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Quotes of the Day:
"Even if my body is broken and my spirit crushed, I will never yield to tyranny."
– Yu Gwan-sun, 1919
"The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the more it will contract."
– Oliver W. Holmes, Jr.
"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity."
– Amelia Earhart
1. Kim's sister says N. Korea open to better ties with Japan
2. Japan 'paying attention' to remarks from N. Korean leader's sister: top gov't spokesman
3. North Korea and Iran using AI for hacking, Microsoft says
4. Defense chief calls for 'sternly' punishing N.K. border provocations
5. Fighting talk: Is Kim preparing for war?
6. Publication of Regulatory Amendment to the North Korea Sanctions Regulations; Issuance of North Korea-related Frequently Asked Questions
7. US eases restrictions on humanitarian and journalism activities in North Korea
8. S. Korean, U.S. envoy for N. Korean human rights urge solidarity
9. S. Korea calls on N. Korea to make 'right choice' on 10th anniv. of U.N. rights report
10. S. Korean, U.S. Marines stage joint wintertime drills
11. N. Korea urges loyalty for Kim Jong-un on late leader's birthday
12. Kim Jong Un threatens provocations near NLL
13. Editorial: North Korean spy ring mocks court, then ‘asks for asylum’
14. Kim Jong Un has weaponized South Korea’s own name against unification
15. Seoul side-eyes N. Korea while forging ties with Cuba
16. What’s wrong with Kim Jong Un’s new policy to promote regional development?
1. Kim's sister says N. Korea open to better ties with Japan
Kim Yo Jong getting a chance to play the good cop for once.
(LEAD) Kim's sister says N. Korea open to better ties with Japan | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kang Yoon-seung · February 15, 2024
(ATTN: ADDS details throughout)
SEOUL, Feb. 15 (Yonhap) -- The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Thursday said the regime is open to improving its relationship with Japan, including inviting the Japanese leader to Pyongyang.
Kim Yo-jong's remark came after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said during a speech last week that he feels a "strong need" to change the current relationship between Tokyo and Pyongyang, and that he is currently making related activities.
"I think there would be no reason not to appreciate his recent speech as a positive one, if it was prompted by his real intention to boldly free himself from the past fetters and promote the DPRK-Japan relations," Kim said in an English report by the Korean Central News Agency.
DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
Kim added the Japanese prime minister's visit to Pyongyang "might come," given that Tokyo "drops its bad habit of unreasonably pulling up the DPRK over its legitimate right to self-defence and does not lay such a stumbling block as the already settled abduction issue."
The abduction issue has been one of the key hurdles for diplomatic normalization between North Korea and Japan for decades. Japan claims it has confirmed the abductions of 17 Japanese citizens by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s for language education for North Korean spies.
"I think our state leadership still has no idea of repairing the DPRK-Japan relations and has no interest in contact," she said. "It is necessary to watch the ulterior intention of Prime Minister Kishida in the future."
Meanwhile, a Japanese media outlet reported earlier this week that Kishida is considering visiting South Korea in late March and holding a summit with President Yoon Suk Yeol, which would mark the second visit by the Japanese leader.
This March 2, 2019, file photo shows Kim Yo-jong, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister and vice department director of the ruling Workers' Party's Central Committee, as she visits the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi. (Yonhap)
colin@yna.co.kr
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en.yna.co.kr · by Kang Yoon-seung · February 15, 2024
2. Japan 'paying attention' to remarks from N. Korean leader's sister: top gov't spokesman
Here is some intelligence analysis from the former National Intelligence Officer for north Korea that should really assist Japan (and all of us) in understanding what the regime means by this recent "initiative.". This is probably one of the most effective tweets I have seen, But I am serious when I say this tweet embodies my mantra: recognize the enemy's strategy, understand it, EXPOSE it, and attack it (and sometimes the attack is simply exposing it so people are not duped).
Syd Seiler
@sydseiler
Let's take a shot at DPRK talking points: 1) Thank you for agreeing to forget the "d" and "a" words: denuclearization and abductees no longer need to be discussed at any talks we plan on attending. 2) Let's talk about how your hosting of hostile US forces with their guns aimed at us make you a target of our growing strategic assets, 3) we are not here to beg, so don't think you can dangle reparations as some type of bargaining chip. We've passed on that for many years, and can continue to do so going forward . . .
Japan 'paying attention' to remarks from N. Korean leader's sister: top gov't spokesman | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Seung-yeon · February 16, 2024
TOKYO, Feb. 16 (Yonhap) -- Japan is "paying attention to" the remarks by the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un about her openness to mending ties and discussing a possible visit to Pyongyang by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, its top government spokesperson said Friday.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi made the comment, referring to Kim Yo-jong's comments Thursday that Kishida might be able to visit the North under certain conditions, such as that Tokyo will not raise the longstanding issue of Japanese abductees.
"We are paying attention to the fact that Vice Director Kim has issued the statement," Hayashi said in a regular briefing.
This undated photo, released by Kyodo News, shows Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
Without giving further comments, Hayashi restated that Kishida and the Japanese government have been making efforts at various levels to realize a summit with the North's leader to resolve pending issues with Pyongyang.
But Hayashi made it clear that Japan will not accept the North's claim that the abductees issue has been resolved.
"We cannot accept that," he said. "We remain unchanged that Japan intends to comprehensively resolve pending issues, such as nuclear and missiles and the abductions, based on the Japan-North Korea Pyongyang Declaration."
In 2002, Japan and North Korea signed a landmark declaration committing them to an early normalization of bilateral ties. The signing came with the first historic visit to the North by the then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in the same year. This led to North Korea returning five Japanese abductees home.
Kim Yo-jong's comments came after Kishida said at a recent parliamentary session that various activities are under way, in response to a question about Tokyo's push for a potential summit with North Korea.
Kim also said North Korea and Japan can open up a "new future" together if Tokyo makes a political decision to pave a new path for mending relations through "courteous behavior and trustworthy action."
Japan claims that North Korea abducted 17 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s and 12 of them are still in the North after the North returned the five abductees.
The North has admitted having abducted 13 Japanese nationals in the past to train its spies in Japanese language and culture. While returning the five, North Korea claimed that the other eight were deceased.
This file photo, captured from footage carried by North Korea's state broadcaster on July 31, 2023, shows Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, delivering a speech during a reception held in Pyongyang for a visiting Chinese delegation. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
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en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Seung-yeon · February 16, 2024
3. North Korea and Iran using AI for hacking, Microsoft says
North Korea and Iran using AI for hacking, Microsoft says
US tech giant says it has detected threats from foreign countries that used or attempted to exploit generative AI it had developed
The Guardian · by / · February 14, 2024
US adversaries – chiefly Iran and North Korea, and to a lesser extent Russia and China – are beginning to use generative artificial intelligence to mount or organize offensive cyber operations, Microsoft said on Wednesday.
Microsoft said it detected and disrupted, in collaboration with business partner OpenAI, many threats that used or attempted to exploit AI technology they had developed.
In a blogpost, the company said the techniques were “early-stage” and neither “particularly novel or unique” but that it was important to expose them publicly as US rivals leveraging large-language models to expand their ability to breach networks and conduct influence operations.
Cybersecurity firms have long used machine-learning on defense, principally to detect anomalous behavior in networks. But criminals and offensive hackers use it as well, and the introduction of large-language models led by OpenAI’s ChatGPT upped that game of cat-and-mouse.
Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, and Wednesday’s announcement coincided with its release of a report noting that generative AI is expected to enhance malicious social engineering, leading to more sophisticated deepfakes and voice cloning. A threat to democracy in a year where over 50 countries will conduct elections, magnifying disinformation and already occurring,
Microsoft provided some examples. In each case it said all generative AI accounts and assets of the named groups were disabled:
The North Korean cyber-espionage group known as Kimsuky has used the models to research foreign thinktanks that study the country, and to generate content likely to be used in spear-phishing hacking campaigns.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has used large-language models to assist in social engineering, in troubleshooting software errors and even in studying how intruders might evade detection in a compromised network. That includes generating phishing emails “including one pretending to come from an international development agency and another attempting to lure prominent feminists to an attacker-built website on feminism”. The AI helps accelerate and boost the email production.
The Russian GRU military intelligence unit known as Fancy Bear has used the models to research satellite and radar technologies that may relate to the war in Ukraine.
