aiming to promote a united front for peace and stability.
The trilateral alliance with the United States has played a crucial role in strengthening the military dimension of the South Korea-Japan relationship. Trilateral dialogues and joint defense initiatives create a framework for coordinated responses to emerging security challenges, fostering a sense of collective security among the three nations.
“The military cooperation between Korea, the U.S. and Japan is no longer a matter of something we may or may not do but rather something we must do in terms of regional security,” Kim said.
“Especially for us, taking a proactive stance on the U.S.-Korea-Japan military cooperation is crucial. As a force in the region, South Korea-U.S.-Japan security cooperation not only contributes to regional security but also the security of North Korea."
Both nations are actively engaging in economic collaboration, actively nurturing trade partnerships and investment opportunities. Comprehensive bilateral agreements have streamlined economic exchanges, fostering mutual growth and stability. Collaborative efforts in technology, innovation and infrastructure development are establishing a strong foundation for ongoing cooperation.
The recent expansion of the South Korea-Japan Economic Cooperation Forum is also playing a role in fostering dialogue and identifying shared economic interests. Commitments to resolving historical trade disputes reflect a mutual determination to overcome challenges and build a more resilient economic relationship.
Earlier this month, private economic sectors in South Korea and Japan have bolstered cooperation after a year and a half.
The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) and the Japan Business Federation, or commonly referred to as Keidanren, have agreed to explore the establishment of a trilateral business summit in alignment with government cooperation among Korea, the United States and Japan. Additionally, they have agreed to organize a joint startup cooperation forum and Korea has decided to pursue membership in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
The FKI and Keidanren held the 30th South Korea-Japan Business Conference at the Keidanren headquarters in Tokyo on Jan. 11.
"A few years ago, during a business conference in Tokyo, there was no communication and the atmosphere was different. But this time, it has completely changed and it was very positive," said Ryu Jin, chairman of the FKI, after the meeting.
The Korea Times · January 26, 2024
9. Chinese vice foreign minister visiting N. Korea: KCNA
The axis of totalitarians at work.
Chinese vice foreign minister visiting N. Korea: KCNA
The Korea Times · January 26, 2024
Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Sun Weidong, left, speaks to Japanese counterparts during the Japan-China security dialogue at the foreign ministry in Tokyo in this Feb. 22, 2023 file photo. Reuters-Yonhap
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong has arrived in North Korea, Pyongyang's state media reported Friday, as the two countries are marking the 75th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations this year.
A delegation of Chinese diplomats, led by Sun, arrived in the North's capital Thursday via the border city of Sinuiju, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a short dispatch.
The KCNA did not give details of his itinerary, but the visit appears to be a reciprocal trip after North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Pak Myong-ho visited China in December.
Pak and Sun held high-level talks in Beijing last month to exchange views on ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the diplomatic ties in 2024.
During the visit to Pyongyang, Sun is expected to meet with ranking North Korean officials to discuss ways to boost bilateral cooperation. He could also pay a courtesy call to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
China is North Korea's key ally and economic benefactor.
The North's leader has been seeking to strengthen solidarity with China and Russia vis-a-vis the strengthening of security cooperation among South Korea, the United States and Japan.
Meanwhile, the delegation appears to have used a land route linking the Chinese border city of Dandong and the North's Sinuiju for the latest visit instead of a flight.
Sun was greeted by officials at North Korea's foreign ministry and a Chinese minister stationed in Pyongyang on the border bridge, according to Rodong Sinmun, North Korea's main newspaper.
North Korea partially opened its border last year following years of its COVID-19-related border closure. The reclusive regime resumed the operations of flights connecting Pyongyang and Beijing in August last year, but it appears to be running them in a limited manner to bring North Korean workers abroad back home. (Yonhap)
The Korea Times · January 26, 2024
10. US voices concerns over NK support for Russia prolonging war in Ukraine
The axis of totalitarians is a global threat to the rules based international order and freedom loving nations.
US voices concerns over NK support for Russia prolonging war in Ukraine
The Korea Times · January 26, 2024
Department of Defense deputy spokesperson Sabrina Singh answers questions during a daily press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington in this captured Aug, 29, 2023 file photo. Yonhap
A Pentagon spokesperson expressed concerns Thursday that North Korea's arms support to Russia would prolong the war in Ukraine, as additional U.S. military aid to the war-torn country has been stalled amid a political logjam.
Deputy Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh made the remarks as the U.S. has revealed Pyongyang supplied Moscow with several dozen ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine, in addition to its earlier supplies of military equipment and munitions.
"We are very concerned about the relationship between Russia and the DPRK. It speaks to Russia that they have to seek support when it comes to funding their own capabilities from countries like Iran ... the DPRK," she told a press briefing. DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"The continuing funding, the continuing support of these countries does prolong the war. That is something that we are concerned about," she added.
Regarding a question of whether the Pentagon downplayed the impact of the North's initial support for Russia, Singh said she did not remember the Pentagon ever suggesting that the North's aid to Russia was not that big of a deal.
"I think it's a concern when other countries are providing Russia with munitions that are killing Ukrainians and innocent Ukrainian civilians," she said. "I think we've always said that's been a big concern of ours."
Asked if the U.S. has knowledge of additional arms shipments from the North to Russia, she said she has nothing to announce. (Yonhap)
The Korea Times · January 26, 2024
11. Prepare for Trump 2.0 as early as possible
There is concern among our allies.
Thursday
January 25, 2024
dictionary + A - A
Published: 25 Jan. 2024, 19:54
Prepare for Trump 2.0 as early as possible
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-01-25/opinion/editorials/Prepare-for-Trump-20-as-early-as-possible/1967258
Donald Trump won the New Hampshire primary by a large margin following his earlier victory in the Iowa caucus. His repeated victories in the early stages of the election suggests a rematch with President Joe Biden after four years.
Trump leads Biden by more than 2 percentage points in nearly all polls. More than nine months are left until the November election, but the developments point to the possibility of Trump being re-elected president. U.S. media outlets already predicted who will serve key posts in the Trump administration — including former national security advisor Robert O’Brien as secretary of state and former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the designer of protectionist policy for Trump, as commerce secretary.
Trump’s return would have a massive impact on global politics, including the U.S.-China hegemony war, and the U.S. domestic politics. Given Trump’s close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his re-election can significantly affect the Ukraine war and the Gaza war.
Political leaders in Europe are urging NATO to devise countermeasures against Trump’s apparent demand for more cost bearing from NATO members if he is re-elected. Canada has activated “Team Canada,” comprised of relevant government ministers and the ambassador to the United States, to deal with the repercussions pre-emptively. In Japan, former prime minister and current vice president of the Liberal Democratic Party, Taro Aso, a golf aficionado, will likely serve as Trump’s counterpart.
Given the U.S. influence on South Korea, the country must prepare for Trump’s re-election more thoroughly than before. In the first Trump administration, Trump mentioned the withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea and pressured the country to bear the defense cost five times more than before. Though the U.S.-North Korea summit ended in failure in Hanoi, Trump did meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for the first time. North Korea is ratcheting up tensions from the start of the year. But the Trump administration 2.0 could accept the North as a nuclear power and start armed reduction talks.
Trump’s vow to scrap the Inflation Reduction Act on the first day as president would deal a critical blow to Korean companies. As the maxim goes, you must not put all your eggs in one basket. Korea must engage in wise diplomacy to spread its risks. The government must brace for all scenarios to minimize damages from the Trump administration 2.0. We hope the presidential office and the diplomacy and security team launch a task force just like Canada did to protect its national interest.
