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Quotes of the Day:
"Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause."
– Victor Hugo
"We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft."
– Adlai Ewing Stevenson
"Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things."
T.S. Eliot
1. U.S. focus on 'interim' steps with N. Korea raises questions about policy direction
2. South Koreans play it cool as ‘Tension Season’ dawns on peninsula; N.K. menaces as U.S. drills start
3. What's on Pyongyang's Weapons Shopping List in Moscow?
4. Experts say, “This is not a policy change” when US officials mention ‘interim measures for denuclearization’… The “realistic necessity” argument
5. North Korea’s Agricultural Policies: Embracing a Chinese Model for Increased Productivity
6. President Yoon is lauded in West for embracing Japan − in South Korea it fits a conservative agenda that is proving less popular
7. Will Myanmar Become the Next North Korea?
8. Top military officer calls for strong response in event of N.K. provocations
9. NGA looking for commercial data to update intel on North Korea
10. N.K. leader calls for intensifying war drills
11. US-led war games draw warning from North Korea
12. Ex-Deputy Secretary of State Sherman receives Korean state medal for role in bilateral ties
13. Foreign ministry shakes up bureau handling N.K. nuclear issue amid prolonged impasse in talks
14. Kim Jong Un Observes Training to Storm Border Posts in War Prep
15. Air Force stages live-fire drills against N.K. cruise missile, artillery threats
1. U.S. focus on 'interim' steps with N. Korea raises questions about policy direction
This is how it starts. We could play right into Kim Jong Un's political warfare strategy. A key condition that Kim requires is splitting the ROK/US alliance and he has long desired to have arms control negotiations.
Kim Family Regime Overall Strategy
•Vital Interest: Survival of the Kim Family Regime
•Strategic Aim: Unification of the Peninsula
oUnder the domination of the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State
oSubversion, coercion, extortion, use of force
•Key Condition: Split the ROK/US Alliance
oUS forces off the Peninsula
o“Divide and Conquer” – Divide the Alliance and conquer the ROK
•Desire: Recognition as nuclear power – negotiate a SALT/START – like process
(News Focus) U.S. focus on 'interim' steps with N. Korea raises questions about policy direction | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Song Sang-ho · March 7, 2024
By Song Sang-ho
WASHINGTON, March 6 (Yonhap) -- U.S. officials' recent focus on the idea of "interim steps" for a path towards North Korea's ultimate denuclearization is raising a flurry of questions about their intentions and the direction of America's policy on the recalcitrant regime.
The idea has come into the spotlight in South Korea as some observers see it as a potential sign of Washington's greater desire for dialogue with Pyongyang amid little progress in its diplomacy to the North and security concerns heightened by the regime's military alignment with Russia.
The diplomatic gesture came as former President Donald Trump has boasted his personal ties with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his reelection campaign, stressing that "America was safe" when he was in office from 2017-2021.
Mira Rapp-Hooper, the National Security Council senior director for East Asia and Oceania, first said during a forum on Monday that the United States will consider interim steps on the pathway toward the North's denuclearization.
In a separate forum a day later, U.S. Senior Official for North Korea Jung Pak noted the need for interim steps towards the North's denuclearization, which she underlined would not happen "overnight."
This file photo, taken Jan. 18, 2024, shows U.S. Senior Official for North Korea Jung Pak attending a trilateral meeting with her South Korean and Japanese counterparts at the foreign ministry in Seoul. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)
These remarks raised questions about whether the U.S. is poised to employ a policy shift that goes beyond its oft-repeated mantra of the U.S. having "no hostile intent" toward the North and being ready to engage in dialogue with the North "without preconditions."
In the negotiation lexicon for the North, interim steps usually involve such measures as Pyongyang's freeze of its nuclear weapons development in return for sanctions relief or other incentives to encourage the regime's denuclearization efforts.
Asked if those officials' remarks signal any policy shift, Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesperson, said during a press briefing on Tuesday that it does not indicate a change in U.S. policy.
Analysts gave a range of speculation on intentions behind the idea, with some saying that it might be designed to highlight that Washington is interested in reengagement with the North even on small, modest steps.
"They don't want North Korea to have any misperception that the U.S. is only interested in complete denuclearization in the near-term," Frank Aum, a senior expert at the United States Institute of Peace, told Yonhap News Agency via email.
Some others called attention to an ongoing U.S. move to manage North Korea-related risks at a time of heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
"(It reflects) growing administration concerns about the risks of escalation on the peninsula in 2024 and interest in exploring possible opportunities to engage with Pyongyang on risk reduction measures and stability," Robert Rapson, a retired veteran American diplomat, said.
Concerns over the escalation of inter-Korean tensions have risen due to North Korea's bellicose rhetoric, continued weapons tests and its nullification of a 2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction agreement.
Speculation has also persisted that the North could engage in provocative acts during the ongoing South Korea-U.S. military exercise and ahead of the parliamentary elections in South Korea next month and the U.S. presidential election in November.
"A central aim has been to show that the chief obstacle to peace has been North Korea's arms buildup and not alliance activities," Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, said of the remarks on interim steps.
"A related aim is to put out an olive branch to show both North and South Koreans that tensions might be reduced if only the Kim regime would permit some engagement," he added.
The issue drew particular attention in Seoul as some have raised worries that Washington could focus more on North Korea's nuclear proliferation issues rather than on the ultimate goal of the regime's complete denuclearization.
Such concerns could rise further particularly if there is a lack of policy coordination between Seoul and Washington. But that may not be the case under the Biden administration that has put cooperation with its allies, including South Korea, at the core of its foreign policy.
"Our position on the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula has not changed," a U.S. National Security Council spokesperson said Monday, in response to a question from Yonhap News Agency.
"While we work towards this goal, there are a number of valuable discussions we seek to have with the DPRK, including on reducing the risk of inadvertent military conflict on the peninsula," the official added. DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Some observers took note of the fact that the talk of interim steps emerged when President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Trump, are gearing up for a likely rematch for the White House in November.
This combination of pictures, released by AFP, shows U.S. President Joe Biden (L) and former President Donald Trump. (Yonhap)
"They're trying to generate a positive news story on a foreign policy area in which the administration has had no success, arguably in comparison to the previous administration and likely future challenger in the presidential election," Aum said.
The scholar added that the U.S. officials may be responding to North Korea analysts in Washington and Seoul, who have expressed concerns about what he said was the "administration's lack of focus and creativity on engagement."
Such concerns have been steadily rising recently as Washington has been preoccupied with a series of ongoing challenges, including the war between Israel and the Hamas militant group and Russia's war in Ukraine.
The display of the U.S.' interest in interim steps also came as opportunities for dialogue with Pyongyang have apparently arisen with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida eyeing a summit with Kim, and Western diplomats working to resume activities in Pyongyang.
"In the wake of recent Tokyo-Pyongyang flirtations with engagement, maybe the U.S. sees a small window of opportunity here," Rapson said.
sshluck@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Song Sang-ho · March 7, 2024
2. South Koreans play it cool as ‘Tension Season’ dawns on peninsula; N.K. menaces as U.S. drills start
70 years of successful deterrence (i.e., no return to war) has created a sense of complacency in the ROK. And that complacency has allowed for what we called in the 1990s, "creeping normalcy." (slow incremental military improvements that were overlooked and created an image of normal). However, these days the regime is moving at a little faster pace than creeping. But it is important to operate from an understanding of the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime and understand its political warfare and blackmail diplomacy strategies as well as its major objective to dominate the peninsula under the rule of the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State and ensure the survival of the mafia like crime cult cult (AKA the KFR). Just saying.
South Koreans play it cool as ‘Tension Season’ dawns on peninsula; N.K. menaces as U.S. drills start
By Andrew Salmon - The Washington Times - Tuesday, March 5, 2024
washingtontimes.com · by Andrew Salmon
U.S. and South Korean, top, army soldiers gather before a combined live fire exercise between South Korea and the United States at Rodriguez Live Fire Complex in Pocheon, South Korea, on March 22, 2023. South Korean and U.S. troops will … U.S. and South Korean, top, army … more >
By - The Washington Times - Tuesday, March 5, 2024
A version of this story appeared in the daily Threat Status newsletter from The Washington Times. Click here to receive Threat Status delivered directly to your inbox each weekday.
SEOUL, South Korea — Brace yourself for rumbles from North Korea and headlines about “rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula” precision-striking a newsstand near you.
South Korea and the United States initiated joint military drills this week, which customarily inflame North Korea and inspire a wave of bellicose rhetorical missiles from Pyongyang.
The regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un fired its first salvo Monday by warning that Washington and Seoul will pay a “dear price” for their “adventurist acts.”
“The large-scale war drills staged by the world’s No. 1 nuclear weapons state and more than 10 satellite states against a state in the Korean Peninsula where a nuclear war may be ignited even with a spark, can never be called ‘defensive,’” said a Tuesday statement by the North Korean Ministry of National Defense. The U.S.-South Korea drills are “getting more undisguised in their military threat to a sovereign state” and are “further causing provocation and instability.”
The vibe on the streets of South Korea’s capital, just a short drive from the North Korean border, tells a different story. Seoul is calm and shows few signs of civic defense measures. Local residents say they have no contingency plans for a crisis, and even expatriates are unconcerned.
Analysts still caution that war could break out suddenly. The pre-combat indicators, in fact, could provide a casus belli — the spark for conflict on the long-divided, heavily armed Korean Peninsula.
Tense times
The exercises, dubbed Freedom Shield 2024, run through March 14. U.S. commanders said the drills feature live, virtual and field-based components. The training focuses on “multi-domain operations leveraging land, sea, air, cyber, and space assets with an emphasis on counter nuclear operations and non-kinetic effects,” a U.S. Forces Korea statement said.
Most participants are American and South Korean, but they are joined by 10 U.N. Command nations that fought for South Korea during the 1950-1953 war: Belgium, Britain, Canada, Colombia, France, Greece, Italy, New Zealand, the Philippines and Thailand.
