Quotes of the Day:
"The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life."
- Theodore Roosevelt
"We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk."
- Eleanor Roosevelt
"Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They were wrong."
- Ronald Reagan
1. U.S., S. Korea agree to place top priority on N. Korea issue: FM Park
2. Unification minister vows consistent N.K. policy, marking key summit anniv.
3. Korean Peninsula Tensions Escalate Amid a Return to Old School Policies
4. Deterrence and Assurance on the Korean Peninsula
5. Biden should return to ‘maximum pressure’ on North Korea
6. N. Korea slams U.S.-led security pacts, upcoming RIMPAC exercise as tools for hegemony
7. What’s in a Tripwire: The Post-Cold War Transformation of the US Military Presence in Korea
8. North Korean COVID-19/Fever Data Tracker
9. N. Korea's suspected COVID-19 cases drop below 30,000: state media
10. South Korea seeks to establish North Korean human rights foundation
11. Rocket Nuri launch indefinitely postponed due to technical glitch
12. Diplomatic thaw needed to Korea-Japan military agreement back on track: experts
13. US hasn’t finalized adjustments to military posture against N. Korean threats: Pentagon
14. Pulling US troops out of Korea was Trump's second-term priority, Esper's memoir reveals
15. US extends North Korea national emergency declaration
16. Denying the Refugee: a Comparative Analysis of China and the EU’s Use of the Term “Economic Migrant”
17. US, South Korea Prepare for Contingencies of North Korea's Imminent Nuclear Test
1. U.S., S. Korea agree to place top priority on N. Korea issue: FM Park
Certainly it must be the opt priority for the alliance. But that does not mean that it is the top priority of the US. That just has to be a fact of life, or a fact of geopolitics (China, Russia, Ukraine, global trade, supply chain, oil, inflation, etc...). This is not a criticism, just a recognition of reality. That said, we can still deal with north Korea and implement a new vision (as I have previously written). We can walk and chew gum at the same time. And in the short term we need to use north Korean provocations as opportunities to demonstrate to Kim Jong Un that his strategy is failing one and that under no circumstances will we appease him and provide political and economic concessions unless and until he takes substantive and verifiable action toward denuclearization.
Proposed vision:
The Alliance way ahead is an integrated deterrence strategy as part of the broader strategic competition that is taking place in the region. There is a need for a Korean “Plan B” strategy that rests on the foundation of combined ROK/U.S. defensive capabilities and includes political warfare, aggressive diplomacy, sanctions, cyber operations, and information and influence activities, with a goal of denuclearization but ultimately the objective must be to solve the “Korea question” (e.g., the unnatural division of the peninsula) with the understanding that denuclearization of the north and an end to human rights abuses and crimes against humanity will only happen when the Korea question is resolved that leads to a free and unified Korea, otherwise known as a United Republic of Korea (UROK).
(LEAD) U.S., S. Korea agree to place top priority on N. Korea issue: FM Park | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: UPDATES with remarks from a South Korean official in paras 9-13)
By Byun Duk-kun
WASHINGTON, June 14 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and the United States agree on the urgent need to address the challenges posed by North Korea, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said Tuesday.
The South Korean diplomat said he and his U.S. counterpart, Antony Blinken, have also agreed on the importance of maintaining and strengthening U.S. extended deterrence to South Korea.
"(We) agreed that the North Korea issue is the top policy priority for both South Korea and the U.S. under the serious current condition where questions about North Korea's seventh nuclear test and its use of tactical nuclear weapons are being raised," Park said while meeting with reporters here.
His remarks came one day after he held a meeting with his U.S. counterpart, the first of its kind since Park came into office last month.
In a joint press conference after their meeting here on Monday, both Park and Blinken noted the North may have completed all preparations for a nuclear test and may only be waiting for a political decision from its leaders.
North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test in September 2017.
"Secretary Blinken and I have agreed on the importance of (U.S.) extended deterrence amid North Korea's continuing provocations," Park said.
North Korea has launched at least 31 ballistic missiles so far this year, which already mark the largest number of ballistic missiles fired in a single year, according to U.S. officials.
South Korea and the U.S. will push for fresh U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea should Pyongyang go ahead with its feared nuclear test, Park said.
A senior South Korean official said the countries have also agreed to consider imposing unilateral sanctions if necessary.
The U.S. sought to push through a Security Council resolution on North Korea last month, but it was blocked by two permanent members of the Council -- China and Russia.
"Should North Korea stage additional provocation, especially a nuclear test, we believe China and Russia may be left with no reason to oppose (a Security Council resolution)," the official said, while speaking on condition of anonymity.
"With regard to unilateral sanctions, the countries (South Korea and the U.S.) have agreed to review various steps and implement them (when necessary)," the official added.
Park on Monday said the allies have agreed to restart their strategic dialogue on extended deterrence, known as Extended Deterrence Strategy Consultation Group (EDSCG), at the earliest date possible.
Blinken reaffirmed the talks may be held in "weeks ahead."
Park reiterated that the allies continue to remain open to dialogue with North Korea.
"At the same time, Secretary Blinken and I reaffirmed that the door to dialogue with North Korea will always remain open," Park said.
"Secretary Blinken and I also had in-depth discussions about COVID-19 outbreak in North Korea. South Korea and the U.S. remain sincerely committed to helping North Korea deal with its COVID-19 outbreak. I wish the North would quickly respond to our offer," he added.
North Korea has avoided dialogue with South Korea and the U.S. since late 2019.
Blinken earlier said the North also remains unresponsive to U.S. overtures to date.
bdk@yna.co.kr
(END)
2. Unification minister vows consistent N.K. policy, marking key summit anniv.
Again, my recommendation is that the Ministry of Unification should refocus its efforts to the single objective of conducting comprehensive planning for unification: a free and unified Korea AKA a United Republic of Korea (UROK). Rather than "compete" with MOFA, MND, and the NIS it should be developing the policies necessary for unification and supporting the information and influence effort to prepare the oeran people in the north for unification.
Unification minister vows consistent N.K. policy, marking key summit anniv. | Yonhap News Agency
By Yi Wonju
SEOUL, June 15 (Yonhap) -- South Korea will continue to pursue dialogue with North Korea in line with the spirit of reconciliation rooted in the first-ever summit of their leaders over two decades ago, Unification Minister Kwon Young-se said Wednesday.
Kwon stressed the need to maintain a consistent policy toward the North to achieve stable inter-Korean relations amid such "hard times," as he delivered a speech to mark the 22nd anniversary of the June 15 Declaration adopted at a historic summit in 2000 between then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
"The Yoon Suk-yeol administration's policy on North Korea will open a new path that embraces the flexibility shown by the previous liberal administrations, as well as a stable stance kept by conservative administrations in the past," he said.
He also noted the importance for the two Koreas to respect the existing inter-Korean agreements, including the July 4 joint communique signed in 1972, known to be the first agreement signed by South and North Korea since the division of the peninsula, as well as the Panmunjom Declaration agreed between former President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2018.
Kwon also voiced concerns over the North's recent test-firing of missiles, including an intercontinental ballistic missile, and strongly urged the North to immediately cease all provocations.
julesyi@yna.co.kr
(END)
3. Korean Peninsula Tensions Escalate Amid a Return to Old School Policies
Sometimes "old school policies" are necessary. But the author thinks we should offer concessions for arms control negotiations. If we do so then Kim will assess his political warfare strategy and blackmail diplomacy as successful and he will double down. Appeasing Kim is a path to conflict. Military, economic, informational, and diplomatic strength is the best chance to prevent conflict. And the 7th nuclear test is just another opportunity for the alliance to prove to Kim that ishs strategy will not work and is a failure.
Conclusion:
Based on the two old school policies of Washington and Seoul, Pyongyang will likely seek leverage by completing the preparatory stages for its seventh nuclear test and developing more advanced missile programs. With that done, more bargaining chips would need to be offered by Washington and Seoul for arms control on the Korean Peninsula.
Korean Peninsula Tensions Escalate Amid a Return to Old School Policies
After a meeting with his U.S. counterpart, South Korea’s foreign minister emphasized strengthening the joint extended deterrence against North Korea’s missile threats.
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South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin met his U.S. counterpart Antony Blinken on Monday in Washington, D.C. The meeting came three weeks after a summit meeting in Seoul between South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden, the first since Yoon took office on May 10.
Given the flurry of North Korean missile tests in 2022, Park again conveyed Seoul’s hawkish stance, centered on strengthening South Korea’s alliance with the U.S. and self-defense capabilities against North Korea, during the joint press conference.
“We affirmed that any North Korean provocations, including a nuclear test, will be met with a united and firm response from our alliance and the international community,” Park said.
Reaffirming North Korea issues as one of the top policy priorities for Seoul and Washington, Park warned that “Pyongyang’s continuous provocations will only lead to strengthened deterrence of the alliance and stronger international sanctions measures.”
Unlike the Moon Jae-in administration’s dovish overture on North Korea, which led to three inter-Korean summit meetings in 2018, the Yoon administration has emphasized the necessity of strengthening the military alliance with the U.S. by conducting joint military drills and coordinating powerful corresponding measures against the North’s missile threats. As North Korea is suspected to be preparing to conduct its seventh nuclear test in the coming weeks, South Korean and U.S. officials have successively held meetings in recent weeks to share their assessments and analyses over the North’s restoration activities at its Punggye-ri nuclear site and the various missiles launched in the past weeks.
“The recent increase in Pyongyang’s ballistic missile testing has raised tension throughout the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. We continue to seek the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Blinken said.
Regarding the possibility of Pyongyang conducting its seventh nuclear test, Blinken said that the United States “is prepared to make both short and longer-term adjustments to our military posture, as appropriate.”
Pyongyang has demanded Washington make concessions first if it wants to renew the nuclear talks, which have been deadlocked since then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to walk out of the Hanoi summit with North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong Un in 2019.
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In order to entice Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table, Blinken once again delivered the Biden administration’s cliched message that Washington has no hostile intent toward North Korea. Since North Korea announced its first COVID-19 case last month, Seoul and Washington have reached out to Pyongyang to express their willingness to provide necessities and medical supplies, including vaccines. However, Pyongyang has not responded to their messages nor opened back channels, while receiving the necessary medical supplies from Beijing.
