Quotes of the Day:
"In any problem where an opposing force exists and cannot be regulated, one must foresee and provide for alternative courses. Adaptability is the law which governs survival in war as in life ... To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it; the best chance of overcoming such obstruction is to have a plan that can be easily varied to fit the circumstances met."
-Sir Basil H. Liddel-Hart (Strategy, 1954)
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him."
-Sun Tzu
A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.
- Carl von Clausewitz
1. Deputy Secretary of State Sherman to meet FM Chung, other officials in Seoul
2. Fitch keeps S. Korea's credit rating at 'AA-,' outlook stable
3. NYC’s Push for “Otto Warmbier Way”: Calls for International Solidarity against the Kim Regime’s Brutal Tyranny
4. North Korea food shortage turns into new Asia humanitarian crisis
5. Kim Jong Un Criticizes Youth for Not Being North Korean Enough
6. Death of Two North Korean Prisoners Highlights Starvation Diets
7. Sherman, FM Chung reaffirm efforts to bring N. Korea to dialogue table
8. S. Korea seeks unification not 'by absorption' but through peaceful means: official
9. N.K. foreign ministry again accuses U.S. of involvement in anti-gov't protests in Cuba
10. Blame game goes into high gear over infections on ship
11. Beijing defends its envoy's opinions about Yoon
12. A social agreement on unification
13. Moon Considers Pardons for Ex-President Park, Samsung Chief
14. Korean War Veterans Advocate Named to U.S. Health Post
15. North Korea Truly Is the Hermit Kingdom (Thanks to Coronavirus)
16. A shattered mirror
17. Four North Korean cadres sacked in N. Hamgyong Province for failures in managing COVID-19 quarantine efforts
18. North Korea massacre as Kim Jong-un plots mass execution of defectors: 'Sent back to die'
19. North Korean military encourages use of the "Pyongyang cultural language"
Death of Two North Korean Prisoners Highlights Starvation Diets
Death of Two North Korean Prisoners Highlights Starvation Diets
1. Deputy Secretary of State Sherman to meet FM Chung, other officials in Seoul
Excerpts:
At 10 a.m., Sherman plans to pay a courtesy call on Chung. They are expected to discuss the bilateral alliance, stalled dialogue with Pyongyang and cooperation in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.
During the talks, Sherman could also touch on China-related issues, as Washington has been hardening its stance against Beijing's policies on Hong Kong, the Xinjiang region, the East and South China Seas and the Taiwan Strait.
Deputy Secretary of State Sherman to meet FM Chung, other officials in Seoul | Yonhap News Agency
By Song Sang-ho
SEOUL, July 22 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman was set to meet Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong and other Seoul officials on Thursday for talks on stalled diplomacy with North Korea and other shared challenges, officials said.
Sherman arrived here on Wednesday for a three-day visit, after she and her South Korean and Japanese counterparts, Choi Jong-kun and Takeo Mori, held three-way talks in Tokyo to highlight trilateral cooperation against a recalcitrant North Korea and an assertive China.
Her Asia swing comes as Washington pushes to reinforce cooperation with its allies and partner countries amid an intensifying rivalry with China over technological leadership, maritime security and trade.
At 10 a.m., Sherman plans to pay a courtesy call on Chung. They are expected to discuss the bilateral alliance, stalled dialogue with Pyongyang and cooperation in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.
During the talks, Sherman could also touch on China-related issues, as Washington has been hardening its stance against Beijing's policies on Hong Kong, the Xinjiang region, the East and South China Seas and the Taiwan Strait.
Beijing remains defiant, as President Xi Jinping has warned in a recent speech for the Communist Party's centenary that potential adversaries would "crack their heads and spill blood on the Great Wall of steel" should they "bully, oppress or enslave" his country.
Later on Thursday, Sherman is also expected to meet with other Seoul officials.
On Friday, Sherman and her South Korean counterpart, Choi, will hold a bilateral strategic dialogue on a wide range of issues, likely including strengthening supply chains for chips and large-capacity batteries.
The two countries' last such vice ministerial session took place in July last year.
Sherman is set to depart for Mongolia on Friday. She also plans to visit China and Oman later.
sshluck@yna.co.kr
(END)
2. Fitch keeps S. Korea's credit rating at 'AA-,' outlook stable
The ROK seems to be "fighting through" the pandemic economically.
Fitch keeps S. Korea's credit rating at 'AA-,' outlook stable | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, July 22 (Yonhap) -- Global credit appraiser Fitch Ratings said Thursday it has maintained South Korea's credit rating at "AA-" with a stable outlook.
Fitch's rating for South Korea has been AA-, the fourth-highest level of the agency's sovereign ratings, since 2012.
(END)
Keywords
3. NYC’s Push for “Otto Warmbier Way”: Calls for International Solidarity against the Kim Regime’s Brutal Tyranny
The death of Otto Warmbier is truly a tragedy. But he has left a legacy and his memory is kept alive by a number of Congressional actions and not just naming a street (which is a good thing by the way - I would capture photos of the north Korean delegation walking on the street named for him as they go to their diplomatic building and make sure those are included in VOA broadcasts into north Korea. While the Korean people in the north likely do not know about Otto, the elite and regime leadership do and they should be reminded of their crimes.
Excerpt:
Pacing with NYC’s local activist efforts, the Congress introduced another bill named after Otto Warmbier on June 19, 2020, the fourth anniversary of Otto Warmbier’s passing. The Otto Warmbier North Korea Censorship and Surveillance Act proposes to annually allocate $10 million to the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) over the next five years to foster human rights activities countering the Kim regime’s repressive information environment. In particular, it allows the USAGM to develop new means and partnerships to empower North Korean people with both non-digital and digital access to outside information. Furthermore, the proposed bill imposes sanctions on those within and without the regime responsible for precipitating such an environment. In conjunction with previously enacted Otto Warmbier bills, the Otto Warmbier Banking Restrictions Involving North Korea (BRINK) Act of 2017 and the Otto Warmbier North Korea Nuclear Sanctions Act of 2019, the proposed bill is expected to strengthen the overall effectiveness of sanctions against the Kim regime’s brutal tyranny.
NYC’s Push for “Otto Warmbier Way”: Calls for International Solidarity against the Kim Regime’s Brutal Tyranny - Foreign Policy Blogs
Human Rights
by | on July 19th, 2021 |
(Getty Image)
One day, the Kim regime’s diplomatic envoys around the world might be haunted by Otto Warmbier’s name, which will be written on every incoming mail. The heightened bipartisan consensus among NYC councilmen to rename after Otto Warmbier – an American college student who passed away in 2017 from injuries sustained while imprisoned in North Korea – the street on which the Kim regime’s mission to the UN is located, is creating a ripple effect: Washington’s most prominent public figures and the heads of international NGOs are joining a growing wave of enthusiasm for commemoration of Warmbier’s sacrifice. As Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), anticipates, this local activist movement could be “the opening salvo in a coordinated effort by international NGOs to have each and every street where there is a North Korean embassy or consulate mission, all over the world, renamed after Otto Warmbier, from Bucharest to Madrid, and from Stockholm to Kuwait City—everywhere.”
Otto Warmbier at the Kim regime’s Supreme Court in Pyongyang, North Korea, March 16 2016 (Yonhap News)
“We are a symbol of human rights to the whole world, and we have confronted in this city dictators and tyrants historically; this is a place that has really led the international effort against oppression.” So said NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio recently to a City Hall news conference last June, in order to emphasize that his support for “Otto Warmbier Way” is part of NYC’s long history of opposing tyranny. At America’s birth in the late 18th century, the Federal Hall in Lower Manhattan was the venue for two of the three sessions of the First U.S. Congress: During the course of the sessions, fierce yet fruitful debates took place between federalists and anti-federalists over the just definition of tyranny (whether of the majority over the minority, or vice versa), and checks and balances and the bill of rights were officially enshrined in the Constitution. Past street re/naming ordinances in NYC have reflected this heritage, the latest being the new “Black Lives Matter Boulevard” along a portion of Centre Street.
The proposed bill for “Otto Warmbier Way” was first introduced by City Councilman Joe Borelli in 2019. The goal, in the councilman’s own words, was to “recall that this was a life given up … in the face of an absolute dictator and authoritative government” and to “draw attention to the plight of the people of North Korea.” If the bill is passed, the address of the Kim regime’s mission to the UN will change from “820 second Ave” to “820 Otto Warmbier Way.” The passage of the bill requires 51 NYC councilmen’s approval votes as well as the mayor’s final signature. Some prominent public figures who have expressed their support for the bill include former Secretaries of State John Kerry and Mike Pompeo, former U.N. Ambassadors Bill Richardson and Kelly Craft, and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. Many North Korean human rights experts are also highly supportive of the bill. Suzanne Scholte, the chairman of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, enthusiastically applauded the bill: “We actually reached out to the council member in New York, Borelli, when he introduced the resolution two years ago. I think it’s really important because we can never forget what happened to this young man. He is the face of the cruelty of this regime. So we, the North Korea Freedom Coalition, enthusiastically endorsed this back when it was first proposed…We can’t forget that this is how this regime treats people, and this is how they treat their own citizens as well.”
