Quotes of the Day:

“Mayor Orden stood behind a chair and gripped its back with his hands. “Do the people want order, Molly?” “I don’t know,” she said. “They want to be free.” “Well, do they know how to go about it? Do they know what method to use against an armed enemy?” “No,” Molly said, “I don’t think so.” “You are a bright girl, Molly; do you know?” “No, sir, but I think the people feel that they are beaten if they are docile. They want to show these soldiers they’re unbeaten.” “They’ve had no chance to fight. It’s no fight to go against machine guns,” Doctor Winter said. Orden said, “When you know what they want to do, will you tell me, Molly?” She looked at him suspiciously. “Yes—” she said. “You mean ‘no.’ You don’t trust me.” “But how about Alex?” she questioned. “I’ll not sentence him. He has committed no crime against our people,” said the Mayor. Molly was hesitant now. She said, “Will they—will they kill Alex?” Orden stared at her and he said, “Dear chile. My dear child."

— The Moon Is Down (Twentieth-century Classics) by John Steinbeck

"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong."

– Voltaire

"Dear optimist, pessimist, and realist – while you guys were busy arguing about the glass of wine, I drank it! 

Sincerely, the opportunist."

–Lori Greiner

1. China's President has Power Over Kim Jong Un. Will he Use it for Denuclearization?

2. How to Reduce Nuclear Risks Between the United States and North Korea

3. A Russian Bank Account May Offer Clues to a North Korean Arms Deal

4. North Korea Has Lost the ‘Unification Competition’

5. If You Want Peace, Prepare for War, and Diplomacy

6. South Koreans stay calm as they see showmanship in the North's escalating threats

7. North Koreans’ consumption of foreign media grows over last decade: Survey

8. Halfway Deal: How Joe Biden Can Cap North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program

9. South Korean poll finds many unconvinced Trump would help rid North Korea of nukes

10. North Korea defectors cite dwindling food rations, market reliance -study

11. Analysis: North Korean Ballistic Missiles Fired Against Ukraine

12. ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Authorities threaten defectors with firing squads and imprisonment at neighborhood watch unit meetings…Massive search launched to find suspected defector

13. China reaffirms support for inter-Korean ties amid peninsula tensions

14. Standing firm in support of Ukraine

15. Culture ministry aims to make S. Korea global cultural power

16. Ex-defense minister, ex-presidential chief of staff granted special presidential pardons

17. More N. Koreans negative about leader Kim Jong-un, hereditary power succession: report

1. China's President has Power Over Kim Jong Un. Will he Use it for Denuclearization?

What will benefit China more:

Denuclearization of north Korea?

north Korea creating continued dilemmas for the US and ROK?

north Korea providing lethal aid to Russia so China does not get its hands dirty?

north Korea conducting an attack of the ROK during a Taiwan conflict?

China's President has Power Over Kim Jong Un. Will he Use it for Denuclearization?

thecipherbrief.com

February 5th, 2024 by Joseph DeTrani, |

Ambassador Joseph DeTrani is former Special envoy for Six Party Talks with North Korea and the U.S. Representative to the Korea Energy Development Organization (KEDO), as well as former CIA director of East Asia Operations. He also served as the Associate Director of National Intelligence and Mission Manager for North Korea and the Director of the National Counter Proliferation Center, while also serving as a Special Adviser to the Director of National Intelligence. He currently serves on the Board of Managers at Sandia National Laboratories. The views expressed represent those of the author.

View all articles by Joseph DeTrani

OPINION – During the past two years, North Korea has launched over 100 ballistic missiles, to include hypersonic, short and intermediate-range, cruise, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Their last nuclear test was in September 2017, of a reported thermonuclear weapon (hydrogen bomb). A seventh nuclear test has been imminent for the past year.

Here’s a deeper dive: North Korea launched three successful Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) tests in 2023, the most recent a solid-fuel road mobile ICBM with an assessed range of 15,000 kilometers (9,320 miles), capable of targeting the whole of the U.S., and in early January 2024, a solid-fuel Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) with a range of 5000 kilometers, capable of targeting Guam, in addition to last month’s test of an underwater nuclear weapon.

On January 5, 2024, North Korea fired over 200 artillery shells in waters adjacent to South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, where in 2010, North Korea killed four South Koreans and injured nineteen after North Korea torpedoed a South Korean corvette that killed 46 seamen.

This escalation coincided with reported pronouncements from North Korea’s Kim Jong Un that South Korea is the North’s principal enemy and no longer the “partner of reconciliation and reunification, but instead an enemy that must be subjugated, if necessary, through a nuclear war.”

Last year, Kim said nuclear weapons would be enshrined in the constitution and previously had announced that North Korea’s nuclear doctrine changed from nuclear weapons as a deterrent to the pre-emptive first use of nuclear weapons in the event of an imminent attack against its leadership or command and control infrastructure.

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The spate of missile launches and bellicose rhetoric from Pyongyang coincides with a very public warming of relations with Russia. On September 13, 2023, Kim met with Vladimir Putin in Russia’s Far East and in October 2023, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Pyongyang for meetings with Kim.

Last month, North Korea’s Foreign Minister, Choe Son Hui, visited Moscow for meetings with Putin and Lavrov, with an announcement that Putin will be visiting North Korea in the foreseeable future.

No doubt, discussions also dealt with the ballistic missiles and other weapons North Korea is providing to Russia, for its war in Ukraine. It’s also likely discussions dealt with the nuclear and missile assistance Russia will provide to North Korea. On November 21, 2023, North Korea successfully placed its first reconnaissance satellite in orbit, most likely with the assistance of Russia. Kim recently proclaimed that North Korea would put three new military reconnaissance satellites into orbit in 2024, probably with Russian assistance.

The former Soviet Union has a long history of nuclear and missile assistance to North Korea. It abruptly ended in 1991 with the implosion of the Soviet Union. This historical relationship, starting with the Korean War from 1950-53, is now being reconstructed, with North Korea assisting Russia with weapons for its war in Ukraine and Russia apparently prepared to provide North Korea with nuclear and ballistic missile assistance – all in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

On October 3, 2002, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly traveled to Pyongyang and in meetings with North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan, said North Korea had a secret program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, violating signed agreements with the U.S. – the Agreed Framework — and the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreement and the Joint North-South Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. On the second day of Kelly’s visit, North Korea’s First Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju told Kelly that North Korea was entitled to have nuclear weapons to safeguard its security.

President George W. Bush, in his memoir Decision Points, documents his conversations with China’s President Jiang Zemin in October 2002, at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and in January 2003, telling Jiang that he was concerned about a nuclear arms race if North Korea persists with its nuclear weapons program. Then in February 2003, Bush said: “I went one step further. I told President Jiang that if we could not solve the problem diplomatically, I would have to consider a military strike against North Korea. The first meeting of the Six-Party Talks took place six months later in Beijing.” And “in September 2005, our patience was rewarded. The North Koreans agreed to abandon all nuclear weapons and return to their commitments under the NPT.”

The Six-Party Talks ended abruptly in 2009, when North Korea refused to permit United Nations nuclear monitors to leave the Yongbyon nuclear facility to inspect non-declared suspect nuclear sites in North Korea. Those suspected nuclear sites were the Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) sites for nuclear weapons.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin was key to getting North Korea to join the Six Party Talks (China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, the U.S. and North Korea) for its first meeting in August 2003, and Chinese President Hu Jintao was instrumental in getting North Korea, after missile launches in July 2006 and its first nuclear test in October 2006, to return to negotiations in 2007 and commence with the dismantlement of its Yongbyon nuclear reactor.

China assisted with North Korea in 2003 and 2006 because China also knew that North Korea with nuclear weapons would not only incite a nuclear arms race in the region, but it would bring instability to the Korean Peninsula and the whole of Northeast Asia.

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The Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty between China and North Korea, signed in July 1961, was renewed in 2021, for another twenty years, between Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. It commits China to come to the aid of North Korea during times of conflict.

China’s official news agency Xinhua on March 22, 2021, said “Xi Jinping is willing to work with North Korea and other related parties to uphold the political settlement of the Korean Peninsula issue and preserve peace and stability on the peninsula, so as to make new contributions to regional peace, stability, development and prosperity.”

In addition to this defense treaty, China provides North Korea with over 90% of its crude oil imports and over 90% of its trade, in addition to significant amounts of food aid. Clearly, China has significant leverage over North Korea.

Given recent developments, the potential for conflict on the Korean Peninsula is high. This is the time for China to act. To convince North Korea that further escalation of tension with South Korea could lead to conflict and war on the Korean Peninsula, with dire consequences for the two Koreas and the region.

This piece by Cipher Brief Expert Ambassador Joe Detrani was first published by The Washington Times

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2. How to Reduce Nuclear Risks Between the United States and North Korea

Conclusion:

The recommendations presented above are not uniform in their feasibility or in the extent to which they rely on existing precedent in prior diplomatic engagement with North Korea. Each, however, is premised on contributing to a short-term reduction of the risk of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula. In parallel to longer-term thinking about denuclearization possibilities on the Korean Peninsula, U.S. and South Korean policymakers and military planners should recognize that, as a practical matter, they will continue to coexist with a nuclear-armed North Korea in the interim. Out of a shared interest with Pyongyang in lowering the risk of a nuclear conflict that neither side desires, Washington and Seoul should seek to proactively advance measures that can limit the risk of nuclear escalation in future crises.

How to Reduce Nuclear Risks Between the United States and North Korea

Coexistence with a nuclear-armed North Korea will require the proactive consideration of pragmatic risk reduction measures.

https://www.usip.org/publications/2024/02/how-reduce-nuclear-risks-between-united-states-and-north-korea

Monday, February 5, 2024 / BY: Ankit Panda

PUBLICATION TYPE: Analysis

Since the collapse of the unprecedented leader-level diplomatic process between the United States and North Korea in 2019, relations between the two sides have been at a standstill. In 2021, as the Biden administration entered office, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un set into motion a wide-ranging plan for the modernization of his nuclear forces. This modernization has helped render his nuclear deterrent more credible while accentuating the risks of nuclear conflict on the Korean Peninsula. It has further cemented North Korea’s lack of intent to relinquish its nuclear weapons, which it views as the essential cornerstone of its national defense strategy.

South Korean soldiers stand guard outside the meeting rooms that straddle the border with North Korea in Panmunjom, a so-called truce village, in the Demilitarized Zone, April 19, 2017. (Lam Yik Fei/The New York Times)

In the absence of North Korean nuclear disarmament in the near future, the United States and South Korea should seek a new approach that seeks to manage and reduce nuclear risks through forward-leaning, practical measures.

A New Approach

Out of their self-interest in lowering the risk of nuclear conflict and seeking stability, the allies should adopt a new approach to the North Korea challenge. The new approach should address the mistrust that exists between Pyongyang, on the one hand, and Washington and Seoul, on the other. It should further seek to stabilize the Korean Peninsula such that future crises are less prone to spiral into a major conventional war that could spark deliberate or unintentional nuclear escalation. At the same time, the new approach could also be compatible with the status quo policy of maintaining robust deterrence and seeking the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

In practice, North Korea may be unlikely to reciprocate interest in such proposals in the current geopolitical landscape. However, the United States and South Korea could also seek to reduce the risks of unintentional escalation, in particular, through unilateral measures, in parallel with cooperative measures to improve security on the Korean Peninsula. Ultimately, Washington and Seoul should recognize that the prospect of a nuclear-armed Pyongyang is likely to remain a long-term fixture of the strategic environment in Northeast Asia.