The Chinese cyber-espionage group known as Aquatic Panda – which targets a broad range of industries, higher education and governments from France to Malaysia – has interacted with the models “in ways that suggest a limited exploration of how LLMs can augment their technical operations”.
The Chinese group Maverick Panda, which has targeted US defense contractors among other sectors for more than a decade, had interactions with large-language models suggesting it was evaluating their effectiveness as a source of information “on potentially sensitive topics, high profile individuals, regional geopolitics, US influence, and internal affairs”.
In a separate blog published on Wednesday, OpenAI said its current GPT-4 model chatbot offers “only limited, incremental capabilities for malicious cybersecurity tasks beyond what is already achievable with publicly available, non-AI powered tools”.
Cybersecurity researchers expect that to change.
Last April, the director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Jen Easterly, told Congress that “there are two epoch-defining threats and challenges. One is China, and the other is artificial intelligence.”
Easterly said at the time that the US needed to ensure AI is built with security in mind.
Critics of the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022 – and subsequent releases by competitors including Google and Meta – contend it was irresponsibly hasty, considering security was largely an afterthought in their development.
“Of course bad actors are using large-language models – that decision was made when Pandora’s Box was opened,” said Amit Yoran, chief executive of the cybersecurity firm Tenable.
Some cybersecurity professionals complain about Microsoft’s creation and hawking of tools to address vulnerabilities in large-language models when it might more responsibly focus on making them more secure.
“Why not create more secure black-box LLM foundation models instead of selling defensive tools for a problem they are helping to create?” asked Gary McGraw, a computer security veteran and co-founder of the Berryville Institute of Machine Learning.
The NYU professor and former AT&T chief security officer Edward Amoroso said that while the use of AI and large-language models may not pose an immediately obvious threat, they “will eventually become one of the most powerful weapons in every nation-state military’s offense”.
The Guardian · by / · February 14, 2024
4. Defense chief calls for 'sternly' punishing N.K. border provocations
The ROK must conduct a decisive response at the time and place of the provocation without restraint from the US if the regime conducts a violent provocation on South Korean territory. This is the only way to restore deterrence ,and perhaps counterintuitively for many, to prevent escalation. If the response is worlds only Kim will keep pushing the envelope. Also, Kim does not want escalation but it is the US who talks about not wanting escalation that gives Kim confidence that he has much freedom of action because he assesses the US will not respond and will attempt to restrain the ROK from responding in order to prevent escalation.
Defense chief calls for 'sternly' punishing N.K. border provocations | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · February 16, 2024
SEOUL, Feb. 16 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's Defense Minister Shin Won-sik on Friday called for "sternly" punishing any North Korean provocation south of the sea and land borders, his office said, amid tensions from Pyongyang's continued weapons tests and increasingly harsh rhetoric.
Shin made the call during his visit to an Army command tasked with overseeing front-line operations, two days after the North fired multiple cruise missiles off its eastern coast in its fifth such launch this year.
The North's leader Kim Jong-un oversaw the new "surface-to-sea" missile test and called for using force against South Korean vessels violating its waters, while claiming that the Northern Limit Line, the de facto inter-Korean sea border, is a "ghost" line without any legal ground.
Shin said the North is intentionally creating an atmosphere of war to strengthen internal solidarity and sow division within South Korea as he inspected the Ground Operations Command in Yongin, just south of Seoul, according to his office.
"If the enemy carries out a provocation south of the Military Demarcation Line and the Northern Limit Line, sternly punish them immediately, strongly and until the end, and completely destroy the force undertaking provocations and its support forces," he was quoted as saying.
Experts have raised concern that the North could carry out localized provocations around the sea and land borders ahead of South Korea's parliamentary elections in April or the U.S. presidential election in November.
Defense Minister Shin Won-sik (C) speaks as he visits the Army's Ground Operations Command in Yongin, just south of Seoul, on Feb. 16, 2024, in this photo provided by his office. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr
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en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · February 16, 2024
5. Fighting talk: Is Kim preparing for war?
A long read that covers a lot of ground.
The two closing thoughts, One i very much disagree with and one that I most definitely agree with. The second thought is why there will never be the first. The ROK and its allies ought to prepare for the mother of all unification plans.
Excerpts:
Even if it was to open up one day, what that would mean for its people is uncertain. “The South Koreans have developed various scenarios,” says Graham. “There would be a sort of phased approach in which South Korea and North Korea would have some federated status – but the border wouldn’t necessarily disappear.” Despite the “romantic” appeal of reunification, actually doing it would be a “very bold step”. “The last thing the South Koreans want,” Graham says, “is to inherit the mother of all unification problems that would take much longer than Germany [after the fall of the Berlin Wall] to work through and would be economically ruinous for a generation.”
Yet the past, he says, holds another lesson, too. “The contradiction for any authoritarian regime is it’s strong until it isn’t, until it’s suddenly proven to be brittle. And then things can unfold very, very quickly.”
Fighting talk: Is Kim preparing for war?
The North Korean leader has flipped on his dynasty’s policy of reunifying with the South, now calling them a ‘primary foe’. Does this spell trouble or is it business as usual in his hermit kingdom?
ByAngus Holland and Jackson Graham
FEBRUARY 16, 2024
watoday.com.au · by Angus Holland, Jackson Graham · February 15, 2024
In these Explainers, journey with us to far-flung regions (and some closer to home) to understand the tensions shaping our world.See all 25 stories.
The Korean peninsula is the perfect social experiment, says Victor Cha, a top United States adviser on North Korea. “Let’s take two people, the same people, the same blood, put them in two different political systems and look at how things turn out.”
Asia affairs director to George W. Bush, Cha is one of a handful of outsiders this century to cross overland into South Korea from the impoverished “hermit kingdom”. “I never saw a traffic jam because nobody has a car,” he says. “I saw people waiting 30- or 40-deep for a bus, or 10 people waiting to use a payphone.”
The journey through kilometre after kilometre of “just barren farmland” in the North to the industrial plants and traffic-packed highways of South Korea was a “blindingly obvious” illustration of how that experiment has turned out. “This is what happens when you have two different political systems and one is very successful and one is an abject failure.”
Yet North Korea’s regime has proven very successful in one crucial area – keeping an iron grip on power. The Kim family dynasty spruiks a largely fictional account of its quasi-religious origins while hammering home an omnipresent threat of war to its 26 million people.
Now, after a tentative thaw with the South in pre-COVID-19 times, leader Kim Jong-un has ramped up his threats again, along with the missile tests for which his nation is so well known.
Some Korea experts are worried. Could his next step be actual conflict? Why does Kim do what he does? And how did his family rise to power in the first place?
Kim Jong-un: South Korea is now a “primary foe”. Credit: Bloomberg, digitally altered
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Why are we talking about North Korea again?
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is renowned for its sabre-rattling. But what Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has said and done recently has raised hackles among regime-watchers. Late last year, North Korea claimed to have made its first successful launch of a military satellite. It also test-fired what observers believed was a type of intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, called the Hwasong (HS)-18, which could reach the US. South Korea called the launch a “grave provocation”. The regime has already test-fired at least four more rockets of varying types so far in 2024, says the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, DC.
At the same time, Kim has signalled what amounts to a historic change in North Korean government policy, abandoning his dynasty’s long-stated goal of peaceful unification with the south, which dates back to the North-South Joint Communique of 1972. Instead, he has called South Korea a “primary foe and invariable principal enemy”, and said the constitution would now state that North Korea would pursue “occupying, subjugating and reclaiming” South Korea if another war was to erupt on the Korean Peninsula. “We do not want war,” he told the Supreme People’s Assembly, “but we also have no intention of avoiding it.” He has since shuttered government departments that focused on reunification, and, ever-conscious of Brutalist-era symbolism, ordered the destruction of a massive arch built under his father’s rule in 2001 that spanned the Reunification Highway, which leads south from Pyongyang, describing it as an “eyesore”.
Kim Jong-un and South Korea’s then president Moon Jae-in in happier times, flanked by their wives, Ri Sol-ju (far left) and Kim Jung-sook (far right), in 2018 on Mount Baektu ahead of talks on denuclearising the peninsula. Credit: Pyeongyang Press Corps via Getty Images, digitally tinted
For analysts Robert Carlin, a former senior US State Department official, and Siegfried Hecker, an expert on North Korea’s nuclear program, such signs are unusually ominous. “The situation on the Korean Peninsula is more dangerous than it has been at any time since early June 1950,” they wrote in an essay published in January on the 38 North website. “That may sound overly dramatic, but we believe that, like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong-un has made a strategic decision to go to war.” The danger, they added, “is already far beyond the routine warnings in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo about Pyongyang’s ‘provocations’.”