Pacing with NYC’s local activist efforts, the Congress introduced another bill named after Otto Warmbier on June 19, 2020, the fourth anniversary of Otto Warmbier’s passing. The Otto Warmbier North Korea Censorship and Surveillance Act proposes to annually allocate $10 million to the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) over the next five years to foster human rights activities countering the Kim regime’s repressive information environment. In particular, it allows the USAGM to develop new means and partnerships to empower North Korean people with both non-digital and digital access to outside information. Furthermore, the proposed bill imposes sanctions on those within and without the regime responsible for precipitating such an environment. In conjunction with previously enacted Otto Warmbier bills, the Otto Warmbier Banking Restrictions Involving North Korea (BRINK) Act of 2017 and the Otto Warmbier North Korea Nuclear Sanctions Act of 2019, the proposed bill is expected to strengthen the overall effectiveness of sanctions against the Kim regime’s brutal tyranny.
4. North Korea food shortage turns into new Asia humanitarian crisis
Yes. What is really going on inside north Korea?
Tragic suffering for sure. But how can or will Asia respond?
Excerpts:
Although the food situation has received international attention, less is known about the spread of COVID-19 within North Korea's borders. A year and a half into the pandemic, Pyongyang is still claiming zero cases.
Nevertheless, sources inside the country paint a very different picture. Daily NK reported this week that North Koreans are not only getting infected with COVID, but they are also dying after being released from state quarantine facilities. According to one local source, about 10% of the people who were released from state quarantine facilities in South Pyongan Province after their symptoms improved subsequently died.
Scarlatoiu said it is highly unlikely North Korea has zero COVID cases. "Based on information I have from North Korean escapees in South Korea and other countries, patients are diagnosed with "respiratory diseases" that may as well be COVID. But those cases are not recorded as such," he said.
Spezza also said that the issues plaguing North Korea go far beyond this pandemic. "The issue is not COVID. The issue is that the country has no economy to speak of, and nearly no infrastructure, and that goes back to a slow but steady decline that began in the 1980s."
According to Spezza, the current crisis in North Korea will likely "make the whole population more prone to diseases, and because food scarcity forces people to go out and fend for food, it will probably affect education and other activities that may have seen some basic improvements thanks to the work of UN agencies."
"Whatever little gains North Korea had made probably will be dissipated by the prolonged lockdown," he said.
North Korea food shortage turns into new Asia humanitarian crisis
Regime clamps down on hoarding as rationing system on verge of collapse
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is struggling to increase food supply as the COVID pandemic keeps his country's borders closed. (Source photos by Kyodo and KCNA/Reuters)
GABRIELA BERNAL, Contributing writerJuly 21, 2021 15:03 JST | North Korea
SEOUL -- North Korea's food shortages have reached crisis levels, and inequalities have sharply widened ever since the COVID-19 pandemic forced the country to close its borders in January last year.
The reclusive nation will be short by about 860,000 tons of food this year, or about two months of normal demand, the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization estimated in a recent report.
The government has been trying to get the population to supply their own food but with little success. News agencies with sources inside the country are reporting starvation deaths as well as an increase in the number of children and elderly who have resorted to begging.
Jiro Ishimaru of AsiaPress said North Korea's current food shortage is quickly shaping up to be the worst humanitarian crisis in Asia. In a column earlier this month, he said it was "frustrating that the reality of the situation has not been conveyed to the world."
The country's food rationing system also seems to have collapsed, with many regions receiving little or no supplies for months on end. According to Daily NK, authorities in North Hamgyong Province recently released food reserves after rice prices rose sharply, but local sources said the system for distributing rations has changed. Families are now receiving "food tickets" from local community organizations that can get them "eight parts corn and two parts unglutinous rice -- all depending, of course, on the size of the family," according to the source.
Gianluca Spezza, an associate research fellow at the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm, said the current food situation in North Korea is "very bad."
"The DPRK was hanging by a thread before COVID -- it has one patron, and one buyer, China -- and that thread just got worn out now, due to sanctions, COVID, and prolonged [border] closure," he said. With international organizations no longer able to operate within the country, Spezza said "there is no reason to think that things may have magically improved with isolation."
But it is not just the food situation that has worsened. The human security aspect of this problem also deserves attention, according to Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK). "Due to travel restrictions and border closures imposed under the pretext of COVID-19 prevention, the human security of North Koreans is even more dire than it was during the pre-COVID period."
Ever since North Korea first shut its borders with China over a year ago, the regime of Kim Jong Un has been ramping up its border crackdowns and surveillance to prevent smuggling and defections. Earlier this month, Daily NK reported that the government may be attempting to use 5G technology to monitor the situation along the border from as far away as Pyongyang with surveillance cameras.
Photo taken from the Chinese city of Dandong on June 7, 2021, shows a North Korean soldier giving water to a local resident in the country's Uiju county. © Kyodo
This is bad news for ordinary folk trying to survive day to day. Due to lack of income and basic resources, many citizens have been engaging in counterfeiting to make ends meet, according to recent reports by RFA. Such acts, as well as the distribution of foreign materials such as movies and dramas, are being punished with increasingly harsh sentences, including those at forced labor camps. Besides counterfeiting and smuggling, citizens caught "hoarding" food could face execution, according to recent Daily NK reports.
"The government is taking these measures because it is afraid of losing its grip on power," Scarlatoiu said about the recent crackdowns. "The regime is using COVID as a pretext to crack down on markets and information from the outside world, which it perceives as major threats to its legitimacy."
Although the food situation has received international attention, less is known about the spread of COVID-19 within North Korea's borders. A year and a half into the pandemic, Pyongyang is still claiming zero cases.
Nevertheless, sources inside the country paint a very different picture. Daily NK reported this week that North Koreans are not only getting infected with COVID, but they are also dying after being released from state quarantine facilities. According to one local source, about 10% of the people who were released from state quarantine facilities in South Pyongan Province after their symptoms improved subsequently died.
Scarlatoiu said it is highly unlikely North Korea has zero COVID cases. "Based on information I have from North Korean escapees in South Korea and other countries, patients are diagnosed with "respiratory diseases" that may as well be COVID. But those cases are not recorded as such," he said.
Spezza also said that the issues plaguing North Korea go far beyond this pandemic. "The issue is not COVID. The issue is that the country has no economy to speak of, and nearly no infrastructure, and that goes back to a slow but steady decline that began in the 1980s."
According to Spezza, the current crisis in North Korea will likely "make the whole population more prone to diseases, and because food scarcity forces people to go out and fend for food, it will probably affect education and other activities that may have seen some basic improvements thanks to the work of UN agencies."
"Whatever little gains North Korea had made probably will be dissipated by the prolonged lockdown," he said.
5. Kim Jong Un Criticizes Youth for Not Being North Korean Enough
I will continue to beat the drum - Kim fears the Korean people more than he fears the US. That should inform some of our policy - especially from an information and influence activities strategy.
And even overzealous hugs are a threat!
Kim Jong Un Criticizes Youth for Not Being North Korean Enough
The 37-year-old dictator warns young people to reject foreign culture, including K-pop and overzealous hugs
Instead of nam-chin, a shortened South Korean descriptor for boyfriend, North Koreans have been told to use nam dong-mu, which translates as “male partner,” Seoul’s spy agency told lawmakers recently. The Kim regime has even frowned upon locals using the South Korean wording for embarrassment.
Such cultural and ideological slip-ups, the North Korean newspaper wrote, are more threatening to the country than gun-toting enemies.
Mr. Kim is fighting more than a war on words. During what he has called an unprecedented crisis, the North Korean leader has tried insulating his country as it combats food shortages, pandemic fears and economic hardship. The struggles require a national sacrifice from all, in adherence to ruling Workers’ Party socialist principles.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivered a speech in Pyongyang, as seen in an image released on July 5.
Photo: kcna/Reuters
Now any signs of antisocialist behavior are prohibited, down to dressing like South Koreans or even hugging in public, Seoul’s spy agency said. Under revised laws, watching a South Korean television drama can land a violator in prison for up to 15 years, while those distributing such media can face the death penalty, it said.
But the regime has particularly scrutinized youth slang, fashion, music, dance and even haircuts. Mr. Kim has called deviations from North Korean norms “dangerous poisons” to state ideology.
Younger North Koreans have fewer reasons to offer up unblinking loyalty to the regime than prior generations had, said Seo Jae-pyong, who heads a group that helps North Koreans settle in the South. State distribution systems for the basics have eroded. Now most people fend for themselves by smuggling or working at informal marketplaces. Only the country’s elderly can remember anything resembling widespread prosperity.
“They hoped Kim Jong Un, as a younger leader, would be more progressive. But he only ended up tightening his grip,” said Mr. Seo, who left North Korea two decades ago.
Among North Korea’s elite, Mr. Kim is one of the few positioned to understand the allure of foreign culture to the young and impressionable. He spent part of his childhood studying at a Swiss boarding school and became so enamored with U.S. basketball that he invited former star Dennis Rodman to Pyongyang multiple times.
In an April speech to Workers’ Party members, Mr. Kim told them to teach and regulate the youth.
“In reality,” Mr. Kim said, “there are serious changes going on in the new generation’s ideological mind-set.”