Mitigating North Korea’s Low Threshold for Nuclear Use through Declaratory Assurances

North Korea’s strategic predicament has led to its national defense strategy strongly privileging the role of nuclear weapons. Facing a conventionally superior, territorially contiguous nuclear-armed U.S.-South Korea alliance, Pyongyang has threatened to resort to early nuclear use both to deter conflict and, should deterrence fail, to asymmetrically escalate with the use of nuclear weapons to degrade an attack by the alliance. For these reasons, it will be difficult to push Pyongyang toward an alternative nuclear posture. However, what may be more tractable for the alliance are measures that acknowledge the most likely alliance behaviors and capabilities that incentivize early nuclear use by North Korea.

One highly tractable, short-term intervention could be declaratory assurances by the United States concerning the possibility of offensive cyberattacks on Pyongyang’s nuclear command and control systems. Since the Trump administration, the United States has pursued a comprehensive missile defeat strategy that explicitly contemplates the possibility of employing offensive cyberweapons to sever Kim from his nuclear arsenal. Due to a lack of effective strategic situational awareness capabilities, North Korea would be unable to observe any U.S. preparation for such an attack in the course of a crisis, but its leadership would fear that its ability to exercise effective control over its nuclear forces could be degraded, creating incentives to nuclear use. North Korea would also fear kinetic strikes that could degrade its command and control, but preparation for large-scale kinetic attacks by the alliance would have observable signatures. Pyongyang’s concern about these matters was crystallized in its September 2022 update to its nuclear weapons law, which announced that it would “automatically and immediately” use nuclear weapons if its command and control systems were degraded.

By forswearing deliberate non-kinetic attacks on North Korean nuclear command and control, the United States could provide an important reassurance to Pyongyang that could mitigate its incentives to resort to early nuclear use in a crisis. This would not require Washington to abjure any offensive cyber capabilities, which would be unverifiable by Pyongyang, in any case. But the current adoption of an approach that explicitly permits for non-kinetic attacks on North Korean nuclear command and control is destabilizing. Such a step could be packaged with a broader, more ambitious set of U.S. proposals seeking to limit North Korea’s nuclear capabilities — if not through a denuclearization process, then through a risk reduction process.

Inter-Korean Risk Reduction

The military postures of both North and South Korea today meet the classic definition of crisis instability: each side signals its resolve to launch preemptive strikes in the course of a war, hoping to limit damage and seek strategic and tactical advantage. For North Korea, this threat of preemption is underwritten by its nuclear weapons. For South Korea, the preemptive use of conventional ballistic and cruise missiles, backed by high-quality intelligence, is a central pillar of its “Kill Chain” strategy.

Any inter-Korean agreement, institution or process that can steer the two countries away from these preemptive attack postures will contribute substantially to improving crisis stability. Failing this, however, the two Koreas should look to the 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA) as a template for managing the sources of instability. Though North Korea scrapped the CMA last November in response to South Korea’s partial suspension of the deal following North Korea’s launch of a military satellite, the basic logic of the agreement remains sound in addressing the scope for possible misunderstanding and incidents that could spiral into a major conventional military conflagration, which could escalate to the nuclear level.

Should political conditions improve between the two Koreas, Pyongyang and Seoul should seek to reoperationalize the CMA or a similar successor agreement that generally provides for a greater buffer between the Korean People’s Army and South Korea’s armed forces. Such an agreement need not be tied to concrete measures by Pyongyang on denuclearization, but would have the practical effect of limiting pathways to a conflict that could rapidly escalate due to the two sides’ preemptive attack postures.

Risk Reduction through Improved Diplomatic Relations

Though not a traditional focus of nuclear risk reduction on the Korean Peninsula, an improvement in diplomatic relations between the United States and North Korea can have several salutary effects on crisis stability. For instance, the prospect of a U.S. liaison office in Pyongyang, staffed by one or multiple U.S. Foreign Service officers, has been a prospect in negotiations going back to the Agreed Framework.

While a liaison office has primarily been seen for its diplomatic significance, the presence of U.S. officials in Pyongyang could attenuate any concerns North Korea may have in a serious crisis that the United States would contemplate nuclear use against at least the national capital (where Kim may be). Lowering concerns about such a strike would have the effect of mitigating the incentives that Kim might otherwise face to resort to nuclear use himself.

Since the inclusion of this proposal in the text of the Agreed Framework in 1994, the United States and North Korea have revisited it in subsequent negotiations. Ultimately, no U.S. liaison office has been set up due to a lack of progress on denuclearization, but greater flexibility on the denuclearization objective could allow Washington to take this relatively low-cost step to improve ties with Pyongyang while also mitigating nuclear risks.

Conclusions

The recommendations presented above are not uniform in their feasibility or in the extent to which they rely on existing precedent in prior diplomatic engagement with North Korea. Each, however, is premised on contributing to a short-term reduction of the risk of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula. In parallel to longer-term thinking about denuclearization possibilities on the Korean Peninsula, U.S. and South Korean policymakers and military planners should recognize that, as a practical matter, they will continue to coexist with a nuclear-armed North Korea in the interim. Out of a shared interest with Pyongyang in lowering the risk of a nuclear conflict that neither side desires, Washington and Seoul should seek to proactively advance measures that can limit the risk of nuclear escalation in future crises.

Ankit Panda is the Stanton senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

3.  A Russian Bank Account May Offer Clues to a North Korean Arms Deal

A Russian Bank Account May Offer Clues to a North Korean Arms Deal

Moscow may be trying to help Pyongyang with access to the international financial system in exchange for missiles and ammunition, U.S.-allied intelligence officials suggest.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/world/asia/north-korea-russia-missiles-bank.html?utm

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An image provided by North Korean state media in December showed Kim Jong-un with what was said to be an intercontinental ballistic missile.Credit...Korean Central News Agency, via Associated Pres​s

By Motoko Rich

Feb. 6, 2024, 12:01 a.m. ET

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Russia has allowed the release of millions of dollars in frozen North Korean assets and may be helping its isolated ally with access to international banking networks, assistance that has come after the North’s transfer of weapons to Moscow for use against Ukraine, according to American-allied intelligence officials.

The White House said last month that it had evidence that North Korea had provided ballistic missiles to Russia, and that the North was seeking military hardware in return. Pyongyang also appears to have shipped up to 2.5 million rounds of ammunition, according to an analysis by a British security think tank.

While it is unclear whether Russia has given North Korea the military technology it may want, new banking ties would be another sign of the steady advancement in relations between the two countries. The expanding partnership has most likely emboldened the North, as it has issued a stream of belligerent threats in recent months, U.S. officials say.

Russia has allowed the release of $9 million out of $30 million in frozen North Korean assets deposited in a Russian financial institution, according to the intelligence officials, money that they say the impoverished North will use to buy crude oil.

In addition, a North Korean front company recently opened an account at another Russian bank, the intelligence officials say, evidence that Moscow may be helping Pyongyang get around U.N. sanctions that prohibit most banks from doing business with North Korea. Those sanctions have choked the North’s economy and largely shut the country off from international financial networks.

The new bank account is held in South Ossetia, a self-proclaimed independent state in the Caucasus region that has close connections with Russia, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.

Image

Mr. Kim met with President Vladimir V. Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in eastern Russia last year.Credit...Vladimir Smirnov/Sputnik, via Reuter​s

American officials said they could not confirm the specifics of the banking arrangements. But one senior official, who also requested anonymity to speak about intelligence matters, said that the arrangements fit with U.S. expectations of what North Korea would seek from Russia for its weapon transfers.

Access to financial networks is just one item on North Korea’s wish list, according to experts. What the North most wants from Russia, they say, is advanced military hardware, such as satellite technology and nuclear-powered submarines.

The closer ties have already yielded diplomatic payoffs. After the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, met with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, in eastern Russia last fall, Mr. Putin met in January with the North’s foreign minister, Choe Son-hui, in Moscow.

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• Waiting for the United States: Ukrainian officials were quick to thank the E.U. for the funds. But President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine also alluded to uncertainty over future American support.
• A Longer Game: For Orban, aid to Ukraine has never been a question of immovable principle. It is just one of many issues on which he has sought to establish himself as the leader of a populist and nativist pan-European movement.

During that meeting, Mr. Putin signaled that he might soon visit Pyongyang, his first trip to North Korea’s capital in nearly 25 years, according to the North’s state media.

The banking arrangements could be significant for North Korea, which relies on imports to sustain much of its economy. The relationships could facilitate transactions not only within Russia but also outside the country. North Korea could leverage Moscow’s connections to a handful of countries, including Turkey and South Africa, that still conduct trade with Russia after it was hit with international sanctions over the Ukraine war.

If Moscow is allowing North Korea to use Russian banks or is releasing frozen assets, the government will have “crossed the Rubicon of willingness to deal with North Korea and to be a financial and commercial rogue,” said Juan C. Zarate, a former assistant Treasury secretary and expert on financial crimes.

While Russia’s release of $9 million in frozen assets is relatively small, the North Koreans “welcome any alternative ways of accessing capital,” Mr. Zarate said.

The United Nations and the United States have imposed a range of sanctions on North Korea in response to its prohibited nuclear weapons tests. Banking sanctions have “been one of the challenges for the North Koreans and the reason they’ve frankly been creative in how they’ve established their financial networks,” including the use of cryptocurrencies, Mr. Zarate said.

Image

Damage after a Russian strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, in December. Last month, the White House said it had evidence that North Korea had provided ballistic missiles used by Russia.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Time​s

For Russia, the financial transactions may be more palatable than supplying military expertise and nuclear and other technology.

Even though the two countries “could be friends with benefits now,” said Soo Kim, a former C.I.A. analyst on North Korea, their trust is not so great that Russia would “give away its valued secrets.”

Experts said that Russia would move cautiously because it was still mindful of U.N. sanctions as a permanent member of the Security Council. Russia, they said, may believe it can sidestep the sanctions in a deniable way.

“They can always say, ‘Oh, well, this is a private bank and our investigators will look into it,’ and it will never go any further,” said James D.J. Brown, a professor of political science at the Tokyo campus of Temple University who specializes in relations between Russia and East Asia.

Beyond the banking relationships, Russia may simply barter goods that the North needs in exchange for its weapons.

“What would be logical for North Korea is to be engaging in swaps of grain and agricultural technology like tractors, which are banned through sanctions,” said Hazel Smith, a professor of Korean studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

“Given the precariousness of the ruble and the complete lack of value of the North Korean won, it’s very difficult to see why major transactions for either Russia or North Korea would be conducted in rubles,” she added.

As much as anything, by sending missiles and ammunition to Russia, North Korea has gained the attention of the world and diplomatic perks from Moscow.

“I think they value that quite a lot,” said Joseph Byrne, a research fellow who specializes in North Korea at the Royal United Services Institute, a British security think tank. “The ceremony of it, the legitimacy of it.”

“It just makes North Korea that much stronger,” Mr. Byrne said, “if it looks like they have the full support of Russia.”

Hisako Ueno contributed reporting.