The drills reaffirm “the unwavering commitment of the U.S. to defend [South Korea]” and “bolster security and stability … across Northeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific,” the U.S. military statement noted.
According to South Korean media reports, the exercises also “include training on detecting and intercepting the North’s cruise missiles” and 48 field drills — double the number from 2023. That uptick may be explained by security concerns and the virtual collapse of diplomatic contacts with North Korea since President Biden took office in 2021. Some analysts say the concerns are justified.
Australia’s Lowy Institute has warned of a possible “Hamas-style” assault on Seoul like the devastating surprise attack on Israel in October. A widely quoted article by the U.S.-based website 38 North in January described the standoff on the Korean Peninsula as “more dangerous than it has been at any time since June 1950” — the year North Korea invaded.
A 2018 North-South “deconfliction” agreement to establish no-fly zones and bar armed troops at the border fell apart last year. The Kim regime has closed communications channels with Seoul and Washington and added to the tension by bolstering military and economic ties with Russia.
Pyongyang has supplied as many as 3 million 152 mm artillery shells and 122 mm tactical rockets to fuel the Kremlin’s campaign against Ukraine, the South Korean government revealed last week. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has used his country’s permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council to widen cracks in the international sanctions imposed on North Korea.
With no economic levers to pull, democratic states cannot prevent Pyongyang from expanding its arsenal. A steady schedule of North Korean weapons tests, including missiles of all classes and nuclear-armed underwater drones, also have raised tensions.
Although the recent developments have tightened the screws on South Korea’s political, military and media classes, the talk of “rising tensions” seems misleading to ordinary South Koreans.
An indefensible capital
Civil defense measures, which were vigorously drilled under the authoritarian governments that ruled South Korea from 1961 to 1987, have fallen out of practice.
“There was a so-called national emergency planning office, and all major companies and agencies had an emergency planning officer,” said Moon Chung-in, a professor emeritus at Yonsei University. “They used to do ordinary peoples’ training on the 15th of every month, but that stopped as inter-Korean relations got better.”
With civil defense training proving unpopular in an increasingly prosperous, high-technology, democratic South Korea, governments reacted accordingly.
“Authoritarian regimes conducted civil defense, but there was heavy criticism in society,” Mr. Moon said. “They were ruling the country in the name of national security, so needed all kinds of gestures to support the national security machinery.”
Although systematic training is absent, Seoul has vast underground space — subway stations and tunnels, shopping concourses and apartment parking lots. Yet unlike, say, Taipei, another capital facing a constant military threat, Seoul’s shelters are poorly marked and local residents are under no pressure to take survival training classes. Reports of war preparations are newsworthy only for their rarity.
Unworried civilians
As the military exercises proceed, many South Koreans acknowledge their lack of preparation for the worst.
“I feel a little embarrassed that I don’t have specific plans” for hostilities, said Lim Eun-jung, an academic. “If something happens like a direct attack on Seoul, I think everybody would panic.
“I know [the] government has some plans …,” she said. “Anyhow, I hope they do … and I hope they can be more communicative.”
Chang Su-beom, who heads the design agency DN, acknowledged that he wasn’t even aware that military drills had started.
Regarding possible hostilities, he said, “I have never worried about it.” What would he do if missiles started landing? “I really have no idea.”
An officer worker with dual Argentine/South Korean citizenship, who did not want to be quoted by name, said she was similarly unprepared. When she first moved to Seoul, she kept a packed bag and a cache of U.S. dollars ready, with plans to “run to the airport.”
That was 14 years ago. “These days, I have no plans or preparations,” she said. “When this kind of news breaks, my parents ask me to return to Argentina.”
Expatriates agree that risks look more ominous abroad than inside South Korea.
James Kim, who heads the U.S. business organization AMCHAM Korea, said that during 20 years in South Korea, he received a lot of queries about military crisis response. No longer.
“In the past several years, I have not received a single inquiry about this topic,” he said. “Maybe just one or two calls from people who don’t know Korea or are not in Korea.”
As for global news reports of tensions, Mr. Kim said, “If these concerns were real, I wouldn’t be here.”
This attitude is mirrored in investor confidence. AMCHAM conducts an annual survey of U.S. companies in South Korea. The latest was completed in February.
“We found South Korea was the second preferred destination to establish an Asian HQ in, after Singapore,” Mr. Kim said.
Seoul capital markets have shrugged off the tensions, and retired military professionals in risk management find little business.
One said he was surprised by the dubious ideas of some expatriates, such as plans to head for U.S. bases in hopes of evacuation if war breaks out. Those bases would be prime targets for North Korean strikes, he said.
Another mistaken belief is that residents would have ample time to evacuate if war is imminent. In fact, pre-combat preparations could trigger actual combat.
“I don’t think there will be signals. For the North Koreans to win this, they would have to have complete surprise,” said Steve Tharp, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel living in South Korea. He said his South Korean family considers him “nuts” for assembling a crisis stockpile of bottled water, spam, dried noodles and toilet paper.
“The two signals our side would send would be a U.S. noncombatant evacuation and a total South Korean mobilization,” he said. “Both [capitals] recognize those as unofficial declarations of war, which would bring about hostilities.”
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
Copyright © 2024 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
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washingtontimes.com · by Andrew Salmon
3. What's on Pyongyang's Weapons Shopping List in Moscow?
We are of course all just speculating.
What's on Pyongyang's Weapons Shopping List in Moscow?
March 06, 2024 1:43 PM
voanews.com · March 6, 2024
Washington —
Moscow has a range of military technologies that it could offer Pyongyang in exchange for munitions to sustain its war in Ukraine, with advanced missile technologies high on the list, analysts say.
North Korea has been providing munitions to Russia since its leader, Kim Jong Un, visited Russia last September and met with President Vladimir Putin.
SEE ALSO:
Russia-North Korea Ties: Will Putin-Kim Bromance Last?
Since September, Pyongyang has shipped about 6,700 containers of munitions to Russia, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Wonshik said at a press briefing on February 26. He said the containers could carry more than 3 million 152 mm artillery shells or 500,000 122 mm rounds.
Those munitions are making a difference on the battlefield. The Security Service of Ukraine said last month that North Korean ballistic missiles have been killing and injuring civilians since December.
SEE ALSO:
North Korean Missiles Used by Russia Against Ukraine Are Products of Sanction Loopholes
Shin said that North Korea has cranked up its hundreds of munitions factories to operate “at full capacity,” and that in return, Moscow is providing Pyongyang with raw materials and parts to manufacture weapons, in addition to food.
He also said Moscow is expected to transfer more military technology, which could embolden North Korea to escalate threats in the region.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Agency said in November that Russia was the most likely source of technology that Pyongyang needed to launch its Malligyong-1 satellite into orbit the same month.
But the question remains as to what kind of weapons technology is Russia willing to send to North Korea that would increase the threat it poses to South Korea and the United States?
Analysts say Russia could provide technologies that would refine Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.
Michael O’Hanlon, director of research and foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, told VOA on Friday via email that Moscow most likely would provide missile technology to North Korea, “but nuclear weapons design information can’t be ruled out.”
What would concern South Korea the most would be short-range ballistic missile technology, including guidance systems, according to Bruce Bechtol, a former intelligence officer at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency who is now a political science professor at Angelo University in Texas.
“The North Koreans may be looking for technology that will help those missiles evade ballistic missile defenses as they’re attacking the South,” Bechtol said Monday during a phone interview with VOA. “The Russians do have that technology, and this is something that we must pay attention to.”
Moscow’s transfer of guidance and reentry capabilities of intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, would be the “most dangerous to the American homeland, according to David Maxwell, vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy.
“Advanced technology and capabilities to support an ICBM program” probably is “what North Korea wants the most,” Maxwell told VOA during a telephone interview on Monday.
Analysts say Russia could also provide technologies that could enhance the development of satellite cameras, submarines, advanced fighter jets, air defense capabilities and tanks.
Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corporation, told VOA in a telephone interview this week that Russia has technology that would allow North Korea to pack greater explosive power into a small warhead, but “may be reluctant to give North Korea sophisticated miniaturization technology.”
Bennett said North Korea may have a nuclear warhead with 10 kilotons yield, but it probably does not have advanced miniaturization technology that could pack 350 kilotons of explosive power into a warhead like that of a U.S. Minuteman III ICBM.
Analysts say regardless of what weapons technology Russia transfers, it would be difficult to detect.
Bennett pointed out that Russian scientists seemed to have flown from Moscow to Pyongyang on a Russia military plane in September, two months before North Korea launched a spy satellite.
It could be difficult to discern if Russians spotted in Pyongyang are military experts now that North Korea has opened up its border to Russian tourists, said Bechtol.
Russian tourists visited North Korea in February for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic.
A North Korean IT delegation returned home on Friday after attending the Eurasia IT forum in Moscow, and a delegation on the North Korea-Russia joint committee on fisheries returned home on February 29 from Russia, according to KCNA, the state news agency of North Korea.
SEE ALSO:
Putin Gives North Korea's Kim Jong Un Russian Limo as Gift
Additionally, Kim received a Russian-made vehicle from Putin on February 18, according to KCNA. Russian state media Tass on February 19 did not confirm the make or model, saying only that Kim examined an Aurus luxury car during his visit.
voanews.com · March 6, 2024
4. Experts say, “This is not a policy change” when US officials mention ‘interim measures for denuclearization’… The “realistic necessity” argument
This is Google translation of a Voice of America article. I again state my objection to arms control negotiations.
Experts say, “This is not a policy change” when US officials mention ‘interim measures for denuclearization’… The “realistic necessity” argument
2024.3.5
https://www.voakorea.com/a/7513998.html
Regarding the White House official's statement that interim measures may be considered in the process of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, U.S. experts assessed that it was not a new argument or a change in policy. However, some have expressed the view that realistically, intermediate measures are necessary. Reporter Ahn Jun-ho listened to the opinions of experts.