Spotting South Korean infiltrations into the Kim regime’s native language may not be particularly onerous. Like the Korean Peninsula itself, what was once a shared language has splintered apart since the two Koreas divided in 1945. The South Korean language has incorporated a lot of English words; North Korea has stayed more indigenous.
One scholarly effort to produce an inter-Korean dictionary has identified more than 300,000 words that are used differently in the two nations.
For instance, people in South Korea mimic the English language words for “hamburger” and “smartphone.” But North Koreans created their own words, with the fast-food staple directly translated as “meat between bread” and the smartphone being referred to as an “intelligent hand-held telephone.”
More so than his grandfather and father, Kim Jong Un can’t wholly suppress outside information and media from coming into his cloistered country. Few North Koreans can access the world’s internet and most only have access to state-controlled television channels. But North Koreans have long smuggled K-pop and South Korean TV dramas on USBs, which are traded secretly among friends and family members, defectors say.
Mr. Kim likely fears that unchecked foreign influence on the country’s youth could create doubts about the regime, if not himself, close Pyongyang watchers say.
“We’re seeing more attempts to regulate the youth during the pandemic in order to suppress any discontent that arises from the economic difficulties posed by Covid,” said Hong Min, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a government-funded think tank in Seoul.
The government controls extend even to budding romance. As part of efforts to crack down on antisocialist acts, North Korean officials distributed a propaganda-lecture video that condemned local couples for imitating South Korean lovebirds.
The roughly 20-minute video was obtained last month by Do Hee-yun, who heads the Citizens’ Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees, a Seoul-based activist group. The Wall Street Journal was unable to independently confirm the video’s authenticity. But North Korean researchers say the recording appears to be authentic Kim-regime propaganda.
“Younger people have become the target because they have been most exposed to capitalist culture,” Mr. Do said.
The video, intended for the country’s security officials, shows a North Korean woman wearing a red Adidas shirt, while another woman sports four golden bracelets. Couples hug on the beach.
In a voice-over, a narrator blasts them all for being indecent and crude. They are condemned for “blasphemy against the revolutionary and wholesome socialist conduct of the country.”
At the end of the video, young North Korean men and women are seen at a trial, accused of “rotten capitalist ideology.” They get hauled off in handcuffs.
The narrator booms that those engaged in similar misdeeds will be considered “enemies of the revolution.”
6. Death of Two North Korean Prisoners Highlights Starvation Diets
Sadly according to escapees this is not an unusual occurrence.
Coincidentally, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRN) which is mentioned in the article, is having an event to release a new report tomorrow on "North Korea’s Long-term Prison-Labor Facility Kyo-hwa-so No. 8, Sŭngho-ri (승호리) - Update" You can RSVP at this link: https://www.hrnk.org/events/events-view.php?id=116
Excerpts:
A 2012 report by the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) said North Koreans who are sent to the various levels of the penal system--sometimes for very arbitrary reasons--endure brutal interrogations that include torture.
In addition to forced labor and starvation, they could be subject to torture, murder, extermination, rape… and “other inhumane acts committed knowingly in a systematic and widespread manner by state police agents operating on behalf of the state authority,” the report said.U.N Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights Tomás Ojea Quintana warned in a report in March that the closure of the Sino-Korean border and restrictions on the movement of people could bring on a “serious food crisis.”
“Deaths by starvation have been reported, as has an increase in the number of children and elderly people who have resorted to begging as families are unable to support them,” said the report.
Death of Two North Korean Prisoners Highlights Starvation Diets
Prisoners cut off from family visits due to coronavirus are going hungry.
Two malnourished North Korean prisoners died in recent weeks, one dropping dead at work and the other beaten to death because she was too weak to do labor, said sources in the country who said coronavirus bans on family visits stopped inmates from supplementing meagre diets.
Prisoners are made to work all day and fed starvation rations, resulting in severe weight loss due to malnourishment, and eventual death by starvation.
“A male prisoner in his 50s collapsed and died while pulling weeds from a rice paddy last week,” a resident of South Pyongan province, near the North Korean capital Pyongyang, told RFA’s Korean Service July 16.
“Most prisoners are severely malnourished because the food they get these days is so little that it leaves them starving,” a said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
According to the South Pyogan source the man in his 50s was incarcerated at one of the country’s most notorious prisons, Prison No. 11 in Chungsan, where he toiled daily and was fed only 100 grams of boiled corn – a meal that provides 96 calories.
“Most prisoners have collapsed from malnutrition after the prison banned outside visitation due to the coronavirus. Before the pandemic, prisoners’ family members were allowed to visit them once a month and feed them more nutritious food. They were barely surviving then,” said the South Pyongan source.
“But now that family visits are banned, the prisoners are working hard to remove the weeds with their extremely emaciated bodies,” the South Pyongan source said.
If the prisoners skip work due to illness or fatigue, they miss out on their 100 grams of corn, so most never stop working regardless of how sick or tired they are, the South Pyongan source said.
“When it rains and they can’t work, the prisoners lie in their cells all day as if they were dead. With only bones and skin left, they are just breathing, and they look as miserable as dead bodies,” said the source.
“Prison No. 11 is one of the most notorious in the country. The prisoners are dying from hunger and overwork, but they and their families have no way to complain about it anywhere.”
Another source, a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, told RFA that a security officer beat a 31-year-old detainee to death in pre-trial detention in the provincial capital Chongjin.
“The woman who died was sent to a pre-trial detention center for watching a South Korean movie,” said the second source, who requested anonymity to speak freely.
“She became so malnourished and weak that she did not move as quickly as directed and she was beaten to death by the security agent,” the second source said.
She had been caught two months earlier in a sweeping ideological crackdown under the recently passed Reactionary Idea and Culture Law, according to the North Hamgyong source.
“The security agent who killed her was a 24-year-old recruit who just graduated from the Political University and was newly assigned to the detention center,” the North Hamgyong source said.
“The woman’s body was buried in a nearby hill, and the security agent who killed her continues to work without having been punished. Nearby residents and detainees at the detention center are furious.”
The Seoul-based Korea Joongang Daily noted that the Reactionary Idea and Culture Law did not precisely define which acts and ideas could be called “reactionary” when it was passed in Dec. 2020.
RFA reported last week that the government made a list of reactionary activities, including what one source described as minor acts that authorities formerly tolerated.
According to the U.S. State Department’s 2019 human rights report, estimates of the North Korean prison population range between 80,000 and 120,000. This figure includes estimates for political prison camps, the existence of which North Korea denies.
A 2012 report by the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) said North Koreans who are sent to the various levels of the penal system--sometimes for very arbitrary reasons--endure brutal interrogations that include torture.
In addition to forced labor and starvation, they could be subject to torture, murder, extermination, rape… and “other inhumane acts committed knowingly in a systematic and widespread manner by state police agents operating on behalf of the state authority,” the report said.U.N Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights Tomás Ojea Quintana warned in a report in March that the closure of the Sino-Korean border and restrictions on the movement of people could bring on a “serious food crisis.”
“Deaths by starvation have been reported, as has an increase in the number of children and elderly people who have resorted to begging as families are unable to support them,” said the report.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimated in a recent report that North Korea would be short about 860,000 tons of food this year, about two months of normal demand.
Reported by Jieun Kim. Translated by Jinha Shin. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
7. Sherman, FM Chung reaffirm efforts to bring N. Korea to dialogue table
Excerpts:
On Friday, Sherman and her South Korean counterpart, Choi, will hold a bilateral strategic dialogue on a wide range of issues, likely including strengthening supply chains for chips and large-capacity batteries.
The two countries' last such vice ministerial session took place in July last year.
Sherman is set to depart for Mongolia on Friday. She also plans to visit China and Oman later.
(2nd LD) Sherman, FM Chung reaffirm efforts to bring N. Korea to dialogue table | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: ADDS details on meeting with unification minister, photo)
By Song Sang-ho and Kim Seung-yeon
SEOUL, July 22 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong agreed Thursday to work closely together to bring North Korea back to the denuclearization talks, the foreign ministry said.
The two shared the understanding when Sherman paid a courtesy call on Chung in Seoul earlier in the day. Sherman arrived here Wednesday from Japan, where she had trilateral talks with her South Korean and Japanese counterparts, Choi Jong-kun and Takeo Mori, respectively.
"Minister Chung and Deputy Secretary Sherman reaffirmed the goal of achieving the complete denuclearization and permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula, which was affirmed by the leaders of the two leaders at the time of the Korea-U.S. summit," the ministry said in a release.
"While sharing an understanding that diplomacy and dialogue are essential in achieving the goal, (the two sides) also agreed to continue close cooperation at every level to bring North Korea to the dialogue table," it said.
During the meeting, Sherman also told Chung that the United States greatly values the development of the South Korea-U.S. alliance, a linchpin of the peace, stability and prosperity in Northeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific, and her trip to Seoul came in that regard, according to the ministry.
Chung asked Sherman to make efforts to implement the follow-up measures to the outcomes of the May 21 summit between Presidents Moon Jae-in and Joe Biden, which cover cooperation in economic, global and other issues.