Also, as Seoul and Washington have reinvigorated their joint military drills as an effort to strengthen extended deterrence in the face of North Korea’s missile tests, Pyongyang will unlikely answer any call from Seoul and Washington in the coming months. The military drills are one of the so-called “hostile policies” North Korea has demanded the United States to withdraw.
With Seoul and Washington carrying out the same old policies that have already failed to deter the North’s nuclear and missile developments, the arms race on the Korean Peninsula has intensified. The Biden administration has denied accusations that it is implementing an updated version of the Obama administration’s “strategic patience” approach on North Korea since it finished a months-long policy review on North Korea in April 2020.
However, Biden has made clear that he will not meet with Kim unless substantial progress is made first at the working level. That, at least, echoes the Obama administration’s policy – which failed to deter the North’s nuclear and missile developments – and demonstrates that North Korea is not one of the top policy priorities for the Biden administration. As long as Washington persists in its obsolete policy toward the North’s missile tests, with no tailored approach for dialogue, it is impossible to witness North Korea dismantling its nuclear arsenal or gradually giving up its nuclear weapons on its own.
The Yoon administration’s policy on North Korea was fundamentally devised by the conservatives who previously worked in the Lee Myung-bak administration from 2008 to 2013. Although Yoon has left room for dialogue with Pyongyang, his relatively hawkish approach to its nuclear and missile tests has demonstrated that he, like Lee, also has no genuine intention of bringing the North Korean leader back to the negotiating table.
Based on the two old school policies of Washington and Seoul, Pyongyang will likely seek leverage by completing the preparatory stages for its seventh nuclear test and developing more advanced missile programs. With that done, more bargaining chips would need to be offered by Washington and Seoul for arms control on the Korean Peninsula.
4. Deterrence and Assurance on the Korean Peninsula
Important comments from Dr. Nick Eberstadt.
But I am not at all sure the Biden administration is inflating the north Korea threat. And the threats from north Korea, include not only the nuclear and ICBM threat but also te conventional and asymmetric threats, the global illicit activities threat, the proliferation threat, and the threat to the korean people in the north (human rights abuses and crimes against humanity)
Also the argument (Eric Gomez) that the missile tests are not meant as messages of provocation but instead simply conducted to advance the program, indicates the threat is even more siincat because it means Kim is developing these weapons systems with the intent of warfighting. If Kim's intent is on developing these systems for warfighting that is a significant threat that too many people seem to be minimizing.
And a cautionary note from Eric Gomez hee (but I remain bullish on the Yoon administration and the alliance):
“I think that there’s definitely a perception in Washington that conservative South Korean government equals an easier time for U.S. relations, but I do not think that is necessarily true, at least when it comes to the previous administration and the new one,” Gomez said.
If Washington inflates the threat of North Korea’s missile program, and flirts with solutions that could antagonize not only the North Koreans but the Chinese in the name of restoring alliances, efforts towards deterrence could easily prove self-defeating, no matter who is in charge in South Korea.
Deterrence and Assurance on the Korean Peninsula - The American Conservative'
The Biden administration, in an effort to shore up alliances in the region it believes Trump damaged, is inflating the threat of recent North Korean missile tests.
North Korea has slowly ratcheted up the frequency of its missile tests over the past twelve months. In an effort to court a new administration in South Korea and shore up alliances in the region it believes the administration of Donald Trump damaged, the Biden administration is inflating the North Korean threat. But the administration should tread carefully if it wants to avoid further destabilizing the Korean peninsula.
In the latest test, which occurred on June 5, North Korea fired eight short-range missiles in a span of just over 30 minutes from four separate locations, according to South Korean military intelligence. It was the highest number of missiles the North Koreans have tested in a single day. The next day, the U.S. and South Korea responded in kind, lobbing eight ballistic missiles into the sea. The live-fire exercise employed eight Army Tactical Missile System missiles, one from the U.S. and seven from South Korea, over the span of 10 minutes, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. Forces Korea.
The U.S. and its allies were not done responding to North Korea’s missile tests, however. The following day, June 7, dozens of fighter jets from the U.S. and its regional allies flew in formation over the East Sea to show force readiness in case of a North Korean attack. Four U.S. F-16 fighter jets joined 16 South Korean aircraft, including some F-35A stealth fighters, just off of South Korea’s eastern shore. The U.S. also conducted a separate drill with Japanese fighters, in which two American F-16s and four Japanese F-15s flew over the waters between Korea and Japan, according to Japan’s Defense Ministry.
But this latest round of North Korean missile tests might not be the threatening message to the U.S., South Korea, and other U.S. Asian allies that were the tests during the early Trump administration. Eric Gomez, the Cato Institute’s director of Defense Policy Studies, told The American Conservative in a phone interview that “there’s a tendency in Washington to ask, ‘Is this a provocation?’ or ‘Is this meant to send a message to Biden?’” The reason for these tests, he said, might be much simpler. “I think it’s more about Kim Jong Un saying, ‘We’re going to develop these things, and we’re going to test them a lot as part of that development,’” Gomez said.
“These tests are different than the tests in 2017,” Gomez claimed, because the 2017 tests “were paired with propaganda that said explicitly it was a response. But the North Koreans aren’t saying much about these tests, and not making such a big deal about it.” Lest we forget, Kim Jong-un’s affinity for his missile program led one former president to give him the nickname “little rocket man.”
Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) made a similar point. “We can delude ourselves or get solipsistic and ask ‘What does this mean about us?’ but at the end of the day, we’ve got decades of evidence to show that the North Korean government wants modernized ordinance and doesn’t waste a lot of time trying to see if it works,” Eberstadt told TAC via phone.
Eberstadt also said the tests could be a sign that the military economy of North Korea is recovering:
What we need to bear in mind is that the North Korean side wants to race to a place where it’s able to put a nuclear pistol to our heads, and doesn’t want to shilly-shally if it can avoid doing that. Testing, in a way, is an indication of economic and technological capabilities, and what we’ve seemed to learn over the past couple of months is that the North Korean military economy seems to be recovering a bit from its incapacitation, or self-incapacitation, during the Covid period.
North Korea has performed 18 separate rounds of missile tests this year, including an intercontinental-ballistic-missile (ICBM) test, the first such test for the authoritarian regime since 2017. In response to these earlier tests, the U.S. enacted new sanctions targeting two Russian banks for their alleged support of North Korea and its missile programs in May.
The increase in testing, especially the scale of the latest test, “tells us about their capacity to build more,” Gomez said. “A higher burn rate tells us they’ve gotten better at missile production.”
“Eight at one time is a lot,” Gomez claimed, which leads him to wonder “if instead of it being a developmental test for new technology, and seeing what aspects of the technology work, it might be a shift more to an operations test” to see how they might perform in the field of battle.
But it’s hard to tell.
“The North Korean defense economy is a black box,” Eberstadt told TAC. “It’s very difficult for an outsider with only open sources to play with to peer into that black box, but we do know that North Korea operates on a total-war footing, like a 1943-1944 version of the U.S. economy.”
Therefore, “the testing schedule may hypothetically be a pretty good indicator on the capability of the war economy,” Eberstadt said.
While these tests may just be the North Koreans exploring their capabilities and readiness, the Biden administration does seem to think these missile tests are meant to directly threaten the U.S. and its regional allies.
“What it comes down to is these perennial questions of deterrence and assurance, and I think that Biden especially has talked a lot about wanting to rebuild U.S. alliance relationships that the administration regarded as eroding during the Trump administration,” Gomez said. In interpreting these tests as a direct threat, the Biden administration sees an opportunity to rebuild what it believes Trump destroyed.
For better or for worse, “the recent exercises and counter-exercises demonstrate that the Biden administration is serious about that,” Gomez said. “It’s not going to deter future North Korea tests, but I think it was a welcome sign to South Korea, who thought it was a sign of support for them more than anything else.”
North Korea’s increased testing regime has caused some U.S. diplomats and members of the Biden administration to fear that Kim Jong-un is set on testing another nuclear device. Sung Kim, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, told reporters last week that the country’s seventh known nuclear test in its nuclear-weapons program’s history could happen “any time.”
“They’ve obviously done the preparations,” Kim said. “North Korea has now launched 31 ballistic missiles in 2022, the most ballistic missile it has ever launched in a single year, surpassing its previous record of 25 in 2019.”
“And it’s only June,” Kim added.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, after talks with South Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong, said a North Korean nuclear test would elicit a “forceful” response from the U.S. and its allies in the region. “The entire world will respond in a strong and clear manner,” Sherman said, though she added that, “the United States harbors no hostile intent towards the DPRK. We continue to urge Pyongyang to cease its destabilizing and provocative activities and choose the path of diplomacy.”
But it’s unlikely that any of the Biden administration’s rhetoric or the military’s joint exercises in the region will deter the North Koreans from nuclear testing if they’re set on doing so. What remains to be seen, however, is if a future nuclear test will deviate from the North Korean nuclear program’s general trend.
“The trend in North Korean nuclear-weapons testing has been bigger in terms of explosive yield. It’s warheads that are higher yield and that can use thermonuclear, more similar to the two-stage design of most American or most modern, advanced warheads,” Gomez said.
“What’s more worrying is the thought of them testing something small,” he said. “Testing something small is more worrying because of Kim Jong-un’s previous rhetoric about tactical nuclear weapons—nuclear weapons that could be used to repel an invasion.”
If that happens, Gomez admits “some freak-out is warranted” because “that changes a crucial strategic question.”
“North Korea’s nuclear strategy thus far has been first-use heavy,” Gomez said. “The Chinese don’t really have a first-use-heavy nuclear strategy. The North Koreans do, and the strategy, as best as we can cobble it together based on what senior leadership has said, is if we think you’re going to attack us, then we will try and strike ahead of that attack, and go big right away.”
But successful miniaturization could signal a shift in North Korean nuclear strategy. “Using low-yield weapons on the battlefield to try and fight the conflict,” could prove devastating if tensions spiraled out of control on the peninsula. “Does this move them away from preemption if they have some nuclear warfare fighting capability? Maybe, and maybe that’s a little bit better.”
Not only does this make Kim Jong-un’s rhetoric more credible regarding tactical nuclear weapons, it “make[s North Korea’s] nuclear arsenal harder to control via negotiations, and will drive concern within South Korea and Japan for greater U.S. reassurances,” Gomez said.