Motoko Rich is a reporter in Tokyo, leading coverage of Japan for The Times. More about Motoko Rich

4. North Korea Has Lost the ‘Unification Competition’

Excerpts:

Is Kim preparing to attack South Korea and pursue unification by force, including using nuclear weapon?

Recently, North Korea raised military tensions with South Korea to an unprecedentedly high level. At the Korean Workers’ Party plenum at the end of last year, Kim Jong Un declared South Korea to be “the most hostile state” and inter-Korean relations “a warring belligerent relationship,” and ordered North Korea’s army to “prepare a great event to conquer the territory of South Korea.”

The nuclear-armed North Korea appears confident that it can overwhelm the nonnuclear South Korea and deter U.S. military intervention. However, it is unlikely that North Korea will start a premeditated, all-out war against the South for the time being, since a war would be suicidal and bring about the end of its regime. Moreover, North Korea’s economy cannot afford to sustain an all-out war, and neither China nor Russia would support a North Korea-initiated war. On the other hand, a limited military attack by the North can happen anytime near the demarcation line. An accidental military collision and escalation can also occur anytime due to the unusually high level of military preparedness and tensions between the two Koreas as well as their preemptive doctrines.

North Korea Has Lost the ‘Unification Competition’

Kim Jong Un ditches idea of peaceful unification and casts South Korea as a ‘primary foe.’

https://www.usip.org/publications/2024/02/north-korea-has-lost-unification-competition

Thursday, February 1, 2024 / BY: Bong-geun Jun

PUBLICATION TYPE: Analysis

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in January declared peaceful unification with South Korea is no longer possible. In a speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly, North Korea’s parliament, Kim said North Korea’s constitution should be amended to show that South Korea is a “primary foe and invariable principal enemy.”

Soldiers are seen near the military demarcation line at Panmunjom, in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, Feb. 7, 2023. (Chang W. Lee/The New York Times)

Days later, North Korea demolished a monument that symbolized hope for reconciliation with South Korea. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol responded to Kim’s remarks stating that if the North carried out a provocation, South Korea “will retaliate multiple times stronger.”

USIP’s Bong-geun Jun discusses the implications of Kim’s surprising renunciation of Pyongyang’s policy of seeking peaceful unification with South Korea.

Why did Kim Jong Un suddenly renounce North Korea’s traditional policy of seeking peaceful unification with South Korea?

Since the Kim Il Sung era, North Korea had maintained a one-nation, one-state unification policy and unification offensive toward South Korea. Therefore, Kim Jong Un’s recent renunciation of peaceful national unification bewildered most North Korea watchers. It is seen as an acknowledgment of the uncomfortable reality that North Korea has lost the ”unification competition” with South Korea and is searching for a new survival strategy.

Historically, unification is possible only when the stronger country absorbs the weaker one militarily or peacefully. Today, South Korea is a leading middle power, while North Korea is an isolated rogue state. South Korea’s population is twice that of North Korea’s, and its economy is 50 to 60 times that of North Korea’s. It is natural that North Korea, suffering from chronic economic and systemic crises, is concerned about potential unification by absorption. Therefore, North Korea’s best survival strategy would be a complete political and legal break from South Korea.

Is Kim preparing to attack South Korea and pursue unification by force, including using nuclear weapon?

Recently, North Korea raised military tensions with South Korea to an unprecedentedly high level. At the Korean Workers’ Party plenum at the end of last year, Kim Jong Un declared South Korea to be “the most hostile state” and inter-Korean relations “a warring belligerent relationship,” and ordered North Korea’s army to “prepare a great event to conquer the territory of South Korea.”

The nuclear-armed North Korea appears confident that it can overwhelm the nonnuclear South Korea and deter U.S. military intervention. However, it is unlikely that North Korea will start a premeditated, all-out war against the South for the time being, since a war would be suicidal and bring about the end of its regime. Moreover, North Korea’s economy cannot afford to sustain an all-out war, and neither China nor Russia would support a North Korea-initiated war. On the other hand, a limited military attack by the North can happen anytime near the demarcation line. An accidental military collision and escalation can also occur anytime due to the unusually high level of military preparedness and tensions between the two Koreas as well as their preemptive doctrines.

What will South Korea's response be to Kim’s declaration? Do most South Koreans prefer to live as separate states rather than a unified state?   

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol criticized Kim Jong Un’s renunciation of unification as “anti-nationalistic.” He also added that North Korea’s military attacks would be countered with immediate and multiplied military retaliation. The South Korean government maintains its traditional national unification policy of one nation, one state, one government and one system, and, according to its constitution (Article 4), pursues a “peaceful unification policy based on the basic free and democratic order.”

However, the public has mixed views. According to a recent public poll, the majority of South Koreans (52%) prefer a peacefully coexisting two-state system, while 28% support a unified state. Today, the Korean Peninsula is at a crossroads between a divided-state and a two-state system. Most South Koreans would not accept the “hostile two-state system” proposed by Kim Jong Un. At the same time, they do not want to continue the divided system of the past 75 years, where war and nuclear crises recur endlessly. Exploring a peaceful two-state system may be a path out of this conundrum.

What will Kim’s next moves be? Would those be more nuclear and missile tests, militarily aggressive moves against the South, or diplomatic gestures toward the United States? 

North Korea is expected to enhance its nuclear and missile capabilities as fast as possible so that it can not only overcome the U.S.-South Korea alliance’s defense system but also withstand the alliance’s first or preemptive strikes. Under the current Cold War-like situation, North Korea is almost unimpeded in pursuing its nuclear and missile programs. However, North Korea might refrain from conducting a seventh nuclear test and normal-angle, real-distance intercontinental ballistic missile (ICMB) test for now, since these red line-crossing provocations could result in additional sanctions by the U.N. Security Council, or at least unilateral adverse actions by the United States, South Korea and even China.. To counter U.S.-South Korea-Japan security cooperation, North Korea is also expected to actively engage with Russia and China. However, North Korea-Russia cooperation may be limited to the economy and conventional weapons for the time being. Despite North Korea’s demands and Russia’s hostility toward the United States, Russia is unlikely to transfer nuclear warheads and ICBM technology to North Korea.

How will Kim’s shifts in approach to the United States and South Korea affect the alliance’s policy toward North Korea?

It is unlikely that North Korea’s recent policy shifts will impact the alliance’s approach to North Korea, other than enhanced vigilance for indicators and warnings of near-term aggression. The alliance will continue to apply a pressure-based approach and build up its deterrence capabilities while seeking to compel North Korea to return to the negotiating table on the alliance’s terms, which include putting denuclearization on the agenda and talks starting at the working level. Also, since the leaders of South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed to coordinate and cooperate on overall diplomatic and security policies at Camp David in August 2023, a trilateral consultation would be necessary before any major shifts in alliance policy. On the other hand, the U.S. government has continued to propose dialogue with North Korea without any preconditions. North Korea might approach the United States again. Previously, the South Korean government used to ask for consultation and consent before the United States engaged in a dialogue with North Korea. Therefore, if the U.S.-North Korea dialogue emerges while inter-Korean relations deteriorate, the South Korea-U.S. alliance may become strained.

5. If You Want Peace, Prepare for War, and Diplomacy

Excerpts:

Moreover, North Korea’s willingness to engage on risk-reduction measures is far from certain. It may believe that maintaining risks at a high level serves its interests by discouraging the United States and its allies from conducting military activities that could increase the likelihood of conflict. Or it may decide to engage but condition its support for risk-reduction measures on unacceptable concessions from the allies.

Still, in light of the huge stakes, it is worth a try. Risk-reduction measures along these lines — together with a determined allied effort to reinforce deterrence — could help arrest or even reverse the current downward spiral on the peninsula. They could reduce each side’s incentives for pursuing an open-ended arms competition. Perhaps most importantly, they could help alleviate one of the most acute threats on the peninsula today — the risk of inadvertent armed conflict that could escalate to nuclear war.

And if faithfully implemented, such measures could reduce tensions, build habits of constructive engagement, pave the way for practical steps to reduce the North Korean nuclear threat and at least keep alive the hope, however remote today, of a nuclear weapons-free Korean Peninsula living in peace.

“If you want peace, prepare for war.” There’s much truth in that age-old advice. Deterrence may well be a necessary condition for achieving peace — or at least avoiding war.

But it’s only a partial truth. Deterrence may be necessary, but it’s not sufficient. It must be accompanied by diplomacy. And there’s an increasingly urgent need for diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula — diplomacy with realistically achievable and critically important goals.

If You Want Peace, Prepare for War, and Diplomacy

A combination of deterrence and diplomacy is key to avoiding war and pursuing peace on the Korean Peninsula.

https://www.usip.org/publications/2024/01/if-you-want-peace-prepare-war-and-diplomacy

Monday, January 29, 2024 / BY: Robert Einhorn

PUBLICATION TYPE: Analysis

At this Kim Dae-jung Peace Forum, it’s useful to recall seemingly paradoxical advice offered by a fourth-century Roman general: Si vis pacem, para bellum. “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a signing ceremony with then U.S. president Donald Trump on Sentosa Island in Singapore, June 12, 2018. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

This Roman-era aphorism has come to mean that if you face an aggressive adversary, build your military strength so that the adversary knows that, if it launches an attack, it will receive a punishing response — and will therefore be discouraged from pursuing such an attack. The idea of achieving peace by preparing for war has been a critical foundation of security strategies for many centuries. Today we call it “deterrence.”

Of course, not all countries prepare for war in order to have peace. Some have prepared for war as a prelude to waging war. Hitler built the Nazi war machine to conquer Europe and beyond. But for countries genuinely seeking peace and facing significant security threats from well-armed adversaries, building countervailing military strength has usually been the chosen strategy. They feared that failure to build and maintain adequate deterrent capabilities would signal weakness and might only invite aggression.

The Limits of Deterrence

Deterrence — or peace through strength, as it is sometimes called — has stood the test of time because it is widely believed to have worked. Deterrence of the Soviet Union by the United States and its NATO allies during the Cold War is credited with avoiding a major East-West conflict.

But a strategy of deterrence is not without risks. Strengthening defenses to deter an adversary may be interpreted by that adversary as an indication of aggressive intent and a serious threat to its own security. It may respond by further building up its own capabilities. The result may be an expensive and destabilizing arms race — one that reinforces mutual antagonisms, perpetuates a state of confrontation and makes resolution of the underlying conflict even more difficult.

In addition, as both sides build up their military capabilities, they may declare policies, test weapon systems or engage in exercises or deployments that the other side views as preparations for the use of force, even preemptive use of nuclear weapons. In such an environment, the risk of armed conflict breaking out as a result of accidents, misperceptions or miscalculations would grow.

Moreover, even if a mutual military buildup does not result in large-scale armed hostilities, it would not necessarily prevent lower-level provocations. Indeed, an aggressor’s belief that it could deter large-scale retaliation could increase its confidence that it could engage in lower-level provocations with impunity.

To avoid war and ultimately achieve peace, deterrence should be accompanied by diplomacy.

During the Cold War, while amassing huge nuclear arsenals to deter each other, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in diplomacy to moderate and stabilize their competition, limit and reduce their nuclear forces, adopt transparency and confidence-building measures to avoid dangerous miscalculations, and in general prevent their competition from getting out of control.

