Quotes of the Day:
"Do you seriously expect to start a rebellion with picayune stuff like that?" "It's not picayune stuff, because it acts directly on their emotions, below the logic level. You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic. It doesn't have to be a prejudice about an important matter either."
- Robert A. Heinlein - "If This Goes On -"
"There is nothing more soulless than a religion without good works unless it be a patriotism which does not concern itself with the welfare and dignity of the individual."
- SLA Marshall, Men Against Fire
“The happy man is one who is freed from both fear and desire because of the gift of reason.”
- Seneca
1. N.K. leader accuses 'hostile forces' of intensifying 'war drills for aggression'
2. Deep politics behind Korean DMZ hotline reconnect
3. Korea’s conservatives get a presidential warrior
4. North Hwanghae Province mobilizes locals for "irrigation struggle" to prevent drought damage to crops
5. North Korea's state-run food shops have little or no rice to sell to consumers
6. Wife of North Korean Consul in Russia Dies from COVID-19
7. North Korea Watchers Parse Motives Behind Restored Hotline with Seoul
8. A Grand Bargain with North Korea
9. Japan Wasted a Golden Chance for Olympic Reconciliation
10. North Korea began the summer in a food crisis. A heat wave and drought could make it worse.
11. Senior North Korea military official reappears after absence, rebuke
12. Is Kim even SLIMMER? North Korean leader appears to have lost weight
13. Kim stresses military preparations ahead of U.S.-South Korea drills
14. BRIEF REPORT: North Korea, Climate Change and Security
15. Nuke envoy says humanitarian support for N. Korea can contribute to dialogue mood
16. North Korea reports a ‘great crisis’ in its virus response.
17. Seoul to push for video-linked family reunion as priority project with North: Cheong Wa Dae
1. N.K. leader accuses 'hostile forces' of intensifying 'war drills for aggression'
Kim must have an enemy to continue to demand the sacrifices of the Korean people living in the north. No one should think that cancelling the exercises will tone down this rhetoric. And of course who int heri right mind would trade readiness for toned down rhetoric or for the fantasy belief that canceling the exercise will prevent a provocation sometime in the future?
Excerpts:
"At present the hostile forces systematically keep bolstering up their capabilities for making a preemptive attack on the DPRK and increase armaments while intensifying all sorts of frantic and persistent war drills for aggression," Kim told the workshop held from Saturday to Tuesday, according to the KCNA.
"He noted such situation has hardened the determination and fighting will of the KPA to eradicate the root cause of the evil cycle of escalating tensions," the KCNA said. "He called for all the military and political cadres to put the greatest efforts into bolstering up the combat efficiency of their units.
(2nd LD) N.K. leader accuses 'hostile forces' of intensifying 'war drills for aggression' | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: UPDATES with comments from official in 8th para)
By Yi Wonju
SEOUL, July 30 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un accused "hostile forces" of intensifying "frantic and persistent war drills for aggression" as he presided over the first-ever workshop of military commanders and political officers this week, state media reported Friday.
The remark came as South Korea and the United States are mulling over whether and how to conduct their annual military exercise expected for mid-August amid concern that it could negatively affect a conciliatory mood created in the wake of the North's restoration of inter-Korean communication lines this week.
The North has long bristled at such combined drills, branding them as a rehearsal for invasion.
"At present the hostile forces systematically keep bolstering up their capabilities for making a preemptive attack on the DPRK and increase armaments while intensifying all sorts of frantic and persistent war drills for aggression," Kim told the workshop held from Saturday to Tuesday, according to the KCNA.
"He noted such situation has hardened the determination and fighting will of the KPA to eradicate the root cause of the evil cycle of escalating tensions," the KCNA said. "He called for all the military and political cadres to put the greatest efforts into bolstering up the combat efficiency of their units.
KPA refers to the Korean People's Army.
However, Kim did not mention nuclear weapons or have any direct messages for Washington or Seoul.
Later in the day, a high-ranking South Korean official called for postponing next month's exercise with the U.S., stressing that now is the "right time" for Seoul and Washington to cooperate to bring the North back to the negotiating table.
Kim also urged soldiers to devote their lives to protecting the North Korean people and their properties, and stressed the importance for the soldiers to take pride in being "the creators of the people's happiness, the sentinels responsible for preserving the people's trust in the Party," according to the KCNA.
Kim's remark comes as the North is faced with chronic food shortages, which appear to have worsened due to the back-to-back typhoons and flooding that wrought havoc on key farming areas last year.
Last month, Kim acknowledged that the country is facing a "tense" food shortage and issued a "special order" to improve people's living without unveiling any details.
Observers say the military appears to have failed to follow his order to supply the North Korean people with wartime food reserves.
The KCNA said that the workshop analyzed in detail major shortcomings in the work of military units in implementing the policies of the party.
(END)
2. Deep politics behind Korean DMZ hotline reconnect
Are deep politics run by the deep state? (I could not resist an attempt at humor).
I would actually say deep political warfare on Kim Jong-un's part is behind the "reconnent." (or the simple answering of the phone at Panmunjom).
Interesting analysis here. There is certainly a lot of excitement surrounding this and we have many reading a lot more into this (in a way to support their peace agendas) than perhaps they should.
Excerpts:
Pyongyang may now hope for the same from Seoul.
One North Korea watcher who spoke to Asia Times on condition of anonymity suggested that much of the laudatory commentary stemming from the hotline reconnections was a means of pressuring Washington to step up.
“North Korea did not commit to any grand events or meetings or summits,” the expert opined. “I think it is the Blue House [the presidential office] who are saying this.”
“Every time State Department officials come here, the Blue House says it is about North Korea, but it is not,” the expert said. “It is clearly about China, and about Seoul-Tokyo relations.”
Nevertheless, the talk-up of the possibilities of improved inter-Korean relations applies subtle leverage on Washington.