Later in the day, Sherman met with Unification Minister Lee In-young and expressed support for cross-border dialogue and cooperation with North Korea.
"Deputy Secretary Sherman said that the ministry's role is more important than anything else for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, while voicing U.S. support for inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation" the ministry said.
In a separate meeting with Vice Unification Minister Choi Young-jun, Sherman also agreed to continue such bilateral communications and cooperation with the ministry on peninsula issues.
Sherman's Asia swing comes as Washington pushes to reinforce cooperation with its allies and partner countries amid an intensifying rivalry with China over technological leadership, maritime security and trade.
The trilateral talks in Tokyo highlighted three-way cooperation among the U.S. and its two Asian allies against a recalcitrant North Korea and an assertive China.
Sherman later paid a courtesy call on Moon at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, officials said.
On Friday, Sherman and her South Korean counterpart, Choi, will hold a bilateral strategic dialogue on a wide range of issues, likely including strengthening supply chains for chips and large-capacity batteries.
The two countries' last such vice ministerial session took place in July last year.
Sherman is set to depart for Mongolia on Friday. She also plans to visit China and Oman later.
sshluck@yna.co.kr
elly@yna.co.kr
(END)
8. S. Korea seeks unification not 'by absorption' but through peaceful means: official
As I have written many times: The only way we are going to see an end to the nuclear program and threats as well as the human rights abuses and crimes against humanity being committed against the Korean people living in the north by the mafia-like crime family cult known as the Kim family regime is through achievement of unification and the establishment of a United Republic of Korea that is secure and stable, non-nuclear, economically vibrant, and unified under a liberal constitutional form of government based on individual liberty, rule of law, and human rights as determined by the Korean people. In short, a United Republic of Korea (UROK).
Should The United States Support Korean Unification And If So, How?
International Journal of Korean Studies ·Vol. XVIII, No. 1
Unification Options and Scenarios: Assisting A Resistance
International Journal of Korean Unification Studies
Vol. 24, No. 2, 2015, 127–152
S. Korea seeks unification not 'by absorption' but through peaceful means: official | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, July 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korea seeks unification with North Korea through peaceful means and based on agreement between the two sides, a unification ministry official said Thursday after the chief of the main opposition party expressed his wish for unification "by absorption."
In a TV debate on Wednesday, Lee Jun-seok, chairman of the People Power Party (PPP), said that he is an advocate of "unification by peaceful absorption" with North Korea. He also renewed calls for scrapping or adjusting the function of the unification ministry handling inter-Korean affairs.
"The South Korean government does not support unification by absorption," the ministry official told reporters on condition of anonymity. "It pursues peaceful unification through brisk exchanges and cooperation, and eventually inter-Korean agreement based on mutual respect of the other's system."
"Realizing the mission of peaceful unification made clear in the Constitution does not lie with unification by absorption either," the official added.
The official noted that President Moon Jae-in also made it clear that Seoul does not want unification by absorption, artificial means or the collapse of North Korea in his 2017 speech in Berlin.
She, however, did not respond to Lee's renewed calls for scrapping the unification ministry.
Lee earlier raised the need for scrapping the unification ministry, citing few achievements in cross-border relations and inefficiency in operating such an independent government agency.
Unification Minister Lee In-young immediately expressed strong regret and denounced his remarks for lacking "historical awareness" with regard to unification of the Korean Peninsula.
South and North Korea remain technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
kokobj@yna.co.kr
(END)
9. N.K. foreign ministry again accuses U.S. of involvement in anti-gov't protests in Cuba
The Kim family regime is worried about the Cuba example.
N.K. foreign ministry again accuses U.S. of involvement in anti-gov't protests in Cuba | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, July 22 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Thursday accused the United States of interfering in internal affairs in Cuba and plotting "behind-the-scene" schemes to inflame the recent anti-government demonstrations in the Caribbean nation.
The North's foreign ministry made the claim in an article on its website, saying, "Mass rallies were organized in the capital city of Havana and other cities to overpower the anti-government protests."
The website said President Miguel Diaz-Canel condemned the protests as "outcomes of behind-the-scene moves by the U.S. coupled with its persistent anti-Cuba blockade scheming to obliterate socialism and the revolution."
It said that Cuba will achieve victory in its struggle to "smash the U.S. attempts to interfere in internal affairs" and "tide over the present difficult situation."
The North also criticized U.S. sanctions on Cuba, pointing out that a recent U.N. resolution calling for the lifting of economic, trade and financial sanctions on Cuba is "a reflection of the universal voice of the international society."
Last week, the North's foreign ministry released a statement saying that the recent protests in Cuba are an "outcome of behind-the-scene manipulation by the outside forces."
It also released a statement under Vice Minister Pak Myong-guk on Wednesday pinpointing the U.S. as the "main culprit" of the Cuban demonstrations.
North Korea has been seeking to maintain closer ties with its traditional friendly countries, including Cuba, amid an impasse in nuclear negotiations with Washington.
julesyi@yna.co.kr
(END)
10. Blame game goes into high gear over infections on ship
The blame game. But it is the sailors who suffer.
Thursday
July 22, 2021
Blame game goes into high gear over infections on ship
Buses transport Cheonghae unit crewmembers from Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi after their airlift back to Korea on Tuesday. [NEWS1]
The Defense Ministry announced Thursday that it will launch a probe of what led to the Covid-19 outbreak aboard the Munmu the Great destroyer, which infected 271 crewmembers airlifted back to Korea on Tuesday.
The outbreak led to an unprecedented cancellation of the 34th contingent’s mission in the Gulf of Aden, where the Cheonghae unit conducts peacekeeping and anti-piracy missions.
It has prompted criticism of the military for failing to protect the crew from infection.
According to a Defense Ministry source, the probe into the outbreak in the Cheonghae unit will be directed by the ministry’s own audit office, with two investigators from the military’s investigative headquarters and 10 ministry auditors tasked with examining allegations of missteps.
The probe is expected to last until Aug. 6, and will target the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), which directs overseas missions, the Navy’s strategic command, the Navy headquarters, the Armed Forces Medical Command, and the relevant departments of the Defense Ministry itself.
The audit is expected to address how the virus came aboard the Munmu the Great destroyer.
The announcement of the audit came as the Defense Ministry, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) and the Blue House have effectively held other government bodies responsible for the troops of the 34th contingent remaining unvaccinated and vulnerable to Covid-19 infection.
The apparent blame game began on Monday, when KDCA Commissioner Jeong Eun-kyeong pointed out that the outbreak aboard the Munmu went unrecognized even after large numbers of the crew began coming down with cold-like symptoms on July 1 because the 34th contingent was deployed only with 800 rapid-antibody tests, which all came up negative for Covid-19 on 40 crewmembers with symptoms.
Jeong said that the KDCA had previously issued a notice that antibody tests had a higher chance of showing false negative results – where an infected person tests negative – and that rapid-antigen tests were more accurate.
The commissioner also said that vaccines were not shipped to military units posted overseas because of the ultra-cold storage and transport requirements for certain vaccines.
Although the Defense Ministry explained that members of the 34th contingent were not vaccinated because the Munmu departed Korea on Feb. 8, almost a month before the military began vaccinating its personnel, the military’s own vaccination plan prioritized medical corps units and essential operations units — effectively de-prioritizing the Cheonghae unit, according to opposition People Power Party (PPP) lawmaker Lee Chae-ik.
Lee also said the KDCA told the ministry in a series of meetings in February and March that the country’s vaccination program would prioritize the domestic population.
The Defense Ministry said Wednesday it had distributed a directive in December that units vulnerable to Covid-19 exposure should use rapid-antigen tests – effectively blaming the JCS, which directs overseas missions, for not properly equipping the Cheonghae unit with the recommended type of test kits.
However, a JCS official who spoke to the JoongAng Ilbo on the condition of anonymity said, “We followed the Defense Ministry’s directive to the letter. If there was a problem, the ministry would have told us.”
He added, “Preparation for an overseas mission is the responsibility of each branch of the military,” thereby passing the buck to the Navy.
Meanwhile, PPP lawmaker Han Ki-ho said that the Defense Ministry reported to the National Assembly that it never requested cooperation from the United Nations or host countries to secure vaccines for overseas units, contrary to a promise by Defense Minister Suh Wook to do just that.
At a National Assembly hearing on Feb. 23, Suh told members of the legislature’s military and defense committee that the ministry would “make domestic preparations to distribute vaccines to overseas units” and “review the possibility to seek direct cooperation from host countries” of such units.
However, according to Han, five months after that pronouncement, the Defense Ministry had still not submitted a formal request for vaccine aid from mission partners or supplied the units with vaccines from Korea.
Han said the vaccination of other overseas units, such as the Akh unit in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Hanbit unit in South Sudan, was only achieved “because the UAE and the United Nations were proactive in offering cooperation with supplying vaccines [to Korean units].
“If vaccination [for those overseas units] was delayed, there is no guarantee that we wouldn’t have had a second or third Cheonghae unit-type mass outbreak on our hands.”
BY MICHAEL LEE, LEE CHEOL-JAE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]
11. Beijing defends its envoy's opinions about Yoon
Does THAAD remain a key issue for China?