Yes, if you want peace, prepare for war. But also pursue diplomacy.

So, how do these considerations apply to matters of war and peace on the contemporary Korean Peninsula?

North Korea’s Growing Capabilities

Seventy years after the Korean Armistice Agreement, hope for genuine peace on the peninsula continues to fade. In recent years, the security environment has dramatically deteriorated. The primary cause of increased tension and instability has been North Korea’s relentless efforts to expand and diversify its nuclear and missile capabilities.

Under Kim Jong Un, this rapidly growing nuclear arsenal has been accompanied by inflammatory rhetoric toward Seoul and Washington, including the North’s often-declared willingness to use nuclear weapons preemptively.

What is Kim’s motivation for his aggressive nuclear posture? Is it essentially defensive — to ensure the survival of his regime from foreign interference or attack? Or is it essentially offensive — to intimidate and coerce South Korea and reunify the peninsula under Pyongyang’s control? Of course, we don’t know. We can only speculate.

North Korea’s initial motivation for pursuing nuclear weapons may well have been defensive — to deter what it perceived as foreign, mainly U.S., efforts to undermine or eliminate its regime. But whatever its initial motivation, Kim may now feel emboldened by his increased capabilities to pursue more offensive objectives.

Many observers doubt that Kim sees reunification of the peninsula by force as a realistic possibility. But he may now feel he can dominate inter-Korean relations, drive wedges in the U.S.-South Korean alliance and engage in increasingly aggressive provocations. And he may become dangerously overconfident in his ability to control the risks of escalation.

South Korea and the United States have become increasingly alarmed by the growing threat from North Korea. South Korean concerns have been magnified by uncertainty about the reliability of U.S. security guarantees.

U.S.-South Korea Response: Prioritizing Deterrence

The main allied response to the North Korean threat has been to boost their collective deterrent capabilities.

At the highest political levels, the administrations of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden have worked together closely to demonstrate strong alliance solidarity and resolve. Seoul has augmented its own conventional capabilities, including its three-axis strategy. South Korea and the United States have taken significant steps to reinforce the credibility of the United States’ extended nuclear deterrent and to give South Korea a more prominent role in the planning and execution of that deterrent — most notably in the Washington Declaration adopted during Yoon’s state visit to Washington in April. And together with Japan, the allies have boosted trilateral defense cooperation in unprecedented ways, as agreed at the Camp David summit in August 2023.

While prioritizing deterrence, the allies have also sought diplomatic engagement — reaching out repeatedly to Pyongyang to begin talks. But all those initiatives were rebuffed by the North.

In the absence of diplomacy, the situation is becoming more dangerous. North Korea continues to advance its threatening capabilities. The allies continue to strengthen their deterrent — with large-scale, live-fire joint defense drills and high-profile visits of U.S. strategic assets, including a port visit by a U.S. ballistic missile submarine. Pyongyang, in turn, condemns those allied efforts, which it claims are preparations for attacking the North. It says those efforts justify the further acceleration of its own programs and even its preemptive nuclear doctrine.

Risk Reduction: The Most Immediate Objective

What can be done to break this downward spiral? It may be time for a renewed push for diplomacy. But to get talks underway, a somewhat different approach may be required.

I believe the major reason Kim has so far rejected engagement has been his desire to avoid talks that might interfere with the completion of his ambitious five-year plan to develop and test key nuclear and missile capabilities.

But another reason may be what Washington and Seoul declare must be the focus of any negotiation — namely, the North’s complete denuclearization. Kim has made it clear that he has no intention of eliminating what he regards as essential to the survival of his regime. He says repeatedly that North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons is irreversible and nonnegotiable.

If Pyongyang eventually gets rid of its nuclear weapons, it will be the result of either a fundamental transformation of the current regime’s policies and values or its collapse.

Neither outcome can be dismissed altogether, especially the regime’s eventual collapse. But we can’t count on either one, at least not in the near term. Realistically, we will have to live with North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future.

The United States and its allies can’t accept the North as a legitimate nuclear-armed country. It acquired nuclear weapons illegally and deceitfully. Accepting its nuclear capability would set a dangerous precedent that is damaging to the global nonproliferation regime.

The United States and its allies should continue to adhere to the ultimate goal of the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But for now, they should focus on the most immediate threat — the risk of intentional or inadvertent armed conflict that could escalate to the nuclear level.

The United States and South Korea should therefore approach North Korea and propose setting aside denuclearization for the time being and focusing instead on a risk reduction agenda — primarily confidence-building, transparency and communications measures that can enhance predictability and reduce the risks of armed conflict resulting from accident, misperception or miscalculation. Negotiations could take place bilaterally, trilaterally or in a multilateral regional format, perhaps involving the countries that participated in the Six-Party Talks.

Participants might be required to reaffirm the goal of complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula — a goal Kim supported in the 2018 Singapore Joint Statement — although participants would presumably continue to differ on the conditions that would make the attainment of that goal possible.

The risk-reduction measures that might be considered in such talks could include:

• prenotification of flight tests of several categories of missiles
• prenotification of land, sea and air military exercises meeting certain agreed-upon criteria
• avoidance of military activities in specified geographic areas (for example, no-fly zones or maritime buffer zones)
• the establishment of routine and crisis communications channels
• the resurrection of several confidence-building steps contained in the moribund North-South Comprehensive Military Agreement
• the adoption of so-called rules of the road to prevent provocative cyber activities
• the toning down of inflammatory rhetoric (including threats to use nuclear weapons preemptively or to launch decapitation strikes against an adversary’s leadership)
• the creation of what might be called “risk-reduction dialogues” where civilian and military officials would meet regularly to raise concerns about another country’s military activities and seek measures to address those concerns

Such risk reduction measures would not bring peace to the Korean Peninsula. Neither would they ensure progress toward denuclearization or remove the need for current U.S. and South Korean efforts to strengthen deterrence and maintain allied military readiness.

Moreover, North Korea’s willingness to engage on risk-reduction measures is far from certain. It may believe that maintaining risks at a high level serves its interests by discouraging the United States and its allies from conducting military activities that could increase the likelihood of conflict. Or it may decide to engage but condition its support for risk-reduction measures on unacceptable concessions from the allies.

Still, in light of the huge stakes, it is worth a try. Risk-reduction measures along these lines — together with a determined allied effort to reinforce deterrence — could help arrest or even reverse the current downward spiral on the peninsula. They could reduce each side’s incentives for pursuing an open-ended arms competition. Perhaps most importantly, they could help alleviate one of the most acute threats on the peninsula today — the risk of inadvertent armed conflict that could escalate to nuclear war.

And if faithfully implemented, such measures could reduce tensions, build habits of constructive engagement, pave the way for practical steps to reduce the North Korean nuclear threat and at least keep alive the hope, however remote today, of a nuclear weapons-free Korean Peninsula living in peace.

“If you want peace, prepare for war.” There’s much truth in that age-old advice. Deterrence may well be a necessary condition for achieving peace — or at least avoiding war.

But it’s only a partial truth. Deterrence may be necessary, but it’s not sufficient. It must be accompanied by diplomacy. And there’s an increasingly urgent need for diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula — diplomacy with realistically achievable and critically important goals.

This is a lightly edited version of Robert Einhorn’s remarks to the 2023 Kim Dae-jung Peace Forum on October 6, 2023, in Mokpo, South Korea.

Robert Einhorn is a senior fellow at the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology of the Brookings Institution.

6. South Koreans stay calm as they see showmanship in the North's escalating threats

Despite the tyranny of proximity (Seoul so close to the DMZ) Korean has developed a sense of complacency.

The success of deterrence for 70 years does breed complacency. 

South Koreans stay calm as they see showmanship in the North's escalating threats

BY JIWON SONG

Updated 11:17 PM EST, February 5, 2024

AP · February 6, 2024

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea’s recent escalation of threats and more tests of weapons aimed at South Korea haven’t done much to upset the calm in the nation’s capital.

“We learned to be numb,” said Renee Na, a 33-year-old office worker in Seoul who was one of a dozen South Koreans who sounded more indifferent than scared when talking with The Associated Press.

“Our generation grew up seeing North Korea use nuclear provocations as showmanship to maintain the stability of its regime,” Na said. “When they act up, it doesn’t feel like a real threat, but more like an annual event they stage when they need to shore up internal unity or want outside help.”

That’s a stark contrast to recent comments from Pyongyang, where leader Kim Jong Un said in January that his nation was abandoning its fundamental objective of peaceful reconciliation with South Korea. He also repeated a threat to annihilate the South if provoked.

At the same time, North Korea has conducted a streak of weapons testing, including what it described as simulated nuclear attacks on the South.

Worries about a direct provocation were amplified after the North fired hundreds of artillery shells into waters near its disputed western sea boundary with South Korea, prompting the South also to fire.

For now, there’s concern in South Korea — but not alarm.

And it’s nothing like 1994, when waves of panicked crowds emptied stores of instant ramen and rice after a North Korean negotiator threatened to turn Seoul into a “sea of fire.”

North Korea has mastered a cycle of raising tensions with weapons demonstrations and threats before eventually offering negotiations aimed at extracting concessions. The result is that many South Koreans believe North Korea is using its old playbook to get attention during an election year in South Korea and the United States.

There’s widespread doubt that North Korea, an autocracy that values the survival of the Kim dynasty over anything else, would risk war with U.S.-backed South Korea. Washington has warned repeatedly that the North’s use of nuclear weapons would result in the end of Kim’s rule.

The fast-paced, competitive nature of life in South Korea makes it easy for many to ignore North Korean threats. And public interest here in North Korea tends to mirror the rise and fall in tensions.

“Personally, I don’t think Kim Jong Un currently has a reason or ability to wage war,” said Min Seungki, another Seoul resident. “The North Koreans clearly see a South Korean government that is unfavorable to them. They are also trying to be noticed by (Donald) Trump and the Republicans, who they prefer over the Biden administration, which didn’t show much interest in dealing with them.”

But there’s also a sense that South Korea has few options to counter the leverage Kim has with his nuclear arsenal. Years of missile launches and other weapons tests have moved Kim much closer to his goal of having a nuclear arsenal that could viably strike both his neighbors and the United States.

South Koreans are increasingly worried Washington may hesitate to defend the South if Kim has more missiles with the range to strike the U.S. mainland.

South Koreans’ security anxieties have long been kept in check by the U.S.-South Korea alliance and by past inter-Korean projects such as South Korean tours to the Diamond Mountain resort and the jointly operated Kaesong factory park, said Han-Wool Jeong, director of the Korea People Research Institute. Those joint economic projects, pushed by past liberal governments in Seoul, were halted as inter-Korean ties worsened under subsequent conservative governments.

Jeong said many now believe South Korea’s security depends entirely on the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

Since taking office in 2022, conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has moved to expand the South’s combined military exercises with the United States and Japan to cope with the North’s evolving threats. He has also sought stronger assurances from Washington that the United States will decisively protect its ally if North Korea attacked with nuclear weapons.

But those steps have not slowed Kim’s weapons demonstrations, which likely reflect confidence over his steady weapons advancement and his strengthened ties with Russia.

Some South Korean experts have called for the U.S. to more dramatically show its defense commitment to its ally, including returning the tactical U.S. nuclear weapons withdrawn from the South in the 1990s. Others insist the South should pursue a nuclear deterrent of its own.