What of the routinely expressed opinion that Kim would not go to war because he “knows” Washington and Seoul would destroy his regime if he did? “If this is what policymakers are thinking, 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.” To break with his dynasty’s policy, they say, Kim must have seen all other options as exhausted; particularly after all he “risked and lost” when talks with then US president Donald Trump on normalising relations failed in 2019 – “a traumatic loss of face”.
As Carlin and Hecker predicted, their essay met with cold water from other analysts. Some believe North Korea’s support for Russia’s Ukraine war – its artillery rounds are showing up in battlefields in Ukraine – indicate it is a long way from preparing for its own conflict. Yet not everyone is convinced it’s business as usual.
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“This seems to be something slightly different,” says Daniel Pieper, Korea Foundation lecturer at Monash University, who notes: “When it comes to nuclear weapons, I think that there’s been a shift in Western nations that it’s too late to really prevent the program. Any kind of negotiations that include giving up their nuclear program are really doomed to failure.”
Yet Victor Cha believes the dictator’s recent actions are not as serious as previous provocations since they are reversible (razed arch excepted). But that doesn’t mean the regime won’t try to goad the South Korean government into retaliating, Cha says. “They will do more missile tests for sure but if they try to carry out some sort of conventional lethal provocation against South Korea, that has a much higher chance of escalating.”
The North has long been testing the limits of its maritime boundary in the Yellow Sea. In 2022, it fired a missile into South Korean waters, triggering air-raid alerts; and in 2010, it bombarded the South’s Yeonpyeong Island with artillery, killing four people. “If something like that were to happen, that wouldn’t be good,” Cha says. “If it were a progressive government in South Korea, they would probably give the benefit of the doubt to North Korea, but this conservative government is not going to ask any questions; it’s going to just respond.” South Korea has one of the world’s biggest artillery stockpiles and hosts about 29,000 US soldiers as well as a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system designed to shoot down missiles from the North. National elections are coming up in April.
‘Behind all this is really an attempt to carve out a more independent identity for North Korea.’
Here’s another read: Kim’s shift on reunification could be aimed largely at bolstering internal support for the regime, the classic Orwellian move of diverting focus from domestic woes. “[It’s] emphasising an external enemy, pushing people’s attention away from the severe economic issues they’re facing,” says Robert Lauler, the English editor of news outlet Daily NK. Border closures with China since the pandemic, floods and drought, and sanctions targeting the regime have worsened food shortages in the North.
“They can’t sustain even their own population through their own agriculture,” says Euan Graham, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. “They are reliant on China.”
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Western popular culture, especially from affluent South Korea, continues to leak into the North. Hence, Kim’s shift in tone is “more a way to take South Korea out of the North Korean mindset”, says Graham. “Behind all this is really an attempt to carve out a more independent identity for North Korea.”
North Koreans read a newspaper in a station on the Pyongyang metro in August 2018. Credit: Getty Images, digitally tinted
What’s life like under Kim Jong-un?
Living standards remain appalling by Western measures. Food shortages are unsurprising. Personal car use is rare. Yet this is not the Dark Ages: mobile phones are commonplace, says Simon Cockerell, who, as general manager of Korea specialist Koryo Tours, was a frequent visitor to North Korea between 2002 and 2020. That said, the phones are largely used for talking – “like it’s 2001 or something” – as few North Koreans have access to the internet.
Those who want to “surf the web” (as we might have said in 2001) typically do so in a public building such as the Grand People’s Study House library in Pyongyang and are limited to sites within the local intranet, known as Kwangmyong – meaning “bright light” – a closely monitored depository of technical papers, domestic news from the regime and internal email. Only a few thousand of the well-vetted elite have access to the global net.
Students engage in a simulated internet chat in the Grand People’s Study House in Pyongyang, under portraits of Kim Il-Sung and his son, KIm Jong-il.Credit: Getty Images, digitally tinted
Some young North Koreans keep up with the times too, after a fashion, largely through facsimiles of South Korean garments smuggled in via China, or local knock-offs of the designer garments favoured by First Lady Ri Sol-ju. “Shoes, handbags, dresses, that kind of thing,” says Cockerell. “The biggest change that I’ve seen over the time I was there was the emergence of a kind of proto-middle class, one that felt that it was OK to display the beginnings of conspicuous consumption. That started maybe around 2009 and became a lot more prevalent. You could see that there were moneyed people, you could see that there were people who made an effort to appear better off. It’s going to coffee shops or restaurants, taking a taxi, not taking a bus.”
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It’s unclear how much Western-South Korean influence is tacitly permitted but crossing the line can be catastrophic. One student was recently sentenced to death (later commuted) for smuggling and selling copies of the Netflix series Squid Game, according to Radio Free Asia. They’d been tracked down by a censorship strike force called Surveillance Bureau Group 109. According to RFA sources: “A student who bought a [computer thumb] drive received a life sentence, while six others who watched the show have been sentenced to five years’ hard labour, and teachers and school administrators have been fired and face banishment to work in remote mines.”
The regime also subjects youths to “intensive study sessions” intended to “uproot the capitalist bourgeois ideologies implanted in young people’s heads and to equip them with a patriotic ideology that the Korean people are the best in the world,” according to a report in Daily NK, which relies on a network of anonymous informers. The teaching material apparently says, “Viewing or sharing movies, television shows or news programs from other countries is completely unacceptable.”
Jihyun Park, a defector from the UK, told us she feared sharing anything critical of the regime before she fled her hometown Chongjin via China. “It could be that I thought this person was my best friend, but my best friend will report me if I say something wrong.”
Defector Yoo-seong Lee, who now lives in South Korea after leaving his homeland via Russia in 2019, tells us residents continue to live in “extreme fear”. “Every moment, they carry the terror that the regime, with its secret police, could snatch away their lives or the lives of their family,” says Lee, using a pseudonym.
He says the starkest difference he saw between people in the North and South was in their economic situations. “The high buildings and the wide streets and a great number of modern cars were my first impressions [of] South Korea,” he says. “They made me weep, thinking of my family in North Korea.”
Kim Jong-un and his daughter Kim Ju-ae after the launch of a missile in 2022 in a photo supplied by the North Korean government.Credit: Korean Central News Agency via AP, digitally altered
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Why the missiles?
As president, Trump nicknamed Kim Jong-un “Little Rocket Man”, which is how many in the West most often see him: gleefully watching another rocket headed off towards the Sea of Japan. He has indeed ramped up North Korea’s nuclear program and missile tests since the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, who entrenched songun, or “military-first”, as government policy. Since 2011, North Korea has test-fired more than 220 missiles with varying ranges, says the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. In January 2023, Kim Jong-un declared he would “exponentially expand” the country’s nuclear arsenal and “mass produce” tactical nuclear weapons.
“Their ultimate goal,” says ASPI’s Euan Graham, “is a missile that has the range to reach the continental United States and directly threaten the US with nuclear retaliation or a strike.” But it’s not just about what’s technically possible. “There’s an element of prestige around military capability,” he says. “There is a strong theatrical element to what they do. What they do may appear strange from the outside but from the viewpoint of keeping themselves in power, maintaining internal controls and having a strong sense of genuine paranoia about the outside world, it all makes sense.”
United Nations sanctions were imposed largely in response to the regime’s nuclear tests, from 2006. Australia and the European Union, among others, have imposed trade bans on imports and exports such as arms, rocket fuel, precious metals, commodities, luxury goods and financial services. Yet, Kim Jong-un has somehow kept the regime’s moribund economy ticking over.
A UN panel of experts in 2018 reported North Korean financial brokers were operating freely in five countries, chief among them China and Russia, and engaged in “illicit ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum products, as well as through transfers of coal at sea”. North Korea is also believed to hold vast reserves of untapped minerals such as the rare earth metals, copper and graphite essential for electrification and high-tech products such as smartphones.
Selling arms and munitions is another money-spinner, and a way to curry favour with friends. Kim spent a week in Russia in September, his longest trip away since taking power, travelling on his armoured train for talks with President Vladimir Putin on closer military and other co-operation.