That’s a scenario that could very easily spiral out of control, Gomez suggested:
North Korea gets that they cannot compete with the South and with the U.S with conventional weapons. But what you can do is increase nuclear risk to make a prospective attack really unpleasant. I don’t think that South Korea or Biden have any intention of invading North Korea to depose Kim Jong-un, but as North Korea does this, there’s pressure to respond, and it’s a classic security-spiral dynamic. Actions taken to reassure South Korea and Japan are actions that North Korea and to a lesser extent China find threatening to them, and you get into this tit-for-tat process that’s really hard to break out of.
If the situation on the Korean peninsula escalates, Gomez and Eberstadt fear the South Koreans will pressure the U.S. into redeploying nuclear weapons in the South. Such a move would be intolerable for the United States’ chief rival, China.
Eberstadt said, “If there were a reconsideration of a nuclear-free South, if there were signs that the South on its own was thinking about becoming a nuclear power, if there were serious discussions about putting short- or medium-range nuclear missiles in the South or the environment thereabouts, all of those, understandably, would catch Beijing’s attention.”
“But that’s all hypothetical because I don’t think anybody has really been suggesting anything like that in either the Blue House or the White House,” Eberstadt added.
“The more interesting question, I suppose, is whether the Chinese government, in their own calculations of national interest, would be willing to pressure or penalize the DPRK to amend its behavior,” Eberstadt told TAC. She continued:
Since it is totally opaque about its own policy towards North Korea, or its support for North Korea and quantifying it, we have to discern by revealed behavior. And the revealed behavior seems to be that as long as North Korea’s actions are more deleterious for the United States and the U.S. alliance than they are for Beijing, Beijing is okay with that. We have to wonder what sort of behavior North Korea would exhibit that would cause things to change.
A renuclearized South could be a red line for Beijing, but rather than probe the U.S. and its regional allies, President Xi and the Chinese government could approach Kim behind closed doors and suggest China could withhold support if there’s strong enough evidence to suggest North Korea’s actions could lead to a redeployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in South Korea.
The United States’ increased interest in North Korea’s recent missile tests is a welcome one for the new South Korean President, Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May. Eberstadt believes the shift from former South Korean President Moon Jae-in of the liberal Democratic Party, to Yoon of the conservative People Power Party may mark a big shift. The new government is “no longer trying to build imaginary peace-castles in the sky with a North Korean regime that’s trying to destroy them,” Eberstadt said. “So this is an obvious indication that there is a new understanding of cooperation in the U.S.-ROK alliance. The big change is the government in South Korea.”
Eberstadt believes that one of the causes of the peninsula’s instability during the early Trump administration was Moon and his liberal allies “having a willfully obtuse Kumbaya seminar in the Blue House.” Re-injecting “a little bit of strategic realism back in the ROK side is probably going to reduce the risks of war,” Eberstadt said.
Gomez, meanwhile, does not see the new government as marking an important shift. “I think there is much more continuity between the Yoon and Moon administrations than most people appreciate.”
Moon oversaw more defense spending, which the Yoon administration is continuing. Moon was also, sort of, in favor of this idea of offering economic benefits to the North Koreans as a sweetener to help them move toward denuclearization. The Yoon administration has said similar things, that they’d be willing to consider offering economic incentives to the North Koreans as well.
“I think that there’s definitely a perception in Washington that conservative South Korean government equals an easier time for U.S. relations, but I do not think that is necessarily true, at least when it comes to the previous administration and the new one,” Gomez said.
If Washington inflates the threat of North Korea’s missile program, and flirts with solutions that could antagonize not only the North Koreans but the Chinese in the name of restoring alliances, efforts towards deterrence could easily prove self-defeating, no matter who is in charge in South Korea.
5. Biden should return to ‘maximum pressure’ on North Korea
The intent of any maximum pressure must be two fold - to convince Kim his political warfare strategy and blackmail diplomacy is a failure and to convince the elite and the military leadership of the same and for them to put pressure on Kim which is the only way he will likely change his behavior.
Many of our recommendations still apply: "Maximum Pressure 2.0: A Plan B for North Korea"
Biden should return to ‘maximum pressure’ on North Korea
BY JOSEPH BOSCO, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 06/14/22 10:00 AM ET
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL
The Hill · by Alexander Bolton · June 14, 2022
As Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds on, and China continues to escalate its aggressive rhetoric and actions against Taiwan, North Korea has reemerged to join the anti-Western pressure and diversion campaign. Iran likely is preparing for more trouble-making.
U.S. and international observers are raising the likelihood that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will carry out a nuclear test at “any time,” Pyongyang’s seventh overall and its first in five years, since the beginning of the Trump administration.
Last week, North Korea launched a barrage of eight ballistic missiles into waters not far from Japan’s Economic Exclusion Zone. Sung Kim, Washington’s special representative to North Korea, said that at this point, half-way through 2022, Pyongyang has conducted 31 missile tests, an unprecedented number exceeding its previous record-breaking 25 in all of 2019.
South Korea’s National Security Council called the latest launches “a challenge to the security posture” of the newly-inaugurated president, Yoon Suk-yeol. Yoon replaced the manifestly dovish Moon Jae-in, who practiced an engagement approach with the North that might be called Sunshine Policy 2.0. Moon went so far as to curtail joint military exercises with the United States as a goodwill gesture to Kim.
By contrast, during his campaign, Yoon called Kim “a rude boy” and promised to make him “snap out of it.” He has started his administration by taking a more confrontational approach to Kim’s aggressive tactics.
“Just to escape, temporarily, North Korean provocation or conflict is not something that we should do,” he said, regarding Moon’s conciliatory strategy. “This kind of approach over the past five years, has proven to be a failure.” Seoul joined Washington in responding to Pyongyang’s latest missile firings with the launch of eight missiles off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula.
Had Yoon been in office instead of Moon when President Trump was conducting his “maximum pressure” campaign against North Korea, the outcome might have been markedly different. A united U.S.-South Korea front conceivably could have persuaded Kim of the advantages of making progress on denuclearization — and, potentially, on ameliorating some of his regime’s atrocious human rights practices.
Instead, while Trump was (a) brandishing kinetic warnings that more than matched Kim’s wild threats, (b) imposing the strongest economic sanctions ever against Pyongyang, and (c) delivering a series of speeches excoriating Kim’s human rights depredations and challenging his fitness to govern, Moon was embarrassing himself as a supplicant before both Kim and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Kim’s sponsor and senior partner in hostile anti-Western behavior.
Pyongyang and Beijing were well-versed in exploiting Western political divisions and managed to stymie Trump’s potential breakthrough on denuclearization. Their blocking effort was highlighted when Xi summoned Kim to Beijing for a spine-stiffening command performance before he was scheduled to meet with Trump in Singapore.
President Biden should return to at least two of the three elements of Trump’s maximum pressure campaign. It is highly doubtful this administration will reprise the “fire and fury” rhetoric Trump employed to send a clear, intimidating message to Pyongyang — though firing matching missiles last week after Kim’s recent tests was an effective response.
While Trump’s sanctions component was supposedly at a “crippling” level, exceptions, subsequent modifications, and China’s systematic violations weakened the intended effect. The program needs to be revisited — along with the imposition of secondary sanctions on China for undermining the original ones.
But the element of U.S. pressure that arguably made the most profound impression on Kim was the unprecedented focus Trump personally directed at the regime’s horrific human rights crimes. Over a period of months in 2017-2018, he delivered three major speeches on the subject before international audiences at South Korea’s National Assembly, the United Nations, and a State of the Union address dramatically featuring a tearful crutch-waving North Korean defector. He hosted a group of North Korean escapees from Kim’s national prison to tell their stories in an extended televised visit to the White House.
Trump also made a point several times of mentioning North Korea’s torture of American student Otto Warmbier and his return to the U.S. in a coma, from which he died soon thereafter. Trump’s message was effectively the one Biden also delivered against Russian President Vladimir Putin: this monster “cannot remain in power.”
The combination of economic, military and reputational pressures seemed to shock Kim into agreeing to meet Trump for serious talks about denuclearization. But Xi’s intervention caused Kim to back away from meaningful concessions. Kim’s flattery led to what Trump described as a “love affair,” in which he joined Moon in the cutback of joint exercises, absolved Kim of responsibility for Warmbier’s treatment, and turned his attention away from the humanitarian nightmare of the North Korean population he initially highlighted.
Biden is uniquely situated to pick up the human rights ball and run with it. Unlike Trump, he is known for his public displays of empathy and compassion for human suffering. And his administration’s focus on human rights and democracy provides the perfect platform for him, working with a like-minded and cooperative South Korean government, to raise the world’s attention to the grotesque humanitarian situation in North Korea.
For decades, Henry Kissinger and other geopolitical “realists” have argued that ideological differences over values and internal governance cannot be allowed to interfere with existential issues such as nuclear proliferation and war avoidance. Similarly, the Moon administration was notoriously weak on the human rights issue in North Korea, for fear it would inhibit illusory government-to-government dialogue.
But the “pragmatic” decades-long treatment of human rights and denuclearization as separate moral universes clearly has not produced progress in either realm. History has taught that regimes oppressing their people tend to be the ones threatening their neighbors as well. A disdain for the rule of law and international norms underlies both sets of behavior.
When Kim feared that Trump was serious about delegitimizing his regime — not only internationally but in the eyes of his own people — he took notice. Had Trump sustained the effort, and had it been reinforced by a clear-eyed Moon government, the region might face a different situation in North Korea today. As the world keeps re-learning, now from Putin, it is better to confront tyrants earlier than later, but later is better than never. Passivity in the face of aggression invites more aggression.
Kim must be put on his back foot and given something to worry about at home, rather than having the luxury of planning his next anti-Western provocation. The message also should ricochet to Xi’s communist regime with its own domestic atrocities and aggressive ambitions.
Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He served in the Pentagon when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and was involved in Department of Defense discussions about the U.S. response. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA.
The Hill · by Alexander Bolton · June 14, 2022
6. N. Korea slams U.S.-led security pacts, upcoming RIMPAC exercise as tools for hegemony
Of course from the regime perspective the US is using alliances to "gang up" on the north. And it fears South Korea leading operations. If the north attacks it must know that all these capabilities will be brought to bear on defeating the nKPA.