Bruce Klingner, a senior researcher at the Heritage Foundation, said in a phone call with VOA on the 4th that the remarks by Mira Rapp Hooper, senior director for Asia and Oceania at the White House National Security Council (NSC), are merely a repetition of the U.S. government's long-held North Korea policy and do not represent any new claims or policies. The diagnosis was that it was not a change.
Klingner, a senior researcher who served as deputy director of Korea for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), said, “Throughout successive administrations, the United States has gradually implemented all negotiated agreements while maintaining denuclearization as its ultimate goal.”
Bruce Klingner, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Photo = Heritage Foundation.
Senior researcher Klingner said, “North Korea will not give up all its nuclear weapons and production facilities overnight, and the United States will not provide all the benefits overnight.”
[녹취: 클링너 선임연구원] “North Korea's not going to abandon it, its entire arsenal and production facilities overnight. Nor is the US going to provide all of the benefits of overnight.”
Senior researcher Klingner pointed out, however, that North Korea has been refusing any dialogue since late 2019 (when the Hanoi summit collapsed).
Senior researcher Klingner said that if North Korea takes measures such as freezing the production of nuclear weapons and fissile materials, allowing inspections by international organizations, and stopping missile launches, the United States and the international community will gradually ease some sanctions against North Korea and provide various economic benefits in return. He said he could provide .
But he said it was unlikely North Korea would implement the agreement.
Senior Researcher Klingner said North Korea said it would give up its nuclear program and promised not to build nuclear weapons when signing the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula or signing international agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safety agreement. He even pointed out that they were already building nuclear weapons and had not fulfilled their promises at all.
[녹취: 클링너 선임연구원] “I I've been working North Korea for 31 years. I was skeptical under the agreed framework that they were actually going to abandon their nuclear weapons program, and we saw that despite claims that North Korea was going to do so, that it didn't even when it signed the Inter Korean nuclear agreement. And then nonproliferation treaty and the IAEA safeguards, you know, during each of those international agreements, when it pledged never to build nuclear weapons, it was already building nuclear weapons.”
Senior researcher Klingner said “there is no magic solution” for denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
“We have been trying for decades, and we continue to propose dialogue,” he said. “But in the meantime, we will maintain enforcement of laws and UN resolutions (related to sanctions against North Korea) to maintain pressure on North Korea and countries that violate those laws and resolutions.” “(Military) deterrence must be maintained,” he emphasized.
[녹취: 클링너 선임연구원] “So we don't have a magic solution. We've been trying for several decades now, so we continue to offer dialogue, but in the meantime, we need to maintain the enforcement of our own laws and UN resolutions, which maintains pressure on North Korea and those that violate those laws and resolutions and then maintain deterrence.”
SEE ALSO:
U.S. NSC official: “We may consider ‘intermediate measures’ toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”
At a forum co-hosted by Korea's JoongAng Ilbo and the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Seoul on the 4th, the White House senior director said there was no change in the existing policy goal of complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, but that "intermediate measures" would be taken in the process. He said it could happen.
Senior advisor Rap Hooper said, “The United States’ goal is still the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” and added, “However, if the process of denuclearization can make the region and the world safer, we will consider intermediate measures.”
The Joe Biden administration has continuously called for 'unconditional dialogue' with North Korea, but North Korea has refused.
Gary Seymour, former White House coordinator for weapons of mass destruction. Photo = Brandeis University.
Gary Seymour, former White House coordinator for weapons of mass destruction, said in a phone call with VOA on this day regarding 'intermediate measures', "It has been a long-standing policy of the United States," and "The United States does not expect the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula to be achieved all at once."
Instead, the United States said that all agreements with North Korea, including past six-party talks, included intermediate steps toward the ultimate goal of denuclearization, and that it would seek to achieve denuclearization through a series of intermediate steps.
Former coordinator Seymour said, however, “North Korea does not seem to be interested in any significant interim measures at the moment,” and added, “The last time there was a serious effort to reach an agreement (on denuclearization) was the Hanoi summit.”
At the U.S.-North Korea summit held in Hanoi, Vietnam in 2019, North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un proposed interim measures to close the Yongbyon nuclear facility in return for lifting international sanctions against North Korea, and President Trump rejected this proposal in order to achieve denuclearization. It is pointed out that this was the last negotiation.
Former coordinator Seymour said, “However, there are currently no signs that North Korea is interested in taking any steps toward denuclearization.”
[녹취: 세이모어 전 조정관] “I think right now North Korea is not interested in any significant interim steps. I mean the last time there was any serious effort at an agreement was the Hanoi Summit and Kim Jong Un offered an interim step of shutting down the young Beyond nuclear facility in exchange for lifting international sanctions. And of course, President Trump rejected that proposal. But right now I don't see any sign that the North Koreans are interested in any steps toward denuclearization.”
Former coordinator Seymour said, “Kim Jong-un appears to believe that nuclear weapons are essential for North Korea’s defense and survival,” and “North Korea regards external enemies, including not only the United States, South Korea, and Japan, but even China, as existential threats.” Diagnosed.
He went on to explain, “North Korea believes that possessing nuclear weapons is necessary for the survival of the country and the (Kim) dynasty.”
Former coordinator Seymour said there is no possibility of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in the near future and said, “We have tried various methods to achieve denuclearization, but North Korea is currently not interested in denuclearization.”
[녹취: 세이모어 전 조정관] “Not in the foreseeable future. Unfortunately we've tried, you know, so many different ways to achieve denuclearization, and at this point, North Korea, I believe, is not interested in denuclearization. So I think for the time being, we're going to have to manage a situation where North Korea is armed with nuclear weapons and the US and the ROK and Japan are focused on deterring use, which I think we're doing a good job of strengthening the alliance and defense capabilities in order to prevent use of nuclear weapons.”
He said, “That is why, for the time being, we must manage the situation in which North Korea is armed with nuclear weapons.”
David Maxwell, Vice President, Asia-Pacific Strategy Center. Photo = Center for Asia Pacific Strategy.
David Maxwell, vice president of the Asia-Pacific Strategy Center and former chief of staff for the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command, said in a phone call with VOA that day that taking intermediate measures rather than complete denuclearization could send the wrong signal to North Korea.
Deputy Representative Maxwell said, “If we negotiate arms control (rather than denuclearization), Kim Jong-un will evaluate his political war strategy as a success, which means he will seek to be recognized as a nuclear power on the world stage.”
He continued, “By switching to arms control rather than denuclearization, to be recognized as a de facto nuclear state, that is what Kim Jong-un wants.” “I will put it up,” he said.
At the same time, he diagnosed, “Kim Jong-un will not negotiate in good faith and believes there is absolutely no need to give up nuclear weapons.”
[녹취: 맥스웰 부대표] “The problem with that is that and if we do that, then Kim Jong-un will assess that his political warfare strategy is successful, meaning he is trying to become recognized as a global state of global, I mean a nuclear state on the global stage. And so by shifting the arms control rather than denuclearization, than he will, de facto be acknowledged as a nuclear state, which is what he wants. And then of course, with arms control, strategic arms limitation talks and strategic arms reduction talks like we, the United States had with the Soviet Union during the Cold War will place him on a very high level. (중략) He will not negotiate in good faith and he will believe that he will never have to give up his nuclear weapons.”
Vice Representative Maxwell said, “North Korea and Kim Jong-un will never denuclearize as long as the Kim family remains in power.”
North Korea previously declared the completion of its nuclear force in 2017, adopted its nuclear force policy as a law at the Supreme People's Assembly in September 2022, and even specified it in its constitution in September of last year, taking the opposite path to denuclearization.
Joseph DeTrani, former U.S. deputy representative to the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program
Joseph DeTrani, former deputy U.S. representative to the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear issue, said in response to Senior Director Rap Hooper's statement that he was considering intermediate measures, "Our ultimate goal is complete and verifiable denuclearization," but added, "However, this does not mean nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches." “We must stop and go through the process of stopping the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons,” he said.
He went on to explain, “In return, North Korea can get sanctions relief, eventual (sanctions) lifting, and other outcomes.”
“This is an ‘action-for-action’ process similar to the September 19, 2005 six-party joint statement in which North Korea promised complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for security guarantees, economic outcomes, and normalization of relations with the United States.” He explained.
[디트라니 전 차석대표] “I think this is a positive statement from the U.S. to North Korea. As stated, our ultimate goal has not changed: complete and verifiable denuclearization. However, that comes at the end of a process that could include a halt to nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches and a halt to the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. (중략) In return, North Korea could receive an easing and eventual lifting of sanctions and other deliverables. This is an action-for-action process, similar to the Six-Party Talks' Joint Memorandum of September 19, 2005, when North Korea committed to complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in return for security assurances and economic deliverables and a path to normalization of relations with the U.S.”
Former Deputy Representative DeTrani predicted that North Korea would return to the (denuclearization) talks if the U.S. proposal, including interim measures, is materialized to include sanctions relief and lifting rather than the immediate goal of denuclearization.
[디트라니 전 차석대표] “I do believe North Korea would return to talks if this proposal is spelled-out to include the easing and lifting of sanctions and not the immediate goal of denuclearization.”
In an earlier interview with VOA, former Deputy Representative DeTrani said, “The ultimate goal is denuclearization, but that is not necessarily the first or most obvious step,” adding, “North Korea will not give up nuclear weapons as nuclear armament is specified in North Korea’s constitution.” He pointed out that “denuclearization is no longer possible.”
Former Deputy Representative DeTrani said, “North Korea may wait for the winner to be determined in the U.S. presidential election.”
The analysis is that the United States has not made any proposals such as interim measures over the past four years, and it may be thought that it only made such proposals because of the election.
[디트라니 전 차석대표] “However, Pyongyang may be waiting for the presidential elections to determine the winner before responding to such a U.S. request, given that during the past four years such a proposal was not presented and, they may think, it was only because of an election said proposal is being made. I personally think the White House mentioned this now because the situation with North Korea has worsened exponentially during the past four years, to the extent that North Korea is providing artillery shells and ballistic missiles to Russia for its war of aggression in Ukraine. And indeed with the upcoming election, I think it's important that this administration shows that it did its best to peacefully resolve issues with North Korea, and this proposal is in line with that objective.”