Excerpts:
Some experts in Korea say China has not given up on the idea of a complete withdrawal of the Thaad system from Korea.
“Thaad needs to go, that is the big picture for China,” said Kang Jun-young, a professor of Chinese politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. “They know that decisions on Thaad are not something for Korea to make independently, but seeing how Korea, especially as of late, has been drawing near the United States, Beijing is trying to use the Thaad card to pressure Seoul.”
Thursday
July 22, 2021
Beijing defends its envoy's opinions about Yoon
Zhao Lijian, spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry. [SHIN KYUNG-JIN]
China’s Foreign Ministry defended its ambassador’s criticism of a Korean presidential candidate for his views on the Thaad missile system, a serious point of contention between China and Korea.
“I've noted the remarks by some ROK [Republic of Korea] political figures on issues relating to Hong Kong and THAAD, many of which China finds unacceptable,” said Zhao Lijian, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, during a press conference on Wednesday.
“Chinese diplomats posted overseas have the responsibility to make clear China's position on issues concerning major interests of the country in a timely manner," he continued. "This is by no means interference in domestic affairs or influence on elections of other countries.”
In an op-ed in the JoongAng Ilbo on July 16, Chinese Ambassador to Korea Xing Haiming criticized presidential candidate Yoon Seok-youl’s views on Thaad, or the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system that was deployed in Korea through an agreement between Seoul and Washington in 2016 to counter threats from North Korea.
China claimd the system's powerful radar can be used to spy on its territory. In retaliation for the deployment, the country placed economic sanctions on Korea, restricted Korea’s cultural exports to China including K-dramas, movies and concerts, and pressured Chinese tour agencies to stop selling trips to Korea.
“I saw former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl’s interview in the JoongAng Ilbo on July 15,” wrote Xing in his op-ed. “I respect Yoon, but I have to be frank [about what he said] in relation to China.
“I want to emphasize that the American action of placing Thaad in Korea has seriously undermined the security interests of China,” Xing wrote. “In the interview, Yoon speaks about Chinese radar, and I cannot comprehend his claims. I have a Korean friend, and I have never once heard from him that the Chinese radar is perceived as a threat to Korea.”
In an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo on July 15, Yoon said China should think about getting rid of its own long-range radar along its borders before calling for the withdrawal of the Thaad system from Korea.
He added that Korea’s security and diplomatic interests are aligned closely with those of the United States, stating that Korea’s foreign relations “should be founded on a strong Korea-U.S. alliance and bridge out from there, and that this way China and other nations would respect [Korea]."
“China-Korea relations are by no means an accessory to Korea-U.S. relations,” Xing wrote. “China respects Korea’s foreign policies. But it is our stance that Korea-U.S. relations should not hurt the interests of China.”
Korea’s Foreign Ministry said it requested the Chinese ambassador to be more careful with his opinions.
“An ambassador ought to exercise discretion when expressing his or her views,” a ministry official told the Korea Joongang Daily on Tuesday. “We have contacted Ambassador Xing today to convey our position on the matter, and we have also spoken about the matter to the Chinese government through our diplomatic channel.”
In October 2017, China and Korea reached an agreement to bring exchanges and cooperation back on track, and Korea reiterated its position that Thaad was not aimed at any third party other than North Korea, according to Korea's Foreign Ministry.
China reiterated its concerns but took note of Korea’s position, expressing its hopes that Korea will make "real and earnest efforts" for the bilateral ties, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
When President Moon Jae-in met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in the Philippines in November 2017, the Chinese government reiterated that the two governments had reached a consensus on the Thaad issue.
What conditions are entailed in the consensus have not been specified by either government, and there was speculation that the Korean government may have made behind-the-scenes agreements, such as a pledge not to install any more Thaad systems in Korea. That speculation has been denied by the Korean government.
Some experts in Korea say China has not given up on the idea of a complete withdrawal of the Thaad system from Korea.
“Thaad needs to go, that is the big picture for China,” said Kang Jun-young, a professor of Chinese politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. “They know that decisions on Thaad are not something for Korea to make independently, but seeing how Korea, especially as of late, has been drawing near the United States, Beijing is trying to use the Thaad card to pressure Seoul.”
The summit between Moon and U.S. President Joe Biden in May resulted in a joint statement that contained a number of touchy topics for China, including peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region and the Taiwan Strait.
Hong Kong and its protests, another issue that Beijing has warned other countries not to interfere in, was brought up in an interview by Bloomberg news of Korea’s People Power Party leader Lee Jun-seok last week. Lee vowed to push back against Chinese "cruelty" in Hong Kong.
“I would like to stress that Hong Kong is part of China and its affairs are purely China's domestic affairs,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao said on Wednesday. “No country, organization or individual has any right to or should make wanton comments.”
BY YOO JEE-HYE, PARK HYUN-JU, ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]
12. A social agreement on unification
Can South Korean civil society engage in a unification discussion? Can such a discussion have an effect on policy?
Excerpts:
Drawing a social consensus is not about reaching a conclusion no matter what. The procedure and process of agreement should be fair and transparent to reflect a consensus among participants. Most of all, the organizer must help them avoid their ideological bias for a constructive dialogue. At the same time, the civic society must do its best to systemize the social dialogue, expand the scope of civilian participation, set an exemplary model for reaching a civic agreement, and persuade the government to reflect the consensus in public education on unification.
It is essential that conclusions reached by the social dialogue should be reflected in the law and systems of our society. Above all, the organizer must help create an environment for building national consensus. That calls for active participation by the National Assembly and local municipalities along with the preparation of a concrete manual to help the consensus be reflected in the unification policy of the government.
The civic society, government and legislature must gather more wisdom and abilities than before to pave the way for social dialogue on peace and unification of the Korean Peninsula in the future. That will surely help the country take a step closer toward the goals of achieving freedom, democracy and peace on the peninsula.
Wednesday
July 21, 2021
A social agreement on unification
Jhe Seong-ho
The author is a professor at the Chung-Ang University Law School.
The Social Dialogue for Peace and Unification Building of Korea (Sdpub), a bipartisan civic group, has hosted conventions to adopt a national consensus on the unification of the Korean Peninsula eight times in the past year. The national agreement on unification is a kind of “social pact” to be agreed to — and consistently executed — by members of society, the National Assembly and the government to help peacefully address South-North and South-South conflicts and eventually present a desirable vision for a reunified Korea. 100 citizens carefully selected by the Sdpub and representing each region had many discussions on how to achieve the hoped-for future of the peninsula and came up with a civic covenant.
The concept of social dialogue is not so familiar to Koreans. But in Europe, there are many successful cases, as seen in the Wage-Price Agreements in postwar Austria (1951), the Beutelsbacher Konsens in West Germany (1976), the Wassenaar Accord between employers and unions in the Netherlands (1982), and the Citizens’ Assembly, an experimental tool for policy making in Ireland (since 2016).
But in Korea, the unification issue has contentious. As a result, society suffered a critical lack of constructive discussions and agreements beyond ideological and generational divides, Stuck in the ideological cage, people were reluctant to meet and talk with their opponents. Even in the liberal Moon Jae-in administration, secrecy and unilateralism hardly vanished.
But unification is directly linked to our lives. The government must not treat citizens simply as subjects for policy promotion anymore. In this vein, it is particularly meaningful to apply the tool of social dialogue to issues involving unification and inter-Korean relations. First of all, the venue of social dialogue offers an effective platform for the government to provide an opportunity for the public to participate in the debate and converge their differences into a national consensus. The dialogue not only can contribute to building national capabilities to achieve unification but also help ensure democratic justification for policy toward North Korea and reunification.
After taking part in the social dialogue, many citizens demonstrated positive reactions to the debate. Some said they have come to respect one another after tasting sharp logic from the young.
Others said, “We have found that many of us had the same thought about the unification conundrum.” Their reactions prove the efficacy of social dialogue in resolving an increasingly divergent perception of the people.
Drawing a social consensus is not about reaching a conclusion no matter what. The procedure and process of agreement should be fair and transparent to reflect a consensus among participants. Most of all, the organizer must help them avoid their ideological bias for a constructive dialogue. At the same time, the civic society must do its best to systemize the social dialogue, expand the scope of civilian participation, set an exemplary model for reaching a civic agreement, and persuade the government to reflect the consensus in public education on unification.
It is essential that conclusions reached by the social dialogue should be reflected in the law and systems of our society. Above all, the organizer must help create an environment for building national consensus. That calls for active participation by the National Assembly and local municipalities along with the preparation of a concrete manual to help the consensus be reflected in the unification policy of the government.
The civic society, government and legislature must gather more wisdom and abilities than before to pave the way for social dialogue on peace and unification of the Korean Peninsula in the future. That will surely help the country take a step closer toward the goals of achieving freedom, democracy and peace on the peninsula.
Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
13. Moon Considers Pardons for Ex-President Park, Samsung Chief
This would be a very interesting and unexpected development at least regarding former President Park.
Moon Considers Pardons for Ex-President Park, Samsung Chief
President Moon Jae-in is considering a pardon for jailed ex-President Park Geun-hye and Samsung chief Lee Jae-yong on the occasion of Liberation Day on Aug. 15, sources said Wednesday.