“I think that by putting so many expectations out, the Blue House is forcing the Biden administration to respond,” he said.
Deep politics behind Korean DMZ hotline reconnect
The restoration of hotlines across the Demilitarized Zone could be a precursor to improved relations between the two Koreas, but could also signal wider geopolitical machinations aimed at Washington.
The move, which broke the ice of a year of frigid relations between Seoul and Pyongyang, is generating considerable expectations in Seoul, as well as multiple analyses.
North Korea is hard hit by food shortages, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in is keen to restart inter-Korean relations before his term ends next spring. This alignment between the two Koreas, and any resultant improvement in relations, could put pressure on Washington to talk to Pyongyang.
Let’s talk
The phone and fax lines were reconnected on July 27, the 70th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended Korean War hostilities in 1953 leading to an uneasy peace – albeit one punctuated by multiple deadly incidents, from commando clashes to terrorist attacks to naval sinkings.
Asia Times understands that multiple lines across the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas have been reconnected 13 months after the North disconnected them amid high tensions.
Two lines run along the so-called eastern and western transportation corridors, where currently unused road and rail lines cross the DMZ. Another is the Red Cross hotline, in the truce village of Panmunjom. And another runs from the South’s Unification Ministry to – or near – the Joint Liaison Office.
That building, which formerly operated as an office for both Southern and Northern officials near the North Korean city of Kaesong, was blown up by North Korea last June in a protest against the launch, by activists in the South, of balloons carrying propaganda messages across the DMZ.
Another hotline that runs to Pyongyang, operated by the South’s National Intelligence Service, was never disconnected.
South Korea’s Unification Minister Lee In-young (right) looking at the inter-Korean hotline during a visit to the south side of the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the two Koreas. – North and South Korea have agreed to restore their severed communication links, the South’s presidential office said on July 27, 2021. Photo: AfP / Park Tae-hyun / KOREA POOL
Letters have been exchanged by the leaders of the two Koreas since April, and Asia Times has learned that there is also an email channel linking Seoul and Pyongyang.
For Pyongyang, the operation is simple.
Reopening hotlines requires only “sending a communications guy from Pyongyang down to the office near the DMZ – or just telling the guy in the office that he can now pick up the phone,” said Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based international relations specialist at Troy University. “It is basically costless.”
Still, the move has electrified the South, and senior officials have talked up the potential of the hotline reconnections.
“This is only the beginning,” Unification Minister Lee In-young said in a Facebook post that was picked up by news media. “I will work harder for the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the reunion of separated families and others.”
The Kaesong Industrial Complex was a joint, inter-Korean manufacturing complex that was closed down by the administration preceding the engagement-centric Moon Jae-in government, which has sought to re-open it.
Politics of aid
Analyses have speculated that the hotline reconnection could be a forerunner to a request by the North for humanitarian assistance from the South.
Multiple reports, citing citizens inside the country who use illegal smartphones to speak to media organizations in Japan and South Korea, indicate that the North is wracked by a food shortage.
North Korean has plentiful experience with food crises: A famine in the early-mid 1990s is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands. The country suffers from food insecurity for climatic and topographical reasons, which have in the past been exacerbated by wrong-headed agricultural policies.
The advent of a basic market economy since the 1990s is believed to have ameliorated matters by improving both supply and distribution. But several factors may be making matters worse yet again.
The country is heavily sanctioned by the international community, and like other nations, is suffering from the pandemic conditions of Covid-19. In response to the disease, the country has closed its borders, which has massively affected trade, and domestic markets.
Looked at from Pyongyang, as well as these “push” factors, there is a “pull” factor south of the DMZ.
South Korean President Moon has been strongly pro-engagement since taking office in 2017, but is now nearing the end of his single term, with a presidential election slated for March 2022.
North Korean children collecting fallen corn on the road in the countryside, North Hwanghae Province, Kaesong, North Korea. Photo: AFP / Eric Lafforgue / Hans Lucas
“Moon has been consistent on engagement but is now a lame duck, so now is a good window for bargaining,” said Pinkston.
This means, for Kim, the present “is a good time to gain concessions and assistance,” Pinkston said.
Moon and his officials have repeatedly stated their willingness to offer aid to North Korea. But in the often bizarre politics of the peninsula, granting South Korea permission to offer aid to North Korea is widely seen as a concession by the North to the South.
“North Koreans tend to use access as a reward; they consider assistance a form of exchange and a kind of reward for the giver,” said Go Myong-hyun, a research fellow at Seoul’s Asan Institute, a think tank. “That is how they manage NGOs, and that is how they manage South Korea: Even though South Korea is lending assistance to North Korea, North Korea plays hard to get as they have backup options – China and Russia.”
In addition to food aid, South Korea could feasibly offer medical aid if and when North Korea receives vaccines from the World Health Organization’s Covax, or other sources.
“They don’t have the cold storage facilities for vaccines so that could be very humiliating,” Pinkston said. “If the South Koreans could quietly support them with the logistics, that would be a good outcome.”
Political maneuvers
Joint military exercises between South Korean and US forces – which customarily infuriate North Korea – are scheduled for August.
“I think this is a North Korean ploy to delay or scale-down the upcoming joint exercises,” Go said.
The reconnection of the hotlines also offers a potential pressure relief valve if tensions do arise during the drills. But there may be a wider strategic game in play.
“Even in North Korea it is nice to have options and they have the option of using inter-Korean relations as leverage on the US, especially on Biden, who is clearly not that interested in North Korea,” Go said. “I think that is why they chose the option of inter-Korean dialog, rather than relying on provocations.”
In 2018, the year North Korean leader Jong Un came out of isolation and embarked upon a program of global summitry, South Korea played an intermediary role in enabling Kim’s unprecedented meeting with then-US President Donald Trump.
Pyongyang may now hope for the same from Seoul.