Former Deputy Representative DeTrani also said, “I think the White House mentioned this issue now because the situation with North Korea has deteriorated rapidly over the past four years to the point where North Korea has provided artillery shells and ballistic missiles to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
He continued, “In fact, in the upcoming election, it is important to show that the Biden administration has done its best to resolve the issue with North Korea peacefully,” and added, “The (interim measure) proposal meets that goal.”
This is Ahn Jun-ho of VOA News.
5. North Korea’s Agricultural Policies: Embracing a Chinese Model for Increased Productivity
Conclusion:
Overall, three key issues stand in the way of effective agricultural reform in North Korea: 1) a history of myopic and often contradictory policymaking; 2) a lack of incentives for both farmers and officials; and 3) corruption and the resultant lack of trust in the system. Any North Korea observer will recognize that these factors are by no means unique to North Korea’s farming sector. They are likewise thoroughly interlinked. If North Korea is serious about increasing productivity, the country’s leaders need to take a hard look at China’s experience for potential solutions.
Currently, North Korean farmers work in a challenging environment without adequate supplies and with little to gain individually from their efforts, leading to a loss of motivation and incentives to siphon off crops to support their own livelihoods. A similar issue plagues the officials who oversee farm management. Without a livable salary from the government and immense pressure to meet unreasonable quotas, they are naturally driven to falsify records and siphon off some crops for themselves.
Laws like the “Exaggeration Prevention Law” will be ineffective in reversing these trends because the law only addresses the symptoms of the problem, not its roots. This kind of superficial and reactionary policymaking is endemic to North Korea, where issues are treated as if they were the product of ideological impurity rather than an unlivable reality and systemic deficiencies. No agrarian reform, no matter how well conceived, can be successfully implemented under these conditions. The move to revive the public distribution system by invoking a return to state-controlled food supplies suggests that Kim is aware that the government has little to offer the people in return for their hard work and loyalty. Now might be a good time for the North Korean government to look to China’s experience for solutions to improve the country’s agricultural productivity.
North Korea’s Agricultural Policies: Embracing a Chinese Model for Increased Productivity
Last fall, articles published by North Korean state media outlets such as Rodong Sinmun revealed a familiar priority in North Korea: mobilizing people to work in the fields while urging officials to ensure that agricultural equipment is operating at full capacity. Food supply is a critical issue for any government, as it can be directly linked to regime stability.[1] North Korea’s famine in the 1990s, for example, led to mass defections, while more recent food shortages have led to rising levels of crime and increasing absenteeism in workplaces and schools.
The North Korean government has shown an increasing sense of urgency to improve the country’s agricultural production. However, the country’s agricultural sector has long been plagued by a history of short-sighted and often contradictory policies, minimal incentives for both farmers and officials, and a lack of trust in the system due to corruption.
If North Korea’s leaders are serious about economic development in the long term, addressing these agricultural problems and, consequently, food security issues will be critical to the success and sustainability of any kind of economic reforms. China’s experience in this regard can be instructive for Pyongyang. Beginning in the early 1980s, China pushed reforms that broke up collective farms and allowed farmers to work hard in their own fields. As a result, the country was able to gradually solve its food issues and increase productivity. While North Korea faces shortages of fertilizer and equipment more severe than China did, North Korean officials should look to the Chinese model’s emphasis on farmers’ ownership of land as part of efforts to improve the country’s food security.
Kim Jong Un’s Contradictory Agricultural Policies
Since gaining power in 2011, the Kim Jong Un government has persistently endeavored to transform the country’s agricultural sector. North Korea’s Farm Law, first enacted in December 2009, has been amended or supplemented no fewer than 10 times.[2] Amendments throughout the 2010s into 2020 were enacted to expand farm autonomy, differentiating and decentralizing farms, expanding privately cultivated land, and distributing portions of collective farmland to agencies and enterprises for cultivation. However, North Korea did not boldly implement these measures: their implementation operated to avoid potentially regime-destabilizing elements, including, for example, the expansion of the concept of private property.
Despite baby steps toward relinquishing some control, North Korean authorities implemented measures to tighten control over private agricultural activities after the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. For example, a 2021 amendment to the Agricultural Law defined farms as “socialist agricultural enterprises” to emphasize the “collective” nature of farms. In addition, in 2022, amendments to the Agricultural Law emphasized the so-called duties of collective farms, including achieving expected crop yields and fulfilling mandatory grain purchase plans.
North Korea revised the Farm Law yet again in September 2023 as part of an attempt to alter the Individual Field Responsibility System to better encourage productivity among farmers. Although the August 2023 amendment made some steps towards expanding private farming, it simultaneously included plans to increase government management and control. This trend suggests that the collective farming system will likely remain the norm for most North Korean farms and that reforms to fully transition to private farming will only come at a glacial pace.
In tandem with moves to increase control over agricultural activities, the Kim government has tightened controls over food distribution and sales and “taken steps to further regulate markets, including measures to force market vendors to register their businesses.” This suggests North Korea’s government aims to centralize control of food production, distribution, and sales amid a broader drive to reexert control over the nation’s economy. However, North Korea’s history of cobbled-together policies aimed at reexerting control has failed to incentivize anyone in the system to be productive. Instead, the government’s drive for control has led to widespread corruption and lack of trust, which has hindered the effectiveness of the country’s agricultural policies.
Rampant Corruption Takes its Toll
North Korea’s chronic level of corruption would hamper even the most well-designed agricultural reforms’ and can be exemplified by the May 2022 enactment of the “Exaggeration Prevention Law” (허풍방지법, heopungbangjibeop). The law is intended to improve the government’s ability to obtain accurate information about farm activities and crop yields to stop farmers and farm managers from siphoning off grain for private sales in markets. It spells out punishments for infractions, including the suspension, reduction, or stripping of credentials, confiscations of assets, and criminal penalties such as unpaid labor and reeducation through labor.[3]
One of the most egregious forms of corruption practiced by officials involved in agriculture is taking more crops than originally agreed upon with farmers. In 2018, for example, farms in South Pyongan Province implemented a system of allocating fields to families as sub-work teams. Because farmers could keep whatever they harvested from the fields above their government-set quota, they worked harder than before. This was short-lived, however, because the authorities reneged on their original agreement to share the harvest.
In the end, collective farm workers who once believed that agricultural production would increase thanks to the Field Responsibility System stopped working hard after seeing government officials take almost everything during the fall harvest. As long as the authorities do not consistently follow their own policies, public morale is unlikely to improve. Ultimately, how serious North Korea is about rethinking its productivity strategies will depend on where it borrows ideas. In fact, some potential solutions may come from North Korea’s closest ally and neighbor, China.
Finding Potential Solutions in a Chinese Model
The Chinese model of agricultural reform offers one possible solution to North Korea’s food problems. Beginning in the late 1970s, China expanded autonomy throughout its economy, leading to the emergence of various cooperatives and private enterprises. Like North Korea, the country had operated a collective farming system and only overcame its food shortages in the mid-1980s after dismantling the people’s communes and introducing the household responsibility system. It also moved to combat corruption by enacting reforms aimed at weeding out incompetent workers in state-owned enterprises and organizations.
China’s agricultural reforms achieved stunning results. From 1975-1980, the increase in Chinese agricultural output was only 16.9 percent (3.2 percent annually); however, from 1980-1985, when China actively implemented its agrarian reform by replacing collective farming with farming by family units, agricultural output increased at a rate of 48.3 percent (8.2 percent annually).
In contrast, the Soviet Union’s attempt at agricultural reform offers some lessons to avoid. Beginning in the Khrushchev era, the Soviet government implemented many changes and policies, including merging or converting collective farms into state farms. However, the Soviet insistence on maintaining a centralized, command-and-control planned economy prevented the agricultural sector from escaping the long-term stagnation that plagued the country’s economy.
Currently, one of the key factors in North Korea’s poor agricultural performance is insufficient investment. In the Chinese case, individual farmers were given rights to use their land, which allowed farmers themselves to make investments ohn their land, including irrigation systems, with a view to increase productivity. The Soviet Union, however, failed to do this; only after the collapse of the Soviet Union were farmers freely able to invest in their own land.
Therefore, the North Korean government should actively promote Chinese-style agricultural reform by allowing farmers to make investments in their own land. Specifically, the success of North Korea’s agricultural sector will depend on the government establishing a system that empowers farmers to invest, adopt new technologies, explore new markets, and set their own prices.
Conclusion
Overall, three key issues stand in the way of effective agricultural reform in North Korea: 1) a history of myopic and often contradictory policymaking; 2) a lack of incentives for both farmers and officials; and 3) corruption and the resultant lack of trust in the system. Any North Korea observer will recognize that these factors are by no means unique to North Korea’s farming sector. They are likewise thoroughly interlinked. If North Korea is serious about increasing productivity, the country’s leaders need to take a hard look at China’s experience for potential solutions.
Currently, North Korean farmers work in a challenging environment without adequate supplies and with little to gain individually from their efforts, leading to a loss of motivation and incentives to siphon off crops to support their own livelihoods. A similar issue plagues the officials who oversee farm management. Without a livable salary from the government and immense pressure to meet unreasonable quotas, they are naturally driven to falsify records and siphon off some crops for themselves.
Laws like the “Exaggeration Prevention Law” will be ineffective in reversing these trends because the law only addresses the symptoms of the problem, not its roots. This kind of superficial and reactionary policymaking is endemic to North Korea, where issues are treated as if they were the product of ideological impurity rather than an unlivable reality and systemic deficiencies. No agrarian reform, no matter how well conceived, can be successfully implemented under these conditions. The move to revive the public distribution system by invoking a return to state-controlled food supplies suggests that Kim is aware that the government has little to offer the people in return for their hard work and loyalty. Now might be a good time for the North Korean government to look to China’s experience for solutions to improve the country’s agricultural productivity.