12. Pyongyang stops calling Seoul ‘South Joseon’
We must understand the regime's political warfare strategy and actions.
Pyongyang stops calling Seoul ‘South Joseon’
donga.com
Posted January. 25, 2024 07:48,
Updated January. 25, 2024 07:48
Pyongyang stops calling Seoul ‘South Joseon’. January. 25, 2024 07:48. .
"South Joseon,” the term used by the North Korean regime to refer to South Korea, is not mentioned anymore in North Korean news reports. Instead, the regime has called it "the Republic of Korea” since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in the party's plenary session held at the end of last year that inter-Korean relations are not defined as homologous but as the relations of hostile countries with guns pointed at each other, calling for a fundamental shift in dealing with South Korea issues. By then, Kim often referred to South Korea as "South Joseon” and mentioned "the Republic of Korea” just a few times. However, since the turn of this year, the term "South Joseon” has been completely removed from all media reports.
All of such change in Pyongyang's attitude dates back to six months ago. Last July, the regime abruptly referred to Seoul as the Republic of Korea with the chevron-shaped quotation mark (≪ ≫) in an accusatory statement by Kim Yo Jong criticizing U.S. reconnaissance aircraft flying over the North Korean economic exclusive zone. Around that time, the term would be exclusively used in Kim Yo Jong's statements that "South Joseon” was occasionally mentioned at the regime's convenience. Since then, the long-used name of South Joseon has gradually been replaced by its official name.
It did not mean a mere change of a single word because the new replacement – the Republic of Korea – could have come across as emotionally disturbing and confusing to North Korean residents. To mitigate the side effects, the regime has added contemptuous nouns, including "gangs” and "jerks,h” or sneering modifiers such as "foreign powers’ most loyal cat's-paw.” Last October when the two Koreas played a match in the Asian Games, it described the game as being held between Joseon and “dummy puppets” presumably to avoid mentioning the Republic of Korea.
This was only the beginning. In a speech at the Supreme People’s Assembly earlier this year, Kim ordered the removal of the unification-related phrase “autonomy, peace, and solidarity of the Korean nation” in the regime's Constitution and erased the concepts of unification, reconciliation, and national homogeneity in historical references. Likewise, it will likely take out "South Joseon” and "peaceful unification” of the rules of the ruling Workers' Party. In complete denial of the groundwork done by his grandfather and father, Kim has embarked on an upper-level project to reform laws, codes, and public awareness of ideologies.
This might have been masterminded by Kim Yo Jong, who desperately showed her loyalty and sought recognition, and the propaganda and agitation department under her control went through ideological conflicts internally. The foul-mouthed sister of the regime's supreme leader has always been at the forefront of bashing Seoul so cruelly that the inter-Korean relations ended up being wrecked since the breakdown of the 2019 North Korea–United States Hanoi Summit. Presumably, she professed to be the regime's ideologue and gained confirmation from her brother.
The sister's big plan might have given Kim Jong Un the right timing as he presumably wanted to increase tension on the Korean peninsula after signing a dangerous deal with Russia. Apparently, Pyongyang wants to grab the chance to nimbly join the new Cold War that is only elevating non-stop as it has weathered the times of provocation, frustration, challenge, and ordeal over 40 years of the Cold War era and the subsequent three decades of the post-Cold War period. Hoping that Trump would return to power in the presidential election later this year, Kim Jong Un might have sought to show off belligerence to have a greater presence.
After all, all such attempts will invite more significant trouble. Immature ideologues are supposed to be blinded by immediate gains and get stuck in the trap of logical leaps, lost in reality. As a result, the regime has turned to a defensive stance, reflecting its self-admittance of losing the ideological competition. It only reveals the pathetic realities of North Korea, the sole purpose of which is to secure the system of dictatorship and the hereditary succession of the Kims.
The footsteps of North Korea are reminiscent of East Germany's approach of pursuing "two nations, two states.” The Erich Honecker regime in the 1970s denied the theory of Germany as a unified nation. It removed the German Nation from a newly revised Constitution where particular clauses of efforts to overcome the division and ensure unification were removed. The regime prohibited people from singing the national anthem just because parts of the lyrics yearning for unification got on its nerves. Despite all such flaunty trials to underscore its independent identity, it ended up being integrated into West Germany shortly afterward. It is only worrying to see what the absurdly naïve audacity of Kim and his sister will bring about.
한국어
donga.com
13. N. Korea could turn to nukes 'more easily' in crisis: US think tank report
N. Korea could turn to nukes 'more easily' in crisis: US think tank report
koreaherald.com · by Yonhap · January 26, 2024
By Yonhap
Published : Jan. 26, 2024 - 10:11
This photo shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (right) visiting an arms factory on Jan. 8, 2024. (KCNA)
North Korea could resort to nuclear weapons in a crisis "more easily" as it is making "significant" progress toward implementing a more robust nuclear strategy, a US think tank report said Thursday.
The conservative Heritage Foundation released the 2024 Index of US Military Strength, providing its analysis of threats from North Korea, China, Iran and Russia, as well as terrorist threats from the Middle East and North Africa.
Calling the North a "perennial" problem in Asia, the report delved into the North's military capabilities that it said are not "on the same existential scale" as the threat posed by China or Russia, but threaten to undermine not only regional security but also the US homeland.
"The increasing rate and diversity of North Korea's missile launches shows that Pyongyang is making significant progress toward implementing a more capable and flexible nuclear strategy, including preemptive strikes with strategic, tactical and battlefield nuclear weapons," the report said.
"During a crisis, the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons could therefore be breached more easily," it added.
In defiance of international criticism, Pyongyang has been doubling down on its nuclear and missile programs as seen in its recent launches of various missiles, including a solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile tipped with a hypersonic warhead and strategic cruise missiles.
The report warned that greater North Korean nuclear capabilities could undermine the effectiveness of existing allied military plans and exacerbate growing concerns by US allies about Washington's willingness to risk a nuclear attack to defend its allies.
"A more survivable nuclear force could lead North Korea to conclude that it has immunity from any international response and therefore act even more belligerently and use nuclear threats to coerce Seoul into accepting regime demands," the report said.
"The regime could use threats of nuclear attack to force Tokyo to deny US forces access to Japanese bases, ports and airfields during a Korean conflict. Pyongyang might also assume that conditions for military action had become favorable if it believed that the US extended deterrence guarantee had been undermined," it added.
The report also took note of weaknesses of the North Korean military, like its old weapons systems for ground forces.
"Its naval and air forces would not be expected to last long in a conflict with South Korea and the US, but they would have to be accounted for in any defense by South Korea," it said.
"Pyongyang's ground forces are largely equipped with older weapons, but they also are extensive and forward-deployed. Thousands of artillery systems deployed near the demilitarized zone could inflict devastating damage on South Korea, especially Seoul, before allied forces could attrite them." (Yonhap)
koreaherald.com · by Yonhap · January 26, 2024
14. What’s behind the exodus of Pyongyangites from the city center to the outskirts?
Things appear very difficult in Pyongyang. I cannot emphasize enough that we must be observing these indicators of potential instability.
Excerpts:
According to the source, the majority of families who moved from the central districts to the outskirts in the first two weeks of January are elderly residents who were born in the central districts and have lived there all their lives.
“People who are struggling to make ends meet are moving to the outskirts of Pyongyang, even though they were born in the central districts, in search of a way to survive. Elderly residents with no income who depend on government rations choose to pocket the money they get on their move. After all, there’s no point in living in a palatial apartment if you can’t eat,” the source said.
What about the families who pay the premium to move from the outskirts to the central districts? The largest category is said to be young parents who want a better educational environment for their school-age children, followed by newlywed couples between a man born in Pyongyang and a woman from a wealthy family in the provinces.