One North Korea watcher who spoke to Asia Times on condition of anonymity suggested that much of the laudatory commentary stemming from the hotline reconnections was a means of pressuring Washington to step up.
“North Korea did not commit to any grand events or meetings or summits,” the expert opined. “I think it is the Blue House [the presidential office] who are saying this.”
“Every time State Department officials come here, the Blue House says it is about North Korea, but it is not,” the expert said. “It is clearly about China, and about Seoul-Tokyo relations.”
Nevertheless, the talk-up of the possibilities of improved inter-Korean relations applies subtle leverage on Washington.
“I think that by putting so many expectations out, the Blue House is forcing the Biden administration to respond,” he said.
3. Korea’s conservatives get a presidential warrior
It is going to be an interesting election season in South Korea between now and next March.
Korea’s conservatives get a presidential warrior
Ex-prosecutor who battled Moon Jae-in to a standstill joins opposition ahead of March 2022 presidential race
He has no political, economic, diplomatic, strategic or corporate experience, but Yoon Seok-youl, the darling of South Korea’s right, looks set to lead the conservatives into battle in the March 2022 presidential election.
On Friday morning, South Korean TV news interrupted their coverage of the Tokyo Olympics to report that Yoon had joined the main opposition People’s Power Party, or PPP.
Yoon, formerly a high-profile prosecutor who had clashed with President Moon Jae-in, announced his presidential ambitions on June 29, without citing what party he would join.
Now, after a reasonable interval, widespread predictions that he would join the main opposition were proved correct when he submitted his application to join the party.
“It will be a due obligation to join the main opposition party and follow through with its primary from the first stage openly and squarely to achieve a change of government,” Yoon said, according to local media.
His decision to join the main opposition party – which in June elected a new, young leader in 36-year-old Lee Jun-seok – makes him a certainty to win the party’s primaries. Barring highly unforeseen circumstances, that means he will lead the PPP into battle on March 9 next year.
Although there are 11 candidates in the PPP primaries, Yoon’s run is the most viable in the nation at present, if polls are to be believed.
According to the latest Realmeter Poll in the fourth week of July, Yoon is clocking approval ratings of 27.5%. His key opponent in the ruling Democratic Party of Korea is Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung, a leftist firebrand, who is polling at 25.5%.
A third hopeful, former prime minister and center leftist Lee Nak-yon, also of the DPK, is seeing approval ratings of 16%.
Yoon – coming to politics from outside, has no factional enemies within his own party – may face a less savage fight for the leadership than that now rending the DPK.
“The Lee Jae-myung and Lee Nak-yon camps are beating each other to death and this will get worse when it comes to the primaries,” Lew Han-jin, a conservative columnist, told Asia Times. “Right now, there is more warmth in the PPP, and less personal and familial attacks.”
North Korea’s Ri Jong Hyok, right, vice-chairman of the Korean Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, speaks with Gyeonggi province governor Lee Jae-myung, left, during an international convention for peace and prosperity in 2018. Photo: AFP / Chung Sung-Jun
From progressive to conservative
Seen from the outside, the 60-year-old Yoon might look like an odd choice for the presidency, given his lack of experience. He has been a lawyer and prosecutor for his entire career.
His family hails from the city of Daegu in the southwest, a conservative stronghold. But although Yoon has now donned the armor of the right, in his youth he joined the struggle against the authoritarian Chun Do-hwan regime (1980-1987), a struggle usually associated with the left.
But it was his legal career that generated his fame, for what BTS is to K-pop, Yoon is to South Korean men of law: The ne plus ultra player.
Among a public that has a plummeting tolerance for corruption, old-school politics and political favoritism, that has real appeal. As a South Korean reporter told Asia Times just after the news broke on Friday morning, Yoon’s reputation is as “a man of justice.”
Judicial broadsword
Yoon has fearlessly led hard-charging teams investigating high-profile figures across the swathe of South Korea’s power players – in politics, the bureaucracy and Korean Inc. And despite the reputation of the South Korean prosecution as a blunt instrument wielded by the presidential Blue House, Yoon has shown no political favoritism.
He has probed former members of the leftist Roh Moo-hyun administration, Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo (now retired), former conservative President Lee Myung-bak (currently jailed on a corruption rap) and even the National Intelligence Service (suspected of manipulating public opinion).
He was a central investigator in the biggest South Korean case of all time – the vast corruption and power abuse scandal that led to the repeated jailings of de facto Samsung head Lee Jae-young, who is now in prison, and the impeachment, removal from power and subsequent imprisonment of ex-President Park Geun-hyu, who is serving a 33-year compound sentence.
Little wonder that in 2019, President Moon Jae-in appointed this formidable bloodhound as his chief prosecutor. That appointment would prove to be the biggest mistake of his presidency.
President Moon Jae-in has made some enemies now in key positions. Photo: AFP
Defying the president
Almost every area of South Korean society has undergone reform since the 1997-9 financial crisis. That trauma caused many to question every aspect of the government-bureaucracy-corporate nexus that had lifted their nation out of agrarian poverty in the 1960s and ’70s – at the cost of nepotism, corruption and all-round moral hazards.
One sector that resisted “bone-cutting reforms” was the legal one. It was one of the last areas to open its doors to foreign competitors, and the elite of the sector – the prosecution – held at bay all efforts to change its practices.
The South Korean legal system was put in place by the despised Japanese colonists, and from the 1960s to the 1990s, the prosecution was widely seen as a central cog in the oppressive machinery of authoritarian governance.
Its widespread investigative authority – which includes powers that are usually granted to police in other nations – and its practices – such as psychological pressure tactics and its ability to parade suspects in front of media and hold them without trial – are carryovers from the bad old days.
For the left-leaning Moon, prosecution reform became a key, mid-term agenda. He sought to deploy an investigative body over the prosecution, and also to transfer some of his powers to the police force.