Lee Myung-bak, another former president who is in prison for bribery and embezzlement, will not likely be pardoned this time.
"Cheong Wa Dae is leaning more towards a pardon than parole for Lee Jae-yong," a government official said. Business leaders are also asking for a blanket pardon so Lee can fully in all normal activities rather than being restricted and having to report to a parole officer.
Park was hospitalized again this week due to chronic shoulder pain. She has been in jail since she was deposed over a massive corruption scandal in 2017.
None of Korea's jailbird ex-presidents have served their full sentence since all were pardoned by their successors.
14. Korean War Veterans Advocate Named to U.S. Health Post
Korean War Veterans Advocate Named to U.S. Health Post
A Korean American who founded a non-profit support group for Korean War veterans has been named deputy assistant secretary to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Hannah Kim (38), the founder of Remember 727 and former chief of staff to veteran Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel, will be in charge of PR for the department.
Kim was instrumental in establishing National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day in 2009. She founded Remember 727 with fellow Korean Americans to honor veterans. It has been holding candlelight vigils in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. every year.
In 2017, Kim traveled 26 countries to thank over 200 Korean War veterans in person. The following year, she visited veterans in all 50 states of the U.S.
Kim moved to the U.S. at the age of six, and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles and George Washington University. She is also active in connecting the Korean community with mainstream American politicians.
15. North Korea Truly Is the Hermit Kingdom (Thanks to Coronavirus)
I have to slightly push back on Mr. Bandow. The north is isolated because of the deliberate policy decisions of Kim Jong-un and seven decades of rule by the Kim family regime that believed isolation was the key to regime survival.
But he is right that the regime may end up with even fewer friends (especially if Cuba fails!)
North Korea Truly Is the Hermit Kingdom (Thanks to Coronavirus)
Pyongyang is likely to end up with fewer friends than before the pandemic.
Despite having launched a terrible war and turned an entire nation into a totalitarian prison, during the 1960s the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea made a major push for international recognition. At the time the DPRK appeared to some as the more successful of the Koreas. Moreover, the world seemed filled with ideological friends, especially from the growing number of emerging nations experimenting with economic collectivism and political authoritarianism.
Since then, however, the disastrous failure of socialist and communist regimes in their many iterations shrunk Pyongyang’s friendship network. The North’s economic hardship, terrorist attacks, and criminal activities reduced its attractiveness as a partner to other governments. And now North Korea has spent more than a year isolating itself from the world in response to the global coronavirus pandemic.
Even the residents of states that are friendly to the North are unwelcome in the country as commerce has dwindled, humanitarian operations have closed, diplomats have gone home, and living standards have collapsed. Observed Daminov Ildar of Visionary Analytics: “North Korea seems to be rolling down the path of new unprecedented levels of isolationism.”
The economic implications of auto-quarantine were ominous from the start. In effect Pyongyang sanctioned itself, cutting legal trade and illicit smuggling alike. At the same time, the North’s decrepit agricultural system could not provide for its people. Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un recently warned of another “arduous march,” the term used by the DPRK during the killer famine of the late 1990s.
The Kim regime appears to be preparing for bad times by circling the ideological wagons. Even in the relatively better economic times of late, it was evident that the North was losing the information war. Most North Koreans were viewing or hearing South Korean culture, and they liked what they saw. Public paeans regarding the faux glory of the Kim dynasty proved to be no competition for the latest foreign entertainment seeping into the DPRK through its increasingly permeable border with China.
The North’s ongoing crackdown no doubt will cause North Koreans to be more careful about exploring the world beyond. However, even the threat of prison and execution has not succeeded in stifling popular curiosity. Thus, in a world that grows ever more ideologically hostile Kim might be tempted to permanently abandon his commitment to economic growth, which has expanded opportunities for the introduction of foreign ideas and return to his father’s and grandfather’s more autarchic approach.
As countries avidly joined the global economy, they understandably grew less interested in ties with the North. Even more important, Pyongyang’s less savory activities cost them friends. A number of third world states “decided not to open consulates or embassies . . . because what the North Korean embassies were doing around the world during this time,” according to Benjamin Young, an assistant professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University. “North Korea was really gaining a reputation around the world as a really reckless and terroristic actor,” Young added.
Most dramatic was the DPRK’s 1983 bomb attack on South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan’s entourage as he visited Burma, which wrecked Pyongyang’s relations with that nonaligned nation. It took a quarter-century for the two pariah regimes to get back together. Although the Burmese Tatmadaw, or military, remains in charge despite strong public opposition to its latest coup, its long-term future is unclear, and thus so is the strength of the Burma-North Korea relationship.
A more recent example of self-destructive DPRK behavior involves Malaysia, with which North Korea had good relations and even visa-free travel. “Malaysia has been unusually loyal to North Korea over the years,” according to Christopher Green, a Korea specialist at Leiden University in the Netherlands. However, the 2017 murder of Kim’s half-brother, Kim Jong-nam—made worse by the use of a dangerous nerve agent at the Kuala Lumpur Airport—led Malaysia to expel the North’s ambassador and withdraw its own diplomats. Malaysia’s extradition to the United States of a DPRK agent charged with money laundering led to a formal rupture in relations earlier this year.
Pyongyang can’t even count on communist governments today. There aren’t many: China, Vietnam, Cuba, and Laos are all that’s left even nominally. The latter, small, isolated, and poor, doesn’t offer much as a friend.
China and Vietnam obviously matter more, but they no longer are real communists. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a fascist or Leninist state. With business owners joining the Chinese Communist Party, Marx has been essentially interred in Mao Zedong’s Mausoleum and exists only in the memories of a small, hardcore left. Although Vietnam doesn’t quite so ostentatiously worship at the commercial cathedrals of capitalism, it doesn’t have much to do with revolutionary communism either, having turned to the United States for both trade and security.
The North’s strongest bond probably is with Cuba, which sits atop the former’s dwindling list of friends. Havana publicly speaks of its revolutionary roots, but also falls on the faux communist side, with a substantial private economy limited as much by U.S. sanctions as domestic regulations.
Worse, Cuba is another desultory example of how communism consistently imposes poverty on even the most energetic and productive peoples. So Havana now desperately seeks foreign investment as its young flee the country seeking economic opportunity. And, much worse from the North’s standpoint, Havana has demonstrated how even a little civic space is dangerous, as the Cuban people recently demonstrated across the island, criticizing their rulers, demanding liberty, and waving American flags.
No doubt, the country’s location, barely one hundred miles from the United States, and many family connections, with a large Cuban-American community in Florida, play a role in this veritable ideological apostasy. However, Young also pointed to Havana’s economic policies:
“The ongoing protests in Havana, among other developments in recent years, could not more clearly demonstrate just how different Cuban socialism and North Korean socialism have become,” Young said. “While Cubans protest on the streets and demand change from their leadership, North Korean children ‘volunteer’ to work in coal mines and farm fields. The liberalization of the Cuban economy and political system has allowed Cubans to more freely express their sentiments and beliefs and has created space for a real civil society.”
Indeed, this is the inevitable tradeoff that every authoritarian regime ultimately faces. The openness necessary for economic development also promotes social and political liberation. Freedom is not automatic, as is evident with the PRC, which is using technology to tighten its control over its people. Xi Jinping apparently imagines a 1984-style world in which all information inputs can be controlled. Yet experience suggests that this effort will ultimately fail.
In the case of North Korea, the regime even fears the influence of its less oppressive northern neighbor. Pyongyang is likely to end up with fewer friends than before the pandemic. Yet its increasingly desperate attempts to halt South Korea’s influence cannot reverse the alternate reality that most North Koreans already have glimpsed. Over the years more than a few observers have wrongly predicted the Kim dynasty’s imminent demise. These days, however, Kim is acting as if he fears precisely that result.
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of several books, including Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World and co-author of The Korean Conundrum: America’s Troubled Relations with North and South Korea.
16. A shattered mirror
We cannot trust data from north Korea. I remember a brief a number of years ago from Nick Eberstadt who showed us the data he drew from north Korean sources that actually showed a rise in the north Korean population after the famine of 1994-1996. The north does not want the facts that conflict with a regime narrative. It can't handle the truth!
This is an interesting proposal. I seriously doubt the north would allow the South to peer into its data!
Excerpts:
North Korea must first establish an accurate statistics system. The first aid South Korea should offer if the inter-Korean relationship is mended should be expertise in tracking and recording data. That is more urgent than resuming tourism or connecting railways. Former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il said, “Have feet on the ground and eyes on the world.” Is Kim Jong-un following his father’s advice? Is he sacrificing the economy to hold onto nuclear advancement? If he takes his clues from such wrong data, he could be running the country with a blindfold on.
Wednesday
July 21, 2021
A shattered mirror
Kim Byung-yeon
The author is a professor of economics at Seoul National University.
North Korea recently submitted to the United Nations a voluntary national review of the sustainable development goals it agreed to achieve. The report offered a glimpse of the economic conditions in the reclusive state, which rarely releases economic statistics. The report included data on gross national income (GNI) from 2015 to 2019 and crop yields from 2014 to 2020. According to the report, annual gross national product (GNP) and per capita income grew 5.1 percent and 4.6 percent on average, respectively, from 2015 to 2019. Those rates are twice the average growth of South Korea during the same period. Under UN-led sanctions, the North Korean economy grew 3.7 percent to 4.7 percent from 2017 to 2019. It might have either inflated the figure for propaganda or reported its official data.