The internet comes in handy, too. Euan Graham notes the regime’s use of financial crime “through cyber-theft conducted on a massive scale internationally”.
US soldiers file past Korean women and children carrying their possessions in 1950. Credit: Getty Images, digitally tinted
How did Korea split in two in the first place?
To understand the divided peninsula, it’s worth taking a step back. “North Korea lives in a very tough neighbourhood,” Graham says. “In many ways, it’s absorbed many of the kinds of dysfunctions of north-east Asia, a lot of the history that has been swept under the carpet in Japan, China and elsewhere in terms of the imperial colonial history.”
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Korea’s contemporary situation dates from 1945 when, after a brutal 35-year occupation, the Japanese surrendered to Russian troops in the north and US forces in the south. A decision was made to divide administration between the two occupying forces – just while the country got back on its feet – with the Russians controlling everything above the 38th parallel and the US below it.
As Cold War-era relations grew frosty, talks over a single new government foundered. Instead of the two halves uniting, in 1948 they formally split. In the south, the Republic of Korea became a democracy led by the hardline anti-communist president, Syngman Rhee; in the north emerged the (non-democratic) Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, a Russian puppet state headed by a man hand-picked for the job: Kim Il-sung.
Kim Il-sung had grown up during the worst years of Japanese repression, both in Korea and then in the Manchurian region of China, which the Japanese invaded in 1931. He was drawn, like many of his peers, to guerilla warfare and communism, and later made a name for himself as a fighter during World War II.
Exiled in the Soviet Union, he came to the attention of party bosses who earmarked him as an ideologically appropriate “cadre” to help run a communist post-war territory. “The Soviets found themselves going with this one person who had revolutionary credentials, although his credentials were far lower than most other leaders who emerged after the war in different parts of the world,” says Kyung Moon Hwang, professor of Korean history at ANU.
But even as the Soviets and Americans prepared to withdraw their World War II forces, conflict was simmering on the peninsula. Kim Il-sung, convinced war was necessary for reunification, lobbied Stalin and China’s then-leader, Mao, for approval to invade the south.
“Long story short,” says Daniel Pieper, “the Soviets gave their tacit approval and materiel support whereas the Chinese devoted, if needed, boots on the ground. But it was Kim Il-sung, ultimately, that ordered the attack.”
Areas of the DMZ are home to 38 per cent of the peninsula’s endangered species, including black bears and wildcats.
On June 25, 1950, Kim Il-sung’s forces stormed across the 38th parallel. The UN rallied 21 member nations to push back, with South Korean and US troops making up the bulk of the south’s fighting strength. More than 17,000 Australians fought. About 3 million troops and civilians died in the conflict.
Oddly, the Korean War never officially ended but was paused through an armistice that has left the country divided by a “DMZ” or demilitarised zone: a four-kilometre wide band of untended land strewn with barbed wire and minefields. In a twist, areas of the zone have become something of a wildlife haven, home to 38 per cent of the peninsula’s endangered species, including black bears and wildcats – even, it’s rumoured, tigers and leopards, says London’s Natural History Museum. “It’s literally untouched,” Cha says. “It’s kind of unforgettable.” And parts of the DMZ’s southern edge are tourist attractions, including some of the tunnels dug by North Korea into the south allegedly for an invasion (they’re now blocked; North Korea has always claimed they were for mining).
Kim Il-sung inspects North Korean army assault rifles watched by his son, Kim Jong-il (right), in 1975.Credit: Getty Images, digitally tinted
How have the Kims kept their grip on power?
Ruthless oppression and a cult of personality were Kim Il-sung’s main go-tos as he built a new nation, harnessed to a political-economic philosophy known as juche: a peculiarly North Korean take on communism loosely translated as “self-reliance” with quasi-religious elements that became official policy in 1972.
Vast murals, towering statues and adoring parades became de rigueur as did absurd historical revisionism. Kim Il-sung was now no longer of common birth but from a long line of glorious leaders; he was no longer just a respected soldier but had almost single-handedly defeated the Japanese. In this, he was eventually aided by his son, Kim Jong-il, who worked in the government’s propaganda department. His skills were well-honed by the time his father died in 1994 (of a heart attack) and passed the baton to him.
Among Kim Jong-il’s other skills was said to be his golfing prowess: the first time he picked up a club, so the story goes, he shot a world record round of 34, including 11 holes in one (an impossible feat up there with claims he could change the weather by thinking about it). The truth appears to be that in 1994 an Australian journalist, Eric Ellis, on a visit to North Korea happened to ask an employee at the country’s only golf club if the “dear leaders” had ever played the noble sport. The terrified chap, Ellis told Fox Sports, “made up this fantastic story. Or maybe not, who knows?”
Off the golf course, Kim Jong-il was as repressive as his father but “almost comically incompetent in matters of economic management”, writes Korea specialist Andrei Lankov in The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia. This was a toxic combination, amplified by the collapse of the Soviet Union, on which North Korea depended for aid. Between 1994 and 1998, hundreds of thousands of North Koreans died in a famine later referred to as the Arduous March or the March of Suffering.
The testimony brought him to tears, says Michael Kirby. “That had never happened to me in my judicial life in Australia.”
Of testimonies from about 100 people to a UN Human Rights Commission on North Korea in 2013, the most harrowing were from this period of famine, says the commission’s chair, Michael Kirby, a former Australian High Court judge. One witness spoke of having to dispose of the bodies of fellow prison-camp detainees in a vat to reduce them to ashes. “This was used as fertiliser in fields around the detention camp for the purpose of growing vegetables and food, however meagre, for the people in the detention camp,” Kirby says. The testimony brought him to tears. “That had never happened to me in my judicial life in Australia. It was a hearing of truly barbarous actions by a government that had got stuck in a time warp.”
Defector Jihyun Park says the famine was the breaking point for her. Her students, suffering from extreme hunger, were unable to study. She felt powerless to help them. “That is a very painful memory for me because I didn’t understand everything outside the country and that my country was wrong,” she says. She fled to China but was returned to a detention camp, before she escaped again in 2004. “It’s a prison just without the fence,” she says of her country of origin. “The North Korean government destroyed our human emotions.”
Kirby says the most widespread breaches of human rights were the abuses of people’s dignity. “They could only have one side of any issue presented to them,” he says. “They were obliged as children to participate in mass games honouring the Kim family, and they did not have access to newspapers, to television.”
Soldiers in a parade in Pyongyang in July 2023 for the 70th anniversary of the armistice of the Fatherland Liberation War (or, the Korean War). Credit: Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images, digitally tinted
What’s the outlook for the Korean peninsula?
The election year in the US will almost certainly increase the number of provocations by the North Korean regime, says Victor Cha, now the Asia and Korea chair at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. These can “be everything from conventional provocations against the South to missile tests and nuclear tests”. Kim Jong-un makes 4½ times more provocations during US election years than his father did, Cha has found. “They will do more missile tests, for sure.”
The US is also planning joint military exercises with South Korea in March, when North Korea will likely flex its military muscle, too. A nuclear test this year, which would be North Korea’s seventh since 2006, is not impossible either, although China has condemned its past nuclear tests, which Cha says could serve as a counterweight. “The last thing that China wants this year is some sort of crisis, given the election in Taiwan and everything else, and their economic problems.”
‘Soldiers are used less for defence of the nation and more for mobilisation and construction projects; fixing roads and repairing things.’
Daily NK editor Robert Lauler says: “The North Korean regime isn’t really prepared to wage a war in the immediate future.
“The country is militarily strong from the outside looking in but from the inside, the North Korean military is very dilapidated. Soldiers are used less for defence of the nation and more for mobilisation and construction projects; fixing roads and repairing things.
“There’s a lot of propaganda that has been put out by the regime since the end of last year. But it doesn’t really reflect the realities on the ground. Nothing Daily NK has reported from its sources inside the country suggests there has been any war preparation, even though there is more [rhetorical] emphasis on being prepared for war inside North Korea.”
In terms of a broader solution to North Korea’s animosity, the analysts weren’t optimistic. “As long as there is this problem of a North-South division, North Korea can’t really normalise itself as a country,” says Euan Graham. “It’s trapped in this sort of cycle of experimental reform and security shutdowns, and being unable to abandon this belligerent and militarised identity.”