But his appointee Yoon, rather than siding with the president, fought in the prosecution’s corner.
The battle lines were drawn last September when Moon appointed one of his closest associates, Cho Kuk, a brilliant academic, as Minister of Justice. Yoon resisted Cho’s reform drive, leading to huge demonstrations, both for and against.
A trail of resignations
Cho – apparently unprepared for the kind of bruising political and public relations battle that Yoon would fight – which included investigations into Cho’s family – barely lasted a month before resigning.
Moon’s next appointee was a tougher figure in long-term leftist lawmaker Choo Mi-ae. When she suspended Yoon from office, he fired back with two injunctions, amid allegations that Choo’s son had evaded military service.
She, too, resigned after three months.
Three months after Choo’s resignation, Yoon himself stepped down, saying he believed that the rule of law was under attack.
But by then, thanks to his success against Moon’s premier team, Yoon was being lionized in right-wing circles. Talk of presidential potential galvanized Seoul’s chattering classes.
That potential looks set to be tested at the ballot next March.
“His appeal seems to rest on his sort of heroic resistance to Moon,” said Michael Breen, Seoul-based author of The New Koreans. “But I think the right-wing are simply championing someone who gave the middle finger to the president.”
Lew suggested that Yoon’s appeal is broader.
“His main appeal is that he has fought with both sides – the conservatives and the leftists – so has had a broad appeal,” the columnist noted. “He is basically a centrist.”
Lew noted that Yoon has recently expressed regret over the ongoing imprisonments of Lee and Park, the two conservative ex-presidents.
“That appealed to conservatives, even though he was a prosecutor at the time,” Lew said. “I think people feel he had no choice, he was going his job.”
Another point in Yoon’s favor is his Teflon carapace. In a polity where nepotism and corruption are rife, allegations of his, and his wife’s, impropriety have failed to stick.
Former prosecutor general Yoon Seok-youl during a press conference to declare his bid for South Korea’s 2022 presidential election on June 29, 2021. Photo: AFP / Kim Min-Hee
From prosecution to politics
One question is how well prepared a lawyer is to fight a political battle, for South Korea faces a multiplicity of national challenges.
Strategically and diplomatically, Seoul is being torn between Beijing and Washington and further complications are added by ever-vexed relations with Tokyo. A sound policy stance also needs to be in place toward Pyongyang.
On the economic front, Seoul needs to ensure that industrial policy continues to generate winners in strategic sectors such as chips, batteries and biopharmaceuticals. It also needs to create policies that ensure its world-beating corporate portfolio, populated by world beaters including Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor, stays on top of its game.
At the opposite end of the economy, it needs to reinforce South Korea’s current startup ecosystem, while enabling new-economy players like Kakao and Coupang to keep flourishing.
In terms of domestic socio-political issues, soaring metropolitan home prices, a plunging birthrate and elderly poverty present major challenges.
And with the nation expecting to reach herd immunity by November, South Korea’s next president will need to navigate the country adroitly through the risks and opportunities of the post-Covid era.
Yoon is not alone in bringing a judicial background to the Blue House. The two leftists presidents of recent years, Roh Moo-hyun and his protégé Moon, both started their careers as lawyers.
On the other hand, if politics is about personality, Yoon may have what it takes – the combination of a clean man of justice and a hard man with knuckles.
“One quality that Koreans seem to recognize they want is someone who is gentle and humble and polite,” said Breen. “But Yoon has also got some balls – that is what makes him popular.”
4. North Hwanghae Province mobilizes locals for "irrigation struggle" to prevent drought damage to crops
As if we need more evidence of Kim Jong-un's incompetence. A central and party controlled economy and agriculture system does not work.
North Hwanghae Province mobilizes locals for "irrigation struggle" to prevent drought damage to crops - Daily NK
North Korean authorities "did not create a proper irrigation system, so they’re dragging everyone into the effort" to water the fields, a source said
By Jong So Yong - 2021.07.30 11:00am
As North Korea swelters under a prolonged heatwave, North Hwanghae Province authorities have mobilized locals for an “irrigation struggle” to prevent crop losses due to drought.
A source in North Hwanghae Province told Daily NK on Monday that crops such as corn were drying up and dying in their terraced fields due to the heat. “Within the province, the authorities are calling for efforts to prevent drought damage and fully mobilizing residents for an irrigation struggle, feeling they couldn’t just sit on their hands and fill out reports,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
According to the source, the provincial agricultural management committee held an onsite emergency meeting last Friday. With more and more corn burning or drying up due to drought amid the continued heat wave, the authorities issued an appeal for the province to come together to fight this, even if it meant “dropping all other efforts.”
From last Friday, provincial authorities have been assigning farms to local organizations, government bodies, and schools, and have been fully mobilizing locals into irrigation efforts into two shifts, from 4 AM to 7 AM and from 6 PM to 8 PM.
The source said everyone “from 11-year-old children to 60-year-old elderly people” are taking part in the watering effort, “basin and bucket in hand.” “Powerful government bodies are struggling to prevent damage [to the fields by the drought], watering the fields using water tanks attached to trucks,” he said.
Rodong Sinmun published this photo on July 26 of North Korean farmers trying to water their fields. / Image: Rodong Sinmun – News 1
In particular, the provincial people’s committee and agricultural management committee are reportedly even making timetables following an order by the provincial branch of the ruling party to prevent people from congregating at the same time for watering efforts.
North Korean authorities are stressing that workers in the agricultural sector as well as party and administrative officials must wage a desperate struggle “at the risk of being revolutionized [forced labor in mines or other difficult places]” if they fail to produce agricultural results this year. This is why local officials are making people work so hard to avoid drought damage, the source said.
The source further reported that the authorities have brought together twice the amount of manpower that had been mobilized for seeding and weeding the fields earlier this year. However, because human strength can only go so far in watering the fields, these recent efforts are reportedly proving ineffective and corn continues to dry up. Accordingly, locals are even saying their efforts amount to trying to fill a bottomless jar with water.