“There are still people who come to the central districts of Pyongyang with the faint hope of getting better government rations,” the source said.
What’s behind the exodus of Pyongyangites from the city center to the outskirts?
Most families who moved to the city's outskirts in the first two weeks of January have been elderly residents who were born in the central districts and have lived there all their lives, a source told Daily NK
By Jeong Tae Joo - 2024.01.26 5:00pm
dailynk.com
What’s behind the exodus of Pyongyangites from the city center to the outskirts? - Daily NK English
The Mirae Scientists Street in Pyongyang (Ryugong website)
Since the New Year, an increasing number of Pyongyang residents have been trying to move from the center of the capital to the outskirts, Daily NK has learned.
“The Pyongyang police’s resident registration data show a noticeable increase in the number of families moving from central districts to suburban districts, from big houses to small ones, and from apartment buildings to one-story houses or basements in the first two weeks of January,” a source in Pyongyang told Daily NK on Jan. 23, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
The busiest moving seasons are usually spring and fall, especially April and October. But so many families have tried to move this January that real estate agents and police in Pyongyang have said that “every season is a moving season.
The reason so many people are moving at the beginning of the year is the economic hardship that residents of Pyongyang’s central districts are currently facing, the source said.
“The current parade of relocations is voluntary – it’s not the result of collective work assignments or other state measures. It should be seen as a survival measure by Pyongyang citizens who have been struggling to make ends meet since the start of the pandemic,” the source said.
The source said more and more families are thinking that instead of scraping by in the city, they should move to the outskirts, where they would have enough space to plant a garden and grow vegetables or corn.
“People think that if they sell an apartment in the central districts, the money they get will allow them to buy a house on the outskirts and still have enough capital left over to do business. They hope this will allow them to maintain their livelihood,” the source added.
North Koreans are not free to change residences at will. Before they can register their new place of residence, they must obtain permission to move from the resident registration department of their local police station.
Real estate transactions are technically illegal in North Korea, but many take place on the black market. Assuming there are no disputes or other problems with the sale of the house, a little money can grease the wheels for the move-out process, housing permits, and registration in the new neighborhood.
According to the source, the majority of families who moved from the central districts to the outskirts in the first two weeks of January are elderly residents who were born in the central districts and have lived there all their lives.
“People who are struggling to make ends meet are moving to the outskirts of Pyongyang, even though they were born in the central districts, in search of a way to survive. Elderly residents with no income who depend on government rations choose to pocket the money they get on their move. After all, there’s no point in living in a palatial apartment if you can’t eat,” the source said.
What about the families who pay the premium to move from the outskirts to the central districts? The largest category is said to be young parents who want a better educational environment for their school-age children, followed by newlywed couples between a man born in Pyongyang and a woman from a wealthy family in the provinces.
“There are still people who come to the central districts of Pyongyang with the faint hope of getting better government rations,” the source said.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Daily NK works with a network of sources living in North Korea, China, and elsewhere. Their identities remain anonymous for security reasons. For more information about Daily NK’s network of reporting partners and information-gathering activities, please visit our FAQ page here.
Please send any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
Read in Korean
dailynk.com
15. China sends top diplomat to Pyongyang amid N Korea’s economic woes
I wonder if he will be carrying the same message China has been giving to north Korea for 3 decades: "You should implement Chinese style economic reforms."
China sends top diplomat to Pyongyang amid N Korea’s economic woes
Sources hint that there are emerging signs of a potential leaders’ summit between the two countries this year.
By Lee Jeong-Ho for RFA
2024.01.25
Seoul, South Korea
rfa.org
China sent its vice foreign minister to Pyongyang for a discussion that could set the stage for high-level bilateral engagements including a summit, as North Korea aims to concrete its relations with its regime backer in the face of its economic difficulties.
“A delegation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China headed by Sun Weidong, Vice Foreign Minister, arrived in Pyongyang via Sinuiju, on the 25th,” North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said Friday.
“He was greeted at the border bridge by the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK and the minister of the embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the DPRK,” KCNA added, referring to North Korea’s formal name.
The visit comes as China and North Korea mark the 75th anniversary of normalization of bilateral relations. The two countries last month vowed to use this occasion as an opportunity to further upgrade their cooperation in the fields of “mutual interest.”
Separately, in December, North Korea’s vice foreign minister Pak Myong Ho visited Beijing and met with Sun, as well as China’s foreign minister Wang Yi.
The meeting was described by the North’s state media as a platform where “both sides exchanged views on strengthening and developing bilateral relations in 2024, marking the 75th anniversary of the establishment of North Korea-China diplomatic relations.”
The report added that the two sides will continue to discuss ways to enhance their “mutual interest” and “strategic cooperation.”
Kim In-ae, South Korea’s vice spokesperson for the unification ministry, said in a regular briefing Friday that Seoul saw Sun’s visit as an extension of the December talks, indicating ongoing discussions to further boost cooperation between the two countries.
South Korea’s government and parliamentary sources who are familiar with the development, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Radio Free Asia that there have been constant signs of a summit preparation between China and North Korea since last year.
Apart from China, North Korea has recently beefed up its efforts to enhance relations with Russia. In September, for instance, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin held a summit in Russia’s Far East and agreed to upgrade their relations in all fields including economy, technology and military.
Since then, accusations have been made that Pyongyang and Moscow are engaged in arms trading, with Ukraine alleging that North Korean missiles have been used in Russia’s aggression against Ukraine – a claim that both Pyongyang and Moscow have denied.
China, on the other hand, has kept a distance from the Pyongyang-Moscow cooperation so far, but this might change.
The sources who talked to RFA said Putin’s possible visit to Pyongyang this year, as discussed during North Korea’s foreign minister Choe Son Hui’s visit to Moscow last week, may expedite a summit between China and North Korea, adding that China is likely to intervene in regional diplomacy to optimize its diplomatic interests.
Economic hardship
North Korea’s economic struggles could be prompting Pyongyang to seek closer ties with regional allies.
Its leader Kim made a rare acknowledgement this week of the dire state of his country’s economy, labeling the economic problem as a “serious political issue.”
His government revealed the “inability to provide even basic necessities such as food, groceries, and consumer goods to the local people,” Kim said, adding that the “overall local economy is currently in a very pitiful state, lacking even basic conditions.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends the 19th expanded political bureau meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, which was held from Jan 23 to 24, in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this image released by the Korean Central News Agency on Jan. 25, 2024. (KCNA via Reuters)
North Korea’s economy contracted for the third consecutive year in 2022, according to the South’s Statistics Korea report in December. The latest available data showed a 0.2% year-on-year drop in North Korea’s GDP in 2022, following a 0.1 % decrease in 2021, and a 4.5 % contraction in 2020.
But the North’s economic hardship may be eased this year, with support from its regime backers, according to the Korea Development Institute.
The South Korean think tank said in a report released earlier this month that North Korea’s economy could experience a turnaround, contingent on economic support from China and Russia.
It also noted that resuming and expanding tourism cooperation with China and Russia is one of Pyongyang’s prioritized economic goals for this year.
Pressure from Seoul
Besides economic difficulties, Pyongyang is also facing intensified diplomatic pressure from South Korea on the international stage.
Kim Gunn, South Korea’s Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs, for instance, requested the support of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in raising international awareness about North Korea’s human rights issues during his visit to Geneva on Thursday.
The South Korean envoy “lamented North Korea’s intensification of social control and oppression to support its military buildup at the expense of the economy and people’s livelihoods,” the South’s foreign ministry said in a statement Friday, at his meeting with with the Acting United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif.