N. Korea slams U.S.-led security pacts, upcoming RIMPAC exercise as tools for hegemony | Yonhap News Agency
By Yi Wonju
SEOUL, June 15 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Wednesday accused the United States of campaigning to maintain its hegemony in the Indo-Pacific region and putting it in jeopardy of conflicts via its regional security initiatives and upcoming multinational maritime training.
In a post on the foreign ministry's website, Ri Myong-hak, a researcher at the ministry-affiliated Institute for Disarmament and Peace, took aim particularly at the U.S.-led Quad forum involving India, Australia and Japan, as well as AUKUS, a trilateral security partnership of Australia, Britain and the U.S.
"Due to the aggressive and hegemonic Indo-Pacific strategy of the U.S., the region is being exposed to the constant danger of military conflicts," he said. "This, in turn, is of negative influence to the Korean Peninsula."
He also denounced the U.S. for waging "war exercises" on more than 10 occasions in the Pacific Ocean this year and for planning to conduct the world's largest Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Exercise in August.
"The world should discern who is the real culprit of violating peace and remain vigilant about the military moves of the U.S.," he added.
In early August, South Korea, the U.S. and Japan plan to conduct a combined missile search and tracking exercise in waters off Hawaii to bolster their readiness to counter North Korea's evolving missile threats.
In a separate piece, Ra Guk-chol, a researcher of the Institute for Studies of Japan, criticized Tokyo's recent bid to revise its guidelines on defense equipment transfers, saying it could "plunge the world into a whirlpool of greater tension."
Japan has been seeking to ease its restrictions on defense supply transfers to allow the export of lethal military equipment, including missiles and jets.
Ra warned the global community to stay alert to Japan's "reckless moves to participate in the war," calling it "one of the culprits disturbing the global peace and stability."
julesyi@yna.co.kr
(END)
7. What’s in a Tripwire: The Post-Cold War Transformation of the US Military Presence in Korea
Exsum is below. Here is the conclusion of the report.
Conclusion
Concern about the lack of cohesion has dissipated to some degree due to the Biden administration’s prioritization of US alliances as critical components of an increasingly complex and shifting strategic environment. It is an environment in which democracy is being pitted against authoritarianism, international norms and respect for sovereignty versus a return to sphere-of-influence politics. The May 2021 presidential summit between Presidents Biden and Moon was viewed by analysts as a key indicator of stabilized alliance relations, particularly after four rocky years of Trump’s antagonistic approach to alliances. Congress has removed clauses in annual defense authorization bills about minimum troop numbers, and the Biden administration affirmed it would maintain and even increase force levels, including permanently stationing an attack helicopter squadron and artillery division headquarters in the ROK.
The inauguration of South Korea’s new president Yoon Suk-yeol has most alliance watchers preparing for tighter alliance relations, which is usually the case under conservative administrations. President Yoon has struck all the right chords for the establishment in Washington by stating his support for the following: bolster deterrence against North Korea and enforce sanctions, restart and ramp up military exercises, tighten trilateral US-Japan-ROK relations, shift from a position of strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity and actively support the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Nonetheless, there are various problematic trends that will continue to complicate things. Like the United States’ harried withdrawal from Afghanistan, the war in Ukraine and confrontation with Russia has and will continue to absorb the bulk of the Biden administration’s bandwidth. Not only does this mean fewer US resources will be directed to South Korea or East Asia more broadly, but it is likely to raise further questions about the degree to which the US will honor its security commitments.
At a time when North Korea is moving full steam ahead with advancing its asymmetric capabilities, Yoon has been outspoken in saying that the US needs to deploy more strategic assets and show greater fidelity regarding US extended deterrence policy toward North Korea, including reactivating some of the aforementioned consultative mechanisms. Yet, if history is any indication, US officials will continue to try and reassure their ROK counterparts while holding their cards close when it comes to US nuclear policy, leaving South Korea feeling perpetually left out. Simultaneously, President Yoon intends to ramp up the ROK’s own indigenous three axis system, further develop preemptive strike capabilities, enhance THAAD deployments and establish a strategic command. This could result in Washington exerting considerable pressure on Seoul to share details about its own acquisitions program and preemptive strategy and to not escalate an already tense and combustible situation in the context of Pyongyang testing and possible provocations.
What’s in a Tripwire: The Post-Cold War Transformation of the US Military Presence in Korea - 38 North: Informed Analysis of North Korea
BY: CLINT WORK
JUNE 9, 2022
Executive Summary
From the moment US troops first arrived on the Korean Peninsula, US policymakers have sought to reduce the US military presence and pass the defense burden back to the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea). Yet, in each instance when a US president attempted to reduce, realign or withdraw these US forces, the policy has been delayed, truncated or canceled, followed by promises to keep force levels constant at arbitrary top-line levels. Successive US presidents have been unable to militarily disengage from the Korean Peninsula due to apprehension about undermining deterrence against a growing North Korean threat and, more importantly, broader US strategic imperatives. Over the years, the fitful evolution of the US force presence has driven contradictory policy dynamics within the US-ROK alliance.
These contradictions have become more acute following the end of the Cold War. Within a democratic South Korea, alliance management has become more challenging, being intertwined with highly politicized debates about ROK dependence versus autonomy, with lingering uncertainty about US staying power, and often complaints about US heavy-handedness. Moreover, South Korea’s economic and defense modernization, alongside the gradual reduction and realignment of US forces, has resulted in a division of labor of sorts, with Seoul taking on the lion’s share of responsibility for conventional deterrence and defense on the Korean Peninsula and the US providing extended deterrence for South Korea against North Korea’s growing nuclear capabilities.
However, North Korea’s advancements in long-range missile and nuclear weapon capabilities—specifically its potential ability to strike the continental United States with a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)—raises pressing questions about whether Washington would risk Seattle to save Seoul. The more responsibility Seoul takes on, the greater scrutiny is directed on Washington’s extended deterrence commitment.
In recent years, US and ROK officials have reframed the relationship as a comprehensive strategic alliance, which nests its traditional military and security components in an expansive array of shared democratic values, economic ties and mutual support for a rules-based international order. However, such discourse also papers over very real differences at the core of the alliance. The proliferation of consultative mechanisms over the last decade, which were meant, in part, to address these differences, have not adequately done so. Instead, North Korea’s steady nuclear and missile advancements and burgeoning great power competition between the United States and China and Russia pose new challenges to alliance cohesion. While the US and ROK continue to reiterate the “ironclad” nature of relations, South Korea has expressed growing doubts about the credibility of US extended deterrence and increasing support for building its own nuclear deterrent.
Moving forward, alliance managers must honestly address these differences. The United States should upgrade the relationship with South Korea to the level of other alliances in the region, give it more consistent bandwidth—not only when crisis requires it—and provide greater clarity within alliance consultative mechanisms about the US nuclear umbrella. Washington should also continue to encourage Seoul to expand its role in the region and improve ties with Tokyo but also show sensitivity toward Seoul’s unique geopolitical vulnerability and perspective. South Korea, while rightly seeking reassurance and clarity and a greater voice in the implementation of the US extended deterrence commitment, should also better understand the limits of such consultations, including the US president’s sole authority in authorizing the use of nuclear weapons. South Korea should strive to take more of a lead in the alliance while accepting it will never achieve full autonomy or self-reliance as long as the alliance exists, and US forces are stationed on the peninsula.
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8. North Korean COVID-19/Fever Data Tracker
North Korean COVID-19/Fever Data Tracker
https://www.38north.org/2022/06/north-korean-covid-19-fever-data-tracker/
Article last updated on June 13, 2022.
After two years of claiming no confirmed COVID-19 cases, North Korea disclosed a nationwide outbreak on May 13 and launched emergency epidemic prevention measures. The epidemic began in late April.
Officially, only a handful of cases have been confirmed as COVID-19, with the rest attributed to an unidentified “fever.” This is likely due to insufficient testing capabilities, and many are assumed to be COVID-19 related, however, that might not be the entire picture. North Korean state media has been publishing daily data on the outbreak, which is featured below. 38 North will update these numbers daily as new information becomes available.
Current Situation
North Korea authorities announced a new fever death over the weekend to take the total in the epidemic to 72 – a remarkably low death toll for an outbreak that has hit almost 4.5 million people in the country. As of 6pm on Sunday, there were 65,230 people under treatment, according to the announcement.
An additional 35,710 new cases were reported in the 24 hours to 6pm on Sunday with 42,650 recovering, according to the state data. Both numbers have been trending downward for over a week. Today, we add a new graph that charts the number of new cases and recoveries. The graph shows that the two numbers are slowly getting closer together. If the lines cross, it will signify the outbreak is growing again.
On Monday, state media ran an article that praised Kim Jong Un and the Workers’ Party of Korea for their swift handling of the epidemic and for bringing it under control so quickly. The Korean Central News Agency carried 39 images that showed Kim and other scenes from the past month’s efforts to bring the outbreak under control. Similar content is running on state television as media begins to turn the outbreak into a propaganda tool.
Provincial Data
Previous Updates
June 11, 2022
North Korea’s battle against the epidemic showed signs of slowing on Saturday with small rises in the number of new cases in several provinces and a warning from the state against passive and lax attitudes towards the epidemic.
The country registered 42,810 new cases on Friday, which was a drop of 2,730 on the day before. It was the smallest daily drop for a week.
State media said Saturday that the government was “taking timely measures to make officials and working people guard against passive attitude and laxity” and urged “everyone to abide by the existing discipline and order.”
It specifically called on people to police one another so that “no-one would contact alien things or wild animals along the areas of the border, coasts and frontline.”
Across the nation, 77,150 people were under treatment on Friday while 4.3 million have recovered. The epidemic has hit 4.4 million people or 17 percent of the population. The death toll remains at 71 with no new deaths reported for a week.
While the number of new cases declined overall, they rose in Rason and Kaesong and were unchanged in North Hamgyong province. The rise in new cases is small, so it’s too early to tell if this is the beginning of new spread or a data anomaly.
The total number of people under treatment declined in each province and city.
9. N. Korea's suspected COVID-19 cases drop below 30,000: state media
(LEAD) N. Korea's suspected COVID-19 cases drop below 30,000: state media | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: UPDATES with more details from 3rd para; ADDS photo)
SEOUL, June 15 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's new suspected COVID-19 cases fell below 30,000, its state media said Wednesday.
More than 29,910 people showed symptoms of fever over a 24-hour period until 6 p.m. the previous day, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, citing data from the state emergency epidemic prevention headquarters.