“If you have a good irrigation system, all you need to do is bring the water from the river, but because of the floods last year, the authorities only cared about building levies. They did not create a proper irrigation system, so they’re dragging everyone into the effort,” said the source. “Locals pressed into the irrigation struggle with famished bodies – because they’ve been unable to eat – complain that the work is so hard it’s killing them.
“Young students from Sariwon Middle School and even old people mobilized for irrigation efforts when it’s hot and painfully sunny are collapsing in the fields due to heat stroke. That’s why doctors are being mobilized, too,” he added.
The Rodong Sinmun, in an article published on July 26, reported that collective farm workers in North Hwanghae Province are “waging a full-out assault” to prevent crop damage due to drought.
5. North Korea's state-run food shops have little or no rice to sell to consumers
Again, communism and the north Korean style socialist workers paradise just do not work. And they certainly do not care for the people's welfare.
Only markets can help the Korean people in the north survive but Kim Jong-un appears to be making a maximum effort to ensure they do not function.
North Korea's state-run food shops have little or no rice to sell to consumers - Daily NK
A high-ranking source also claimed that North Korea revealed its domestic food situation through the UN after deciding to accept international food aid
By Seulkee Jang - 2021.07.30 2:21pm
The food shops recently established by the North Korean government to control the supply and price of rice have little or no rice to sell, Daily NK has learned.
According to multiple Daily NK sources in North Korea recently, state food shops across the country continue to open their doors and staff show up to work, but they have nothing to sell.
Shops face the same situation in small cities as well as in large ones, such as Hyesan in Yanggang Province and Sinuiju in North Pyongan Province. One source told Daily NK that shops with rice stocks have “10 sacks [of rice] at most.”
A source in Pyongyang said few residents of the city use the state-run food shops “because many are government cadres who receive rations.”
“The performance of the state food shops in Pyongyang is the lowest in the country,” he continued, adding, “And they’re not operating now, either.”
From July 6, starting in Pyongyang, state food shops began selling five days’ worth of rice per person at prices slightly lower than could be found in the markets.
Initially, North Korean authorities had planned to provide citizens with three months of grain per person at lower-than-market prices. This became impossible, however, due to insufficient supplies of the commodity.
In fact, North Korean rice and corn accounted for nearly all the food sold by the government in early July. Generally speaking, the authorities did not use supplies of rice or corn imported from China during the distribution.
Various kinds of grains being sold in Yanggang Province markets. / Image: Daily NK
According to a high-ranking source, some of the Chinese rice imported by Ri Pyong-chol, the former vice chairman of the country’s Central Military Commission, was included in the distribution to Pyongyang residents. About 80% of Ri’s rice, however, was stored for “emergency use” by the Workers’ Party.
The source claimed that the authorities decided against providing the Chinese rice to people given the problematic way it entered the country. In fact, Ri was dismissed from his post for arbitrarily importing the rice in violation of quarantine guidelines.
However, North Korean authorities have reportedly established plans to accept food aid — should the international community offer it — and sell it to locals through the state food shops.
In a Voluntary National Review (VNR) to the United Nations High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on July 13, North Korea said its plan to produce seven million tons of grain faces problems. It confessed that grain production had plummeted to the lowest level in a decade, since the country produced just 4.95 million tons in 2018.
A high-ranking source claimed that North Korea revealed its domestic food situation through the UN after deciding to accept international food aid.
Within the Workers’ Party, some have reportedly argued that if the country were to cheaply sell rice and corn received as international food aid through the state food shops, it could kill several birds with one stone: rice prices would stabilize, the state’s hurting finances would be bolstered, and the government would be provided a propaganda boost for supplying food to its people.
Pyongyang may energetically move forward on the rice aid issue given these potential benefits. However, it appears likely the government will not accept food aid from organizations or governments that demand monitoring of the aid’s distribution.
6. Wife of North Korean Consul in Russia Dies from COVID-19
I do not wish ill on anyone (except perhaps Kim Jong-un and KimYo-jong) but this is just another indication of how incompetent and broken is the regime. If the elite cannot be cared for how are the people faring? Especially those with bad Songbun?
This is also why no one can return home to north Korea: the fear of bringing in COVID. And the last reports we saw there are two north Korean ambassadors living at the diplomatic residence in Beijing. The new one arrived but the old remains since he is not authorized to come home.
Wife of North Korean Consul in Russia Dies from COVID-19
Cost of vaccination in Vladivostok too high for the North’s privileged diplomats.
The wife of a North Korean consul stationed in Vladivostok, Russia, contracted COVID-19 and died this month, RFA has learned from sources in Russia, who said the North lacked the cash to vaccinate its diplomats in the Pacific coast city.
The woman, whose name was not disclosed, had been living in Vladivostok since 2018, when her husband became one of only five people working at the tiny consulate in the major Pacific Ocean port city near Russia’s borders with North Korea and China.
Though the Russian-made Sputnik coronavirus vaccine is available in the city, production cannot keep up with demand and doses command top ruble.
North Korea’s government would not cover the costs of vaccinating the consulate staff and their families, and there was no vaccination plan in place, sources in the city told RFA.
“A close North Korean acquaintance informed me that the wife of a North Korean consul here in Vladivostok died of coronavirus, so the North Korean mission officials here and all over Russia are on high alert,” a Russian citizen of Korean descent told RFA’s Korean Service July 25.
“The news of her death came during a diplomatic office meeting. The consulate sent an emergency notice to the human resources company that manages dispatched workers, instructing them to raise their awareness that there was a coronavirus death in the family of the consulate,” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
Vladivostok is home to many North Korean government-owned firms that sell the labor of workers sent to the Russian Far East by Pyongyang to earn foreign cash for the regime, usually in the construction sector.