While many analysts downplay the possibility of a war on the peninsula, some believe Kim may choose to raise pressure on the South with a direct but contained military action.

The poorly marked sea boundary — the site of skirmishes and attacks in past years — could be a crisis point. Both Koreas in recent months have breached their 2018 military agreement to reduce border tensions, which had established buffers and a no-fly zone.

“It’s clear North Korea wants to use the April parliamentary elections to create momentum in South Korea for Yoon’s removal from office and could possibly conduct a large provocation to increase military tensions to the maximum and try to influence voters to oppose Yoon’s hard line,” said Bong Youngshik, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Yonsei university.

The animosity between the Koreas is keenly felt by Kim Giho, a fisherman on the western border island of Yeonpyeong, where a North Korean artillery bombardment killed four people in 2010.

“When tensions rise like this, our boats can’t move in and out of sea, and that hurts our livelihoods,” Kim said. “We are again evacuating to shelters with our military resuming firing drills and that really raises our sense of isolation, tension and fear. It’s especially traumatizing for older people who experienced the shelling of 2010.”

___

AP journalist Kim Tong-hyung contributed to this report.

AP · February 6, 2024

7. North Koreans’ consumption of foreign media grows over last decade: Survey

For all the naysayers on information and penetration.

North Koreans’ consumption of foreign media grows over last decade: Survey

https://www.nknews.org/2024/02/north-koreans-consumption-of-foreign-media-grows-over-last-decade-survey/

Government poll of over 6,000 defectors also revealed increasing dissatisfaction with Kim Jong Un

Ifang Bremer | Joon Ha Park February 6, 2024

North Koreans using a smartphone in Pyongyang | Image: NK News (Oct. 2016)

North Koreans’ consumption of foreign media grew in the years immediately before the COVID pandemic, a previously classified survey of DPRK escapees shows, a development that one expert said may have gone into reverse due to a nationwide crackdown on culture imports. 

The unification ministry asked 6,351 defectors about their media consumption habits while in North Korea. More than 83% of escapees who left the DPRK between 2016 and 2020 said they consumed foreign media, such as music and TV shows, up from 67.6% of respondents who left between 2006 and 2010. 

The survey results are based on a decade-long investigation, primarily from face-to-face interviews with defectors, and contain over 20 years of insights, the ministry stated. Up to 800 respondents are surveyed annually, but the information had been classified until its release on Tuesday.  

Of the foreign media that escapees had watched or listened to, 71.8% said they consumed Chinese language content, 23.1% South Korean content and 1.7% Russian. 

Martyn Williams, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, told NK News that the increase in foreign media consumption coincides with the rise of smaller data storage devices, such as USB sticks. 

“The growth also coincides with the rise of digital media, which is easier to copy and there’s more of it,” he added. 

The survey cited an unnamed defector, who escaped to the South in 2017, as saying they were once caught watching South Korean videos on their laptop in North Korea.

“My laptop was confiscated after being caught at 1 a.m. During the inspection, they commented on how much media content I had stored on my laptop, remarking that they had never encountered someone with such a vast amount of data stored,” the defector said.

The survey results do not cover the period after 2020 when Pyongyang implemented the “Law on Rejecting Reactionary Ideology and Culture,” which severely punishes those who consume or distribute foreign cultural content.

According to Williams, the law, which is also referred to as the Reactionary Culture Exclusion Act, “is a response to the pervasiveness of foreign media.” While the effect of the law remains unknown, Williams said it will likely dissuade people from consuming foreign media. 

Earlier this year, footage acquired by the BBC showed two teenage boys being sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for watching South Korean TV dramas, in accordance with the new law.

The unification ministry said at a press conference Tuesday that it will release survey results next year that reflect the impact of the anti-foreign culture law. 

A representative added that the decision was made to release the previously classified findings to the public this year “to enhance understanding of North Korea before unification” after continuous requests from experts to expand data on North Korean society. 

KIM JONG UN-POPULAR

The survey also showed that almost 60% of respondents hold a negative view of Kim Jong Un as a leader and that negative perceptions of Kim have intensified since he assumed power. 

According to the survey, defectors who escaped the country between 2011 and 2020 showed an increasing level of skepticism regarding the country’s hereditary “Paektu bloodline” hereditary succession system that gives lifelong political power to Kim Il Sung’s descendants.

More than 50% of defectors who left the North between 2016 and 2020 expressed negative sentiments about the country’s succession system, slightly higher than the 42.6% who escaped between 2011 and 2015. 

Edited by Alannah Hill

8. Halfway Deal: How Joe Biden Can Cap North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program

There seems to be growing calls for a short term agreement and leave denuclearization for another day.  

Does anyone really think Kim Jong Un would negotiate such a deal and if he did would he honor it? 

 While a short term deal to reduce risk is a sensible approach from our perspective, is it sensible to Kim Jong Un? 

So many of our proposals seem smart in terms of international relations theory but are they practical (feasible, suitable, and acceptable) given the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime?

Halfway Deal: How Joe Biden Can Cap North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program

The most sensible approach would be to propose a halfway deal with Kim. Such an agreement would cap the size of his nuclear arsenal by verifiably dismantling North Korean nuclear production facilities while also instituting bans on nuclear and long-range missile testing in exchange for a partial lifting of sanctions on North Korea (with “snapback provisions” in the event of North Korean violations of its obligations).

The National Interest · by Michael O'Hanlon · February 5, 2024

The Biden administration has done a generally good job in managing the U.S.-South Korean alliance and also in tightening links between that bilateral relationship and the U.S.-Japan alliance.

The August 2023 Camp David summit of the leaders of Japan, the United States, and the Republic of Korea was a reflection and further reinforcement of this desirable trend.

Yet there is to my mind one mistake in the Biden team’s approach to this part of the world: as I’ve previously argued, the Biden administration seems content to tell Kim Jong-un that the United States will negotiate anytime he wishes, but to leave the content of any such possible talks a mystery, hoping that Kim will want dialogue for its own sake.

Instead, I believe the Biden team should make greater efforts on this diplomatic track.

What a Biden - North Korea Deal Could Look Like

The most sensible approach would be to propose a halfway deal with Kim. Such an agreement would cap the size of his nuclear arsenal by verifiably dismantling North Korean nuclear production facilities while also instituting bans on nuclear and long-range missile testing in exchange for a partial lifting of sanctions on North Korea (with “snapback provisions” in the event of North Korean violations of its obligations).

The dismantlement of North Korea’s existing nuclear weapons would be left for another day.

This approach would not recognize and accept the existing North Korean nuclear arsenal any more than does current policy, despite that policy’s declared (but currently magical and unrealistic) intent of complete and irreversible North Korean denuclearization.

Admittedly, the immediate prospects for such a deal appear modest, given Kim’s attachment to his military modernization programs.

But the main parameters of a deal should nonetheless be articulated, partly as a way of maintaining as much cooperation with China on the issue as possible.

About the Author

Dr. Michael E. O’Hanlon is a senior fellow and director of research in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in U.S. defense strategy, the use of military force, and American national security policy. He directs the Strobe Talbott Center on Security, Strategy and Technology, as well as the Defense Industrial Base working group, and is the inaugural holder of the Philip H. Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy. He co-directs the Africa Security Initiative as well. He is an adjunct professor at Columbia, Georgetown, and George Washington universities, and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The National Interest · by Michael O'Hanlon · February 5, 2024

9. South Korean poll finds many unconvinced Trump would help rid North Korea of nukes

To be fair, there is no president of the ROK or US who can denuclearize north Korea as long as the Kim family regime is in power.

South Korean poll finds many unconvinced Trump would help rid North Korea of nukes

Stars and Stripes · by David Choi · February 6, 2024

President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speak to reporters inside the Freedom House at the Demilitarized Zone, June 30, 2019. (Shealah Craighead/White House)

CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — Nearly 64% of South Koreans say former President Donald Trump is unlikely to work actively toward curbing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions if he is reelected in November, according to a Gallup Korea poll released Monday.

The poll, commissioned by the Seoul-based Chey Institute for Advanced Studies, surveyed 1,043 respondents between Dec. 15 and Jan. 10. It had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Of all respondents, 52.2% believe Trump is somewhat unlikely to actively work to resolve the communist regime’s nuclear problem; and 11.5% think it is very unlikely.

Another 30.8% agree Trump is somewhat likely to actively attempt to resolve the problem; only 5.4% said he was very likely to do so.

North Korea is estimated to have enough fissile material for up to 70 nuclear weapons, according to the annual Stockholm International Peace Research Institute yearbook published last year.

President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol have offered to negotiate with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un without preconditions but simultaneously vowed to answer his weapons tests with a stronger military alliance between Washington and Seoul.

Pyongyang fired 24 ballistic missiles last year and launched a solid-fueled, intermediate-range ballistic missile on Jan. 14. North Korea routinely claims it has developed nuclear warheads for its ICBMs; it last conducted a nuclear test on Sept. 3, 2017.

North Korea has rejected the U.S. and South Korea’s overtures and further distanced itself from the allies.

As president, Trump’s diplomatic approach toward North Korea differed from that of his predecessors. After saying he would be open to meet Kim in 2017, the two leaders met for three summits between 2018 and 2019.

During their last summit at the Demilitarized Zone dividing the Korean Peninsula on June 30, 2019, Trump briefly crossed the border with Kim, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to step foot into North Korea.

“I think the relationship that we’ve developed has meant so much to so many people,” Trump said at a joint press conference with Kim at the border. “And it’s just an honor to be with you, and it was an honor that you asked me to step over that line.”

Trump continued to speak highly of Kim after his tenure. In a June 3 post on his Truth Social app, Trump congratulated Kim after North Korea secured a seat on the World Health Organization’s executive board.

Representatives from 34 member countries are selected to serve three-year terms on the board, according to the WHO’s website. North Korea was among the 10 countries nominated to serve starting in 2023, including Australia, Barbados, Qatar, Switzerland and Ukraine.

Trump has a 13-delegate lead over Nikki Haley for the Republican Party nomination; Biden leads the Democratic Party with 55 delegates.

David Choi

David Choi

David Choi is based in South Korea and reports on the U.S. military and foreign policy. He served in the U.S. Army and California Army National Guard. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Stars and Stripes · by David Choi · February 6, 2024

10. North Korea defectors cite dwindling food rations, market reliance -study

​I hate to beat a dead horse but we must observe for indicators of instability just as diligently as we observe for indicators of attack.

The 400+ markets that emerged following the Arduous March of the famine of 1994-1996 have been responsible for the reliance of the Korean people. But they pose a threat to Kim Jong Un and Kim used the pandemic to impose population and resource control measures that directly impact the markets.

• Asia Pacific

North Korea defectors cite dwindling food rations, market reliance -study

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-defectors-cite-dwindling-food-rations-market-reliance-study-2024-02-06/

By Hyonhee Shin

February 6, 20244:09 AM ESTUpdated 4 hours ago

A North Korean flag flutters on top of the 160-metre tall tower at North Korea's propaganda village of Gijungdong, in this picture taken from Tae Sung freedom village near the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), inside the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, in Paju, South Korea, September 30, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji Acquire Licensing Rights, opens new tab

SEOUL, Feb 6 (Reuters) - The majority of North Koreans who resettled in South Korea over the last decade said they never received government rations in the isolated state and had to rely on an informal market to survive, a study issued by Seoul's unification ministry showed.