It did not provide information on whether additional deaths have been reported. The death toll stood at just 72 as of June 11.
The total number of fever cases since late April came to over 4.53 million as of 6 p.m. Tuesday, of which more than 4.47 million have recovered and at least 52,310 are being treated, it added.
The country's daily fever tally has been on a downward trend after peaking at over 392,920 on May 15.
North Korean officials are ramping up antivirus efforts to check "even the slight vacuum of the inroads of virus" in tourist areas and "spots at epidemic risk," the KCNA said.
Officials in the urban management sector are also carrying out measures to disinfect sewage and garbage across the country, it added.
According to the regional tally released by the state-run Korean Central Television, a considerable number of new fever cases were reported in farming areas, including South Hwanghae Province with 6,035 cases and North Hwanghae Province with 3,719 cases. Pyongyang logged 828 new infections.
Observers voice concerns that the virus outbreak could further worsen the impoverished nation's fragile economy and deepen its chronic food shortage problem among many of the 25 million residents nationwide.
On May 12, North Korea disclosed its first COVID-19 case after claiming to be coronavirus-free for over two years.
julesyi@yna.co.kr
(END)
10. South Korea seeks to establish North Korean human rights foundation
Excellent proposal. I hope they do this. I will also amend my proposal for the MInistry of Unification and that it would be to include human rights in its portfolio. And this also very much supports and must be an integral part of the strategic influence campaign.
South Korea seeks to establish North Korean human rights foundation
In this Sept. 7, 2018 file photo, kids sing at a kindergarten for employees' children at a silk factory during a government-organized visit for foreign reporters ahead of the 70th anniversary of North Korea's foundation in Pyongyang, North Korea. Reuters-Yonhap
Move signals Seoul's policy shift on North Korean human rights issues
By Jung Min-ho
South Korea is pushing to establish a North Korean human rights foundation in an apparent bid to implement the North Korean Human Rights Act, a law that has remained in name only over the past six years.
The move signals the Yoon Suk-yeol administration's intention to press North Korea to improve its human rights situation, in contrast with the previous Moon Jae-in administration, which opted not to challenge the North.
"Setting up the foundation is one of the key projects we are working on this year," an official at the Ministry of Unification told The Korea Times Tuesday.
The confirmation comes a day after a ministry official, who works at a division dedicated to human rights issues in North Korea, said he had been seeking the cooperation of lawmakers to get the project going during a forum at the National Assembly.
The law, enacted in March 2016, sets clear guidelines for the protection and advancement of human rights for people in North Korea in accordance with the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Establishing a foundation is an important first step.
What comes next is the collection of data on the human rights situation in the North, followed by support for organizations working for the cause and the promotion of inter-Korean dialogue on the issue.
But the first step has not been taken, following an explosive influence-peddling scandal that eventually impeached and ousted former President Park Geun-hye from office in 2017, paving the way for her successor, Moon, to pursue a conciliatory approach to North Korea.
Ruling People Power Party Chairman Lee Jun-seok speaks during a forum on human rights in North Korea at the National Assembly in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap
At the forum, lawmakers of the governing People Power Party (PPP) criticized the previous administration for turning a blind eye to brutal human rights violations in the North.
"What they did constituted a dereliction of duty," PPP Chairman Lee Jun-seok said. "The regime has lost its morality and legitimacy … Yet, the Democratic Party of Korea, failed to appropriately respond to what happened in the North."
Citing the case of former East German leader Erich Honecker, who stood trial for his role in human rights abuses following German reunification in 1990, Lee said keeping track of such crimes in North Korea is especially important if the two Koreas are heading in the direction of reunification.
Rep. Kweon Seong-dong, the PPP's floor leader, said it was wrong for Moon to prioritize his North Korea policy over promoting and protecting human rights.
"Under the Constitution, people who live in North Korea are also our citizens," Kweon said. "The foundation should be launched so it can start working to improve human rights there … The previous government repeatedly refused to co-sponsor the United States' resolution on the issue as if deceiving the public to believe that joining it would trigger a war with the North."
On April 1, 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning the North's human rights abuses for the 20th consecutive year. South Korea backed the resolution, but did not co-sponsor it for the fourth consecutive year, in consideration of inter-Korean peace efforts under the former president.
In a recent interview with The Korea Times, Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, urged the Yoon government to resume the policy of co-sponsoring and providing leadership for U.N. resolutions on human rights in North Korea. He also offered the idea of raising its horrible human rights record ― an issue that constitutes a regional threat to peace ― for discussion at meetings at the U.N. Security Council, saying it would help unify the international community to do more to try to stop human rights violations there.
11. Rocket Nuri launch indefinitely postponed due to technical glitch
Rocket Nuri launch indefinitely postponed due to technical glitch
Published : Jun 15, 2022 - 18:27 Updated : Jun 15, 2022 - 19:59
Work to erect the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-II (KSLV-II), also called Nuri, is underway for launch at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, Wednesday. (Korea Aerospace Research Institute)
The launch of South Korea's homegrown rocket Nuri has been indefinitely postponed due to technical glitches found during the final round of preparations before its planned launch on Thursday.
The Ministry of Science and ICT said Wednesday the Korea Aerospace Research Institute found a problem in one of the sensors in the oxidizer tank that measures the amount of oxidizer there.
According to KARI, the sensor was failing to point to the correct level of oxidizer in the tank.
“Once we acknowledged the problem around 2:15 p.m., the staff tried to find the source of the sensor error in the field. But it was difficult to identify the source with the rocket being held upright,” said Goh Jung-Hwan, director of the KSLV-II (Nuri) research and development directorate at KARI, during a press conference.
Goh said it is too soon to determine the cause of error at the moment because it was unsure whether the problem originated from the sensor, the cable that connects the sensor to the cable box, which sends the signal from the oxidizer tank, or the cable box.
The launch of rocket Nuri was already postponed once by one day to Thursday. The KARI also said it is uncertain if it could carry out the launch within the scheduled contingency date -- from June 16 to 23.
The Korean-made sensors, which need to be taken apart, might need longer time than expected to identify the exact problem, Goh said.
Should the launch fail again within the designated schedule, the government will notify the international community of the new launch dates.
Goh said the rocket was being transported to the assembly site for further analysis, and the launch committee will announce the new launch date.
With the cancellation of the launch, the 3-kilometer-parameter access ban around the launch site has been lifted as well.
Meaning “world” in Korean, Nuri is a three-stage, liquid-fueled carrier rocket weighing 200 metric tons and stands 46.2 meters tall. The first blastoff in October last year failed to put a dummy satellite into orbit.
12. Diplomatic thaw needed to Korea-Japan military agreement back on track: experts
Some good news. Small victories.
Diplomatic thaw needed to Korea-Japan military agreement back on track: experts
On possibility of bilateral summit with Kishida, ‘nothing has been decided yet’: Yoon
Published : Jun 15, 2022 - 16:40 Updated : Jun 15, 2022 - 17:07
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol (left) and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (Photos from Yonhap)
As South Korea’s new administration is ratcheting up efforts to bolster trilateral relations with the United States and Japan amid increasing threats from the North, Seoul’s foreign minister raised expectations for the normal operation of an intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyo.
But with the South Korea-Japan relationship standing at its lowest point due to the two countries’ differences on Japanese atrocities stretching back to its colonial occupation of Korea, diplomatic reconciliation should precede the revival of the General Security of Military Information Agreement, experts here say.
In his first bilateral meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said, “With regard to GSOMIA, we want GSOMIA to be normalized as soon as possible together with the improvement of the Korea-Japan relationship.”
Park added during a press conference held after his bilateral meeting with Blinken on Monday: “In order to deal with the threat from North Korea, we need to have policy coordination and a sharing of information between Korea, Japan and the United States.”
Direct channel for information exchange
The neighboring countries first forged the intelligence-sharing agreement in 2016, opening a channel for the direct exchange of military information for the first time. Before, they would each share essential security-related information through US authorities, their common ally.
Under the agreement, the two countries had exchanged dozens of pieces of information up to 2019. But after that point, their relationship hit rock bottom following Japan’s introduction of trade-curbing measures in an apparent retaliation against South Korea’s top court ordering a Japanese company to sell off its assets to provide compensation to Korean victims of wartime forced labor during the Japanese colonization period.
As a countermeasure to Tokyo’s trade sanctions, Seoul mulled the option of terminating GSOMIA, although it ultimately renewed the pact. Still, the dispute has affected information exchange between the two countries since.
Over Park’s remarks, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the minister was referring to a general principle, and that it will continue communicating with the Japanese authorities.
South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin (left) and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at a press conference following their bilateral meeting in Washington on Monday. (Yonhap)
Experts here say smooth operation of GSOMIA can be the barometer of Korea and Japan’s relationship, and that diplomatic efforts should precede the intelligence-sharing agreement’s normalization.
“GSOMIA can be seen as the foundation of a stronger trilateral cooperation between South Korea, the US and Japan. Normalizing GSOMIA would also support the bilateral cooperation of Seoul and Tokyo, benefitting them both in handling North Korea,” Jin Chang-soo, a Japan expert at the think tank Sejong Institute, told The Korea Herald.
An official at Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff also highlighted the importance of GSOMIA in the two countries’ relationship. He stressed that diplomatic relations should first be resolved for the intelligence-sharing pact to work out.
“GSOMIA is a symbol showing the determination of South Korea, the US and Japan to work together to counter North Korea’s nuclear tests and missile provocations,” the official told The Korea Herald under the condition of anonymity.
“If diplomatic talks run smoothly, the operation of GSOMIA would naturally be normalized -- they go in tandem,” the official said, adding there are still a list of unresolved issues where the two countries stand at odds, including Japan’s coercion of Koreans into labor and sexual slavery during the colonization period.
Two leaders at NATO
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are expected to meet face-to-face for the first time at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Madrid later this month.
Speculations have been running high over whether the two leaders would hold an official bilateral summit on the sidelines of the international session, but Seoul and Tokyo appear to have not yet drawn an agreement on the matter.
On Wednesday, President Yoon said “nothing has been decided” on the possibility of the bilateral summit with Prime Minister Kishida.
A Japanese daily, on the other hand, reported that its government is reviewing the option to not hold the speculated summit. Citing several government officials, the Sankei Shimbun said the Japanese government is coordinating with Seoul “to not hold a bilateral summit.”