- [1]
- The author would like to thank the 38 North team for suggestions and edits on the original piece, along with Robert Lauler and Rose Adams for comments and translation assistance.
- [2]
- The Farm Law was adopted in 2009 to improve management of farms and production of food. The law has since been amended in November 2012, July 2013, December 2014, June 2015, February and July 2020, March and November 2021, December 2022 and September 2023.
- [3]
- The Compilation of North Korean Laws: vol. 1 (Seoul: National Intelligence Service, 2022).
6. President Yoon is lauded in West for embracing Japan − in South Korea it fits a conservative agenda that is proving less popular
Sometimes I think President Yoon is more popular in the US and President Biden is more popular in South Korea.
President Yoon is lauded in West for embracing Japan − in South Korea it fits a conservative agenda that is proving less popular
Published: March 6, 2024 8:35am EST
theconversation.com · by Myunghee Lee
When South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol broke out into an impromptu performance of the song “American Pie” at a gala White House dinner in 2023, it was more than just a musical interlude. It was symbolic of how on the big Indo-Pacific issues of the day, Washington and Seoul are singing from the same songbook.
But so, too, is Japan. And for South Korea’s karaoke-loving leader, that means humming a different tune to predecessors on the international stage – and risking hitting a sour note back at home.
Yoon, who took office in May 2022, has embraced closer ties with Japan, South Korea’s former colonizer, as part of an alignment with U.S.-led security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. It entails a more demanding stance toward North Korea’s denuclearization and a watchful eye on China and its increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea.
The approach culminated in a historic Camp David summit in 2023 aimed at solidifying relations between South Korea and Japan.
Such rapprochement with Japan has won Yoon plaudits in the U.S.
But it has done nothing to improve his popularity back home. In South Korea there is growing disapproval of Yoon’s leadership. Critics point to an illiberal streak in his rhetoric and policies, which has included attacks on his critics and the media. It has, they contend, contributed to a worrying trend of democratic erosion in Korea. Yoon’s poll ratings are sinking at a time when his conservative party seeks control of parliament in elections slated for April 10, 2024.
As scholars who study democratization and authoritarian politics and modern Korea, we are watching as these concerns grow in the run-up to the parliamentary elections. That vote will prove a test of the popular support for Yoon, his domestic agenda and his vision for South Korea’s more outward-looking international role.
Japan is ‘now our partner’
Yoon struck a raw nerve in an Aug. 15, 2023, speech celebrating National Liberation Day in Korea, in which he affirmed the country’s partnership with neighboring Japan. He said the country’s former colonial occupier is “now our partner, sharing universal values and pursuing common interests,” and emphasized that “as security and economic partners, Korea and Japan will cooperate with a forward-looking approach, contributing to global peace and prosperity.”
His remarks were met with public outrage, especially given their timing: National Liberation Day commemorates Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, which lasted from 1910 to 1945.
The Japanese occupation was brutal, simultaneously exploiting Korean women – as evident in the use of so-called “comfort women,” or military sexual slaves – and treating Koreans generally as second-class citizens, all the while pushing obligatory assimilation into Japanese civilization on the occupied population.
Attempts by the Japanese colonial regime at erasing a separate Korean identity and culture – this included banning the teaching of the Korean language and coercing Koreans to adopt Japanese names, along with the violent suppression of independence movements – left deep scars on the collective Korean psyche.
For many Koreans, watching their country join Japan in a trilateral partnership with the U.S. is too much to accept.
Emergence of pro-Japan voices
Yoon and his conservative administration’s foreign policy goals are based not on nationalism but on what has been described as “a value-based alliance” with Washington. This stance is at odds with the nationalist focus often seen in the right-wing politics of other countries.
Indeed, in South Korea it is the political left that increasingly identifies with a form of nationalism. Meanwhile, the “New Right” in South Korea has correspondingly embraced an anti-nationalist stance, specifically attacking anti-Japanese sentiment.
Since the early 2000s, Korean conservatives have increasingly distanced themselves from nationalism, particularly of the anti-Japanese variety. If, as theorists such as Ernest Gellner have argued, modern nationalism is based on the presumed unity of state and nation, political developments in Korea since 1980 have destabilized this relationship.
After the bloodshed of the Gwangju Massacre in 1980, during which the state killed hundreds of its own citizens, leftist nationalists argued that the South Korean state was neither the representative or defender of the Korean nation.
Rather, they saw the South Korean state’s inheritance of institutions and personnel from the Japanese colonial government, alongside the hegemonic presence of the United States in Korea – characterized as “neocolonial” by some – as diluting the state’s nationalist credentials.
In contrast, conservatives defended the South Korean authoritarian state’s legitimacy and its legacies. They argued that authoritarian rule was responsible for the rapid economic growth that allowed South Koreans to live in prosperity.
As part of their defense of Korea’s legacy and attack on a political left increasingly identified with nationalism, conservatives embraced an anti-nationalist stance, specifically attacking anti-Japanese rhetoric. This has involved downplaying the negative effects of Japan’s colonial rule in Korea between 1910 and 1945 and even rejecting the validity of Korean comfort women testimonies. One additional motivation for conservatives has been to justify the achievements of right-wing heroes such as former dictator Park Chung Hee. Park, who has been credited with jump-starting Korea’s economic growth, has been castigated by nationalists as a pro-Japanese collaborator, having been an officer in the Imperial Japanese Army during the 1940s.
Starting around the turn of the century, there has been a gradual increase in the frequency and intensity of pro-Japan voices. Far-right organizations, such as the Republic of Korea Mom’s Brigade, have since the 2010s organized rallies in defense of Japanese colonialism. More recently, far-right groups have systematically disrupted so-called Wednesday Demonstrations – a protest that has been continually held for over 30 years in front of the Japanese embassy in Korea to demand that Japan address the comfort women issue.
In a 2019 bestselling book, conservatives even attacked anti-Japanese nationalism as a form of “tribalism” on the left. It is in this context of the growing prominence of pro-Japan voices that Yoon, in a 2023 interview with The Washington Post, expressed that he “could not accept the notion that Japan must kneel because of what happened 100 years ago.”
Attacks on critics and fake news
Yoon embodies this reorientation of Korean conservative ideology and foreign policy that rejects nationalism in favor of closer relations with Japan, especially in the context of alignment with the U.S. against the threat of North Korea and China. The approach has seen Yoon embraced by American policymakers.
Yet his popularity at home has fallen from an approval rating of above 50% in mid-2022 to 29% at the beginning of February 2024, although it has since picked up a little.
At first glance, his foreign policy seems to support liberal and democratic values. However, in domestic matters there has been growing concern that his rhetoric and policies reflect an illiberal character.
Examples include labeling his opponents as “communists” and attacks on the media and “fake news.”
This is perhaps unsurprising; the nature of Korean conservatism is deeply rooted in authoritarianism.
The Biden administration is keen to present Yoon differently – as an ally, along with Japan, in the protection of Asia’s democracies. But this says more about a U.S. foreign policy that centers China as a threat than it does Yoon’s actual commitment to democratic freedoms.
To a South Korea audience, however, Yoon’s position on Japan only adds to general concern over his illiberal tendencies ahead of April’s vote – the first general parliamentary elections during Yoon’s tenure.
theconversation.com · by Myunghee Lee
7. Will Myanmar Become the Next North Korea?
Excerpts:
Ever since the coup in 2021, Myanmar’s commitment to nonproliferation has again come under question. In 2023 alone, the junta was proactive in its attempt to secure nuclear capabilities by reaching out to China and Russia. Myanmar’s military regime insists – as it always has – that it is pursuing nuclear energy solely for peaceful uses. Indeed, the possibility that the junta’s primary interest lies in stabilizing its electronic power supply through nuclear power can’t be completely dismissed. But the precedent of North Korea first procuring plutonium through a Russian nuclear reactor cannot be ignored.
It is currently unclear whether Myanmar has acquired reprocessing capabilities for uranium enrichment. Most reports of Myanmar’s nuclear program remain unconfirmed, and even if taken at face value they would indicate extremely limited capabilities.
With that in mind, the recent indictment of an arms trafficker in possession of nuclear materials in Myanmar only raises further questions.
Notably, the Japanese national was alleged to be working not with the military regime, but with an unnamed ethnic armed group. Myanmar’s Shan State has been alleged to be a uranium mining site in the past, but rebels in the state have denied any links to nuclear trafficking.
Amid heightened global political tensions and extreme state fragility in Myanmar, concerns over the potential utilization of nuclear materials by non-state actors should carry weight for international security. The ongoing situation in Myanmar should be handled with dire caution.
Will Myanmar Become the Next North Korea?
thediplomat.com
A recent indictment resurrects longstanding concerns about nuclear proliferation in Myanmar, with the complicating factor of an ongoing civil war.
By Jong Min Lee
March 07, 2024
Credit: Depositphotos
On February 21, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Japanese Yakuza leader Takeshi Ebisawa on charges of international trafficking of nuclear materials from Myanmar beginning in early 2020. Ebisawa had already been in U.S. custody since April 2022, after he was charged in New York City for illegal arms trading and narcotrafficking. The recent indictment raises the stakes by alleging that he attempted to trade weapon grade plutonium and uranium concentrate powder known as “yellowcake” on behalf of unnamed insurgents in Myanmar. In exchange, he wanted to receive surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and other military-grade weapons.
The indictment outlined that Ebisawa and his co-conspirators had explicitly stated to undercover Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents on February 4, 2022 that production of roughly five tons of nuclear materials is possible in Myanmar. Also, Ebisawa asserted that he had access to roughly 2,000 kilograms of Thorium-232 and 100 kilograms of yellowcake, and sent photographs as evidence. The indictment noted that a “U.S. nuclear forensic laboratory later analyzed the samples and confirmed that the samples contain uranium and weapons-grade plutonium.”