Separately, Kim Gunn also visited the E.U. headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday and emphasized the necessity of collective responses, proposing collaboration in blocking funding for North Korea’s nuclear and missile development.
Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.
rfa.org
16. The Academy Was Right to Snub This Dehumanizing Documentary
This is just sickening. What an insult to the Koreans who escaped and are trying to escape.
Let me translate the history commnet. What the author means is that the film omitted the communist interpretation of history. The film did not take the author's preferred anti-American views.
It is a real shame that Beyond Utopia was not nominated for an Oscar. I wonder if the kind of thinking the author shows aligns with how members of the Academy think?
The Academy Was Right to Snub This Dehumanizing Documentary
CONSIDER THIS
“Beyond Utopia” was considered a frontrunner for Best Documentary at the Oscars. Its Western gaze omits important Korean history.
Iris Kim
Published Jan. 23, 2024 3:55PM EST
The Daily Beast · January 23, 2024
opinion
Roadside Attractions
After its debut at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for U.S. Documentary, Beyond Utopia drew accolades from film critics and viewers for its depiction of two families defecting from North Korea. The glowing reviews continued after Sundance from critics at the New York Times and Washington Post, who lauded the film as a “thriller” where the “horrors are real.”
Then, in late December, Beyond Utopia made the official shortlist for the Oscar for Best Documentary. Though it was ultimately not nominated in that category, as many outlets had predicted, its inroads within the Academy and Hollywood highlight a larger problem with how Westerners stereotypically depict Korea in its documentaries.
Beyond Utopia is part of what has become a “canon” of North Korean defector documentaries, including Seoul Train (2004), Kimjongilia (2009), and The Defector: Escape from North Korea (2012). But instead of adding anything new to these narratives, Beyond Utopia merely continues the trend of sensationalized stories that dehumanize North Korean people to create buzz-worthy content.
It’s undeniable that the defectors’ journeys depicted on screen are harrowing and heartbreaking as they brave possible retaliation by their government. What’s really concerning about Beyond Utopia is not the firsthand narratives, but the context—or lack thereof—with which the filmmakers surround them. Crucially, what the film lacks is discussion of the United States’ unsavory role in creating the harsh conditions inside North Korea that contribute to defectors being forced to flee.
As a historical primer about the divided peninsula, director Madeleine Gavin begins narrating from an inflection point in modern Korean history: the end of the Japanese colonization of Korea, and the lead-up to the Korean War. But Gavin fails to present a balanced analysis of the players who set in motion a brutal war that would lead to the deaths of 2.5 million Korean civilians.
Instead, she only briefly references a vague “settlement deal” that “splits Korea” after WWII, leaving out the U.S. military’s division of Korea at the 38th parallel (when two U.S. generals infamously pointed to a National Geographic map). She then continues to paint a rosy picture of a U.S.-supported burgeoning South Korean democracy, stating that the “South held a public election and U.S.-educated Syngman Rhee became the first president,” omitting the U.S. military occupation that crushed any popular people’s movements, like the Korean People’s Committees, and propped up brutal dictatorships under Presidents Rhee Syngman, Park Chung Hee, and Chun Doo Hwan.
With this historical set-up, the filmmakers position the bifurcated lens through which to view the rest of the documentary: the West as benevolent savior, the North as helpless victim.
These problematic omissions arise throughout the film. The filmmakers characterize North Korea as an economically destitute place where people must search for human waste to use as fertilizer, without acknowledging the role of U.S.-led sanctions that prohibit imports of farming products and equipment. One of the documentary’s main expert sources is a former CIA analyst, Sue Mi Terry, who has argued for the collapse of North Korea and even harsher sanctions on the country, as if it were not home to 26 million civilians who are already food-insecure.
One cannot pretend to care for the protection of the North Korean people while advocating for policies that will add to their suffering. It’s especially ironic that the filmmakers rely on CIA expertise, when the agency has a long history of overthrowing democratically elected foreign governments to serve its own political and business interests.
When Western filmmakers portray historically complex stories like Beyond Utopia, they carry the responsibility of questioning the agendas and propaganda that have been fed to us as U.S. citizens, instead of parroting a standard anti-Communist Cold War ideology. Filmmakers telling stories about Korean history—especially those from outside the Korean diaspora—must critically analyze the powerful forces that create the set of conditions that they are documenting.
Roadside Attractions
Asian American filmmakers have voiced these concerns to Beyond Utopia’s distributor, PBS’ Independent Lens. In an open letter, filmmakers Deann Borshay Liem, J.T. Takagi, and Hye-Jung Park note the film’s lack of “any mention of the ongoing impact of the Korean War and U.S. policies that have destabilized the livelihood and well-being of North Korea’s people—factors that cause families like the Rohs and Lees to leave the country.”
The president of Independent Lens, Lois Vossen, responded with a uniquely disappointing letter from director Gavin. In her response, Gavin stated: “Our film attempts to give voice to North Koreans, people who have been largely unseen and unheard by the outside world for more than 75 years.”
Instead of acknowledging the shortcomings of her film, Gavin went on to defend its limited scope. “Our film does not set out to present a comprehensive history of the Korean War, or the development of the North Korean state,” she wrote. Gavin has also said that her impetus for making Beyond Utopia was the realization that “there was nothing out there that gave voice to these 26 million people that live in North Korea, other than Barbara Demick’s extraordinary book ‘Nothing to Envy.’”
However, as has been written about time and time again, filmmakers, particularly white filmmakers, must engage in serious due diligence before telling the stories of disenfranchised people of color, especially when dealing with the largely untold history of the Korean War, otherwise nicknamed the “Forgotten War.” There are many nuanced documentaries about the war that achieved this by centering the Korean people and the ongoing trauma of division, including Homes Apart: Korea (1991), Memory of Forgotten War (2013), People Are the Sky (2014), and My Brothers and Sisters in the North (2016).
Beyond Utopia, in comparison, falls short. Gavin states that she wishes to give voice to North Koreans, but fails to explain the history of the peninsula’s division and how exactly it became “North” Korean. Media gatekeepers and cultural creatives must tell the full story, including how the U.S. dropped more bombs on Korea than it had on the entire Pacific region during WWII, killing one in five North Korean civilians. The Korean War has been called “the most brutal war of the 20th century, measured by the intensity of violence and per capita civilian death,” by Yale University historian Samuel Moyn. This history is absolutely crucial for understanding the state of the divided Korean peninsula and North Korea today.
The ethics of documentary filmmaking are inevitably complex, and questions about who gets to tell whose stories are far from uncommon. But in Beyond Utopia, a white filmmaker presented a highly fragmented and incomplete version of Korea’s continued division to a Western audience who unfortunately fell head over heels for its flattened narrative.
The Daily Beast · January 23, 2024
17. Beyond Utopia: Another False Narrative About Korea
This is the problem with the appeasers, supporters, and sympathizers of north Korea and the Kim family regime. Beyond Utopia is not a false narrative. It is actually documenting what is happening north Korea (and CHina, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand).
The only thing that would satisfy Shorrock and Women Across DMZ and their ilk is if the movie was anti-American. They would rather listen to the regime's Propaganda and Agitation Department.
Beyond Utopia: Another False Narrative About Korea
kpolicy.org · January 24, 2024
By Tim Shorrock | January 23, 2024 | Originally published in The Shorrock Files
"Growing up in North Korea, you learn nothing of the outside world." - Director Madelaine Gavin, boasting with former high-ranking CIA operative Sue Mi Terry about their film Beyond Utopia, which was passed over for an Academy Award nomination today.