The news outlet blamed South Korea, saying that it “has not provided a solution on the so-called recruitment lawsuits,” referring to Korea’s top court ruling in favor of the forced labor victims. It also claimed Seoul had conducted “unauthorized marine surveys” around the Dokdo islets, over which Japan claims sovereignty.
If the summit were to be held, it would be the first in about two and a half years since December 2019.
While Yoon and Kishida may not be seeing each other at a bilateral summit, they are likely to hold a trilateral summit including US President Joe Biden, according to sources cited by news reports here.
13. US hasn’t finalized adjustments to military posture against N. Korean threats: Pentagon
The fact is our military posture will continue to evolve based on assessments of assumptions, threats, conditions, and risk.
US hasn’t finalized adjustments to military posture against N. Korean threats: Pentagon
N. Korea’s nuclear spending reaches $640 million in 2021, report says
Published : Jun 15, 2022 - 15:52 Updated : Jun 15, 2022 - 17:32
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III hosts a tri-lateral meeting with Richard Marles, Minister for Defence of Australia and Japanese Minister of Defense Nobuo Kishi at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, June 11, 2022. (US Department of Defense)
The US has not yet finalized how to adjust its military posture in the case of a nuclear test from North Korea and other contingencies, but close consultation with South Korea and Japan will precede a final decision, a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday.
“I think the final decisions have not been made,” Colin Kahl, the US undersecretary of defense for policy, said at an event hosted by the Washington-based Center of a New American Security when asked to elaborate on the top US diplomat’s comments on the matter.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday said the US is “preparing for all contingencies” on the Korean Peninsula in very close coordination with South Korea, Japan and other allies and partners.
Blinken said the US is prepared to make both “short- and long-term adjustments” to the US military posture as appropriate during a joint conference following his bilateral meeting with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin in Washington.
Questions remain on how the US can step up its military readiness against North Korea’s escalating missile and nuclear threats despite the repeated rhetoric and warnings from senior US officials.
But the Pentagon policy chief suggested the US is still devising countermeasures in response to North Korea’s potential seventh nuclear test and other contingency scenarios, underscoring the salience of its coordination with the key Asian allies in view of North Korea’s record-breaking flurry of missile launches.
“Everything that we do as it relates to our responses but also any adjustments we may make in our posture will, in the first instance, be done in close consultation with the ROK and with Japan,” he said, referring to South Korea by its official name, Republic of Korea.
Kahl additionally explained that the Biden administration and the newly inaugurated Yoon Suk-yeol government will continue to discuss what the steady state of their readiness activities needs to look like going forward.
“It has been the most active period of missile launches since 2017. It’s obviously very concerning to us. It’s very concerning to South Korea, and to Japan and others in the region,” Kahl said.
“Clearly, nothing North Korea is doing is driving a wedge between us and our closest allies. In Asia, it’s having the exact opposite effect of driving us and the South Koreans and the Japanese more closely together.”
Nuclear weapons against US adversaries
Speaking at the event, Kahl also said that the “silence of nuclear weapons remains significant” when asked about the Biden administration’s nuclear policy amid growing nuclear threats posed by its adversaries -- China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
“So nuclear weapons continue to play a very important role in our national security strategy, our national defense strategy,” Kahl said.
The Biden administration has decided not to adopt a policy not to use nuclear weapons first, according to the fact sheet of its currently classified Nuclear Posture Review released in March. The no-first-use nuclear policy essentially rules out the option of a first nuclear strike on the table.
But Kahl underscored that the Biden administration wants the threshold for nuclear use to be “as high as possible,” elucidating that nuclear weapons will serve as the “ultimate backdrop” to fight for US national survival and defend its allies.
“The fundamental role of those nuclear weapons is to deter other countries from using nuclear weapons, and that remains the fundamental purpose of nuclear weapons.”
This photo, released by the North`s Korean Central News Agency on June 11, 2022, shows leader Kim Jong-un presiding over the fifth enlarged plenary meeting of the party`s eighth Central Committee in Pyongyang. The plenary meeting was held from June 8 to 10. (Yonhap)
$640 million in nuclear spending
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, on Tuesday also said the “nine nuclear-armed states” spent more funding on developing and producing nuclear weapons last year despite the COVID-19 pandemic in its report, “Squandered: 2021 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending.”
The nuclear-weapon states refer to the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea.
The total spending on nuclear weapons surged to $82.4 billion in 2021, which is an inflation-adjusted increase of $6.5 billion from the previous year. The nine countries spent $156,841 per minute on nuclear weapons.
North Korea ranked lowest among the nine countries in terms of annual spending on nuclear weapons and was estimated to have spent over $640 million in 2021, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group said in the report.
But there is no official data on North Korean nuclear spending and its overall military spending. The Geneva-based organization said its estimation is based on the assumption that North Korea has continued to allocate 35 percent of gross national income to its defense budget and spent around 6 percent of its defense budget on nuclear program.
The ICAN report gauged North Korea’s spending on nuclear weapons based on the country’s GNI for 2020 as estimated by the Bank of Korea. The BOK has not yet released North Korea’s economic indicators for 2021.
Given that the BOK placed North Korea’s GNI for 2020 at around 35 trillion North Korean won ($38.9 billion), ICAN calculated that North Korea would have spent about 734 billion North Korean won on its nuclear program in 2020.
The report said, “734 billion North Korean won is $642 million, which is our estimate for 2021 North Korean nuclear spending,” adding, “This means North Korea spent $1,221 every minute on nuclear weapons in 2021.”
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute also estimated that North Korea has assembled up to 20 warheads and probably possessed sufficient fissile material to produce 44 to 55 nuclear devices as of January this year.
But the institute said North Korea has not yet deployed any nuclear warheads in its annual report, “Armaments, Disarmament and International Security,” released this week.
The nine nuclear-armed countries possessed around 12,705 nuclear weapons, of which 9,440 were believed to be in usable military stockpiles.
SIPRI said an estimated 3,732 warheads were deployed with operational forces such as missiles and aircraft and around 2,000 were kept in a state of high operational alert.
(dagyumji@heraldcorp.com)
14. Pulling US troops out of Korea was Trump's second-term priority, Esper's memoir reveals
I am surprised this is just making the Korean press now.
The ROK/US alliance dodged a bullet and the potential for war was pushed back. If we withdraw US troops the potential for conflict will rise significantly and based on our understanding of the Kim family regime's nature, objectives, and strategy withdrawal will make conflict almost inevitable..
Do we believe that Kim Jong-un has abandoned the seven decades old strategy of subversion, coercion-extortion (blackmail diplomacy), and use of force to achieve unification dominated by the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State in order to ensure the survival of the mafia like crime family cult known as Kim family regime?
In support of that strategy do we believe that Kim Jong-un has abandoned the objective to split the ROK/US Alliance and get US forces off the peninsula? Has KJU given up his divide to conquer strategy - divide the alliance to conquer the ROK?
Pulling US troops out of Korea was Trump's second-term priority, Esper's memoir reveals
In this July 23, 2019, file photo, U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, left, delivers remarks in front of President Donald Trump, shortly after being sworn in at the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. EPA-Yonhap
Ex-Pentagon chief says evacuation announcement for Americans amid NK tensions canceled at last moment
By Jung Min-ho
Former U.S. President Donald Trump's desire to pull U.S. troops completely out of South Korea was serious and he kept the plan alive as his second-term priority, according to former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper's memoir, published last month.
In the book, "A Sacred Oath," Esper said Trump repeatedly pushed to withdraw the U.S. forces from South Korea, which, in his view, was not paying its fair share of the associated costs.
Esper, 58, Republican former secretary of the Army (November 2017 to July 2019) and former secretary of defense (July 2019 to November 2020) under the Trump administration, became uneasy whenever the commander-in-chief talked about the need for American withdrawal.
"I was able to make my best case against any such moves by reminding him that I had a global posture review under way ― which I did ― but only bought me time. Pompeo jumped in once to help, saying 'Mr. President, you should make that [withdrawing U.S. forces from Korea] a second-term priority,'" he said. "Trump responded with 'Yeah, yeah, second term,' as a Cheshire cat smile came across his face."
The episode shows that Trump's plan was never abandoned ― only delayed. Trump, who lost his reelection bid to Joe Biden, has hinted at running for the White House again in 2024, which would be a concern for South Korea's long-term defense plans.
During his time at the Pentagon, Esper said war with North Korea was a real possibility. In another critical event, he received an urgent call that Trump was ordering a withdrawal of all U.S. military dependents from South Korea and that he was going to make it official soon. This came only a few weeks after Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un taunted each other about the capabilities of their respective nuclear weapons.
"Evacuating all American military family members was such an unexpected and dramatic move that many would likely interpret it that war was on the horizon, if not imminent. It would probably trigger a panic that would affect the South Korean economy, its stock market, air transportation, and a range of other things," he said.
"Kim would probably view a U.S. evacuation as a prelude to conflict … Would he strike first, targeting Seoul in a bloody assault? Maybe even seize the city of 10 million and then sue for peace before the United States could act with sufficient force … Nobody knew, but this was a dangerous game of chicken, and with nuclear roosters no less. If the president was going to announce an evacuation, then, we needed to be ready for war."
To the relief of Esper and so many others, somebody talked Trump out of sending the tweet announcing it.
U.S. President Donald Trump, left, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in this June 30, 2019, file photo. Reuters-Yonhap
Throughout the book, Esper criticizes Trump, describing his former boss as too materialistic and impulsive. Yet he praised Trump's decision to have summits with Kim, for which his political opponents condemned him harshly.
"Many complained that Trump gave Kim what he wanted ― a high-profile meeting that raised his stature ― and received nothing in return. That is true in many ways, but Trump's engagement did get us off the warpath and kept things under control through the end of his term," Esper said.
"I had watched Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Obama try similar approaches dating back to the early 1990s with no real effect. Why not try a different diplomatic tack, especially when nuclear weapons are on the table?"
The previous Moon Jae-in government was criticized by some as "pro-China." This was how Esper felt when dealing with South Korea, which was "drifting into Beijing's orbit." He added that South Korea's strategy of maintaining China as its main economic partner while keeping the U.S. as its security one would not work.
"(South Korea) hopes that both approaches are compatible. They aren't, of course, yet this seems to be the path they were headed down," Esper wrote.