The companies, which forward the lion’s share of the workers’ earned wages to Pyongyang, have a close-knit relationship with the consulate.
The consul’s wife was hospitalized on July 15, after she had coronavirus symptoms including a high fever and coughing that started at the beginning of the month. The woman, who is in her early 40s, died while receiving treatment in the hospital, according to the source.
“The Russian coronavirus vaccine costs 7,000 rubles, which is about U.S. $95 per dose. People say that the North Korean diplomats and their families have not yet made a plan to vaccinate because it costs at least $190 to get both doses, and they suffer from economic difficulties,” the source said.
“Under the direction of North Korea, the consul’s wife was immediately cremated, and a quiet funeral was held.”
Another source, a resident of Vladivostok, confirmed the death to RFA on July 26, saying that all the North Koreans in the city are now living in fear after seeing that even such a high-profile person could not afford the vaccine.
“Although we have a Russian-made vaccine, production is insufficient, so it costs too much. So there are many non-vaccinated people in the Vladivostok area,” the second source said, adding that the consulate had convened several meetings related to the woman’s death.
“Due to shortages in the supply of the Russian coronavirus vaccine, most people living in Vladivostok have not yet been vaccinated… Vladivostok is also known as a region with high medical costs in Russia. If you are hospitalized for more than 10 days at a general hospital, it costs nearly $10,000 on average,” the second source said.
People who die in the hospital will have about $1,000 extra added to their bills for cremation, the source added.
“So it’s not only the North Korean dispatched workers in nearby areas, but also mission staff that cannot really go to the hospital, even if they are sick.”
Russia has recorded 6,195,232 coronavirus cases and 156,178 deaths as of Thursday.
According to CNN, in January 2018 an estimated 50,000 North Koreans were working in Russia – many in construction – in what the U.S. Department of State called “slave-like” labor.
Following the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2397 in Dec. 2017, all North Korean workers in Russia were supposed to have been repatriated by the end of 2019, and host countries were forbidden from issuing new working visas.
North Korea had been able to get around this by sending workers to Russia on student visas and having them apply for work permits. Pyongyang had hoped to continue doing this beyond 2019, but the pandemic in early 2020 shut down cross-border travel and put a snag in those plans.
A source familiar with the North Korean labor situation in Russia told RFA in February that there were 2,000 to 3,000 North Koreans in Russia working to earn foreign cash for Pyongyang in violation of sanctions.
Reported by Jieun Kim for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
7. North Korea Watchers Parse Motives Behind Restored Hotline with Seoul
We must view this from the regime's political warfare and blackmail diplomacy perspective. It is shaping the information environment.
North Korea Watchers Parse Motives Behind Restored Hotline with Seoul
Pyongyang likely wants something from Seoul after reopening links that it unilaterally froze, experts say.
North and South Korea have restored an inter-Korean hotline cut off last year by Pyongyang amid deteriorated relations, in a move that experts called a positive step, but warned against overinterpreting its significance.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have exchanged multiple letters since the third anniversary of their April 2018 summit, and have been renewing their goal of rebuilding their strained relationship, the South’s presidential office said Tuesday after communication lines were reopened.
North Korea’s state-run Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said the resumption of communications meant that “Now, the whole Korean nation desires to see the north-south relations recovered from setback and stagnation as early as possible.”
“According to the agreement made between the top leaders, the north and the south took a measure to re-operate all inter-Korean communication liaison lines from 10:00 on July 27,” it said.
The U.S. Department of State told RFA that it welcomed the resumption of communications.
“The United States supports inter-Korean dialogue and engagement and welcomes today's announcement on the restoration of inter-Korean communications lines. This is a positive step,” a department spokesperson said.
“Diplomacy and dialogue are essential to achieving complete denuclearization and to establishing permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula,” said the spokesperson.
The hotline had been inactive since June 2020 when Pyongyang shut it down, with state media reporting at the time that it was because Seoul was not taking action to stop groups in the South from launching balloons carrying anti-Kim regime leaflets across the border into North Korean territory.
Pyongyang then blew up an inter-Korean liaison office inside North Korea later in the month.
Cautioned optimism
North Korea watchers in the South expressed doubts to RFA’s Korean Service that the restored hotlines would soon lead to warmer relations between Seoul and Pyongyang.
“The argument that North Korea will actively engage in dialogue by restoring these communication lines is still speculative,” Kwak Gil Sup, president of the One Korea Center, told RFA Tuesday.
Kim In-tae of the Institute for National Security Strategy told RFA that the restoration of lines cut off by Pyongyang should not be blown out of proportion.
“At this point, it cannot be evaluated as significant enough to be regarded as the beginning of a change in the situation on the Korean Peninsula,” he said.
Several experts outside of Korea told RFA that Pyongyang’s motive for restoring communications was open to debate.
“We know and have seen reporting on North Korea’s dire food situation brought on by the pandemic. While we can’t pinpoint Pyongyang’s motivation for restoring the communication lines to the food situation, it’s certainly a possibility,” analyst Soo Kim of the California-based Rand Corporation’s told RFA.
“Kim [Jong Un’s] foolish pride is a hindrance to directly appealing for international aid. But he knows that the current South Korean government is unlikely to turn a blind eye to the North’s humanitarian situation. By opening the door to ‘communication’ with Seoul, Kim may be indirectly appealing for assistance from the South,” she said.
Expectations of change should be kept in check, Soo Kim said.
“We may see Kim slightly modify his demeanor towards the South, but once he extracts what he needs from the relationship, he is likely to discard Seoul once again,” she said.
Restoring communication could be a tactical move by Pyongyang to help South Korean progressives in the upcoming presidential election in 2022, or it could be to put pressure on the U.S., the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum’s Ralph Cossa told RFA.
“It’s also typical of the North’s behavior. First they terminate a communications link. Then they later get credit just for restoring it,” Cossa said.