Given the circumstances, it may not have intentionally tweaked the GNI figures for the report to the UN. In a closed-door seminar, Ri Ki-song, a North Korean economist, presented nearly the same GNI figure for 2014 as the 2015 data in its report to the UN. The GNI growth rate for 2017 he mentioned to a Japanese reporter in an interview in 2018 also corresponds with the figure in the UN report. Therefore, North Korea appears to have reported its official data to the UN. Based on the data, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un would have believed the economy was running well even under international sanctions. During the latest Workers’ Party convention, Kim admitted that the economy fared worse than expected, yet did not find it in trouble.
But the data can hardly be accurate. It not only contradicts other figures but also cannot be possible under such harsh external conditions. In the report to the UN, North Korea’s crop yield fell 8 percent on year in 2018, whereas per capita income increased 4.3 percent. That means other industries like mining, manufacturing and services grew more. But that’s not possible. From reports from North Korea’s trading partners, its exports were projected to have plunged 86 percent on year in 2018. Due to a ban on shipments on minerals, the mining sector was hit hard. Manufacturing output also shriveled due to reduced imports of raw materials and capital goods. The services sector could not have expanded due to depressed individual market activities. Then, how could the economy have grown by 4.3 percent?
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un makes a speech at an expanded meeting of Politburo members of the Workers’ Party on June 29. [RODONG SINMUN/NEWS1]
According to the UN report, North Korea’ per capita income stood at $1,262 in 2018, which is similar to Myanmar’s $1,279. But Myanmar at least drew foreign investment while North Korea is an isolated socialist economy. It cannot be on par with Myanmar. How it came to the figure — $1,262 — is also interesting. According to a Bank of Korea estimate of North Korea’s per capita income for 2018 in terms of South Korean currency value against the U.S. dollar was rounded up as $1,280. Strangely, North Korea’s per capita income figure in U.S. dollar terms matches South Korean estimation. If Pyongyang really copied the Bank of Korea’s estimation, it has erred as a country’s foreign exchange rate reflects its economic scale. When South Korea’s currency value against the greenback is applied to North Korea’s, its income would be overvalued.
The data is a shattered mirror of North Korea: it does not reflect reality. Data from socialist states cannot be trusted. According to official data from the Soviet Union, its economy grew 9 percent on average per year for about 70 years from 1928. If it had grown at that pace, it could not have fallen apart. In a state-planned economy, companies are penalized or rewarded according to their meeting of preset output goals. Companies inevitably inflate their performance. When the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency removed some of the distortion, the Soviets’ growth rate halved. Distortions would be even greater in North Korea, given its poor statistical standards and prevalent corruption. North Korea claims its per capita income grew 13 percent from 2017 to 2019. But South Korea’s central bank projected a 7 percent contraction for North Korea.
The reflection is distorted in a broken mirror. Inaccurate data ruins policy making. Since Kim Jong-un believes the economy has been growing under sanctions, he would persist with nuclear development. Even when borders are sealed to protect the country from Covid-19 and markets are controlled, he would still believe the economy is running well. But its economy is hanging on a cliff.
North Korea must first establish an accurate statistics system. The first aid South Korea should offer if the inter-Korean relationship is mended should be expertise in tracking and recording data. That is more urgent than resuming tourism or connecting railways. Former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il said, “Have feet on the ground and eyes on the world.” Is Kim Jong-un following his father’s advice? Is he sacrificing the economy to hold onto nuclear advancement? If he takes his clues from such wrong data, he could be running the country with a blindfold on.
17. Four North Korean cadres sacked in N. Hamgyong Province for failures in managing COVID-19 quarantine efforts
Does this mean people are resisting government/party measures? What does this indicate for potential internal instability?
Four North Korean cadres sacked in N. Hamgyong Province for failures in managing COVID-19 quarantine efforts - Daily NK
The sackings come amid wider efforts to replace cadres who fail to adhere to disease control guidelines
Four cadres in North Hamgyong Province have recently been dismissed for their failure to properly manage quarantine efforts against COVID-19.
According to a Daily NK source in North Hamgyong Province, the four provincial cadres sacked on July 7 included the head of the political department of the provincial branch of the Ministry of State Security and the head of the political department of the provincial branch of the Ministry of Social Security.
North Korean authorities are “mercilessly” replacing cadres who violate or neglect quarantine regulations when the times demand protracted state-led emergency quarantine efforts. According to the source, however, problems recently arose when provincial officials in North Hamgyong Province failed to properly manage quarantine efforts.
The provincial branch of the Ministry of State Security was blamed for failing to properly watch over or manage inmates of preliminary examination detention centers with symptoms of COVID-19, such as fevers, runny noses, and coughs. This failure reportedly prevented the authorities from transporting those inmates to reeducation camps even after their convictions.
Hamhung, a city in North Hamgyong Province. / Image: Clay Gilliland
The provincial branch of the Ministry of State Security was criticized for not only failing to identify inmates at reeducation camps with similar symptoms, but also for openly flouting quarantine regulations by allowing family visits or taking bribes to pass on goods from the outside.
“[The sacked officials] were criticized hard, with their failure to properly grasp Workers’ Party policy and arbitrary behavior condemned as an ‘improper perspective’ and ‘attitude toward party policy,’ they were accused of just hanging on to their positions despite being at the forefront of executing Party policy,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “This latest incident glaringly demonstrated the price cadres will pay for neglecting quarantine efforts at this time.”
The four were sacked or dismissed following an agreement between the Central Committee and the cadre department of the provincial branch of the ruling party. The authorities are also interrogating the sacked officials’ underlings, according to the source.
Although the heads of the provincial branches of the Ministry of State Security and Ministry of Social Security should take joint responsibility as well, “they have so far escaped dismissal, receiving only quiet criticism from the Workers’ Party,” the source added.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
18. North Korea massacre as Kim Jong-un plots mass execution of defectors: 'Sent back to die'
While we can usually expect over the top reporting from UK Express there may be some factual basis for this reporting. I noticed the Express has cleaned up its graphics and is now correctly reporting north Korea has 0 aircraft carriers (they had previously been reporting 10!!)
North Korea massacre as Kim Jong-un plots mass execution of defectors: 'Sent back to die'
KIM Jong-un is widely rumoured to be plotting a mass execution of defectors who are being returned to North Korea from China in the latest demonstration of the Supreme Leader's utter ruthlessness.
PUBLISHED: 21:11, Wed, Jul 21, 2021 | UPDATED: 21:11, Wed, Jul 21, 2021
Express · by Ciaran McGrath · July 21, 2021
North Korea: Malnourishment crisis increases for population
China has already returned roughly 50 escapees, including air force pilots, all of whom are facing the death penalty, Chinese sources told the US-backed news network Radio Free Asia. The first repatriations since the border between North Korea and China was closed in January 2020 took place on July 14 in the north-western city of Sinuiju.
Because it has become increasingly difficult for those fleeing into China to move on to a third country, defectors are routinely rounded up and returned to North Korea.
The group returned earlier this month had been previously been held at a prison in Shenyang 250 miles, some for as long as two years.
Speaking at the time, the insider, a Chinese citizen of Korean descent, said: “The Dandong customs office was opened just for today and they sent about 50 North Korean escapees back to North Korea on two buses.
“This morning dozens of police officers lined up in front of the customs office to block public access and ensure nobody was filming the repatriation.
“There are 50 men and women in total, including North Korean soldiers and pilots who served in the air force.
Kim Jong-un is planning mass executions of defectors, RFA claims (Image: WIKICC)
North Korea's border with China (Image: Google)
“Among them is also a woman in her 30s who made heaps of money in Hebei province.
"She was said to be very rich, but her neighbours ratted her out.”
There are many more North Korean citizens in Chinese custody who are also likely to be returned, the insider said.
Another source said Chinese onlookers had voiced their sympathy for the group.
Kim Jong-un is North Korea's Supreme Leader (Image: GETTY)
They explained: “They said ‘If they leave, they will die. It is horrible that after escaping their country to survive, they are going to be executed young.’
“The witnesses even showed hostility toward the police, who are essentially sending them off to die.”
The repatriations got the go-ahead after Pyongyang finally relented, having refused several requests by the Chinese authorities.
The second source explained: “Chinese authorities had planned to repatriate the escapees several times since April, but they were unable to because North Korea refused to accept them, citing coronavirus quarantine measures.”
North Korean soldiers patrol on the banks of the Yalu River in 2006 (Image: GETTY)
North Korean soldiers carry out training exercises in the North Korean town of Sinuiju in 2018 (Image: GETTY)
Among the first 50 are North Koreans who escaped after the coronavirus pandemic started, they explained, adding: “So it will be difficult for them to avoid severe punishment when they get back to North Korea.”
North Korean authorities are also understood to have sent 90 long-term residents of Chinese citizenship across the border into China on empty buses sent to receive the North Korean escapees.