The 280-page report on North Korea's economic and social situation issued on Tuesday was based on interviews with more than 6,300 defectors between 2013 and 2022. The ministry began such surveys in 2010, but this is the first time results have been publicly released.

North Korea has faced serious food shortages in recent decades, including a famine in the 1990s, often exacerbated by natural disasters. Its economy has been hit by international sanctions, as well as slumping border trade during the pandemic.

More than 72% of defectors who arrived between 2016 and 2020 said they never received government food rations in North Korea, the study showed, compared with 62% of those who came before 2000.

About half of the 2016-20 arrivals said they did not receive any salaries or food from work, up from about a third before 2000.

Nearly 94% of all respondents said they could make money at markets. People who escaped in 2016-20 said 69% of family income was made informally, compared with the pre-2000 group, who reported around 39%.

"We could confirm that the North Korean residents' housing, medical and educational environments are still underdeveloped, and marketisation continues in many aspects of their livelihoods for survival," Unification Minister Kim Yung-ho said in the report.

Thirty-seven percent of all respondents said they were deprived of at least 30% of their income by officials; that number rose to 41% after leader Kim Jong Un took power in late 2011, the report said.

More than 54% of defectors who came in 2016-20 said they had bribed officials in the authoritarian state, compared with 14% before 2000.

North Korea's Kim last month warned a meeting of the country's ruling Workers Party of Korea that failing to provide people with basic living necessities, including food, was a "serious political issue", state media reported.

On political questions, 56% of respondents who fled after 2016 had negative views on Kim taking power, while 26% saw his dynastic succession as legitimate.

Less than 30% of respondents supported hereditary succession, compared with 57% among those who escaped before 2000.

The study also pointed to the growing influence of outside culture, with 83% of the defectors who arrived after 2016 reporting they had watched foreign video content such as Chinese or South Korean dramas, up from about 8% before 2000.

Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Ed Davies and Gerry Doyle

11. Analysis: North Korean Ballistic Missiles Fired Against Ukraine

Hopefully we will gain some good intelligence from studying their use in Ukraine. And if they do not contribute to a Russian victory then it is highly unlikely they will contribute to a victory against the ROK and the ROK/US alliance.

Analysis: North Korean Ballistic Missiles Fired Against Ukraine

North Korean imprecise analogues of Russian missiles have already been used to attack Ukraine in December and January, and Kremlin ships in the peninsula’s ports indicates more likely en route.

By Bohdan Tuzov

February 4, 2024, 6:00 pm

kyivpost.com · by Bohdan Tuzov · February 4, 2024

John Kirby, US National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications said at a briefing on Jan. 4, 2024, that the United States has information that North Korea has supplied its ballistic missiles to Russia, along with their launchers.

The White House representative emphasized that Russia has not just received the missiles but is already using them against Ukraine.

The first attack using North Korean ballistic missiles took place on Dec. 29, 2023, when one fell onto a field in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Later, North Korean missiles were used on Jan. 2, 2024, in a massive strike on Kharkiv where 62 people were injured and two were killed. One of the missiles hit the city’s center.

Most likely, in both cases the Russians used North Korean missiles that differ from those of Russian make.

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What kind of missiles could Russia have received?

Ukrainian experts are studying and comparing the fragments of the missiles that were found after the attacks on Dec. 29 and Jan. 2.

According to the preliminary results of the examination, these are not Russian 9M723 missiles. This missile is structurally very similar to the Iskander but has a few differences.

The experts note that the overall diameter of the missile is 10 mm larger than that of the Iskander. The internal winding of the wires also differs. In the Iskander, special shielding to reduce the effect of electronic warfare on the missile protects the electronic parts.

This missile has no shielding, the wires are just inside the case. In addition, Ukrainian specialists noticed markings and inscriptions uncharacteristic of the Russian Federation.

Other Topics of Interest

Baby Killed in Russian Strike on Northeast Ukraine

Cafes, a market, pharmacies and a hotel, were among around 30 buildings damaged in the attack, local police said.

According to the preliminary conclusions, most likely, Russia received North Korean operational-tactical ballistic missiles KN-23 and KN-24.

It’s important to note that it is in the West that these missiles received the names KN-23 and KN-24, while in their homeland they are called Hwasong-11Ga and Hwasongpho-11Na, respectively.

North Korea is a closed country that is reluctant to share information about its military developments. Therefore, it’s worth realizing that any data on the characteristics of North Korean missiles are approximate and may differ slightly.

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North Korea’s official data, as a rule, contain propaganda elements and may overestimate the real characteristics of the missiles. More reliable information can be obtained from South Korea’s radar monitoring reports of North Korea’s missile tests.

The KN-23 (Hwasong-11Ga)

The KN-23 is visually and technically very similar to the Russian Iskander-M. Therefore, one should not exclude the possibility that the Russians shared their efforts and experience gained during the creation of Iskander missiles with North Korea. The maximum recorded launch range of a conventional KN-23 missile is 690 kilometers, which is quite significant.

An additional segment can be installed on the KN-23 missile, which increases its length from 8.7 meters to 9.8 meters (enlarged KN-23 missiles were seen at a military parade in North Korea on Jan. 14, 2021). Probably, such a modification is designed to increase the range of the missile.

The test launch of missiles with an increased range took place in June 2023. At the time, two KN-23 missiles were launched. The first KN-23 flew 850 kilometers, the second missile – 900 kilometers.

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According to analysts, the conventional KN-23 has a range of 690 kilometers only if the mass of the warhead is reduced. With the use of a “standard” warhead, the flight range is close to 450 kilometers.

The North Korean KN-23 ballistic missile has a quasi-ballistic flight trajectory that almost completely coincides with the trajectory of the Russian Iskander-M missile: after launch, the missile rises rapidly, reaching a height of 50 to 60 kilometers.

After reaching the apogee, the missile begins to move along the midcourse flight trajectory. At this stage, it can maneuver due to the rudders in the engine nozzle, giving the missile some thrust vectoring capability if the motor is still in operation. This makes it a more difficult target to intercept.

At the end of the midcourse flight, the missile descends rapidly, approaching the target at an angle of about 90 degrees.

To counter such missiles as the KN-23, Ukraine needs a serious anti-missile defense. After all, not all air defense systems can resist ballistic threats. Western Patriot and SAMP/T systems are most suitable for this.

Given the differences between the KN-23 and the Russian missiles, KN-23 missiles probably cannot be launched from the launchers for operational-tactical Iskander missile systems existing in Russia. According to information received from the White House representatives, Russia received several dozen ballistic missiles and the corresponding launchers. In any case, the North Korean KN-23 has similar characteristics and areas of application as the Russian Iskander-M, therefore they should not be underestimated.

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The KN-24 (Hwasongpho-11Na)

The second missile, the KN-24, is outwardly similar to the American MGM-140 ATACMS but has several differences.

The first thing that catches your eye is the fixed aerodynamic fins on the KN-24. In ATACMS, they are foldable and deployed from the launch canisters during takeoff. This means that the KN-24 can only be launched from specialized square-shaped launchers.

In addition, the North Korean ballistic missile has a longer range than the American MGM-140 ATACMS. The KN-24 can hit targets up to 410 kilometers away, while the ATACMS has a nominal maximum range of 300 kilometers. This difference in range is because the KN-24 has more fuel, and thus the larger dimensions. The KN-24 is approximately 7 meters long, while the ATACMS is only 4 meters long. This missile can carry a warhead weighing 400-500 kg.

North Korea’s KN-23 and KN-24 ballistic missiles likely share a similar guidance system that includes both satellite navigation and inertial guidance.

The accuracy of these missiles is not known for sure, but they could be less precise than their Russian analogues. The case in Zaporizhzhia region, when a North Korean missile simply fell onto a field, is illustrative. If the missile does not fail before reaching the target, the average deviation of the North Korean KN-23 and KN-24 missiles is likely to be between 100 and 200 meters.

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The quality of North Korean weapons sometimes raises doubts even among Russians

Russia has been using mines of various calibers, 152mm and 122mm projectiles, weapons for BM-21 Grad multiple missile launcher systems and other North Korean ammunition for a long time. However, on the internet you can often see how the Russian military complains about the quality of these products.

Some projectiles simply explode in the barrels of guns and tubes of missile launchers. Such an explosion can completely disable the equipment, at least for the time of repair. In some cases, the equipment can be destroyed, along with the crew. Such incidents indicate that the quality of North Korean weapons may be lower than that of Russian analogues.

It’s likely that the Russians will use these missiles during massive missile attacks on Ukraine. For Russia, accuracy is not an important factor in such a scenario. If a missile hits a residential building, the Russian military leadership will not care at all, because the missile at least destroyed something, or distracted Ukraine's air defense systems.

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Deliveries from North Korea

Russian ships actively enter the ports of North Korea, where they are loaded with containers. So, it’s possible that North Korea is continuing delivery of arms to Russia.

KN-23 and KN-24

North Korean ballistic missiles

The guidance system in both missiles is combined, including satellite navigation and inertial guidance. The possible circular error of probability from the target is 100-200 m.

The warhead weighs up to 500 kg.

The missile’s total weight is 3.45 tons.

The maximum range is 690 km.

The 9.7-meter-long modified KN-23 has a range of 900 km. It was first tested in 2017.

The KN-23 is derived from the Russian operational-tactical system Iskander-M.

Most likely, developments of other countries were used in the development of the KN-23.

The accuracy of these missiles is not known exactly, but it is probably less than that of Russian analogues. The case in Zaporizhzhia region, when a North Korean missile simply fell onto a field, is illustrative.

The North Korean ballistic missile has a longer range than the American MGM-140 ATACMS. The KN-24 can hit targets up to 410 km away, while the ATACMS has a nominal maximum range of up to 300 km.

This missile can carry a warhead of 400-500 kg.

The KN-24 has more fuel, and thus larger dimensions. The KN-24 is approximately 7 meters long, while the ATACMS is 4 meters long.

The KN-24 is outwardly similar to the American MGM-140 ATACMS but has several important differences.

kyivpost.com · by Bohdan Tuzov · February 4, 2024

12. ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Authorities threaten defectors with firing squads and imprisonment at neighborhood watch unit meetings…Massive search launched to find suspected defector

More evidence of the regime's brutality.

＜Inside N. Korea＞ Authorities threaten defectors with firing squads and imprisonment at neighborhood watch unit meetings…Massive search launched to find suspected defector

asiapress.org

A notice can be seen on a guard post operated by the border patrol. The Yalu River flows just below. Photographed from the Chinese side of the river across from Sakju County, North Pyongan Province, in late September 2023. (ASIAPRESS)

With the start of the coldest period of North Korea’s winter season, the Yalu and Tumen rivers on the North Korea-China border have become frozen over. This is typically a time for people to walk across the ice into China. The lives of the North Korean common people are extremely difficult, which means people are motivated to cross the border; however, since mid-January, the Kim Jong-un regime has begun to intensify monitoring of border residents and strengthen border security. Reporting partners from several cities in the northern part of the country contributed to this report. (KANG Ji-won and ISHIMARU Jiro)

◆ Officials announce that defections will be met with imprisonment or death

On the morning of Jan. 26, there was a small incident in Hyesan, Yanggang Province. The snow on the frozen Yalu River had footprints from a person who had crossed over to the Chinese side. Soon, border guards were searching the area, and checkpoints were established in neighboring districts.