“The real question is, what will they have to say once the link is reestablished? Will they be more forthcoming regarding denuclearization? I very much doubt it. Will they make some major positive gesture toward to South? We will have to wait and see but I would not hold my breath,” he said.
The fact that Moon and Kim have been exchanging letters is more significant, but bringing the hotline back online is “a small but meaningful step,” Mark Barry, Associate Editor of International Journal on World Peace, told RFA, noting that it occurred on July 27, the anniversary of the signing of the armistice agreement that ended hostilities in the Korean War in 1953.
“North Korea appears to be projecting that it is reasonable and open to relations with other nations. If it is going to request international food or medical assistance, then today’s move helps pave the way. I would not be surprised if South Korea tries to provide some modest food aid in August or September until the new harvest is ready,” he said.
North Korea is dealing with a grain shortage and last year’s harvests only produced enough to meet the population’s demand for about 10 months, according to a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Analyst Bruce Klingner of the Washington-based Heritage Foundation told RFA that bringing the hotline back is a carrot offered by Pyongyang with strings attached.
“North Korea's resumption of communication lines will be hailed by some as a thaw in inter-Korean relations that portends great opportunities for dialogue and negotiations. Such a view is inevitably followed by advocacy for Washington and Seoul to refrain from anything deemed ‘provocative’ and to offer yet more concessions and benefits,” Klingner said.
Ken Gause of the Virginia-based CNA think tank said the move could be aimed to stoke and exploit tension between Seoul and Washington ahead of annual joint military exercises scheduled for later this month.
“North Korea now mysteriously just comes back up on the net, you know, reestablish communications with South Korea, which of course is going to incentivize South Korea to say we need to downplay the exercises,” he told RFA.
Video conference
News of the letter exchanges between the leaders of the two Koreas prompted speculation about another inter-Korean summit in the near future.
Reuters news service reported Wednesday that Moon and Kim were planning a summit, citing South Korean government sources, but Park Kyung-mee, a spokesperson for the presidential Blue House said the report was “not true” and “there have been no discussions” to that end.
The Reuters report also said that Seoul and Pyongyang discussed rebuilding the liaison office.
South Korea’s defense and unification ministries confirmed that an inter-Korean phone call took place Tuesday as agreed.
A Blue House official told South Korean media that he was hopeful that the restoration of communication could lead to another summit.
“Now that the two Koreas will continue to engage in working-level consultations, we can think of establishing a video conference system,” said Park Soo-hyun, the Blue House’s senior public communication secretary.
An unnamed Blue House official told the South Korean Hankyoreh newspaper, “President Moon Jae-in had previously suggested North Korea hold a video conference. We can aim for a non-face-to-face summit.”
Reported by Kyung Ha Rhee, Sangmin Lee and Albert Hong. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
8. A Grand Bargain with North Korea
A very provocative or thought provoking proposal from the two generals.
Whether you agree with their arguments or not, one thing to note is the cloise and sustained relationships among the ROK and US generals who have served together at the ROK/US Combined Forces Command. Together, they provide some of the most important advocacy for the alliance as well as bring sustained expertise that remains critical to the alliance.
I think we are offering a chance for Kim to act as a responsible member of the international community. This can be done if he chooses to abandon his political warfare strategy, his blackmail diplomacy, and his revolutionary goals. We have been offering Kim a brighter future if he makes the right strategic decision. I fear that Kim views both the strategic decision and the brighter future as existential threats to the regime. He believes he cannot live without his nuclear weapons and a brighter future means economic engagement and more information from the outside world. He is deathly afraid of this and he suspects that our intentions are to seek to undermine is legitimacy. And of course just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they are NOT out to get you!
But the bottom line is Kim must choose to act as a responsible member of the international community and we are willing to give him the change to do so. But if he fails to do so then we need to be prepared to execute a Plan B.
We need to ponder this conclusion and ask can we get to a better place without going through the crucible of war (or regime collapse)? We certainly must try.
Conclusion:
There are many obstacles that will likely frustrate or even prevent progress in this direction. China will not cede its near monopoly over the North Korean economy easily and will likely try to disrupt U.S.-South Korean diplomatic initiatives. Furthermore, the international community will need to evaluate the risks of “saving” North Korea from the decrepitude that, if not alleviated, will likely destroy it in the future. Saving North Korea may preserve for an intolerable time the current structures of the ruling party, the more than one-million-strong Korean Peoples’ Armed Forces, and the state’s deplorable trampling of human rights. This risk may limit the number of countries that are willing to participate in helping a potentially unrepentant North Korea recover.
Alliance leaders will have to grapple with these and many other obstacles. Such is the nature of leading the transformation from an unacceptable status quo to a better future, without passing through the crucible of war once again.
A Grand Bargain with North Korea
Pyongyang’s Economic Distress Offers a Chance for Peace
By Vincent Brooks and Ho Young Leem
Change is underway on the Korean Peninsula. At the Eighth Korean Workers’ Party Congress in January, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un orchestrated a decisive shift in the country’s bedrock economic and military policies. He moved away from his father’s “Military First” principle (Songun), which gave precedence to the Korea People’s Armed Forces, and supplanted it with an ideology of “People and Masses First” (Inmin Daejung Jaeil). This reorganization of North Korea’s system of governance empowers the ruling party at the expense of the KPAF, supporting Kim’s perpetual quest for power consolidation. More important, it sets the stage for efforts to resuscitate North Korea’s dying economy.
The recent level of restraint by the North Korean military has been an equally important change. During the October 2020 military parade, the KPAF showed off the Hwasong-16, its newest intercontinental ballistic missile—but did not accompany its presentation with any aggressive rhetoric or direct mention of the United States. This stands in stark contrast to its last parade, in September 2018, where, like parades before it, several tanks displayed the slogan: “Destroy the U.S. Imperialist Aggressors, the Sworn Enemy of the DPRK!”