Remember The Interview, the satirical Seth Rogen film depicting the assassination of North Korea's Kim Jong Un by two CIA operatives that was released by Sony Pictures on Christmas Day in 2014? You should: when North Korea allegedly hacked Sony in an apparent attempt to sabotage the film, President Obama, whose top national security aides had previewed the film, led an unprecedented campaign with Michael Moore and other Hollywood liberals urging Sony to release it.
Then, after millions of gullible Americans followed their leaders into theaters across the country, Thor Halversson, a right-wing Venezuelan "human rights" activist based in New York, led a flamboyant campaign by North Korean defectors in South Korea to illegally air-drop DVDs of the film into the North using hot-air balloons launched from a spot just south of the DMZ. That, in turn, sparked a furious response from Kim's influential sister, Kim Yo Jong, and inflamed domestic politics in South Korea with repercussions lasting until today.
Now, 10 years later at a time of intensifying tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Halversson has forged an alliance of Hollywood liberals, prominent North Korean defectors, and a former US intelligence official to produce another film to undermine Kim's North Korea and prime Americans for the regime change long sought by the South Korean right, the Pentagon, and elements of the US national security state.
His partners are Sue Mi Terry, a former high-ranking CIA official with the Bush administration long affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the government-funded Public Broadcasting System. Two executive producers, Hannah Song and Blaine Vess, work with Liberty in North Korea (LINK), which claims to operate an "underground railroad" for North Korean defectors and frequently briefs the US government about the DPRK. Another producer, defector Hyeonseo Lee, works closely with Halvorssen's Human Rights Foundation.
The result is Beyond Utopia, "the gripping story of families who risk everything escaping North Korea. The film, directed by Madeleine Gavin, is told from the perspective of a Seoul pastor who helps North Koreans stranded in China get to the South, and premiered January 9th on PBS's Independent Lens series.
Gavin's January 14th interview on CNN was the first shot of an expensive media campaign that producers hoped would climax on March 10th with the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. But they failed to convince Academy members who have viewed eligible films that it was worthy of an Oscar.
Halversson's Human Rights Foundation, CSIS, and its other producers at Ideal Partners Film and LINK have been pushing the film relentlessly on Twitter and on their own websites as the must-see documentary of the awards season. Until the Oscar rejection, the campaign had been a smashing success: last year, the film captured the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award, and it has been rapturously reviewed by the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, and nearly all of the Hollywood press (for now, it can be viewed, in its entirety, at the PBS Independent Lens website here).
The plight of North Koreans escaping from a country plagued by a forever war and ruled by a hereditary military dictatorship (pictured above in a still from the film) is worth learning about; last year, nearly 200 made it to the South.
But their stories are not new to Americans. Thanks to the prominent defector Yeonmi Park, who serves on the board of Halversson's HRF, the US public has been fed a steady diet of frightening and often exaggerated tales depicting North Korea as a cruel, demonic state that despises its own people and uses extreme measures to control them. Park's stories, usually accompanied by well-timed tears and a quivering voice, have made her a media darling in a country where many people, liberals and conservatives alike, simply love to hate North Korea.
In 2014, the New York Times was one of the first publications to fall for Park's fantastic stories. As the North Korean celebrity du jour, Park's appearances on media outlets such as NBC News and the popular "Joe Rogan Experience" have drawn millions of viewers. But under scrutiny, many of her claims have been found to be false, as the Washington Post, another early champion of Park, discovered in this devastating takedown of her.
Park’s unproven descriptions of North Korea has made her a subject of ridicule on social media, especially among Korean Americans. Recently, her embrace of the tenets of the MAGA movement, particularly its opposition to "DEI," or diversity, equity and inclusion, has made her a big Elon Musk fan. In December, she was a prominent speaker at a Turning Point USA conference with Ted Cruz, Dennis Prager, Charlie Kirk and other MAGA reactionaries.
The producers of Beyond Utopia seem to have taken a lesson from Park's experience and her descent into a far-right ideologue. The film is designed to pull on liberal heartstrings by depicting the struggles of everyday North Koreans as they make their way through China and Southeast Asia to South Korea and beyond. According to Gavin, Beyond Utopia was put together with video from hidden cameras provided to her by the film's hero and star witness, Pastor Kim Seongeon of the Caleb Mission, a South Korean religious organization that helps North Koreans make the difficult journey from their home to South Korea.
With Pastor Kim's footage, the director told Deadline, she "started to feel the pulse and heartbeat of these people" by "cracking open North Korea and what it's like." To gather information, she claimed to have scoured the internet and "read everything she could get her hands on" about North Korea "in every language [and] every country." Her research, she claimed to CNN, contrasts sharply with people in the DPRK, who grow up learning "nothing about the outside world."
Judging from Gavin's historical account of Korea's division and the Korean War, however, North Koreans know far more about the American role in Korea and the "outside world" than Gavin herself will ever know about Korea.
Her vaunted internet skills appear to be skewed to the far-right and hand-fed to her by Terry, the former CIA operative who produced the film. She doesn't investigate what happens to defectors when they get to the South, or why some of the 35,000 defectors in the ROK choose to return to the DPRK. And throughout the film, it's obvious she has missed the large volume of material available on the internet and any public library about the Korean War, the origins of North Korea's nuclear confrontation with the United States, and the economic conditions that have led many of its citizens to flee.
That point was made forcefully in a January 7th "open letter" to Lois Vossen, Executive Producer at Independent Lens, from three prominent Asian American film makers, Deann Borshay Liem, Hye-Jung Park, and JT Takagi.
"We are concerned that Beyond Utopia presents an unbalanced and inaccurate narrative about Korean history and North Korean society," they wrote in the letter, which they also posted on Medium. "While the film’s verité sequences of the Roh and Lee families’ plight are compelling, noticeably lacking is any mention of the ongoing impact of the Korean War and U.S. policies that have destabilized the livelihood and well-being of North Korea’s people — factors that cause families like the Rohs and Lees to leave the country."
In their letter, Liem, Park, and Takagi explain how the film ignores the impact of the Korean War and the decades-long strategy by the U.S. government to undermine and weaken the North Korean state.
"Beyond Utopia implies that identifying brutalities and helping North Koreans flee to freedom are the only solutions to North Korea’s human rights violations," they write. "To be sure, the North Korean government, as all countries which ascribe to the United Nations charter, should be held accountable for breaches in human rights. But U.S. policies that have destabilized the human security of the North Korean people for the past 70 years must also be held accountable. We believe that diplomacy, engagement, and building trust are more sustainable and effective ways to improve the lives of everyone on the Korean Peninsula."
A transcript of the film's history section underscores how much Gavin and her CIA-bred producer stray from the truth about North Korea. In a sidebar that follows this article, I've posted a few excerpts from Gavin's narration, followed by my own analysis showing the extent of the director's deliberate obfuscation of Korean history and America's role in it.
Most problematic, in the view of its critics, are the way North Korea's economic ills and current conditions are approached by Gavin and the producers. For example, the devastating impact of US and UN sanctions on the civilian population is not even addressed. As the authors of the open letter told PBS’s Independent Lens, "U.S.-led sanctions underpin the difficult economic conditions portrayed in the film. North Korea is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world. Dr. Kee Park of the Harvard University Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, a neurosurgeon who has trained doctors and regularly performed surgeries in North Korea, calls these sanctions 'warfare without bullets.'"
They also take issues with a sequence in the film about North Koreans "coveting human waste." This, the directors wrote, "is simply callous. Other countries also use human waste as a fertilizer and for the production of methane gas. In the case of North Korea, sanctions severely limit the country’s capacity to import oil, fertilizer, and even spare parts to run farm equipment. In the absence of this information, the sequence promotes derision rather than empathy for the plight of ordinary people struggling to get by with extremely scarce resources."