Even if it was to open up one day, what that would mean for its people is uncertain. “The South Koreans have developed various scenarios,” says Graham. “There would be a sort of phased approach in which South Korea and North Korea would have some federated status – but the border wouldn’t necessarily disappear.” Despite the “romantic” appeal of reunification, actually doing it would be a “very bold step”. “The last thing the South Koreans want,” Graham says, “is to inherit the mother of all unification problems that would take much longer than Germany [after the fall of the Berlin Wall] to work through and would be economically ruinous for a generation.”
Yet the past, he says, holds another lesson, too. “The contradiction for any authoritarian regime is it’s strong until it isn’t, until it’s suddenly proven to be brittle. And then things can unfold very, very quickly.”
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watoday.com.au · by Angus Holland, Jackson Graham · February 15, 2024
6. Publication of Regulatory Amendment to the North Korea Sanctions Regulations; Issuance of North Korea-related Frequently Asked Questions
Interesting timing on this. Perhaps this is an attempt to seize the moral high ground. It may not matter since the regime is unlikely to accept outside aid due to its fear of the flow of information into the north. Or this could be a result of influence of some members of the administration who think sanctions relief is the way to go and this is the first step.
Publication of Regulatory Amendment to the North Korea Sanctions Regulations; Issuance of North Korea-related Frequently Asked Questions
https://ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actions/20240215
Release Date
02/15/2024
Recent Actions Body
The Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is amending the North Korea Sanctions Regulations to amend or add general licenses to facilitate certain humanitarian-related and journalistic activities. Specifically, OFAC is amending an existing general license for nongovernmental organizations and adding general licenses to authorize certain transactions related to the exportation and re-exportation of items authorized by the U.S. Department of Commerce; the provision of certain agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical devices; and certain journalistic activities in North Korea. This regulatory amendment is currently available for public inspection with the Federal Register and will take effect upon publication in the Federal Register on February 16, 2024.
OFAC has also issued several new North Korea-related Frequently Asked Questions (1160, 1161, 1162, 1163) and amended FAQs 459, 463, 558.
7. US eases restrictions on humanitarian and journalism activities in North Korea
I have not seen any other reporting on this yet.
US eases restrictions on humanitarian and journalism activities in North Korea
Experts welcomed move which means NGOs can more easily conduct educational programs and peacebuilding efforts in DPRK
https://www.nknews.org/2024/02/us-eases-restrictions-on-humanitarian-and-journalism-activities-in-north-korea/?t=1708090701
Ifang Bremer February 16, 2024
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A camera crew in North Korea | Image: NK News (Sept. 2015)
The U.S. will significantly ease sanctions regulations on humanitarian and journalistic activities in North Korea, a decision one expert lauded as a welcome move.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced Thursday that U.S. nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) will now be able to conduct a wide array of humanitarian-related activities that were previously restricted, including educational programs, disarmament initiatives and peacebuilding efforts in the DPRK.
NGOs will also face fewer bureaucratic hurdles working with their DPRK counterparts, according to OFAC’s notice. Before the amendment, NGOs were required to obtain special licenses from OFAC for most activities and transactions involving North Korea.
In the future, OFAC will issue a general license that can be used for transactions relating to food, medicine and medical devices, according to the organization’s website.
The amendment also opens up new opportunities for journalists to report from North Korea with the creation of a general license that allows U.S. news organizations and reporters to engage in transactions essential for journalistic activities “or the establishment or operation of a news bureau in North Korea.”
Other than the Associated Press, there are currently no U.S. news organizations with bureaus in Pyongyang.
James Banfill, an American who has worked on humanitarian projects in the DPRK, told NK News the amendment is a welcome development.
“These changes better reflect how work is done with North Korean entities operationally. I think it makes sense to facilitate the expansion of the space of potential NGO involvement to long-term questions linked to the well-being of the North Korean people, as well as peace and security on the Korean Peninsula,” Banfill said.
One NGO previously told NK News it spent “hundreds of staff hours responding to OFAC questions” to get humanitarian aid to the DPRK approved.
OFAC did not clarify why it decided to ease sanctions regulations now, but the move comes at a time when South Korea is taking opposite measures, making aid initiatives for North Korea more difficult.
In July, President Yoon Suk-yeol criticized the Ministry of Unification, which oversees private aid initiatives in the ROK, for acting like a “North Korea aid ministry.”
Since then, South Korea has slashed funding for private aid to the DPRK and approved significantly fewer inter-Korean aid initiatives, only greenlighting two private initiatives in 2023, down from 12 the previous year.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in North Korea remains unknown to outsiders. While the DPRK’s food situation likely slightly improved last year, UNICEF recently stated that North Korea’s clinics lack medicine and the knowledge to treat malnutrition and childhood illnesses on a nationwide level.
Edited by Alannah Hill
8. S. Korean, U.S. envoy for N. Korean human rights urge solidarity
Human rights upfront.
S. Korean, U.S. envoy for N. Korean human rights urge solidarity | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Yi Wonju · February 16, 2024
SEOUL, Feb. 16 (Yonhap) -- South Korean and U.S. special envoys for North Korean human rights held talks with activists to discuss ways to improve the rights situation in the reclusive country, the foreign ministry said Friday.
Lee Shin-wha and her counterpart, Ambassador Julie Turner, held an intergenerational dialogue the previous day, with around 20 civic activists committed to promoting human rights in North Korea, it added.
During the meeting, Lee called on the government, civil society, youth and defectors to speak with "one voice" so that the North Korean rights issue does not become a "forgotten crisis."
Turner is visiting South Korea and Japan from this past Monday through next Thursday. Her visit came on the 10th anniversary of the release of the 2014 U.N. Commission of Inquiry report on the North's human rights violations.
Lee Shin-hwa (3rd from R), South Korea's special envoy for North Korean human rights, and her counterpart, Julie Turner (2nd from R), attend an intergenerational dialogue with civic activists to discuss the North's rights situation on Feb. 15, 2024, in this photo released by the ministry the following day. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
julesyi@yna.co.kr
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en.yna.co.kr · by Yi Wonju · February 16, 2024
9. S. Korea calls on N. Korea to make 'right choice' on 10th anniv. of U.N. rights report
Human rights are not only a moral imperative but a national security issue as well because the regime must deny the human rights of the Korean people in the north to ensure Kim remains in power.
S. Korea calls on N. Korea to make 'right choice' on 10th anniv. of U.N. rights report | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · February 16, 2024
SEOUL, Feb. 16 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's unification ministry urged North Korea on Friday to make the "right choice" of ceasing its nuclear and missile programs and improving the human rights of its people.
The call came a day ahead of the 10th anniversary of the release of the 2014 U.N. Commission of Inquiry (COI) report, which held the North Korean regime responsible for "widespread, systematic and gross" violations of human rights.
"Despite efforts in the past decade, the reality of the human rights situation in North Korea remains poor and dismal, with North Korean people not being guaranteed the minimum level of human rights amid the regime's harsh surveillance and punishment," Kim In-ae, ministry deputy spokesperson, told a regular press briefing.
Kim said the COI report has substantially contributed to raising global awareness of the urgency of the issue, adding the ministry will closely cooperate with relevant bodies, civil society and the international community for the faithful implementation of the recommendations made by the report.
Despite international condemnation over its egregious rights abuses, North Korea claims its people are freely enjoying genuine human rights.
Kim In-ae, deputy spokesperson for the unification ministry, speaks at a regular press briefing at the government complex in Seoul in this Jan. 26, 2024, file photo. (Yonhap)
mlee@yna.co.kr
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en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · February 16, 2024
10. S. Korean, U.S. Marines stage joint wintertime drills
The new normal continues. Sustain a high level of readiness and ensure interoperability.
S. Korean, U.S. Marines stage joint wintertime drills | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · February 16, 2024
SEOUL, Feb. 16 (Yonhap) -- South Korean and U.S. Marines have conducted combined wintertime drills in an eastern alpine county as part of an ongoing regular bilateral exercise, the South's Marine Corps said Friday.
Some 110 troops from a South Korean Marine Corps reconnaissance unit and the U.S. 2nd Marine Division joined the drills in Pyeongchang, 131 kilometers east of Seoul, which began on Feb. 6 and will run through next Tuesday.
The Marine Corps said the two sides focused training on combat capabilities and survival and maneuver skills in a snowy mountainous environment, employing various equipment, such as skis.
The drills took place as part of the latest edition of the U.S. Marine Corps' Korea Marine Exercise Program, which began on Feb. 1 and is designed to hone combined defensive capabilities.