15. US extends North Korea national emergency declaration
Not the UN high commission recommend appeasement. Why doesn't he call on Kim Jong un to accept all offered aid? Sanctions are not blocking aid. It is the deliberate decision making by Kim Jong Un to prioritize his nuclear and missile programs over the welfare of the Korean people in the north that is responsible for the suffering of the people.
US extends North Korea national emergency declaration
US extends North Korea national emergency declaration
UN High Commissioner calls for relaxing sanctions on Pyongyang for pandemic support
Published : Jun 14, 2022 - 14:05
Updated : Jun 14, 2022 - 17:54
North Korea has published new propaganda material for the fifth plenary session of the ruling Workers’ Party, the Korean Central News Agency reported Tuesday. (Yonhap)
US President Joe Biden on Monday continued to declare a national emergency concerning North Korea on the grounds of its nuclear and missile threats, extending sanctions against the regime. Separately the same day, the United Nations called for relaxing sanctions on Pyongyang to enable COVID-related assistance.
In a message sent to Congress, Biden said the risk posed by North Korea of proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material on the Korean Peninsula “continue to constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the US.
For this reason, Biden determined that it was necessary to “continue the national emergency” declared in Executive Order 13466 with respect to North Korea, repeating the same phrases made last year.
He extended the effectiveness of six executive orders, from the executive order on sanctions against North Korea issued by former President George W. Bush on June 26, 2008, to the executive order signed by former President Donald Trump on Sept. 20, 2017.
The US has designated North Korea as a subject of national emergency every year since it issued its first administrative order to impose sanctions on the reclusive regime in 2008, citing nuclear and missile threats.
Under the US National Emergency Act enacted in 1976, the president can declare a state of emergency and expand his administrative authority in the event of a national crisis.
On Sunday, North Korea fired multiple rocket launchers into the West Sea, staging its 19th armed demonstration this year. According to US nuclear experts, North Korea’s seventh nuclear test is imminent, and the only remaining task is to move the relevant equipment into the tunnel of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.
The Biden administration has repeatedly issued strong warnings about North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.
In a joint press meeting with Foreign Minister Park Jin, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that the US is preparing for all contingencies in close coordination with South Korea and Japan.
“We know that the North Koreans have done preparations for such a test. We are being extremely vigilant about that,” Blinken said. “And we are prepared to make both short and longer-term adjustments to our military posture, as appropriate.”
UN calls for easing sanctions for NK human rights
On the same day, United Nations High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet urged the international community to ease sanctions on the North to protect their human rights in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
Bachelet said in an opening speech to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, “I remain concerned by the likely human rights impact of the reported outbreak of COVID-19 in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
In the absence of any vaccination rollout, the limited health care infrastructure and the precarious food situation is likely to be “severe particularly on vulnerable populations,” she said.
She urged the international community to “relax sanctions” to enable urgent humanitarian and COVID-related assistance and encouraged North Korea “to open channels” for humanitarian support, including the presence of UN staff.
South Korea and the US reached out to North Korea to hold talks on supplying pandemic-related aid but have not received a response from the North.
North Korea claimed on Tuesday that the number of new fever patients, or those suspected to be infected with COVID-19, has remained in the 30,000 range for the second day. Figures on the deaths and fatality rates have not been disclosed.
So far, there are about 4.5 million fever patients nationwide, of which 4.44 million were fully recovered and 57,780 are being treated, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Tuesday.
16. Denying the Refugee: a Comparative Analysis of China and the EU’s Use of the Term “Economic Migrant”
Denying the Refugee: a Comparative Analysis of China and the EU’s Use of the Term “Economic Migrant”
By Bryan Clark, HRNK Research Intern
Edited by Raymond Ha, HRNK Director of Operations and Research
June 14, 2022
From the United States denying entry to Salvadorans and Guatemalans fleeing their countries throughout the 1980s, to Australia refusing Vietnamese “boat people” in the early 1980s, classifying refugees as “economic migrants” is not a new phenomenon.[1] However, it is one that has become increasingly common in the 21st century. Many argue that by claiming asylum, economic migrants seek to bypass immigration laws in search of a more stable and prosperous economic environment. However, the term “economic migrant” has been used in many instances to deny protection to refugees fleeing horrendous circumstances. Moreover, it has been used to justify returning refugees to countries where their safety is threatened. Two poignant examples of this are China and the European Union’s (EU) forcible return of refugees under the guise of them being “economic migrants.”
The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (hereafter referenced as the 1951 Refugee Convention) and its 1967 Protocol are the two most fundamental treaties in international human rights law for the protection of asylum seekers and refugees. These treaties set out the definition for what a refugee is, their rights, and states’ obligations to them. One of the key elements of the 1951 Refugee Convention is the principle of non-refoulement, which states that refugees cannot be returned to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened based on race, religion, nationality, social group, or political opinion.[2] Under these instruments, signatory states are required to conduct Refugee Status Determination (RSD) procedures to ascertain if an asylum applicant is capable of receiving refugee status under international, regional, or national laws.[3]
What adds further complexity is the vague and limited scope of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. As stated by Goedde, a strict reading of the 1951 Refugee Convention hindering the acceptance of North Koreans who flee their country as refugees is consistent with what is happening to refugees in other parts of the world, who are not well received by other states.[4] While the principle of non-refoulement is explicitly stipulated, the definition of “refugee” in both documents is too narrow. This allows states to disregard the danger that many asylum seekers find themselves in should they return to their own country. Unfortunately, states do not have many incentives to expand this definition, as the perceived burden of distinguishing between refugees and economic migrants has led many states to increase their standards of proof in determining refugee status.[5]
In China
For decades, North Korean refugees have fled into China to escape the grim reality of life under the Kim dynasty. The specific reasons for leaving are varied, but some of the most common are food insecurity, political persecution, and lack of religious freedom. Varied estimates place the number of North Korean refugees living in China between 60,000–100,000, the majority of whom reside in the northeastern Chinese provinces along the border with North Korea.[6] Yet, despite having finally escaped the brutal regime, North Korean refugees in China live under the constant threat of being sent back if discovered. The Chinese government denies North Korean refugees the right to asylum by classifying them as economic migrants. It claims that many North Korean refugees enter China to make money to feed themselves or their families. This has been the long-standing position of the Chinese government.
Beijing has several agreements with the North Korean government regarding border issues, including one on the repatriation of those who cross irregularly into China. The most notable of these agreements are the “Mutual Cooperation Protocol for the Work of Maintaining National Security and Social Order and the Border Areas” signed in 1986 and a secret repatriation agreement signed in the 1960s.[7] These agreements require China to return any North Korean “migrants” who have illegally crossed into the country. From the Chinese government’s perspective, it considers itself obligated to comply with these agreements, despite having ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol.[8] Moreover, in 2002, China’s ambassador to South Korea stated that North Koreans illegally crossing into China could not be seen as refugees. Thus, China would protect its borders and treat those who have crossed “according to humanitarian political principles.”[9] However, the act of returning individuals China claims to be “economic migrants” to North Korea is a violation of the principle of non-refoulement, as enshrined in Article 33 of the 1951 Refugee Convention. It has been well-documented by testimonies from North Korean refugees that those forcibly returned to North Korea are placed in prison camps. In these prisons, torture, rape, forced abortions, and death due to mistreatment regularly occur.[10]
The Chinese government’s response ignores the roots of the dire predicament that many North Koreans face. The discriminatory nature of North Korean society, based on songbun, means that certain segments of the population are faced with severe economic discrimination, significantly limiting an individual’s access to sustenance based on social standing, religion, and political opinion.[11] Furthermore, no matter their original intention for leaving, those who flee North Korea become refugees the moment they cross the border. The majority of those leaving North Korea are not political dissidents as such.[12] However, due to the repressive and vindictive nature of the North Korean regime, these refugees are considered as traitors the moment they cross the border into China. Thus, even a North Korean leaving the country for economic reasons becomes a refugee sur place in China due to the credible fear of persecution upon return.[13]
In the EU
The refoulement of refugees in the 21st century under the justification that they are economic migrants has not been solely limited to North Korea’s most significant ally, but one of North Korea’s harshest critics as well. Like China, the EU has been involved in returning refugees to countries where their safety is threatened. The EU also widely claims to treat refugees in accordance with human rights law and principles. Yet, despite the prevalence of its humanitarian discourse, the EU has also denied asylum to refugees seeking protection from unsafe conditions in their home countries. Through the use of the label “economic migrant,” the EU has shirked its responsibility to protect vulnerable individuals. The EU is party to a robust and comprehensive regime of human rights laws that is intended to protect the fundamental rights of all individuals in Europe. Like China, the EU’s member states are bound to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 protocol.[14] The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) obliges its signatories to respect human rights, including prohibitions against torture and the collective expulsion of aliens. Additionally, Article 78 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union explicitly requires the EU to ensure compliance with the principle of non-refoulement.[15]
Yet, despite its humanitarian discourse and legal commitments to international and regional human rights laws, the EU has allowed the Mediterranean Sea to become a hotbed for human rights violations by its member states and one of its own agencies. The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, also known as Frontex, is the EU agency tasked with securing the external borders of the Schengen Area. Frontex states that, in line with the EU’s expressed values, the agency operates in a manner that respects fundamental rights.[16] Despite these claims, Frontex has been embroiled in controversy in recent years due to repeated claims of being complicit in human rights violations against refugees. A 2021 report by Der Spiegel and its partners claimed that Frontex works in conjunction with the Libyan Coast Guard and Navy to return refugees to Libya.[17] This has continued to occur despite the 2019 recommendations from the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe to cease returning refugees to Libya due to consistent reports of human rights violations.[18] Many of these refugees are placed in detention camps for undefined periods of time, where they are subjected to torture, rape, and slavery.[19] Reports on the conditions in these camps date to the early 2000s, particularly those by Human Rights Watch, which highlight the EU’s failure to abide by its own humanitarian discourse.[20]
Identifying economic migrants posing as refugees has been prevalent in EU border security management and migration control as well. The nature of Frontex’s activities at the EU’s borders center on the “truthfulness” of those that are intercepted, rather than assessments of vulnerability.[21] This sentiment was reflected in 2019 when Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini announced a planned security decree that would target “economic refugees.” Salvini justified the decree by stating that Italy has already accepted too many “fake” refugees.[22] Italy plays an important role in this task, as its geographical location is at the EU’s external border along the Mediterranean Sea. The EU has used Italy to strengthen its border security management regime. The country’s EU-backed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Libya provides the Libyan government with financial and material support in exchange for curbing the flow of illegal migrants.[23] However, the Libyan Coast Guard and Navy’s dragnet tactics mean that even refugees are summarily returned without receiving a proper assessment of their vulnerability.