Ebisawa believed he was discussing the sale of nuclear materials with a general from Iran, but he was actually speaking to undercover agents for the DEA. Although the attempted transaction was neutralized by the DEA’s sting operation, this incident highlights that non-conventional nuclear threats posed by non-state actors are still a clear and present danger. In particular, the event underscores the danger of nuclear production and proliferation in Myanmar, where oversight is nearly non-existent amid a devastating civil war.
A Brief History of Myanmar’s Nuclear Program
Myanmar’s first attempt to utilize nuclear energy came through the establishment of the Union of Burma Atomic Energy Center in 1955, which was later reestablished as the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) under the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) in 1997. Also in 1955, Myanmar (then known as Burma) participated in the United Nations Conference on Atoms for Peace. Then in 1957, the country became one of the founding members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Amid the post-Cold War denuclearization trend, Myanmar became a non-nuclear weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in 1992. After that, Myanmar signed on to the Bangkok Treaty in 1995, showing its commitment not to develop nuclear weapons.
Given the country’s history and its commitment to relevant international treaties, Myanmar may seem to be in compliance with international nonproliferation efforts. However, the commitment of Myanmar’s military to these principles has repeatedly been called into question.
In 2001, the junta ruling Myanmar, formally known as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), negotiated with Russia for a nuclear research reactor. This came after Myanmar’s initial request to the IAEA for a research reactor in 2000. The agency required Myanmar to meet its minimum standards for reactor safety and regulatory infrastructure, including regular inspections. Compliance would have meant significant restrictions on potential weaponization of the technology.
Myanmar’s military instead opted for the path of least resistance and attempted to acquire Russian assistance to develop nuclear capabilities. The effort was led by former Burmese Ambassador to the United States U Thaung and a U.S.-trained nuclear scientist, Thein Pow Saw. The partnership raised concerns, particularly from observers who noted that “the Russian-made nuclear-research reactor that the Burmese authorities sought to acquire is similar to the 5-megawatt research reactor that the then-Soviet Union installed at Yongbyon in North Korea in 1965, from which North Korea later extracted plutonium for a nuclear device.”
The deal for the Russian nuclear reactor soon collapsed, but concerns surrounding Myanmar’s nuclear ambitions further intensified when the country officially reestablished ties with North Korea in 2007. Since then, there have been numerous speculations and rumors surrounding North Korea’s nuclear cooperation in Myanmar, alongside continued nuclear outreach to Russia.
The North Korea Factor
After the Rangoon Bombing in 1983, which resulted in the death of 16 South Korean cabinet officials in Myanmar’s then-capital, Myanmar severed ties with North Korea. But with prolonged military rule and repercussions from the violent suppression of the 88 Revolution, Myanmar itself became a pariah state over the course of time. Consequently, under the suggestion of Lieutenant General Thein Htay, Than Shwe’s junta reached out to North Korea in the early 2000s.
According to former Defense Intelligence Agency official Bruce Bechtol, Myanmar sent 30 of its technicians to North Korea to study reactor technology in 2003. Between 2003 and 2006, it is alleged that North Korean technicians were present in Myanmar to assist in building tunnels under Naypyidaw. Around this time, the Irrawaddy alleged ties with North Korea. In 2007, relations became official when North Korea re-established its embassy in Myanmar.
More light was shed on this shadowy relationship when a document was leaked on the SPDC delegation’s secret visit to North Korea in November 2008. During this visit, Burmese generals made several military site visits and met with North Korea’s Chief of Staff Kim Kyok Sik to strengthen military ties. The two sides signed an agreement focused on military modernization and transfer of tunneling technology. This leak heightened security by North Koreans for later visits and resulted in the execution of two Burmese officials.
Allegations of illicit weapons trade between the two states persisted for the next decade. The international community took notice when a North Korean Il-62 that was en route to Iran from Mandalay was grounded by India in August 2008. The U.S. Navy pursued a North Korean vessel heading to Myanmar in the South China Sea in two separate incidents in 2009 and 2011.
In 2009, Australian Ambassador to Myanmar Michelle Chan noted that a Burmese government official insisted that its nuclear ambition was only for peaceful purposes, but confirmed that Russia’s role in Burma’s nuclear development is oriented toward “software and training,” while North Korea is focused on “hardware.” Also in 2009, a story in the Sydney Morning Herald alleged Myanmar was receiving assistance from Russia and North Korea, supposedly to advance nuclear power plants and weapons programs.
Such reports attracted attention from the U.S. government. After expressing initial concern in 2009, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially reiterated her concerns over Myanmar’s efforts to secure military technology from North Korea during her visit in 2011. However, the State Department emphasized that Washington was mainly concerned about missile sales, with a spokesperson saying “ we do not see signs of a substantial nuclear effort at this time.”
Sporadic allegations of a nuclear weapons program in Myanmar were made by dissident groups and non-governmental organizations throughout the 2010s. Most notably, Democratic Voice of Burma in 2010 cited documents and photos from a Burmese army defector, Sai Thein Win, who alleged relevant training in Russia and the existence of nuclear facilities near Mandalay and Magway. However, independent satellite image analysis from the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) later assessed that the facility was most likely a cement plant.
Amid continued suspicion, after then-U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Myanmar in 2012 Myanmar denied any military cooperation with North Korea and officially announced it had scrapped its nuclear research plan. Myanmar later signed on to the IAEA’s additional protocol in 2013. Still, the SPDC continued efforts to build nuclear reactors with Russian assistance in 2014 and again in 2015.
Myanmar’s interactions with North Korea also continued, including a weapons deal with North Korea in 2013. North Korean Ambassador Kim Sok Chol was replaced in 2016 after the United States placed sanctions on him over an alleged weapons trade with Myanmar via the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID). The incident suggests that Myanmar’s arms trade with North Korea existed at least until 2016.
However, that same year the junta in Myanmar permitted a partial democratic transition, which resulted in Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy forming the government. Under the NLD, Myanmar’s nuclear program – and international concerns over such ambitions – faded. Instead, Myanmar signed on to additional relevant international conventions and protocols.
Since 2017, Myanmar has partly partaken in U.N. sanction efforts on North Korea. However, the 2018 United Nations Panel of Experts Report outlined that the arms trade between Myanmar and North Korea persisted through KOMID even after 2017.
Post-Coup Concerns
After the junta’s egregious coup in 2021, North Korea and Myanmar’s junta outwardly resumed relations. In September 2023, Tin Maung Swe was designated as Myanmar’s ambassador to North Korea. The use of North Korean weaponry by the junta was documented by the Karen National Union in November 2023.
Ever since the coup in 2021, Myanmar’s commitment to nonproliferation has again come under question. In 2023 alone, the junta was proactive in its attempt to secure nuclear capabilities by reaching out to China and Russia. Myanmar’s military regime insists – as it always has – that it is pursuing nuclear energy solely for peaceful uses. Indeed, the possibility that the junta’s primary interest lies in stabilizing its electronic power supply through nuclear power can’t be completely dismissed. But the precedent of North Korea first procuring plutonium through a Russian nuclear reactor cannot be ignored.
It is currently unclear whether Myanmar has acquired reprocessing capabilities for uranium enrichment. Most reports of Myanmar’s nuclear program remain unconfirmed, and even if taken at face value they would indicate extremely limited capabilities.
With that in mind, the recent indictment of an arms trafficker in possession of nuclear materials in Myanmar only raises further questions.
Notably, the Japanese national was alleged to be working not with the military regime, but with an unnamed ethnic armed group. Myanmar’s Shan State has been alleged to be a uranium mining site in the past, but rebels in the state have denied any links to nuclear trafficking.
Amid heightened global political tensions and extreme state fragility in Myanmar, concerns over the potential utilization of nuclear materials by non-state actors should carry weight for international security. The ongoing situation in Myanmar should be handled with dire caution.
Authors
Guest Author
Jong Min Lee
Jong Min Lee is currently a master’s candidate with a concentration in International Security and Public International Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. His main areas of interest include non-conventional warfare, neo-authoritarianism, and transnational threats. He is also a graduate of Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University and pursued a concentration in Security Policy and Global Public Health.
thediplomat.com
8. Top military officer calls for strong response in event of N.K. provocations
The ROK CJCS is talking specifically about kinetic provocations. He is correct to focus on violent kinetic attacks on ROK territory. We have long been calling every action by north Korea as a provocation. We have for too long called every missile test a provocation and it has come to the point that because everything is a provocation we are paralyzed from taking action. eh ROK CJCS is being correctly precise.
Excerpt:
"If a North Korean terror (attack) occurs, focus all joint defense capabilities on ending the situation early on the spot and firmly punish those who conduct provocations so that they pay a harsh price," he said, according to his office.
Top military officer calls for strong response in event of N.K. provocations | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · March 6, 2024
SEOUL, March 6 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's top military officer on Wednesday called for firmly punishing North Korea in the event of terror attacks so that they pay a "harsh price," his office said.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Kim Myung-soo made the remark as he inspected joint counter-terrorism drills between the Army, police, firefighters and other civilian personnel in western Seoul in connection with an ongoing major South Korea-U.S. exercise.
"If a North Korean terror (attack) occurs, focus all joint defense capabilities on ending the situation early on the spot and firmly punish those who conduct provocations so that they pay a harsh price," he said, according to his office.
This file photo, provided by the Defense Daily on Nov. 30, 2023, shows Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Kim Myung-soo (C) inspecting operations at a border unit. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
The call came after the North's defense ministry warned that Seoul and Washington would pay a "dear price" over the annual Freedom Shield exercise, which began Monday for an 11-day run.
The North has long denounced such drills as preparing for an invasion against it and has used them as a pretext to stage military demonstrations. Seoul and Washington have said such exercises are defensive in nature.
Separately, the Air Force staged an air exercise Wednesday to improve readiness against North Korean cruise missile threats.
The drills, involving F-15K fighter jets, took place at the 11th Fighter Wing in Daegu, 237 kilometers southeast of Seoul, in connection with Freedom Shield.
The exercise proceeded under the scenario of multiple North Korean cruise missile launches flying past the Northern Limit Line, the de facto inter-Korean sea border, with fighter jet pilots training to detect the missiles and intercept them.