Troops from the U.S. III Marine Expeditionary Force based in Okinawa arrived in South Korea on Sunday to participate in the event, according to the U.S. Forces Korea.
South Korean Marines take part in combined wintertime drills with U.S. Marines at a training ground in the mountainous county of Pyeongchang, 131 kilometers east of Seoul, in this undated photo provided by the South's Marine Corps on Feb. 16, 2024. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · February 16, 2024
11. N. Korea urges loyalty for Kim Jong-un on late leader's birthday
The only way to survive and have any chance of succeeding in north Korea is by demonstrating personal loyalty to Kim Jong Un.
N. Korea urges loyalty for Kim Jong-un on late leader's birthday
The Korea Times · February 16, 2024
North Korea displays ice sculptures at a festival to mark the birthday of late leader Kim Jong-il, in Samjiyon, Feb. 15. Yonhap
North Korea praised leader Kim Jong-un and called for loyalty as the country marked the 82nd birthday of Kim's late father and former leader Kim Jong-il on Friday.
In an editorial, the Rodong Sinmun, the North's main newspaper, lauded the late leader as a "patriot" who established the foundation for national dignity and prosperity and said such feats have been inherited by the current leader.
The newspaper claimed the country was able to achieve "miraculous" achievements and growth in areas, including the military, economy and culture, thanks to Kim, and called for the public to uphold his orders for national development.
North Korea has been setting a festive mood ahead of the anniversary, which the country celebrates as one of its most important holidays, alongside the birthday of Kim's grandfather and national founder Kim Il-sung.
The Korean Central News Agency reported Friday that celebratory events were held in Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan and Switzerland earlier this month to mark the late leader's birthday, while flower baskets from overseas were laid in front of the statues of the former leaders in Pyongyang. (Yonhap)
The Korea Times · February 16, 2024
12. Kim Jong Un threatens provocations near NLL
This area is advantageous to the north for provocation. The NLL is not an internationally recognized border so it can challenge the alliance and the ROK here. They have prevented escalation in this area previously.
Kim Jong Un threatens provocations near NLL
donga.com
Posted February. 16, 2024 08:13,
Updated February. 16, 2024 08:13
Kim Jong Un threatens provocations near NLL. February. 16, 2024 08:13. by Sang-Ho Yun ysh1005@donga.com.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended the launch of a new surface-to-ship cruise missile on Wednesday and ordered to strengthen military readiness posture in the borderline waters north of Yeonpyeong Island and Baengnyeong Island. In particular, he mentioned the so-called maritime borderline north of the two islands for the first time, making overt threats targeting South Korean naval vessels.
The North Korean state-run Korean Central News Agency quoted Kim as saying, “Strengthen military readiness posture in the borderline waters north of Yeonpyeong Island and Baengnyeong Island, which are often invaded by the enemy’s destroyers, convoys, speedboats, and other battleship.”
“We will consider the invasions by the enemy across the maritime borderline recognized by us as the infringement of our sovereignty and as armed provocations,” Kim added.
The fact that Kim mentioned the maritime borderline for the first time confirms the North’s firm stance that the notion of the country’s borderline, which typically refers to the border between North Korea and China, will also be applied to South Korea, which the North defines to be in hostile relations in battle. Some believe that Kim’s comments were intended as a way to justify high-intensity local provocations to be made by North Korea near the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the Yellow Sea ahead of the ROK-US joint military training and the April general elections in South Korea. “There is a possibility that North Korea will conduct armed provocations on the excuse of cracking down on the illegal fishing near the NLL or normal patrol activities,” said a South Korean military personnel.
The new surface-to-ship cruise missile revealed by the North on Wednesday is suspected to be an improved version of the existing KN-19 Kumsong-3. This is the first time since June 2017 that Kim’s attendance at the launch of a surface-to-ship missile was revealed.
한국어
donga.com
13. Editorial: North Korean spy ring mocks court, then ‘asks for asylum’
Editorial: North Korean spy ring mocks court, then ‘asks for asylum’
https://www.chosun.com/english/opinion-en/2024/02/15/QAVMVCUCUJF2BOCKS3XFPXXZUU/
By The Chosunilbo
Published 2024.02.15. 09:22
Updated 2024.02.15. 18:29
The defendants of the spy ring "Chungbuk Dongjihoi" heading to the court /News1
The defendants of the spy ring “Chungbuk Dongjihoi,” also referred to as “Chungju Spy Ring,” have requested the United Nations (UN) to suspend their trial and asked for asylum in a third country. For the 2 years and 5 months since their indictment, the undertrials have used various means to delay the first trial, including filing for a constitutional review and recusing themselves from the court five times. The spy ground called for the UN when the court dismissed their fifth recusal request, saying it was “clearly aimed to delay the case,” and set their sentencing to Feb. 16.
“Human rights and health rights have been severely jeopardized by prolonged repression,” the spy ring claimed. However, initially detained defendants have since been released after delays in their trials. The accused individuals are charged with forming an underground organization under the direction of North Korean agents in 2017, recruiting local figures to reveal state secrets since then. It is hard to understand what human rights violations they suffered when they played cat and mouse with their trials using the South Korean legal system.
The spy ring has also appealed the the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to organize and send a fact-finding mission to investigate the fabrication of the case, which is highly unlikely to be accepted. The office does not even have the authority to intervene in member state trials. One cannot help but think the members are making every possible effort to undermine the trial expected to sentence to a severe punishment.
The defense lawyers in the case include people from the civil defense. While the accused spies filed the paper to the UN, it is possible civil law attorney assisted them. Recently, at the Jeju spy group case represented by a civil lawyer, accused members walked out of their first trial just 25 minutes later. The lawyer is the same lawyer who had defended the “Wang Jae-san” case in 2011 and came under dispute for urging a key witness the right to remain silent. Judges should no longer be fooled around by civil lawyers trifling trials and their supercilious behavior.
14. Kim Jong Un has weaponized South Korea’s own name against unification
I think I have figured out the regime's new strategy. This is really in response to President Yoon's unification policy with the support of theUS and Japan. This is an existential threat to the regime. I think this might be the "poison pill" that will ensure resistance to a free and unified Korea or a United Republic of Korea. (UROK). This is a counter-information operations plan to counter the ROK attempts to prepare the people and the information environment for future unification. This means that President Yoon (and President Biiden and Prime Minister Kishida's support for unification at the Camp David Summit). is having an effect on the regime.
Excerpts:
An ingenious move by North Korea’s leadership
And this is what Kim Jong-un changed in January 2024. Kim Jong Un weaponized South Korea’s own name, Hanguk or the “State of Han,” against unification. “You are not like us, not Choson people,” asserts Pyongyang. “You are different. You say you are the people of Han – you are not like us.”
One should acknowledge that this is an ingenious move. South Korea cannot and will not stop using its own name. But from now on, every time a Northerner hears the word Han uttered – by a South Korean official, by a radio broadcaster, or by any person from South Korea – they will remember what they were told by the state: “They are not like us! They even have a different name for themselves.”
Of course, it is too early to confidently say how many Northerners will embrace the new discourse. However, leveraging South Korea’s own language against the dream of unification was undoubtedly one of the shrewder tactics the North Korean regime has employed.
Kim Jong Un has weaponized South Korea’s own name against unification
It is too early to confidently say how many Northerners will embrace the new discourse of perpetual division given the emphasis on unification over the years
By Fyodor Tertitskiy, Kookmin University - February 16, 2024
https://www.dailynk.com/english/kim-jong-un-weaponized-south-korea-own-name-against-unification/
The results of a search for "Hanguk" on the Rodong Sinmun website. (Screen capture from Rodong Sinmun website)
December 2023 to January 2024 saw the biggest ideological change in North Korea in half a century. The country, which since its inception has asserted that its sacred goal is to reunify with the South, has, at the behest of its ruler, made a complete reversal. Kim Jong Un stated that unification is no longer a goal and that South Korea is now considered a separate and hostile nation by the North.
A profound new development was the change of the naming of South Korea in the North. Before Jan. 16, 2024, it has been Nam Choson. Now, it’s Hanguk. This column aims to explain the significance of the change.