An ASIAPRESS reporting partner in Hyesan, who relayed this information, explained the severity of the latest measures to prevent defections as follows:

"At the Socialist Women’s League study session on January 29, two officials from the People's Committee (local government) led the session, declaring that 'anyone who defects is not just a betrayer, but a traitor, and will be punished by imprisonment or executed by firing squad.'"

Neighborhood watch units have set up security posts at the entrances to apartments and villages, checking every person entering or leaving the villages, as well as local residents, and submitting reports to the local security officers in charge on a daily basis.

The police also register and monitor people who have been involved in smuggling in the past, crossed over the border into China, or who committed infractions in the past. If they go missing or don't return after leaving their area of residence, the police are contacted through an emergency alert network and are authorized to order a neighborhood-level lockdown.

"Now, even if you pay tens of thousands of dollars, it's hard to cross over to China. The border is tightened up to its limits, and there's no hope of security loosening up."

Layers of barbed wire line the riverbank. The fields behind it are probably a buffer zone. Since 2020, even people who farm the land have had to ask permission to enter. The buildings seen in the distance appear to be apartments. Photographed from the Chinese side of the river across from Sakju County, North Pyongan Province, in late September 2023. (ASIAPRESS)

◆ Authorities announce investigation into two people who may have crossed border

A disturbance also occurred at a point along the Tumen River, which has led border security to be tightened. A reporting partner in Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province, shared the following account of what happened:

"On January 12, in the Yuson Labor District, a woman in her 40s went to the Tumen River despite the fact that there are mines buried there. The border guards caught her after firing warning shots and handed her over to the police. The problem is that many people saw her trying to cross the border, but no one notified them."

According to the reporting partner, on January 13, a security officer came to a local neighborhood watch unit meeting and instructed attendees to step up their political efforts to prevent illegal border crossings and smuggling along the border with China.

The official said that "there is a part of the population that doesn’t care about the state of the country and only cares about their own comfort. Turning a blind eye to crimes in the border area or hiding them is an illegal and non-socialist act. Everyone is urged to be the eyes and ears of the border patrol and report even the slightest issue."

＜Interview＞ How was the public execution in Hyesan carried out?…In just four months, three executions have occurred in the city… “We were lined up at our places of work and marched to the execution site”

2023.12.29

This year’s third public execution in Yanggang Province’s city of Hyesan was held on December 19. The person executed was a 23-year-old man who had co...

There were other suspected defections in Hoeryong towards the end of January. Two men living in the city have disappeared. One is a military veteran in his mid-30s and the other is a coal miner in his early 50s. Both men had not been to work all day and were not at home, and it took only three days for the police to start investigating their whereabouts.

"Security is so tight now that I can't imagine crossing the border or smuggling. Even if they didn't cross the border, (the authorities) thought they might have fled to China and announced an investigation using the names and identities of the two missing persons."

※ ASIAPRESS communicates with its reporting partners through Chinese cell phones smuggled into North Korea.

A map of North Korea (ASIAPRESS)

asiapress.org

13. China reaffirms support for inter-Korean ties amid peninsula tensions

Of course. A status quo position - no war and no instability on the peninsula. Yet at the same time north Kora creates dilemmas for the US. All good for China.

China reaffirms support for inter-Korean ties amid peninsula tensions

N Korea has recalibrated its relations with Seoul, effectively treating the South as an enemy state.

By Taejun Kang for RFA

2024.02.05

Taipei, Taiwan

rfa.org

China has reaffirmed its stance that it would consistently support the improvement of inter-Korean relations amid rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea has recently ramped up military provocations against South Korea and its allies with multiple missile launches and nuclear tests, labeling Seoul as a “primary enemy.”

South Korea, under the conservative Yoon Suk Yul administration, has been implementing a hardline policy towards Pyongyang, with his government openly vowing to respond to the North’s military provocation.

When asked by a reporter about China’s stance on inter-Korean relations during a regular press briefing on Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said China “noted” the situation, adding that Beijing “always supports the DPRK and the ROK in improving their relations.”

DPRK, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, refers to North Korea, while ROK, or Republic of Korea, is the South.

“The situation on the Korean Peninsula has come to where it stands today for a reason. Tensions on the Peninsular do not serve the common interests of relevant parties,” said Wang.

“Relevant parties need to work towards the same direction, keep to the major direction of political settlement and jointly safeguard peace and stability on the Peninsula,” Wang added, while noting that Pyongyang’s statement on its policy is a “sovereign matter.”

Wang’s remarks came a few days after the South Korean government reaffirmed its position on respecting Beijing’s One China principle.

Under this principle, the Chinese Communist Party asserts sovereignty over the democratic island of Taiwan.

“Our government will continue to promote practical cooperation with Taiwan in various fields based on its stance of respect for ‘One China [principle]’,” said Chung Jaeho, South Korea’s ambassador to China, speaking to South Korean correspondents at the embassy in Beijing last Friday.

“We hope that peace and stability will be maintained across the Taiwan Strait and cross-Strait relations will develop peacefully,” he added.

The Taiwan issue has emerged as a source of conflict between China and South Korea in recent years, as the current Yoon administration has been more vocal than in the past in opposing China’s “unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force” in the Taiwan Strait.

Chung added that South Korea was “making necessary communications” to ensure that the trilateral summit agreed to last year among South Korea, Japan and China could be held in the first half of this year in South Korea.

Separately, Chung also called on China to “play a more active and responsible role,” emphasizing that North Korea’s threats to the South and its nuclear and missile development are adversely affecting not only the situation on the Korean Peninsula, but also global stability and peace.

Edited by Elaine Chan and Mike Firn.

rfa.org

14. Standing firm in support of Ukraine

A message from European ambassadors to Korea.

Standing firm in support of Ukraine

The Korea Times · February 6, 2024

The following article was contributed by the ambassadors to the Republic of Korea of the European Union and EU member states. — ED.

This month we mark a grim anniversary; two years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This period has seen Russia breach international law, commit war crimes and engage in unlawful military cooperation with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The ambassadors of the European Union reiterate their condemnation of these actions, and their appreciation for the solid support of the Republic of Korea (ROK) to Ukraine. We are confident that the Republic of Korea's support will remain firm, including in full implementation of sanctions against Russia. Global security and the survival of the international rules-based order depends on it.

Feb. 24 marks the second anniversary of Russia’s brutal war of aggression on Ukraine. This is an appropriate juncture to put the record straight amid recent media interventions by Russia’s ambassador-designate to the Republic of Korea.

Russia’s illegal, unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine constitutes a blatant and shocking violation of international law and in particular, the U.N. Charter. This war is being waged by a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, which falsely portrays itself as a responsible member of the international community. We, members of the European Union, have been consistent in our condemnation of Russia’s actions, and will continue to do so, in the strongest possible terms. Two years on, our resolve remains unwavering.

The Republic of Korea is a strong ally and friend in defending the international rules-based order. In May last year, at the EU-ROK Summit, President Yoon Suk Yeol joined the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and the President of the European Commission, Ursula Van der Leyen, to resolutely condemn Russia's war of aggression. The leaders recalled their unwavering support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. Asserting Ukraine’s inherent right of self-defense against Russia, they jointly demanded an immediate cessation of Russia’s aggression and unconditional withdrawal from Ukraine. Today, this statement from the leaders of the European Union and the Republic of Korea remains relevant and entirely valid. All U.N. member states must uphold the U.N. Charter principles, the cornerstone of the international order. Russia is no exception.

Let us not forget that the international community adopted no fewer than seven U.N. General Assembly resolutions condemning Russia and supporting Ukraine. It is indicative of Russia’s weak international standing that it is reliant on the DPRK’s endorsement of its actions.

The DPRK is also transferring ballistic missiles, along with other arms and ammunition to Russia. This constitutes a flagrant violation of multiple U.N. Security Council Resolutions, namely Resolution 1718 in 2006, Resolution 1874 in 2009 and Resolution 2270 in 2016. Russia supported these Resolutions. Nevertheless, Russia has recently used these missiles against Ukraine on Dec. 30, 2023 and Jan. 2, 2024, increasing the suffering of the Ukrainian people, and undermining the global non-proliferation regime. These weapons transfers also provide funds and valuable technical and military insights to the DPRK that could be used to support its unlawful nuclear and missile programs.

On Jan. 9, the Republic of Korea joined European countries and other partners in condemning in the strongest possible terms these actions by Russia and the DPRK, actions which they both continue to deny. We urge the DPRK to stop giving any support, political or otherwise, to Russia’s illegal war efforts and call on Russia and the DPRK to cease violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions and the U.N. Charter.

Today, Russia’s brutal war and perpetration of war crimes against ordinary Ukrainian men, women and children, continue unabated. We cannot allow Putin to prevail; we cannot give implicit permission to Russia and other autocracies to pursue their imperialist agendas. Our security is at stake — in Europe, on the Korean Peninsula, and beyond. Ukraine prevailing against Russian aggression is the best security guarantee not only for Europe, but for the world. At all costs, we must defend the international rules-based order. Otherwise, powerful countries can change borders at will, and the weak fall prey to the strong.

Since the start of Russia’s war of aggression, the EU stands united in our unwavering support for Ukraine. Last week, the 27 EU leaders agreed to a new 50 billion euro (72 trillion won) financial aid package for Ukraine. We will continue to provide strong political, financial, economic, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support to Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes.

The EU is very grateful for the Republic of Korea’s unprecedented support for Ukraine. Among other actions, sanctions and their implementation are a very important part of what we do for Ukraine. The Republic of Korea has put in place many welcome measures to align with the EU and the U.S. export controls and financial sanctions against Russia. In December 2023, the Republic of Korea announced a significant expansion of its export controls against Russia and Belarus, from 741 to 1159 items. These restrictions are not symbolic. They prevent the transfer of many advanced technology items, helping to weaken Russia’s military capabilities.

As we approach the second anniversary of this war and in light of recent military cooperation between Russia and the DPRK, Ukraine is counting on continued support from all its partners, including the Republic of Korea. A full alignment by the Republic of Korea with our sanctions against Russia, including on advanced technological products, would be very welcome.

No one wants peace more than Ukraine. That is why we are actively working with more than 80 countries, including the Republic of Korea, to achieve just peace. Europe and our allies must continue to defend the principles at stake in Ukraine, even though we are all experiencing the consequences of this war in our daily lives — in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

This is a critical time, and the Indo-Pacific stands at a crossroads in global affairs. Last week, European and Indo-Pacific foreign ministers met in Brussels, and emphasized how our cooperation is more important than ever. We must continue to work together for a shared resilience in this troubled world. The Republic of Korea is key to this partnership, a valued friend and a strategic ally. We — and the people of Ukraine — need its support now and tomorrow, as much as we did on Feb. 24, 2022.

The Korea Times · February 6, 2024

15. Culture ministry aims to make S. Korea global cultural power

(LEAD) Culture ministry aims to make S. Korea global cultural power | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by Shim Sun-ah · February 6, 2024

(ATTN: ADDS photo)

SEOUL, Feb. 6 (Yonhap) -- The culture ministry on Tuesday unveiled its policy goals for this year, aiming to establish South Korea as a leading global cultural powerhouse and foster citizens' happiness through cultural engagement.