Concluding Remarks
The term “economic migrant” cannot be justifiably applied to North Korean refugees, nor is the label accurate for many who try to “irregularly” enter the EU. These refugees are fleeing their country to find safety. The consequences of this trend have been exacerbated by the rise in anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiments in developed countries in the 21st century. The perception of refugees in the EU was, in certain member states, negatively altered due to a substantial number of arrivals during the 2015 European migrant crisis.[24]
The EU has repeatedly condemned the North Korean government for its human rights record. Most notably, the EU sponsored the 2003 resolution on North Korean human rights at the UN Commission on Human Rights.[25] It was in this resolution that the Commission expressed its concerns about the scope and gravity of human rights violations in North Korea, and the EU has since continued to sponsor resolutions on North Korean human rights at the UN. The EU has also levied sanctions against North Korea to pressure the government to cease its nuclear weapons program and to stop committing human rights violations. The most recent round of sanctions by the EU came in April 2022, specifically targeting eight individuals and four entities involved in financing the country’s nuclear programs.
However, despite its criticism of North Korean human rights violations, the EU continues to return refugees to countries where they are subjected to the similarly horrendous treatment of North Korean refugees. The EU, as a purported bastion of respect for human rights, must cease the refoulement of refugees to Libya. Its continued collaboration with the Libyan government flies in the face of the principles and values it claims to be founded on. Furthermore, the 1951 Refugee Convention was created in light of the experiences of European refugees fleeing persecution during World War II.[26] Condemning the North Korean government while being culpable of exposing refugees to egregious human rights violations ultimately undermines the EU’s credibility as a normative power in the area of human rights. Additionally, the moral thrust behind the EU’s recent sanctions on China for human rights violations in the country’s Xinjiang region is jeopardized as well.
It should be noted that certain EU member states willingly accepted thousands of refugees during the height of the European migrant crisis, such as Germany.[27] Much effort by the EU is also being directed to resettle Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion.[28] As important as these efforts have been, the EU and its member states are strongly encouraged to abide by their own commitments to human rights, as required by both international and regional human rights laws, in all instances.[29]
Likewise, the Chinese government must not ignore the international human rights laws that it has signed, no matter the agreements that it has with North Korea. These laws take precedence over national laws and agreements between states. The forced repatriation of North Korean refugees back into the hands of a brutal regime violates what is considered to be a fundamental human right, the ability to leave one’s country, which is enshrined in Article 12(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.[30] As these individuals would be subjected to serious and systematic human rights violations in North Korea, the Chinese government is obligated under international law to cease all forced repatriation of North Korean refugees. Additionally, as required by all states that are party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, China must conduct RSD to thoroughly assess an individual’s asylum claim without summarily apprehending and returning them to their country of origin.
While the 1951 Refugee Convention may suffer from a lack of effectiveness and has a restrictive definition of what a refugee can be, it is still important for states to remember the spirit in which it was created. The Convention was designed to provide protection for some of the world’s most vulnerable individuals and groups, an endeavor that should continue to be pursued today.
Bryan Clark is a second-year graduate student at the European School of Political and Social Sciences (ESPOL) at Lille Catholic University in Lille, France, pursuing a Master's in International and Security Politics.
[1] William Deane Stanley, “Economic Migrants or Refugees from Violence? A Time-Series Analysis of Salvadoran Migration to the United States.” Latin American Research Review 22, no. 1 (1987): 132–54. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2503545; Stephen B. Young, “Who Is a Refugee? A Theory of Persecution,” In Defense of the Alien 5 (1982): 38–52. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23141002.
[4] Patricia Goedde, “Determining Refugee Status for North Korean Escapees under International and Domestic Laws,” Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies 11 (2011): 143–60.
[5] Ryan Bubb, Michael Kremer, and David I. Levine, “The Economics of International Refugee Law,” The Journal of Legal Studies 40, no. 2 (2011): 367–404. https://doi.org/10.1086/661185.
[9] Lankov, “North Korean Refugees in Northeast China.”
[12] Lankov, “North Korean Refugees in Northeast China.”
[13] Aldrich, “An Examination of China's Treatment of North Korean Asylum Seekers.”
[21] Katja Franko Aas and Helene O. I. Gundhus, “Policing Humanitarian Borderlands: Frontex, Human Rights and the Precariousness of Life,” The British Journal of Criminology 55, no. 1 (2015): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azu086.
[23] Yasha Maccanico, “Analysis: Italy renews Memorandum with Libya, as evidence of a secret
17. US, South Korea Prepare for Contingencies of North Korea's Imminent Nuclear Test
I think VOA ran out of experts to offer options here. There are a number of experts (or students of the problem which I consider myself) who could offer options.
How Should US Respond to a North Korean Nuclear Test?
Some analysts said the U.S. is running out of options.
"Sanctions so far have not changed the North's (North Korea's) policies and aren't likely to have any greater impact now," Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, told VOA's Korean Service.
Suzanne DiMaggio, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said, "Now it appears we're about to enter a fraught period, and U.S. options are limited at best."
US, South Korea Prepare for Contingencies of North Korea's Imminent Nuclear Test
June 14, 2022 1:25 AM
state department —
The United States and South Korea are preparing for all contingencies of North Korea's imminent nuclear test, but President Joe Biden's administration is facing tough questions from congressional members and analysts on the diplomatic impasse and inability to deter North Korea from further provocation.
Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin at the State Department. The two discussed a "unified and firm" response to North Korea's unprecedented number of ballistic missile tests and nuclear threats. This year, North Korea has launched 31 ballistic missiles, smashing a previous record of 25 set in 2019.
Park said he believed North Korea has finished the preparation for the next nuclear test and now requires only a "political decision." It would be Pyongyang's seventh nuclear test since 2006 and its first since September 2017.
South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin speaks during a news conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the State Department in Washington, June 13, 2022.
"If North Korea ventures into another nuclear test, I think it will only strengthen our deterrence and also international sanctions, and it will only isolate North Korea from the international community," Park told reporters during his first visit to Washington as South Korea's top diplomat.
"We are prepared to make both short- and longer-term adjustments to our military posture as appropriate," Blinken said during a joint news conference. The top U.S. diplomat added that both countries are talking about how to "expand the scope and scale of combined military exercises" as well as "training on and around the Korean Peninsula."
An "extended deterrence" working group between the U.S. and South Korea will be reestablished and "get up and working very soon in the weeks ahead," said Blinken.
Secretary of State, Antony Blinken speaks during a news conference after meeting with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin at the U.S. State Department in Washington, June 13, 2022.
Diplomatic impasse
On Saturday, North Korean state media announced the appointment of Choe Son Hui as the country's first female foreign minister and one of the highest-ranking women officials in its history. It is unclear whether Choe's promotion indicates a wider shift in North Korea's approach toward the U.S. and South Korea.
"We have noted the appointment of a new foreign minister in North Korea, but our approach is not predicated or dependent on specific individuals. It's focused entirely on the policies that a given country is pursuing," Blinken said in response to questions from VOA.
The Biden administration seeks dialogues with Pyongyang without preconditions and has reached out to North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on specific proposals, either through third parties or through private channels including personal messages from senior U.S. officials to senior DPRK officials, according to Sung Kim, U.S. Special Representative to DPRK.
North Korea has not responded nor indicated that it is interested in diplomatic talks.
"It's time for preventive diplomacy," said Yoon Young-kwan, South Korea's former minister of foreign affairs and now professor emeritus at Seoul National University. He made the comment during a webinar hosted by the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS.)
"I would like to recommend the Biden administration to seriously consider dispatching a special high-level (as a one-off engagement) envoy to North Korea" to "mediate the crisis situation and to begin dialogue," Yoon added, suggesting a modification to the current approach of the Biden administration in which Sung Kim serves as both U.S. ambassador to Indonesia and as special envoy for North Korean issues.
Congressional critics
While the Biden administration underlined North Korea's continuing expansion of "illicit nuclear weapons and missile programs" as one of the major challenges facing the Indo-Pacific region and vowed to strengthen "extended deterrence" on North Korea's provocations, some members of Congress are skeptical about the State Department's seriousness to prioritize its Indo-Pacific strategy.
"Despite the administration's rhetoric, the budget requests for the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) Bureau and South and Central Asia (SCA) Bureau rank at the very bottom when … compared to the State Department's other regional bureaus … In total, these two bureaus covering the Indo Pacific Region account for only 11% of the total foreign assistance budget," said Republican Rep. Steve Chabot, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Nonproliferation, during a hearing June 7.
"The administration has requested less personnel and less diplomatic program funding for EAP and SCA (Bureaus) combined than it has for the European Bureau alone," Chabot added.
Others raised concerns that nongovernmental organizations seeking to provide humanitarian aid to North Korea may not be able to under current sanctions, particularly at a time of the COVID-19 outbreak.
"Whatever the regime does next, we can expect the people of North Korea to suffer under harsher conditions, as they're further cut off from essential food and medicine," said Democratic Rep. Andy Levin during the hearing last week.
Former U.S. officials and some experts noted that North Korea did not feature as prominently in Biden's summit meeting with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol last month.
"Normally when we see a summit meeting between the U.S. and the South Korean president, particularly a first summit meeting, the featured item always is North Korea," said Victor Cha, a senior vice president and Korea chair at CSIS who led negotiations with North Korea under former President George W. Bush's administration.
"President Biden arrived in Korea, and the first place he went was not the DMZ (the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas) or not the intense discussions on North Korea but went to the Samsung plant in Pyeongtaek," Cha said in a recent CSIS webinar.
Some analysts said the U.S. is running out of options.
"Sanctions so far have not changed the North's (North Korea's) policies and aren't likely to have any greater impact now," Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, told VOA's Korean Service.
Suzanne DiMaggio, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said, "Now it appears we're about to enter a fraught period, and U.S. options are limited at best."
Bill Gallo and Christy Lee contributed to this report.
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