A long history of names
Of all other nations divided after the end of the Second World War Korea stands unique as the South and the North use a different name to call themselves – the Koreans. In West and East Germany, the people were still the same Deutsche. Vietnam, too, was divided in half – yet, on both sides of the demarcation line lived the same Người Việt, the Vietnamese. After Chiang Kai-shek’s government retreated to Taiwan, the Taiwanese people were officially the same Zhōnghuá Mínzú as the mainlanders.
Not so in Korea. The North calls itself Choson, while the South uses the name Hanguk, literally “the State of Han.” Both names have a long history. Choson, the Land of Morning Calm, is one of the oldest names for Korea, mentioned in Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian. In 1392, when the last Korean royal dynasty was founded, it was presented to Korea’s suzerain – China – as a potential name for the country and Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang endorsed it.
Choson endured as the moniker for centuries – until 1897, when, under pressure from the Japanese, Korea formally severed its vassalage to China and declared independence. The name of this new Korean Empire, Tae Han Che Guk, translated to “The Imperial State of Greater Han.” It drew upon the legacies of three ancient states predating Korea’s assimilation into the Sinosphere. Each of these states bore a “Han” character in its name, rendering “Han” a fitting designation for a self-reliant Korea. Perhaps that’s why, following Japan’s annexation of the country, Korea’s name was reverted to Choson by its Japanese masters.
Choson was the name still in use after Korea’s independence was restored in 1945. The North simply continued to use it. The South, however, changed it. This undoubtedly happened due to the efforts of the country’s founding figure, Syngman Rhee. Back in the colonial era, Rhee chaired an organization of independence activists called “the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.” This ROK was called Tae Han Min Guk, literally “The People’s State of Greater Han.” Naturally, it invoked the name of the Korean Empire before it, just the “Imperial” part was substituted for “People’s.” On July 6, 1948, the South Korean Constituent Assembly voted to adopt this name for the country, and on Jan. 16, 1950, Seoul passed a regulation explicitly instructing only this name to be used: “The full name of our country is the People’s State of Greater Han. In the common parlance, the State of Han or Greater Han can be used, while the name Choson shall not – to firmly divide ourselves from the puppet regime of the Northern Han.”
The “Northern Han,” as the readers have probably guessed, was the South Korean name for the North. The North, in turn, called the South “Southern Choson.” Thus, ever since, while both countries called themselves Korea in English, in Korean the North called Korea Choson, and the South called it Hanguk, or the State of Han.
Initially, when the yearning for unification was a nearly universal one, both terms meant “the entirety of Korea,” as so many Koreans genuinely perceived themselves as living in a divided country. As time went by, however, the language started to adapt. In the South, Hanguk started to mean not Korea, but “South Korea.” Most dictionaries fail to adapt and if you ever heard a person saying “I am from Korea” instead of “I am from South Korea,” then this is probably your reason. They meant to say “I am from Hanguk” and they saw in a dictionary that “Hanguk” means “Korea” in English – but did not realize that this is an old, obsolete, translation.
Another poignant indication of the fading dream of unification in the South was evident in the maps of the era. Scarcely any maps published in the 1950s and 1960s delineated a distinct South Korea. Instead, they portrayed the entire peninsula under the auspices of the Republic of Korea. However, as the years progressed, maps exclusively showcasing the South became increasingly prevalent, gradually supplanting their predecessors.
In the North, things were different. Naturally, all the maps were published by the state, so until 2024 it would be unthinkable to see a North Korean map featuring a divided country. Yet the state could not control the language – and, although in a different way from the South, this also reflected the decades of division.
Since the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” is as a mouthful in Korean as it is in English, the Northerners often shorten it to just “the Republic.” Officially, “the Republic” was supposed to be the entirety of Korea – and the North was to be referred to as its “Northern half.” However, in actual North Korean language “the Republic” started to mean just “North Korea,” despite what the state tried to push.
In other words, while initially the Southern and the Northern languages tried to assert the unity of Korea, these days they both reflect the reality of division. Yet, until 2024, neither variation of Korean denied that the people of both nations are the same. They may be called the people of Southern and Northern Han or of Northern and Southern Choson; nonetheless, they were part of one greater community.
An ingenious move by North Korea’s leadership
And this is what Kim Jong-un changed in January 2024. Kim Jong Un weaponized South Korea’s own name, Hanguk or the “State of Han,” against unification. “You are not like us, not Choson people,” asserts Pyongyang. “You are different. You say you are the people of Han – you are not like us.”
One should acknowledge that this is an ingenious move. South Korea cannot and will not stop using its own name. But from now on, every time a Northerner hears the word Han uttered – by a South Korean official, by a radio broadcaster, or by any person from South Korea – they will remember what they were told by the state: “They are not like us! They even have a different name for themselves.”
Of course, it is too early to confidently say how many Northerners will embrace the new discourse. However, leveraging South Korea’s own language against the dream of unification was undoubtedly one of the shrewder tactics the North Korean regime has employed.
Edited by Robert Lauler.
Fyodor Tertitskiy, Kookmin University
Fyodor Tertitskiy is Leading Researcher at the Institute for Korean Studies at Kookmin University, South Korea. He studies North Korean military, social and political history and is the author of The North Korean Army: History, Structure, Daily Life (2022) and several Korean-language books on Kim Il-sung and his era.
15. Seoul side-eyes N. Korea while forging ties with Cuba
The Paduk/Go board is in play.
Seoul side-eyes N. Korea while forging ties with Cuba
koreaherald.com · by Ji Da-gyum · February 15, 2024
'Seoul-Havana ties exert significant political pressure on Pyongyang, shows who holds dominant force'
By Ji Da-gyum
Published : Feb. 15, 2024 - 15:36
The national flags of South Korea (left) and Cuba are embedded within images of shaking hands. (123rf)
The surprise establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Cuba marks the culmination of Seoul's diplomatic endeavors with socialist countries that have historically maintained friendly ties with North Korea, according to the presidential office on Thursday.
South Korea and Cuba on Wednesday evening officially announced that they had forged diplomatic relations, fulfilling Seoul's decadeslong aspiration to engage with the socialist country. Seoul believes the move delivers a blow to North Korea.
"The establishment of diplomatic ties with Cuba signifies the culmination of our diplomatic engagements with socialist countries, including former Eastern Bloc countries that were friendly to North Korea," a senior presidential official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
"The establishment of diplomatic ties serves as a definitive illustration of the prevailing trend in history and clearly indicates who holds the upper hand."
The official said the "establishment of relations with Cuba was not a simple issue but rather a long-standing goal and challenge for Korea," acknowledging that Cuba's "extensive and enduring relationship" with North Korea posed the biggest obstacle.
The official explained North Korea and Cuba signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation on the occasion of then-Cuban leader Fidel Castro's visit to North Korea in 1986. In the preamble of the treaty, there was a passage stating that the two countries had a "fraternal solidarity relationship."
"Therefore, it is expected that North Korea will inevitably suffer significant political and psychological repercussions due to this establishment of diplomatic relations," the official said.
"The reason Cuba was unable to readily agree to establish diplomatic relations, despite holding positive feelings toward (South) Korea for various reasons such as the Korean Wave, was primarily due to its relationship with North Korea."
Negotiations between South Korea and Cuba had been conducted clandestinely, particularly considering Cuba's long-standing relations with North Korea.
North Korea and Cuba established diplomatic ties in 1960, just a year after Fidel Castro's revolution. Since then, the two countries have maintained close exchanges for decades, particularly during the Cold War era, primarily based on anti-American and socialist ideologies.
In stark contrast, Seoul and Havana ceased all exchanges and refrained from contacting each other on the international stage after Fidel Castro overthrew the Fulgencio Batista regime and led the socialist revolution in 1959.
Under Castro's rule, Cuba aligned itself with the Soviet Union, becoming a communist state and a focal point of Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, including the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
But in a surprising turn of events, representatives of South Korea and Cuba exchanged diplomatic notes on Wednesday in New York, officially establishing diplomatic and consular relations.
With Cuba becoming the 193rd country with which South Korea has established diplomatic relations, only Syria remains among UN member states with which South Korea has yet to forge diplomatic ties.
"The establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba, the only non-diplomatic country in the Latin American and Caribbean region, marks a significant turning point in enhancing South Korea's diplomacy in the region," South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday in a statement.
"It is expected to contribute to expanding our diplomatic horizon as a global pivotal state."
The presidential office on Thursday underscored that Cuba has established diplomatic relations with around 190 countries and hosts embassies from more than 100 countries, making it a key country in Latin America.