According to the plans announced by Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Yu In-chon, the ministry will provide a record 1.74 trillion won (US$1.31 billion) in policy financing to boost South Korea's competitive position in the global content market.

Culture minister Yu In-chon (L) speaks during a press briefing at the government complex in Seoul on Feb. 6, 2024, to announce the ministry's policy plans for the year. (Yonhap)

The sum includes a 600 billion-won "K-content strategic fund" dedicated to cultivating globally competitive intellectual property.

The record budget will be utilized to nurture key sectors of the industry, such as gaming, comic books, and webtoons, according to the ministry.

The industry's exports set a record of $13.24 billion in 2022, a 6.3 percent increase from the previous year's $12.45 billion, surpassing those of secondary batteries and home appliances.

The government will also enhance support for arts and cultural products seeking to advance to the global market, with the hope that the global boom of Korean pop culture, such as K-pop, TV dramas, films and webtoons, will spill over into other cultural sectors. For this, the government will increase its support for overseas distribution of creative Korean operas, ballets, musicals, fine arts, literature, and crafts through a wide network of cultural-arts institutions and groups at home and aboard.

A visitor browses exhibits at BroadCast WorldWide at the COEX convention center in southern Seoul, in this file photo taken Aug. 16, 2023. (Yonhap)

Additionally, the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games in Paris will serve as a platform for bolstering Korea's cultural presence on the global stage. Starting with a breakdance performance in May, performances by various national art groups will increase the festivity of the international athletic meeting in the French capital.

An exhibition of art pieces representing the Korean art scene will follow in July, along with a "hallyu"-themed trade fair and a K-pop concert co-hosted by related government offices in September. The government will also host an exhibition of Korean books and a tourism road show, among other events to promote the country.

Regarding plans to reduce the burden of leisure expenses on citizens, a trial run of the "youth culture and arts pass" will begin in late March, allowing individuals aged 19 to attend performances and exhibitions for free within a maximum limit of 150,000 won per person.

The government will support worker vacations for up to 150,000 people and provide discounts for accommodations with a maximum of 450,000 vouchers.

Also among the plans announced by the government was one to invigorate daily sports activities by citizens, thereby propelling the sports industry forward.

sshim@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by Shim Sun-ah · February 6, 2024

16. Ex-defense minister, ex-presidential chief of staff granted special presidential pardons

(2nd LD) Ex-defense minister, ex-presidential chief of staff granted special presidential pardons | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by Park Boram · February 6, 2024

(ATTN: UPDATES with more info in paras 7, 12)

By Lee Haye-ah and Park Boram

SEOUL, Feb. 6 (Yonhap) -- President Yoon Suk Yeol granted special pardons to more than 450,000 people Tuesday on the occasion of the Lunar New Year, including former Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin and former presidential chief of staff Kim Ki-choon, officials said.

The special presidential pardons, the fourth of their kind since Yoon's inauguration in 2022, will legally take effect at the beginning of Wednesday in the run-up to the Lunar New Year on Saturday.

Among the most high-profile beneficiaries are Kim Kwan-jin, who served as defense minister from 2010 to 2014, and Kim Ki-choon, a former chief of staff for ousted former President Park Geun-hye.

These images show Kim Kwan-jin (L), a former defense minister from 2010 to 2014, and Kim Ki-choon, a former chief of staff for ousted former President Park Geun-hye. (Yonhap)

The former defense chief was given a two-year prison term by the Seoul High Court last year on charges of ordering the military cyber command to post online comments in favor of the then government ahead of major elections in 2012.

He is currently serving as vice chairman of the presidential defense innovation committee.

In a retrial last month, the Seoul High Court sentenced Kim Ki-choon to two years in prison in connection with charges that the Park government ordered the creation of a list of dissenting cultural bodies and artists and excluded them from government subsidies.

Other beneficiaries included SK Executive Vice Chairman and SK On CEO Chey Jae-won and LIG Group Chairman Koo Bon-sang, convicted of misappropriating corporate funds and accounting fraud, respectively. The pardons will reinstate their rights suspended due to the convictions.

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting where the government deliberated on the pardons, Yoon said the list was drawn up with a focus on reviving the economy of the people and included exemptions from various administrative penalties levied on drivers, restaurant industry workers, fishermen, and passenger and cargo transport operators.

President Yoon Suk Yeol (3rd from L) speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential office in Seoul on Feb. 6, 2024. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

"The government will continue to take measures helpful to everyday economic activities," he said during the meeting at the presidential office. "I hope these pardons that are being granted ahead of the holiday will add vitality to the people's economies."

In South Korea, the government has often granted special pardons to convicted politicians, business executives and other offenders at the start of a new year or around Liberation Day on Aug. 15 to reward good behavior and foster national harmony.

The pardons are reviewed by a panel at the justice ministry before being sent to a Cabinet meeting for deliberation and then finalized by the president.

The rest of Tuesday's pardon beneficiaries also include several politicians from rival parties and those convicted of minor offenses or crimes related to livelihood as well as penalized public servants, officials said.

hague@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by Park Boram · February 6, 2024

17. More N. Koreans negative about leader Kim Jong-un, hereditary power succession: report

I have not found the English version report that is referenced in this and numerous articles this week. I will send it out when I receive it.

Change is occurring inside north Korea. Can we nurture it?

•Support to internal resistance - Can we nurture and support internal resistance to influence the emergence of alternative leadership?

–Alternative leadership opposing current regime

–Alternative leadership post-conflict/collapse

–Guerrilla mindset – live to fight another day

•Resistance to all foreign intervention to include the ROK

–How to mitigate future resistance? Co-opt it now

•But an allied controlled guerrilla force is also likely not feasible

•Gulags/prisoners are not ready-made guerrillas – but there may be key communicators in the camps

–There is growing resistance potential

•The key is a comprehensive influence activities campaign NOW

–How to exploit escapees (defectors)

•Establish a Korea Escapee/Defector Information Institute

(LEAD) More N. Koreans negative about leader Kim Jong-un, hereditary power succession: report | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · February 6, 2024

(ATTN: ADDS details in paras 13, 15, 21-23, photo )

By Kim Soo-yeon and Lee Minji

SEOUL, Feb. 6 (Yonhap) -- A growing number of North Koreans have negatively assessed Kim Jong-un as a political leader and harbored doubts about whether the Kim family's hereditary power succession is legitimate, a report showed Tuesday.

Seoul's unification ministry released the 280-page report on North Korea's economic and social situation for the first time Tuesday. The report is based on in-depth interviews with 6,351 North Korean defectors conducted between 2013 and 2022.

It showed 43.8 percent of the North's defectors said they thought Kim Jong-un taking power was inappropriate when they lived in North Korea. For those who fled North Korea between 2016 and 2020, some 56.3 percent gave a negative assessment of Kim as a leader.

"Negative public sentiments toward the 'Paektu bloodline'-based leadership system have been increasing and this perception appears to be gaining traction since Kim Jong-un assumed power (in late 2011)," the report showed.

North Korean propaganda has idolized the ruling family as the "Paektu bloodline," claiming that Kim's late father, former leader Kim Jong-il, was born on Mount Paektu, the highest peak on the Korean Peninsula, despite the fact that he was born in the far eastern Russian city of Khabarovsk.

This file photo, carried by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Sept. 9, 2023, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (R) and his daughter, Ju-ae, supervising a paramilitary parade held at Kim Il Sung Square to mark the 75th anniversary of the regime establishment late at night the previous day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

Nearly 55 percent of the North's defectors who fled the North between 2016 and 2020 said they had a negative opinion of the Kim family's power succession. Some 42.6 percent held such a view among those who escaped the country between 2011 and 2015.

Kim Jong-un has brought his teen daughter, Ju-ae, to public events since late 2022 in an apparent bid to demonstrate his commitment to the third hereditary power succession. The National Intelligence Service, Seoul's spy agency, said it sees Ju-ae as the "most likely successor."

Amid a sluggish economy, more North Koreans have been doing various activities in the "private" economy, including selling goods at markets, cultivating unauthorized lands, smuggling and engaging in housing construction projects.

Markets are playing a critical role in the livelihoods of North Koreans, as the food rationing system has collapsed. Around 91 percent of the North's defectors said life was not sustainable without markets, and for those who fled the North after 2012, some 68.1 percent of their income came from "non-official" income sources.

"The influence of markets has been expanding to healthcare, education, transportation and information infrastructure from the necessities of life, such as food, clothing and shelter, as well as energy, water and sewage," it said.

This file photo from September 2020 shows a private sector market in North Korea. (Yonhap)

North Korea has been suffering from a chronic food shortage amid prolonged U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs. The North Korean economy probably contracted 0.2 percent on-year in 2022, marking the third straight year of falls, according to data from the Bank of Korea.

Amid market-based economic activities, "non-socialist" acts banned under North Korean law have also risen, including hiring contracts between individuals and sales of houses and land, the report showed.

Among defectors who fled the North between 2016 and 2020, 46.2 percent said they have purchased or sold homes, compared with 10.7 percent among defectors who fled the country before 2000.

The status of women in North Korea, a male-dominant society, has changed as more North Korean women have engaged in economic activities in marketplaces. The proportion of women who delay marriage or get divorced has increased, and North Korea's fertility rate has declined.

Despite the change in the economic status of women, the report said overall gender equality in the North Korean society remains little changed, with the regime encouraging women to raise children and wear traditional attire in their daily lives.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C, front) sits in a chair during a photo session with participants of the Fifth National Conference of Mothers in Pyongyang on Dec. 8, 2023, in this file photo released by the North's official Korean Central News Agency the next day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

Touching on inflows of outside information, 36.4 percent of the defectors said they possessed mobile phones in North Korea, but access to the internet was almost impossible.

Despite North Korea's stepped-up surveillance, North Koreans have been watching movies or dramas produced by South Korea and other countries via USBs and other devices.

Some 83.3 percent of the North's defectors who fled the country between 2016 and 2020 said they watched videos originating from other countries, compared with 8.4 percent of those who escaped the North before 2000.

North Korea has tightened its grip on inflows of outside information as it views them as a source of major threats to the regime. In 2020, North Korea adopted a new law that bans people from distributing or watching videos originating from South Korea, the United States and other countries.

"Under the Kim Jong-un regime, North Korea has been strengthening its control of society and discipline," the report said.

A ministry official said the report "clearly" shows that the livelihoods of the North Korean people have worsened since Kim came to power.

"There have been assessments that the livelihoods of the North Korean people have improved since Kim came to power, but this is somewhat an illusion," the official told reporters, when speaking about the North's push to build more homes and buildings.

"If people's livelihoods appear to have improved, it is not the result of the regime's policy efforts but because North Koreans went to markets to earn money and produced agricultural goods," the official said.

Of the surveyed defectors, 81.8 percent were women and 82.1 percent hailed from four northern provinces bordering China. People in their 20s and 30s accounted for 54.8 percent of the North's defectors.

The report did not include North Korea's situation in the wake of Pyongyang's border closure over COVID-19 as it was written based on information collected from the North's defectors who fled their home country in the period up until 2020.

sooyeon@yna.co.kr

mlee@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · February 6, 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