The North has recently ratcheted up tensions with a spate of weapons tests, firing multiple cruise missiles off its east coast on Feb. 14, which marked the fifth such missile launch this year.
This file photo, provided by the Air Force on Jan. 4, 2024, shows a South Korean F-15K fighter jet taking off from an unspecified air base. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · March 6, 2024
9. NGA looking for commercial data to update intel on North Korea
Good. We need as many eyes peering into the black hole of north Korea as possible.
NGA looking for commercial data to update intel on North Korea - Breaking Defense
"Approximately 90 [percent] of our foundational data is unclassified, which helps us share products more broadly with partners and allies across the globe," a spokesperson for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency told Breaking Defense.
breakingdefense.com · by Theresa Hitchens · March 7, 2024
A satellite image taken Feb. 16, 2024 of what Maxar identified as North Korea’s Yongyonb nuclear power plant. (Satellite image credit Maxar Technologies)
WASHINGTON — As the Biden administration grows increasingly worried by Pyongyang’s “burgeoning” arms trade relationship with Russia, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is looking to commercial providers to update baseline information about North Korea that it can use to create maps and other intelligence products.
“In particular for this solicitation, NGA is looking for updates to a database of political, economic, cultural and other government-related facilities, which will be a follow-on to a contract awarded in 2020,” a spokesperson told Breaking Defense.
Industry has until March 29 to respond to the Feb. 27 call for bids, which is seeking “foundational data” on “North Korean economic, industrial, and infrastructure facilities identified using native North Korean nomenclature.”
The NGA spokesperson explained that foundational data “describes physical and cultural characteristics, including elevation, coordinates, topography, geographic names, and human geography, as well as our earth sciences data (gravity, magnetics, geodetic surveys, etc.).”
The spy agency, which gathers information from intelligence sources — primarily imagery from aircraft, drones and satellites, but also from human sources and computer systems — to make sophisticated maps, 3D models and the like of areas of US interest around the globe. NGA also recently took over the Pentagon’s flagship artificial intelligence project, Project Maven.
Such geospatial intelligence, or GEOINT, is used for example by military commanders in planning operations, and even for targeting weapons. In recent years, NGA has been increasingly turning to the private sector, such as commercial remote sensing satellite operators, to augment its analysis with unclassified data.
“For foundational data in particular, we rely on commercial data providers. Approximately 90 [percent] of our foundational data is unclassified, which helps us share products more broadly with partners and allies across the globe,” the NGA spokesperson said.
Under the North Korea solicitation, the chosen contractor needs to be able to provide a first set of data “within 20 days of contract signature,” according to the agency’s statement of work. That would be followed by monthly updates, to include “new construction, error corrections, feature updates, and facilities that are newly mentioned in North Korea press.”
The anticipated contract is for two years, but the NGA documentation does not provide a funding level as the spy agency’s budget is classified. Neither would the agency reveal what firm held the previous contract.
10. N.K. leader calls for intensifying war drills
Why doesn't anyone call out north Korea for its winter training cycle? It has been conducting it since November and will be bringing the nKPA to its highest state of readiness this month when it is the optimal time to attack the South (because the ground is still frozen).
When the nKPA conducts a major training event to include some kind of missile launches, it will be viewed as a "provocation" (again, a word we use too often and too loosely) when in fact it will be part of scheduled training.
(2nd LD) N.K. leader calls for intensifying war drills | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · March 7, 2024
(ATTN: CHANGES photos; ADDS details in paras 6, 9)
By Lee Minji
SEOUL, March 7 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for intensifying "practical actual war drills" during a visit to a military training base, state media said Thursday, as a joint military exercise between South Korea and the United States was under way.
During the visit to the base in the country's western region Wednesday, Kim inspected training facilities and guided the actual maneuvers of military units, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
The visit came two days after South Korea and the U.S. began their annual Freedom Shield exercise Monday to strengthen deterrence against North Korea's nuclear and missile threats. The North has condemned the joint exercise, warning the countries will pay a "dear price."
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) visits a military training base in the country's western region on March 6, 2024, in this photo carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency the following day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
"He set forth the important tasks for intensifying the practical actual-war drills ensuring the victory in a war," the KCNA said.
Kim also instructed the military to beef up drills to improve its combat capabilities to contain enemies with "overwhelming force" and their "slightest attempt to ignite a war," the KCNA said in an English-language dispatch.
State media photos showed Kim observing the drills with binoculars and taking a shooting position with what appeared to be an AK-74 rifle.
The military exercise between the South and the U.S. comes as North Korea has ramped up weapons tests in recent months with the launches of cruise missiles from land and sea and artillery firing near the tense western sea border.
Pyongyang has long denounced such joint military drills as rehearsals for an invasion. Seoul and Washington have rejected the claims, saying their military exercises are defensive in nature.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visits a military training base in the country's western region on March 6, 2024, in this photo carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency the following day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
"Our military will maintain a steadfast readiness posture, and respond overwhelmingly under the principle of (punishing) immediately, strongly and until the end if North Korea undertakes a provocation," defense ministry spokesperson Jeon Ha-kyou told a briefing.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) visits a military training base in the country's western region on March 6, 2024, in this photo carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency the following day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
mlee@yna.co.kr
yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · March 7, 2024
11. US-led war games draw warning from North Korea
And there has been no change to his objective to dominate the peninsula. We must keep in mind KJU's ultimate strategic aim, domination of the peninsula.
Excerpt:
Jung Pak, the top U.S. official for North Korea affairs at the State Department, told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that Kim's regime had become a "willing supplier" of arms to Moscow.
Pyongyang has shipped "dozens of ballistic missiles and thousands of containers of ammunition to Russia for use in its war against Ukraine," she said.
Pyongyang and Moscow did not return multiple requests seeking comment.
Both governments deny trading arms—a violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions passed with Russia's support.
Pak added: "At this point, we don't assess that Kim Jong Un has changed his primary goal—the preservation of his regime—or the means by which he hopes to achieve this—the international acceptance of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons power."
"What has changed is that Kim seems to have decided he cannot achieve his primary goals through negotiations with the United States or the Republic of Korea. He's viewing the world through a new Cold War lens, in which the DPRK can benefit from aligning more closely with Russia and the PRC," she said.
Just as a reminder:
Kim Family Regime Overall Strategy
•Vital Interest: Survival of the Kim Family Regime
•Strategic Aim: Unification of the Peninsula
oUnder the domination of the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State
oSubversion, coercion, extortion, use of force
•Key Condition: Split the ROK/US Alliance
oUS forces off the Peninsula
o“Divide and Conquer” – Divide the Alliance and conquer the ROK
•Desire: Recognition as nuclear power – negotiate a SALT/START – like process
US-led war games draw warning from North Korea
Newsweek · by John Feng · March 6, 2024
The 11-day Freedom Shield exercise, scheduled to run from March 4-14, will focus on multi-area and multi-domain joint operations, as well as the "neutralization of North Korea's nuclear threat," defense officials in the South announced at the start of the week.
Kim Jong Un's regime denounced the U.S.-led drills "for getting more undisguised in their military threat to a sovereign state and attempt for invading it," according to a March 4 statement by North Korea's Defense Ministry, carried on Tuesday by the official Korean Central News Agency.
"The U.S. and the ROK will be made to pay a dear price for their false choice while realizing that it causes their security uneasiness at a serious level every moment," the statement said, referring to the Republic of Korea, the South's official name.
Inter-Korean relations have nose-dived to a dangerous new low amid Kim's record number of missile tests and his marked shift in foreign policy away from reconciliation with the South, a U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty ally for seven decades.
In January, the 40-year-old supreme leader declared South Korea the North's "principal enemy."
Since last fall, North and South Korea also have been competing in space, with each side placing their own spy satellite in orbit with help from Russia and the U.S., respectively.
Pyongyang said the allied war games would increase the unpredictability of the Korean War armistice.
"The frantic war drills by the ROK puppets and vassal forces led by the U.S. make a clear contrast with the reality of the DPRK mobilizing large-scale military forces into economic construction for the promotion of the people's well-being, confirm again the source of regional instability and more clearly show who is the arch criminal threatening the mankind with nukes," its Defense Ministry said, referring to the country's full name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
During the same exercise one year ago, North Korea launched long- and short-range missiles in what it described as defensive measures.
U.S. soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division take part in the annual Freedom Shield drills on August 23, 2023, at the Wollong Urban Area Operations training center in Paju in South Korea’s northern Gyeonggi province. U.S. soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division take part in the annual Freedom Shield drills on August 23, 2023, at the Wollong Urban Area Operations training center in Paju in South Korea’s northern Gyeonggi province. JEON HEON-KYUN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Freedom Shield brings together the South Korean armed forces, U.S. Force Korea and the United Nations Command, the multinational coalition that has backed the South since the Korean War of the early 1950s.
The specialist Air and Space Forces Magazine said on Tuesday that U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons, A-10 "Warthogs," and fifth-generation F-35 Lightning IIs were expected to take part.
The U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps separately announced their participation in the drills this week.
"Training with the ROK Army allows for seamless coordination and combined operations, enhancing Eighth Army's overall defense capabilities," the U.S.'s South Korea-based Eighth Army said.
"The combined training exercises and shared intelligence contribute to a high level of interoperability, enabling Eighth Army to respond swiftly and effectively to any threat," it said.
At a Washington think tank on Tuesday, a senior U.S. official said Pyongyang's foreign policy shift had resulted in greater North Korean cooperation with Russia and China, with potentially serious consequences for security in the region.
Jung Pak, the top U.S. official for North Korea affairs at the State Department, told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that Kim's regime had become a "willing supplier" of arms to Moscow.
Pyongyang has shipped "dozens of ballistic missiles and thousands of containers of ammunition to Russia for use in its war against Ukraine," she said.
Pyongyang and Moscow did not return multiple requests seeking comment.
Both governments deny trading arms—a violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions passed with Russia's support.