I can personally attest that the use of human waste for fertilizer was very common in South Korea and Japan during the years I grew up there during and after the Korean War (the photo above was taken by my father in Seoul in 1959). Anyone who lived in Korea at the time remembers the "honey bucket men" who would pick up the waste and deliver it to farms (once, walking in rural fields near my house in Seoul in 1960, one of my siblings had the awful experience of falling in a pool of human fertilizer, an experience engrained in our family's collective memory). To make its use a key point in ridiculing North Korea is simply racist.
In her response to the open letter, Gavin, the director, stated that her film
"Attempts to give voice to North Koreans, people who have been largely unseen and unheard by the outside world for more than 75 years. Our goal was to honor the families that trusted us with their stories and to provide audiences with a window into Pastor Kim's lifelong dedicated work. We have been humbled and gratified by the wonderful reception that the film has received." She added: "Our film does not set out to present a comprehensive history of the Korean War, or the development of the North Korean state."
But her factual misrepresentations, intentional or not, should raise serious questions for any documentary seeking Hollywood's highest prize for truth-telling. So, too, should the politics of the film.
The Politics of Regime Change
Like The Interview, Beyond Utopia is intended to build public support in the United States for outside, preferably American, intervention in Korea during another Korean War or in the unlikely scenario of a political collapse in the North.
That theme was underscored last year by Pastor Kim himself in an interview with Politico. "I want the regime to collapse," Kim, a featured speaker at Halversson's Oslo Freedom Forum last year, told the publication. Asked what happens in those circumstances, Kim replied: "I'm afraid that it's going to be chaotic... They've been living under control, like brainwashing. They never really make their own choices."
"So when this regime collapses, people won’t know what to do," Kim continued. "It will be all chaos. We need to be prepared for how to control the chaos" (my italics). "But my assumption if they collapse is the Chinese government is going to take over first. If they collapse right now, the Chinese will try to take over faster than anybody else. I think China would try to manipulate and use the North Korean situation to deal with the United States."
That, of course, is a scenario often discussed by US national security officials. As I reported in 2020 in Responsible Statecraft, Avril Haines, President Biden's Director of National Intelligence, has publicly argued that any U.S. pressure campaign against North Korea must be accompanied by "intensive contingency planning" in preparation for a "collapse" of the Kim regime. Such planning, she emphasized in a talk at the Brookings Institution in 2017, "must be done not only with [South Korea], but also with China, and of course Japan."
That theme of regime-change is personified in the film’s Executive Producer Thor Halvorssen. His record of political intervention and interference in South Korea on behalf of North Koreans he believes are craving for his support and American intervention is a story in itself. It's important to understand this man, who no doubt was craving to be one of those accepting the Oscar if his film had been nominated.
Halvorssen is a member of the Venezuelan aristocracy. He is the first cousin of Leopoldo Lopez, a prominent right-wing politician in Venezuela, and a major supporter of Juan Guaido, the right-winger usurper once recognized by the US government as the de facto leader of Venezuela. Both Lopez and Guido have been major recipients of money from the US government's National Endowment for Democracy, which has also funded many North Korean defectors.
HRF often speaks through its chairman, Garry Kasparov, the fanatically anticommunist opponent of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Not surprisingly, Kasparov disapproves of any attempt to end the Korean War through dialogue, as South Korean President Moon Jae-in attempted in 2018, when he invited top officials from Kim Jong Un's government to the South for the Winter Olympics.
Moon "claims to be using the games to foster goodwill, but the reality is that the Hermit Kingdom has taken this opportunity to stage one of history’s great whitewashing operations," he wrote in the Washington Post (he was wrong: the talks led to two years of relative peace and the suspension of North Korea's missile tests and US-South Korean military exercises).
Halvorssen founded the Human Rights Foundation in 2005, to "unite people - regardless of their political, cultural, and ideological orientations - in the common cause of defending human rights and promoting liberal democracy globally," according to its Internal Revenue Service Form 990 tax statement. Those forms show that HRF received over $68.8 million in "public support" between 2017 and 2021, a princely sum for any non-profit.
But the foundation hasn't disclosed the source of the money since journalist Max Blumenthal disclosed in The Electronic Intifada that it received nearly $800,000 from the extreme-right (and Islamaphobic) Donors Capital Fun and $325,000 from the conservative Sarah Scaife Foundation from 2007 to 2011.
Since its founding, much of HRF's efforts have gone into "exposing" human rights violations in North Korea and smuggling information into the country ("Flash Drives for Freedom"). It's also a sworn enemy of China: through its "CCP Disruption Initiative," HRF "endeavors to increase awareness about the CCP’s ongoing attacks on civil liberties and inspire a change in public attitudes toward Xi Jinping’s authoritarian regime." As Blumenthal has rightly observed, HRF "functions as a de facto publicity shop for US-backed anti-government activists in countries targeted by Washington for regime change."
Halversson and his extreme-right allies in South Korea
Halvorseen and his organization claim to be non-partisan. But, like Gordon Chang, another fanatical critic of North Korea, Halversson has formed close relationships with the far-right in South Korea and directly intervened in that country's affairs by vehemently attacking progressives, both South Korean and American, who prefer diplomatic negotiations to war with North Korea (it's also important to note that Adrian Hong, one of the founders of LINK, which helped produce the film, was the leader in 2019 of a botched attempt by armed vigilantes to seize the North Korean Embassy in Madrid and kick off a rebellion against Kim Jong Un).
Halvorssen's twisted politics of red-baiting were on full view in 2015, when the Korean peace activist Christine Ahn joined with Gloria Steinem, Ann Wright, Medea Benjamin, two winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, and over a dozen women from around the world to walk across the DMZ in an attempt to jump-start peace talks between North and South Korea. "The women became, willingly or unwillingly, shills for North Korea’s dictatorship," Halverrson wrote in a misogynistic attack in the liberal webzine Foreign Policy (Deann Borshay Liem, one of the signers of the PBS letter, directed Crossings, a film about the 2015 march, which I covered for Politico - below is one of my photos from the march.)
Halvorssen and his sleuths scour the world for anyone who engages with North Koreans. One of his targets is the Uruek Symphony Orchestra in New York, which holds annual concerts where American and North Korean music is played - one of the only venues where Americans can mingle freely with North Korean diplomats at the UN. (He has also attacked me for criticizing US policy in South Korea over the issue of Gwangju and US military bases. In one post on Twitter, he claimed that I purposely ignore North Korea as the "cruelest dictatorship;" after I attempted to open a dialogue about the DPRK, he kept up the vitriol, so I blocked him).
In his activities in South Korea, Halvorssen works closely with Park Sang Hak, a controversial "defector-activist" who uses funds from HRF and other US organizations to send his propaganda balloons across the border into North Korea. His actions with Halversson have attracted enormous attention in NK News and other media sites that sympathize with defectors as well as the foreign press, including Voice of America and The Hollywood Reporter.
But the launches have deeply angered Koreans who live near the launch sites near the border as well as the government of Gyeonggi Province, which encompasses the area around the DMZ.
The situation became untenable for local and national governments in 2017, when President Moon Jae-in was engaged in delicate negotiations with North Korea that led to a brief, two-year period of peace between South and North.