Chinese citizens who have been living in North Korea for generations are permitted relatively free travel to China.
During a press conference on Monday, South Korea’s Ministry of Unification was unable to confirm the reports.
Kim Jong-un factfile (Image: Express)
Spokesman Lee Jong Joo said: “The Government has made various efforts to protect and support North Korean defectors abroad.
“However, there is nothing that the ministry can confirm regarding the issue.”
Beijing claims it is obliged to return North Koreans living illegally within Chinese territory by, the 1960 PRC-DPRK Escaped Criminals Reciprocal Extradition Treaty and the 1986 Mutual Cooperation Protocol for the Work of Maintaining National Security and Social Order and the Border Areas.
Rights groups however argue forced repatriation violates China’s responsibility to protect escapees under the Refugee Convention.
North Korea's military power in numbers (Image: Express)
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Just 229 escapees made it to North Korea last year as a result of the difficulties posed by the coronavirus pandemic, according to Ministry of Unification statistics.
A US Department of State spokesman said: “North Koreans who are forcibly repatriated are commonly subjected to torture, arbitrary detention, summary execution, forced abortion, and other forms of sexual violence.
“We are particularly concerned by recent reports that nearly 50 North Koreans were forcibly repatriated.
“We continue to urge China to fulfil its international obligations as a party to the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol and the UN Convention Against Torture.”
Express · by Ciaran McGrath · July 21, 2021
19.
It is all about ideology. The regime must maintain that ideological purity (along with its racial purity). There cna be no "ideological laxity" (not to be confused with an ideological laxative that is necessary to clean out the ideological bull s**t of the regime).
North Korean military encourages use of the "Pyongyang cultural language" - Daily NK
North Korean military authorities are extremely concerned about “ideological laxity” among the “new generation” of soldiers
North Korean military authorities have recently railed against the use of South Korean expressions, strongly encouraging young soldiers to use the so-called “Pyongyang cultural language.”
In an educational article entitled “National Language” that ran in a copy of the July issue of “Soldier’s Life” (a magazine published by the General Political Bureau) recently obtained by Daily NK, the military authorities stressed that “among the symbols that demonstrate the dignity and independence of our Fatherland is our national language, about which we can be highly proud of before the world.”
“The Great Leaders [Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il] made the language of the revolutionary capital Pyongyang the national standard, working to evolve a transition in the national language,” said the article. “A fundamental transition took place when foreign borrowings and other uncultured factors were purged.”
“Pyongyang cultural language” refers to North Korea’s standard language, used since the 1960s based on a “teaching” from late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung. North Korea claims the language integrates the “unique character and excellence of the national language and represents the original form of the modern, sophisticated Korean language.”
That is to say, the article basically stresses that soldiers should use the “Pyongyang cultural language” as part of their daily lives.
Lecturers tasked with politically educating soldiers have gone even further.
According to the source, lecturers such as unit propaganda officers and political guidance officers lamented that newly recruited soldiers who have yet to “shed social corruption” are spending their downtime singing pop songs using “old, rotten singing styles from South Korea.” They warned this was corrupting the “revolutionary spirit of the military” and represented “an act benefiting the enemy.”
This criticism lines up with the “anti-reactionary thought law” enacted late last year, which bans the use of South Korean speech and singing styles (punishable by up to two years in a labor or reeducation camp). The warnings also suggest that the authorities intend to eradicate the spread of South Korean pop culture.
North Korean soldiers walking near Sinuiju, North Pyongan Province. / Image: Daily NK
North Korean authorities believe the spread of South Korean pop culture could not only change local lifestyles, but also awaken citizens to the flaws of the regime as they compare South Korean society with their own.
That is to say, North Korean authorities have grown wary as people exposed to South Korean films or TV programs have begun mimicking South Korean fashion, hairstyles, and even speech patterns. North Korean youth commonly use South Korean expressions such as chingu (friend) instead of dongmu (comrade), and oppa instead of orabeoni (older brother). Even the South Korean expression jjokpallyeo (to be embarrassed) has come into common use.
The lecturers also condemned the use of words borrowed from English. Pointing to material from the political department of the 12th Corps, the lecturers said “major problems” arose in one of the corps’s independent platoons because recruits were using foreign words such as “OK” and “no” amongst themselves in the barracks, something the lecturers labeled a “flaw.”
The lecturers stressed that “a sign that young soldiers are conforming with healthy ideology and thought and revolutionary and ethical character” is that they conduct their “linguistic lives in revolutionary fashion.” In short, the lecturers linked the use of a particular kind of language with someone’s revolutionary character.
In particular, they warned that continued use of South Korean speech could spark “illusions regarding the enemy” and “douse soldiers in imperialist, reactionary thought,” rendering those carrying the “guns of the revolution” unclear who their “class enemies” are.
North Korean military authorities are extremely concerned about “ideological laxity” among the “new generation” of soldiers, primarily young people with easy access to foreign cultural products. They are calling for a “war to protect the ideological stronghold of socialism.”
Meanwhile, North Korean authorities have reportedly ordered each branch of the military to carry out independent reviews “in the form of consideration, discussions and ideological struggles” of “anti-socialist and non-socialist tendencies” in language use by the Day of Songun (Aug. 25). Units must report the results of the review to the military leadership.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
19. North Korean military encourages use of the "Pyongyang cultural language"
It is all about ideology. The regime must maintain that ideological purity (along with its racial purity). There can be no "ideological laxity" (not to be confused with an ideological laxative that is necessary to clean out the ideological bull s**t of the regime).
As an aside, how worried is the regime about the military? Are there signs of cracks within the military? This bears watching.
North Korean military encourages use of the "Pyongyang cultural language" - Daily NK
North Korean military authorities are extremely concerned about “ideological laxity” among the “new generation” of soldiers
North Korean military authorities have recently railed against the use of South Korean expressions, strongly encouraging young soldiers to use the so-called “Pyongyang cultural language.”
In an educational article entitled “National Language” that ran in a copy of the July issue of “Soldier’s Life” (a magazine published by the General Political Bureau) recently obtained by Daily NK, the military authorities stressed that “among the symbols that demonstrate the dignity and independence of our Fatherland is our national language, about which we can be highly proud of before the world.”
“The Great Leaders [Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il] made the language of the revolutionary capital Pyongyang the national standard, working to evolve a transition in the national language,” said the article. “A fundamental transition took place when foreign borrowings and other uncultured factors were purged.”
“Pyongyang cultural language” refers to North Korea’s standard language, used since the 1960s based on a “teaching” from late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung. North Korea claims the language integrates the “unique character and excellence of the national language and represents the original form of the modern, sophisticated Korean language.”
That is to say, the article basically stresses that soldiers should use the “Pyongyang cultural language” as part of their daily lives.
Lecturers tasked with politically educating soldiers have gone even further.
According to the source, lecturers such as unit propaganda officers and political guidance officers lamented that newly recruited soldiers who have yet to “shed social corruption” are spending their downtime singing pop songs using “old, rotten singing styles from South Korea.” They warned this was corrupting the “revolutionary spirit of the military” and represented “an act benefiting the enemy.”
This criticism lines up with the “anti-reactionary thought law” enacted late last year, which bans the use of South Korean speech and singing styles (punishable by up to two years in a labor or reeducation camp). The warnings also suggest that the authorities intend to eradicate the spread of South Korean pop culture.
North Korean soldiers walking near Sinuiju, North Pyongan Province. / Image: Daily NK
North Korean authorities believe the spread of South Korean pop culture could not only change local lifestyles, but also awaken citizens to the flaws of the regime as they compare South Korean society with their own.
That is to say, North Korean authorities have grown wary as people exposed to South Korean films or TV programs have begun mimicking South Korean fashion, hairstyles, and even speech patterns. North Korean youth commonly use South Korean expressions such as chingu (friend) instead of dongmu (comrade), and oppa instead of orabeoni (older brother). Even the South Korean expression jjokpallyeo (to be embarrassed) has come into common use.
The lecturers also condemned the use of words borrowed from English. Pointing to material from the political department of the 12th Corps, the lecturers said “major problems” arose in one of the corps’s independent platoons because recruits were using foreign words such as “OK” and “no” amongst themselves in the barracks, something the lecturers labeled a “flaw.”
The lecturers stressed that “a sign that young soldiers are conforming with healthy ideology and thought and revolutionary and ethical character” is that they conduct their “linguistic lives in revolutionary fashion.” In short, the lecturers linked the use of a particular kind of language with someone’s revolutionary character.
In particular, they warned that continued use of South Korean speech could spark “illusions regarding the enemy” and “douse soldiers in imperialist, reactionary thought,” rendering those carrying the “guns of the revolution” unclear who their “class enemies” are.
North Korean military authorities are extremely concerned about “ideological laxity” among the “new generation” of soldiers, primarily young people with easy access to foreign cultural products. They are calling for a “war to protect the ideological stronghold of socialism.”
Meanwhile, North Korean authorities have reportedly ordered each branch of the military to carry out independent reviews “in the form of consideration, discussions and ideological struggles” of “anti-socialist and non-socialist tendencies” in language use by the Day of Songun (Aug. 25). Units must report the results of the review to the military leadership.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