Pak added: "At this point, we don't assess that Kim Jong Un has changed his primary goal—the preservation of his regime—or the means by which he hopes to achieve this—the international acceptance of the DPRK as a nuclear weapons power."
"What has changed is that Kim seems to have decided he cannot achieve his primary goals through negotiations with the United States or the Republic of Korea. He's viewing the world through a new Cold War lens, in which the DPRK can benefit from aligning more closely with Russia and the PRC," she said.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek · by John Feng · March 6, 2024
12. Ex-Deputy Secretary of State Sherman receives Korean state medal for role in bilateral ties
Ex-Deputy Secretary of State Sherman receives Korean state medal for role in bilateral ties
koreatimes.co.kr
March 7, 2024
View Original
Korean Ambassador to the United States Cho Hyun-dong, right, and former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman pose for a photo during a ceremony to confer a Korean state medal on her in Washington on March 6 in this photo released by the Korean Embassy in Washington. Yonhap
Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman was awarded a state medal from the South Korean government on Wednesday for her contribution to improving relations between the two countries, Seoul's embassy in Washington said.
On behalf of President Yoon Suk Yeol, Ambassador Cho Hyun-dong conferred the Gwanghwa Medal of the Order of Diplomatic Service Merit, the highest award in the category, on Sherman who retired from the State Department's No. 2 post in July.
Cho expressed appreciation to Sherman, saying that as a figure friendly to South Korea, she has made great contributions to the development of relations between the two countries, according to the embassy.
Sherman said in turn that although she left office, she would do her utmost to help strengthen the bilateral relationship, which she highlighted has covered a wide range of issues, including security and cutting-edge technologies.
Also attending the ceremony were her successor, Kurt Campbell; Kin Moy, the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs; and U.S. Senior Official for North Korea Jung Pak.
Sherman served as deputy secretary of state from 2021-2023. Also, she previously worked as under secretary of state for political affairs and policy coordinator for North Korea.
American recipients of the medal include retired Ambassador Sung Kim in 2014 and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan in 2022. (Yonhap)
13. Foreign ministry shakes up bureau handling N.K. nuclear issue amid prolonged impasse in talks
How does it feel to be downgraded or reorganized out of existence due to Kim Jong Un?
But it is interesting to add an office of strategy. Does our State Department have an office of strategy (Policy Planning Bureau yes, but how about strategy? - yes I know policy planning is supposed to do strategy but policy and planning are different than strategy).
Excerpts:
The tentatively named Office of Strategy and Intelligence will replace the Office of Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs, with three new units to be set up under its wing -- diplomatic strategy, intelligence, and international security, the ministry said in its 2024 policy plan reported to the presidential office.
The Korean Peninsula affairs unit will exist as the new office's fourth bureau.
(LEAD) Foreign ministry shakes up bureau handling N.K. nuclear issue amid prolonged impasse in talks | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Seung-yeon · March 7, 2024
(ATTN: UPDATES with FM's remarks from presser in paras 5-6 and 16-18; TRIMS; CHANGES photo)
By Kim Seung-yeon
SEOUL, March 7 (Yonhap) -- The foreign ministry will scale back the bureau handling the North Korean nuclear issue and create a broader strategy department focused on foreign policy intelligence-gathering, officials said Thursday, a major shakeup that mirrors the prolonged impasse in nuclear talks with Pyongyang.
The tentatively named Office of Strategy and Intelligence will replace the Office of Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs, with three new units to be set up under its wing -- diplomatic strategy, intelligence, and international security, the ministry said in its 2024 policy plan reported to the presidential office.
The Korean Peninsula affairs unit will exist as the new office's fourth bureau.
The revamp plan marks a big change about 18 years after the Korean Peninsula office was established amid the flurry of nuclear diplomacy with the North that unfolded with the six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.
Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul explains the ministry's key policy goals for 2024 during a press conference at the foreign ministry building in Seoul on March 7, 2024. (Yonhap)
"The North Korean issue is not simply about nuclear and missile problems. The deterrence aspect is being emphasized and so are related efforts to cut off its illicit funding and deter its weapons development capabilities," Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul said in a press conference.
"It's about changing our system in accordance with the shift in the international geopolitical environment and is intended to deal with peninsula issues from a broader and more strategic perspective," Cho said.
The Korean Peninsula office was created as an ad hoc unit in 2006 to handle the six-way talks and became a standing body of the foreign ministry in 2011. It consists of two bureaus led by director generals each in charge of nuclear negotiations and peace policy with the North.
But the prolonged deadlock in nuclear negotiations with the North, and the change in foreign policy landscape have called for a revision in the organizational structure, the ministry said.
The chief of the new office will continue to serve as the country's top nuclear envoy.
The ministry said the plan will be finalized after coordination with related government agencies in accordance with due procedures.
The nuclear dialogue with the North has remained stalled since the no-deal Hanoi summit between then U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Dialogue prospects have further lost momentum amid the geopolitical challenges posed by the U.S.-China rivalry and the increasingly soured ties between the West and Russia.
Under the revamp plan, the new strategy and intelligence office will be tasked with gathering and analyzing intelligence to build foreign policy strategies, akin to the Bureau of the Intelligence and Research under the U.S. State Department, the ministry said.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in (R) meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C), alongside U.S. President Donald Trump, at the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone, which separates the two Koreas, in this file photo taken June 30, 2019. (Yonhap)
A new director position will be created to be in charge of South Korea's Indo-Pacific strategy, a key foreign policy for the government of President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The ministry also plans to add a new unit in charge of economic security issues, such as supply chains, that have emerged as key foreign policy agenda items in recent years.
"We will do our best so that our companies will not experience difficulties from supply chain issues," Cho said at the briefing.
"We will also strive to strengthen international solidarity for economic security, through minilateral and multilateral cooperation networks like the Minerals Security Partnership," he said, referring to the U.S.-led multination initiative on supply chains for critical minerals.
Cho also vowed to make the most of the "167 diplomatic missions" across the world as "forward bases" to boost the country's exports and support Korean companies' advance into foreign markets.
As for its 2024 foreign policy goals, the ministry said it will continue to "unwaveringly" pursue the denuclearization policy for North Korea to ensure peace and stability.
The government will step up efforts to cut off the North's major illicit funding channels, such as cyber activities and ship-to-ship transfers, to delay and deter the North's nuclear and missile development, it said.
It will also work to promote the North's human rights situation by raising the awareness of the international community and protecting North Korean defectors overseas.
The ministry said it will keep the momentum going for a strong alliance with the U.S. and improved bilateral relations with Japan, while working to build a sustainable relationship with China and strategically managing ties with Russia.
From L to R, this file photo, published by the Associated Press, shows South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, attending the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in San Francisco, on Nov. 17, 2023. (Yonhap)
elly@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Seung-yeon · March 7, 2024
14. Kim Jong Un Observes Training to Storm Border Posts in War Prep
Storming border posts? Sounds like a good way for the nKPA to get their a**es kicked.
Kim Jong Un Observes Training to Storm Border Posts in War Prep
- North Korea Says US, S.Korea to Pay ‘Dear Price’ for drills
- Yoon sees provocations coming ahead of April election
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-07/kim-jong-un-observes-training-to-storm-border-posts-in-war-prep?sref=hhjZtX76
By Jon Herskovitz
March 6, 2024 at 7:12 PM EST
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw military drills that included storming border guard posts, stepping up pressure on South Korea after saying he has the right to annihilate his neighbor and no longer seeks peaceful unification.
Kim called for his army “to usher in a new heyday of intensifying the war preparations in line with the requirements of the prevailing situation,” the official Korean Central News Agency reported Thursday. It also released photos of the drills showing troops and helicopters in training to take over a post similar to what South Korea has on its side of the border.
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The training comes as the US and South Korea this week kicked off Freedom Shield, one of their largest annual joint military exercises. A North Korean Defense Ministry spokesman said the two countries would “pay a dear price” for the drills that threaten the existence of the government in Pyongyang, KCNA said, raising the possibility of a military provocation as a display of anger.
The North Korean leader set a belligerent tone for relations with South Korea to start the year by eliminating the concept of peaceful unification from his state’s national policy and holding artillery drills off a South Korean island near a nautical border that has been the scene of deadly conflicts in the past.
This has led to some speculation that Kim has turned the corner on his outbursts and is readying for battle. US President Joe Biden has warned Kim that it would mean the end of his regime if he tried to launch a nuclear attack.
The government of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said it believes North Korea will be trying to raise its profile ahead of April elections for parliament. Yoon’s conservative People Power Party, which backs military cooperation with the US and a tough stance toward Pyongyang, is seeking to wrest control of the body from the opposition Democratic Party, which favors rapprochement with the North.
Follow all new stories by Jon Herskovitz
15. Air Force stages live-fire drills against N.K. cruise missile, artillery threats
Freedom Shield consists of multi-echelon and multi-domain training.
Air Force stages live-fire drills against N.K. cruise missile, artillery threats | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · March 7, 2024
SEOUL, March 7 (Yonhap) -- South Korean fighter jets staged a live-fire exercise Thursday to bolster readiness against North Korean cruise missile and artillery threats, the Air Force said, in the wake of Pyongyang's continued saber-rattling.
The training took place over waters off the west coast, involving more than 10 fighter jets, in connection with the annual South Korea-U.S. Freedom Shield exercise that began earlier this week, according to the Air Force.
During the air drills, KF-16 and FA-50 jets fired air-to-air missiles to shoot down two targets simulating enemy cruise missiles detected by air defense radar systems.
The Air Force also mobilized FA-50 and F-5 aircraft to drop guided bombs to destroy simulated enemy long-range artillery, it said.
The exercise took place as the North has ratcheted up tensions with a series of military demonstrations, including artillery firings near the western sea border and a series of launches of what it claimed to be new missiles.
KF-16 fighter jets get ready to take off at an air base in Cheongju, 112 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on Feb. 23, 2024, in this file photo provided by the Air Force. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · March 7, 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
| 