“The brazen attempts by some defectors to disseminate propaganda leaflets in North Korea makes a mockery of South Korea’s laws and creates anxiety for people living on the border," Gyeonggi's vice governor said at the time. "Gyeonggi Province will fully cooperate with the police and with cities and counties on the border and will apply all provincial resources to fully block all illegal distribution of propaganda leaflets." In response to Park and Halversson's actions, the Moon government, backed by the National Assembly, passed a law restricting the actions.
Moon's actions drew a swift response from Halvorssen and other US groups and individuals who support Park and his band of defectors. " The South Korean government's investigation of Park Sang-hak, head of the Coalition for a Free North Korea, over the distribution of anti-North Korea leaflets is a turning point in history," Halversson told the right-wing Chosun Ilbo, Seoul's largest daily, in 2020. "It's a scandalous act."
The Venezuelan also launched a public attack on President Moon for pushing the legislation limiting the launch of his balloons (so did CSIS, the former ideological home of Beyond Utopia producer Sue Mi Terry). “This is a tragedy of catastrophic proportions for the North Korean people," Halvorssen declared in a press release. "Defectors are the only people capable of representing the voices of the 25 million North Koreans living without access to the Internet, without access to outside mail, or to any uncensored information." He called the bill "a shameful attempt by the Republic of Korea’s government to discriminate against [defectors'] fundamental rights and treat the refugee community like second class citizens.”
As in so many of his diatribes, Halversson seems to forget he is not a Korean citizen. And ironically, the law he and CSIS denounced so strenuously has remained on the books under the right-wing government of Yoon Suk Yeol (Halversson met last October with Yoon's Unification Minister to discuss human rights in North Korea).
Halvorssen's arrogance seems to have rubbed off on Park, his ally in the balloon launches and also a member of the HRF board. Park has come under scrutiny in Korea, including from NK News, which is usually quite friendly to the defector community in South Korea.
"Numerous accounts from fellow defector-activists," NK News reported in 2020, "paint a picture of a provocateur whose sloganeering and brash methods have alienated even his partners. The interviews also offer a glimpse into a grassroots activism community mired by questionable incentives and misappropriation of finances – and a culture where winning foreign grants has become an end unto itself."
"Park’s approach has also made him something of an enfant terrible in South Korea, even in the close-knit world of North Korea human rights activism," the article went on. " At his launch sites in villages near the North Korean border, he has scuffled with local residents, who oppose his work for fear that the balloons put a target above their heads... When faced with this sort of resistance, Park has been known to fly into a rage, accusing anyone who stands in his way of being a communist."
The CIA Officer
The producer getting the most attention in the media is Sue Mi Terry, who was Director of the Asia Program at the US government's Wilson Center in Washington from 2021 to 2023. Before she joined CSIS as a senior analyst, she spent seven years (2001 to 2008) at the Central Intelligence Agency, where she "produced hundreds of intelligence assessments--including a record number of contributions to the President’s Daily Brief, the Intelligence Community’s most prestigious product," according to the Wilson bio. From 2008 to 2009 she was a director for Korea and Japan at the National Security Council, and from 2008 to 2009 she was Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council.
Her experience as one of Bush's top intelligence advisers on North Korea is significant. It was during these years that North Korea exploded its first atomic bomb, sparking the "nuclear crisis" that continues today.
That test occurred in 2006, five years after Bush rejected the idea of negotiating with the Kim government. Bush did that at the urging of the CIA in the wake of President Clinton's Agreed Framework with Kim Jong Il that halted North Korea's nuclear fission program for eight years and almost led to a broad agreement with Pyongyang to halt its missiles sales (see my detailed 2017 article on this agreement in The Nation). After leaving the CIA, Terry took her expertise - and opposition to engagement - to CSIS, where she honed a reputation as a hard-liner, becoming a favorite in the media.
Her disdain for North Korea was on display in 2013, when tensions escalated between the Obama administration and Pyongyang just before The Interview fiasco. In an interview with Spencer Ackerman in the neocon-techie magazine Wired, Terry, described by Ackerman as "one of the CIA's former top Pyongyang analysts," predicted that "North Korea will launch an attack" that will be "something sneaky and creative," and warned that an "all-out war with South Korea would spell the end of the North Korean regime."
Above, Kim Dae Jung and George Bush at the White House, 2001.
No attack ever came, of course. (Ackerman is now the national security correspondent for The Nation; I hope his reporting on the next inevitable crisis with the DPRK is better than his work at Wired).
But the actions of Bush and his advisers were catastrophic, Stephen Costello, a Washington-based consultant who has worked closely with progressive movements in South Korea, told me recently. "The Bush group's ideological fanaticism not only provoked and enabled the creation of the North's nuclear and missile capabilities, it also eliminated the leverage that could have improved human rights in North Korea," he said.
That could be said of Terry as well. She has become a big supporter of the Biden administration's tough approach to North Korea, particularly its formation of a trilateral military alliance with South Korea and Japan that has drawn sharp criticism from the North and raised military tensions in Korea to their highest levels in years.
Talking to the Washington Post with the fanatical neocon Max Boot, Terry heaped praise on South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol as a "profile in courage" and blasted Moon, his predecessor, for "scuttling" an earlier agreement with Japan that was repudiated by South Korea. Yoon, who has condemned Moon and his party for their engagement policies with North Korea, is now one of the most unpopular leaders in South Korea's history.
Lately, Terry has turned her attention to more profitable opportunities than writing opinion pieces. Her LinkedIn profile lists her as "the founder of Peninsula Strategies Inc., an advisory firm specializing in Korean issues with both government and corporate clients, and a senior advisor to Macro Advisory Partners, a global advisory firm."
The former does not appear to have a website, but Macro Advisory does. It looks like a typical intelligence contractor led by former high-ranking national security officials and think tank executives "who will help you interpret the geopolitical and economic forces impacting your business and develop strategies to navigate them." Terry is listed as a senior adviser who "advises clients on Korea." It's well-connected: from 2017 to 2020, Macro Advisory was the corporate home for Jake Sullivan, President Biden's National Security Adviser, and during his time there earned $37 million a year, according to The American Prospect.
With producers like Halvorssen and Terry involved, it's impossible not to see Beyond Utopia as anything but a propaganda exercise. At the very least, the media and the Hollywood elite reviewing the film should be asking tough questions of its director and its producers about their intent. Moreover, a documentary should provide the full truth about its subject, not the distorted vision of its producers and funders. That, too, is the prime concern of Liem and the other Asian American directors.
"We ask that you add a disclaimer on the film and on the website that indicates the film represents only one perspective of what is a highly controversial situation and its causes, and offer additional resources for your viewers," they asked Lois Vossen, the Executive Producer at PBS' Independent Lens. "We also request that Independent Lens pursue alternative, diverse programming for audiences seeking further information about the issues raised by this film." In particular, they said, alternative programming should include the voices of Asian Americans and Koreans in the diaspora “who have a critical understanding of this history and who have been researching, writing about, and grappling with issues of displacement, war, peace, and the impact of U.S. policies on the Korean peninsula."
Responding to the letter, Vossen and the film's director wrote that "our goal was to provide only enough background information to ground the personal journeys of our participants, and this historical information was thoroughly vetted by numerous experts and scholars for accuracy and fairness; We are not aware of a single factual error.” But that claim does not stand up to scrutiny.
A Point-by-point Refutation of the Film's Version of Korean History
Beyond Utopia provides a history of North and South Korea that corresponds with the views of the South Korean right and military think tanks in Washington, and is cleverly designed to undermine the legitimacy of the North Korean state founded in 1948.