The official emphasized that "Cuba has played a considerable significant role in the Non-Aligned Movement and 'third world' diplomacy."
Young Cubans participate in the traditional torch march to commemorate the 171st anniversary of the birth of the country's hero Jose Marti (1853-1895), in Havana, Cuba, 27 January 2024. (EPA)
One South Korean diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity to The Korea Herald on Thursday, said that South Korea has been striving for around 20 years to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba.
The initiative began during the Kim Dae-jung administration in 2000, and the efforts were renewed under the Yoon Suk Yeol government.
Another diplomatic source said, "The Korean government has been making consistent efforts to improve relations with Cuba."
According to the source, high-level South Korean officials have consistently sought engagement at various events, including the UN General Assembly and those hosted by the Caribbean Community. During these gatherings, they actively "sought opportunities to meet with Cuban officials to explore avenues for enhancing bilateral relations."
For instance, then-Foreign Minister Park Jin met with Cuba's Deputy Foreign Minister Josefina Vidal on the sidelines of the council meeting of the Association of Caribbean States in Guatemala in May last year.
"Cuba has responded positively, leading to the establishment of diplomatic relations," the second source said.
In conversation with The Korea Herald, multiple diplomatic sources explained the clear imperative both for South Korea and Cuba to establish diplomatic ties, especially in light of increasing cultural, economic and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, around 14,000 South Korean nationals visited Cuba annually. Additionally, around 1,100 descendants of Korean immigrants who migrated there onward from Mexico in 1921 currently reside in Cuba.
Since the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency opened a branch office in Havana in 2005, there has been steady progress in bilateral trade. In 2022, South Korea's exports to Cuba totaled $14 million and imports from Cuba amounted to $7 million.
In the statement, the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said the establishment of diplomatic relations is expected to "contribute to the expansion of substantive cooperation between the two countries by creating institutional frameworks for enhancing economic cooperation and supporting Korean companies' entry into the Cuban market."
The Foreign Ministry highlighted expectations for streamlined consular assistance to be provided to South Korean nationals visiting Cuba.
The Korean government also credited newfound openness in Cuba to the favorable perception of Korea among Cubans, driven by their avid interest in K-pop and Korean drama series.
One Cuban group called Club de Arte Coreano includes roughly 10,000 fans of Korean popular culture. In film, the Cuban Cinema Festival was held in central Seoul in summer 2022, while a special exhibition featured Korean films at the Havana Film Festival in December last year.
The Foreign Ministry underscored that the "proliferation of positive perceptions among the citizens of both countries, facilitated by recent vibrant cultural exchanges, has contributed to establishing diplomatic relations."
The ministry said the Korean government will actively engage in discussions with the Cuban government on follow-up measures, including the mutual opening of missions in each country.
koreaherald.com · by Ji Da-gyum · February 15, 2024
16. What’s wrong with Kim Jong Un’s new policy to promote regional development?
The truth is if it does not directly support the regime then it is not really a priority. regional development is only lip service as stated below.
What’s wrong with Kim Jong Un’s new policy to promote regional development?
Despite lip service to regional development, North Korea continues to focus on large-scale projects centered on Pyongyang
By Lee Jong-Suk - February 16, 2024
https://www.dailynk.com/english/problems-kim-jong-un-new-policy-promote-regional-development/
"The 10th meeting of the 14th session of the Supreme People's Assembly of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was held on Jan. 15 at the Mansudae Shrine in the capital, Pyongyang," Rodong Sinmun reported on Jan. 16. This photo shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering a speech at the meeting. (Rodong Sinmun-News1)
On Jan. 15, North Korea convened the 10th Plenary Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly, where North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced in a speech his plan to promote a policy of balanced regional development. The plan calls for the construction of regional factories in 20 selected cities and counties each year for 10 years and the balanced improvement of public livelihoods through regional development. Kim seems to have been aware that public discontent was growing as regional inequality worsened by the day.
Political attempts to achieve balanced regional development in North Korea are nothing new. Regional development is a task that North Korea has long pursued under previous leaders. At a meeting in 1962, the late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung criticized the country’s excessive urbanization and presented a plan to develop regional industries to reduce regional disparities. Under Kim Jong Il, however, more serious regional disparities manifested themselves. For example, during the Arduous March in the mid-1990s, there were more starvation deaths in outlying cities and rural areas than in regions at Pyongyang’s economic level.
Under Kim Jong Un, regional disparities have worsened. The gap between the provinces and the cities has widened, especially as the authorities have been preoccupied with self-reliance in the face of economic sanctions against the North over its nuclear program and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Moreover, markets have long been a lifeline for ordinary people since the state rationing system collapsed during the Arduous March, but even markets are dying under Kim’s controls to throttle market activity.
Pyongyang development is still the government’s main focus
Kim appears to be pushing a regional development policy, announcing a policy to strengthen smaller cities and counties and a strategy to develop agricultural communities with the goal of balanced regional development. However, North Korea continues to focus on large-scale projects centered on Pyongyang. For example, during the Eighth Party Congress, the ruling party said it would build 50,000 new homes in Pyongyang over five years, at a rate of 10,000 per year. In his policy speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly on Jan. 15, Kim urged officials to speed up the construction of the 50,000 homes in Pyongyang.
North Korean policy under Kim Jong Un appears to be focused on certain classes, such as military leaders and scientists or the powerful elite, rather than on regional development or ordinary people. We can make this assumption because large-scale construction – what we might call Kim’s central project – is focused mainly on Pyongyang, with its benefits going to Pyongyang residents.
Pyongyang is a planned city that rose from the ashes after the Korean War. In particular, in adherence to socialist urban planning theory, the city’s planners refused to make it a metropolis and designed it as a pleasant city that combined urban and rural elements. However, under Kim Jong Un, the capital’s population has continued to grow, with the current population about 10% higher than it was in the early 2010s. We can see this as the result of the Kim regime’s efforts to win over the largely Pyongyang-oriented ruling class. This contention is supported by the fact that the government continues to build luxury apartments in Pyongyang – ostensibly because of a housing shortage – even though the country could only control the city’s population.
Nevertheless, Kim Jong Un has not been lazy in terms of pushing for balanced regional development. To modernize regional industries, he has made on-site inspection tours of production facilities closely related to people’s livelihoods, such as cosmetics, shoes, bags, food, and socks, in search of development plans. Despite his busy schedule for the Party’s Foundation Day in 2022, he still found time to attend the inauguration ceremony of the Yonpo Greenhouse Farm, North Korea’s largest vegetable greenhouse. For now, however, the authorities are pushing these regional projects as trials. However, these pilot projects must be expanded and become sustainable. The need for continuity behind these trial projects likely fueled Kim’s criticism of regional obsolescence during his Jan. 15 policy speech and announcement of his plan to push the “20×10 regional development policy.”
The government must be a reliable supplier of basic commodities
However, there is much skepticism. Many people hoped that the ruling party’s adoption of a policy of simultaneous economic and nuclear development at a plenary meeting of the Central Committee in March 2013 would correct the military imbalance between North and South Korea by developing nuclear weapons and allow the country to focus on nuclear development. On the contrary, the policy has only hurt economic development due to UN sanctions against the country over its nuclear development program.
Kim’s “20×10 regional development policy” is unlikely to yield results if the authorities implement it using the self-reliant methods of the past. The factories needed for regional development must be built, and the raw materials and supplies needed for production must be provided. Adequate supplies of technology and energy must also be made available. The role of the central government is crucial. Put another way, the government must be able to play a sufficient role as a basic supplier of electricity, cement, steel, glass, coal, and other supplies – a supplier that can drive the country’s development. North Korea’s government is a much weaker supplier of these things than it was 20 years ago. The main reason is the impact of international sanctions on the country due to its nuclear program.
If North Korea’s regional imbalances continue, the loyalty and ideology of the people that have sustained the country’s socialist system could collapse overnight. Particularly in the eyes of people in provincial towns, housing construction focused on Pyongyang is likely to look like a bonanza to be exclusively enjoyed by the country’s elite. No matter how much the regime needs the strong loyalty of the high-ranking party and military cadres living in Pyongyang, it cannot survive if the tacit support of the remaining 20 million people evaporates.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Views expressed in this guest column do not necessarily reflect those of Daily NK. Please send any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
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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
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