As a result, Madeleine Gavin, the director who narrates parts of the film, comes off sounding much like the flamboyant defector Yeonmi Park, who often paints a picture of the North that is so fantastic that even the Washington Post has come to doubt her version of events. Here is Gavin, as summarized by Deadline:
"North Korea. Your house is on fire. What do you try to rescue first? Your kids? Your pet? No, the first thing you reach for is the portrait of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-un and his father and grandfather that is hanging on your wall, as mandated by the authoritarian government. Everything else can wait. Such is the bizarre and grim reality of North Korea that emerges in Beyond Utopia... Despite the North Korean regime’s attempts to brainwash the populace into believing they live in an earthly paradise, over a period of years hundreds of thousands of people have risked death to try to escape."
But "brainwashing" can go two ways. As the popularity of Yeonmi Park attests, Americans are willing to believe almost anything about North Korea. That is the result of the nation being subjected to disinformation and propaganda from the American government and the guardians of empire about the country for years and years.
Here is a point-by-point refutation of the false picture of North Korea's history promoted by Gavin in this film, which she claims to have found through reading "everything she could get her hands on" on the internet about North Korea "in every language [and] every country." Well, not everything, as we can see below.
- The Film: In 1910 the expanding Japanese empire colonized what was then a unified Korea. It was a very brutal colonization. Over the next 35 years the Korean culture and the Korean language were nearly eradicated. At the end of World War II when Japan surrendered, they lost the empire that they had been building. Part of the settlement deal was that Korea was split.
Fact: In 1905, in the wake of a war over Korea between Japan and Russia, US President Theodore Roosevelt negotiated a peace treaty that included a secret protocol in which the United States approved Japanese control over Korea in return for Japanese recognition of America's colonization of the Philippines (this egregious act is even taught in South Korean schools). Five years later, with US approval, Japan formally colonized Korea (and yes, it was extremely brutal). Over the next 35 years, Japan created a colonial administration staffed in part by Korean collaborators with security provided by Koreans invited to join the Japanese military and constabulary. As Gavin carefully avoids mentioning, these collaborators - who helped the Japanese Army chase down Korean independence fighters in Manchuria and elsewhere - became the core of the South Korean military and police force created by the United States after 1945.
Moreover, contrary to Gavin's claim, there was no "settlement deal" between Japan and the U.S. after World War II. Instead, Japan surrendered unconditionally in the wake of the Nagasaki bomb, and the United States decided unilaterally to divide Japan's colony at the 38th parallel and then directed Japan to surrender its military forces in Korea to the Soviet Red Army in the north and the US military in the south.
Stalin, whose troops had entered Korea days before (as discussed with Truman at Potsdam), agreed to this arrangement after the fact. The Red Army, units of which had already crossed into the southern zone, then withdrew to positions north of the 38th parallel and to Pyongyang. The US military finally arrived in Seoul, Korea's traditional capital, on September 8, 1945. As Liem and her fellow directors wrote, "By inferring that the division of Korea was a term of Japan’s surrender, which it was not, [Gavin's] language erases the role of the U.S. in dividing Korea."
- The Film: The idea was that Korea would shortly come back together and then have control over their own country. In the meanwhile the south held a public election and US educated Syngman Rhee became the first president of what would become South Korea.
Fact: The plan for Korea was spelled out by President Franklin Roosevelt and his British and Chinese allies at their famous conference in 1943 and ratified by Stalin and Truman at Potsdam in 1945. "The idea" was for the allied powers to occupy the Korean peninsula until "in due course" it could be granted independence (FDR "felt the trusteeship might last from 20 to 30 years," the State Department summary of Potsdam states, while "Marshal Stalin said the shorter the trusteeship period the better.") But this did not sit well with the people of Korea. In the days after Japan's surrender on August 15th, Koreans throughout the peninsula declared a People's Republic and established "People's Committees" in every province. These committees, north and south, included communists who had led the fierce resistance to Japanese colonialism as well as Christians and nationalists who wanted a united, independent Korea to emerge.
In the initial stage of their occupation, the Soviets recognized these committees as legitimate, and they became the core of the North Korea government the Red Army set up in Pyongyang. But not the United States. Upon arriving in Korea, the US military set up a US Army Military Government (known as USAMGIK) and, believing the committees were communist fronts, outlawed the People's Republic. It then brought in Syngman Rhee, a Princeton-educated Christian who had been an advocate in the United States for Korean independence for decades, to run the new administrative state for USAMGIK. Rhee, who hated Japan but reviled communists even more, built a government of wealthy landlords, right-wing political figures, and former bureaucrats who had collaborated with Japanese colonial rule.
Rhee's election by a right-wing National Assembly took place in 1948 during a time of severe repression in the South. By 1946, many South Koreans were in open revolt against USAMGIK's policies and Rhee's rightist policies. In response, the US and its Japanese-trained military forces launched a vicious counterinsurgency. This secret war fractured the country along ideological lines. According to a US diplomat in Seoul, over 100,000 South Korean dissidents were killed long before the North Korean invasion of June 1950, many of them at the hands of Japanese-trained, Korean military, police, and anticommunist death squads. The counterinsurgency culminated in a brutal, US-directed assault on the island of Jeju, the only province to vote against a US-designed plan to keep Korea divided.
- Film: In the north, Stalin decided to look for a Soviet sympathizer as a temporary leader in what would become North Korea. And this is where Kim Il Sung comes in... When he was just 8 years old his family moved to Manchuria. Kim Il Sung joined the communist party in China and he eventually fought with the Soviet Union throughout World War II. Stalin heard about Kim Il Sung because of his reputation as a leader of several anti Japanese guerilla groups. When Stalin brought him to Pyongyang, Kim Il Sung didn’t even speak good Korean...[He] had the dream of reunifying the Koreas under communism. Expanding upon his guerilla contacts, he put together an army and eventually got the support of both Stalin and Mao.
Fact: Stalin didn't have to "look for" Kim Il Sung. The guerrilla fighter was widely known as a leader of the anti-Japanese resistance in Manchuria by the Japanese, which (under the future LDP Prime Minister of Japan, Nobusuke Kishi) sent units to hunt him down. As Bruce Cumings, the eminent historian of the Korean War wrote in his famous two-volume history of the war's origins, "Kim Il Sung was by no means a handpicked Soviet puppet, but maneuvered politically first to establish his leadership, then to isolate and best the communists who had remained in Korea during the colonial period, then to ally with Soviet-aligned Koreans for a time, then to create a powerful army under his own leadership (in February 1948) that melded Koreans who had fought together in Manchuria and China proper with those who remained at home."
As Cumings wrote in an incisive article on Kim's legacy in 2017, his legitimacy as a leader is well established. "The story of Kim Il-Sung's resistance against the Japanese is surrounded by legend and exaggeration in the North, and general denial in the South. But he was recognizably a hero: he fought for decades in the harshest winter environment imaginable...Koreans made up the vast majority of guerrillas in Manchukuo [the Japanese colony in Manchuria], even though many of them were commanded by Chinese officers...Other Korean guerrillas led detachments too...and when they returned to Pyongyang in 1945 they formed the core of the new regime."
In other words, these were not just innocuous "guerrilla contacts," but the leaders of the resistance to Japan. And it was in that capacity as part of collective leadership that Kim got the support of Stalin and Mao to invade the South in June 1950 to dislodge the US-backed Rhee regime, which he claimed did not represent the interests of most Koreans at the time. The rest is history, and the terrible war ended in an uneasy armistice in 1953 that Syngman Rhee refused to sign. No peace treaty was ever signed, leaving the two Koreas in a technical state of war today.
Tim Shorrock, a Korea Policy Institute Associate, is a Washington-based journalist who has been writing about the Korean Peninsula for over 40 years.
kpolicy.org · January 24, 2024
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
| 