Kim’s criticisms of U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises and his country’s firing of cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles have also been more notable for their level of self-restraint than for escalating tensions on the peninsula. The United States and South Korea are scheduled to conduct further joint military exercises later this summer, so it remains to be seen whether this self-restraint will continue.
These changes represent a recognition by Kim that his country is in a worsening situation. North Korea’s economy has been devastated by the combined effects of COVID-19 restrictions, international sanctions, and a relentless series of natural disasters. Last year, North Korea experienced a crippling 8.5 percent economic contraction. Kim himself has described the food situation as “getting tense,” and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that North Korean demand for basic foodstuffs exceeds supply by 970,000 tons.
Economic security is currently Pyongyang’s top priority. The People and Masses First ideology has been repeatedly invoked to apply pressure on party officials to combat bureaucratic delays and corruption while also encouraging the public to display loyalty to Kim in the face of “severe difficulties” and “accumulating hardship.” Kim is treading carefully on the military front so as not to foreclose the opportunity for dialogue with the United States, which could serve as a guarantor of his country’s future economic security.
For U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Pyongyang’s shift represents an opportunity. They should aim to resolve North Korea’s underlying security concerns—particularly its economic security—in return for progress on denuclearization, the reduction of Pyongyang’s dependence on China, and North Korea’s eventual integration into the U.S.-led liberal international order with the close support of South Korea. At the same time, Washington and Seoul must continue to work on cementing their own alliance. Their aim should be to approach North Korea from a position of strength, denying Pyongyang the advantage of facing an incoherent alliance. Achieving superior joint military and diplomatic power is what will enable the allies to deter Kim’s threats, allowing for a new approach to North Korea that can pave the way to a lasting peace.
KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE
As a first step, Seoul should eliminate the political obstacles that keep U.S. military forces in South Korea from accessing major training facilities. Access to the few training areas available for maneuvers and live ammunition usage, which are key to maintaining military readiness, has been restricted, leading the United States to consider whether to redeploy certain forces, such as Apache attack helicopter crews, to Japan and Alaska for training.
South Korean domestic political pressures are the main driver of limitations on training. The Moon administration adopted these populist policies during the Trump presidency but has recently approached these issues in a less political fashion. This must be sustained as South Korea enters campaign season, with presidential elections scheduled for next March.
The U.S.-South Korean summit in May, which brought Biden and Moon together for the first time, was an excellent start toward strengthening the alliance. The U.S. commitment to provide South Korea with COVID-19 vaccines and to engage in joint vaccine research sent a powerful signal to South Koreans that the United States is placing a high priority on the relationship. These actions reciprocate South Korea’s decision to send personal protective equipment to the United States in the early stages of the pandemic, thus building mutual goodwill and trust.
Washington and Seoul also communicated their intent to coordinate their actions in the broader Indo-Pacific region, focusing especially on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). This broader cooperation opens a new strategic horizon for the alliance and serves to reassure the leadership and people of South Korea that the United States is considering its ally’s perspective on matters vital to South Korea’s security.
Washington and Seoul should deny Pyongyang the advantage of facing an incoherent alliance.
Despite this progress, two challenges lie ahead for the U.S.-South Korean alliance. First, North Korea and China will continue their efforts to drive a wedge between the United States and South Korea. From military threats to promises of diplomatic engagement, Kim is adept at sending different messages to Washington and Seoul. China, meanwhile, often employs economic coercion to achieve its goals: in retaliation for the decision by the United States and South Korea to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system in 2016, Beijing blocked a wide range of South Korean industries and businesses from accessing the Chinese market. The business sectors affected ranged from conglomerates directly associated with the THAAD deployment to tourism and K-pop. Although the alliance stood firm and Beijing ultimately yielded, more bullying from China should be expected as the United States and South Korea move closer together.
Both U.S. and South Korean leaders must make concrete preparations for how to coordinate their response to future acts of Chinese economic coercion. This will mean the alliance must expand its joint-defense posture beyond the traditional area of countering military invasion to include strategies designed to bolster defenses against Chinese and Russian economic tools and political warfare. This will be especially relevant as South Korea fully enters the political campaign season and is a likely target of these more insidious and shadowy influences.
Second, the allies must maintain a sense of continuity during and after the South Korean presidential elections. The main cause of the weakening of the alliance during the Trump-Moon era was the politicization of national defense to gratify populist nationalism. As South Korean political parties begin to actively position themselves against one another, there are already signs that populist candidates are taking up the mantle of anti-Americanism and anti-alliance politics. Hot-button issues, such as the development of integrated air and missile defense systems, the modernization of common command and control systems, and the indigenous acquisition of tactical nuclear weapons as a hedge against uncertainty regarding the guaranteed U.S. extended deterrence umbrella, all remain on the allies’ discussion table and are thus potentially vulnerable to the politics of populist nationalism.
Both U.S. and South Korean alliance leaders and military experts should work to find bipartisan support on crucial issues to preclude losing the valuable progress made so far during 2021. The alliance should not cede its strong position vis-à-vis North Korea and other adversaries in the broader Indo-Pacific.
KEEP YOUR ENEMIES (INCREASINGLY) CLOSER
From these firm foundations, Washington and Seoul should begin the hard work of progressively normalizing relations with North Korea. The allies’ previous attempts to alter North Korea’s behavior have involved military pressure, international economic sanctions, and winning some degree of cooperation from Beijing to push for denuclearization. For North Korea, however, this approach did not offer a convincing alternative to China’s economic dominance or the military danger posed by the U.S.-South Korean alliance.
A better approach would be to offer Kim a path toward what he desires most: a way out of his economic and political woes. U.S. and South Korean leaders should adopt a policy of “strategic deliberateness,” moving forward to deeper phases of collaboration only when mutual trust has been built. This will prevent North Korea from pocketing any goodwill without providing anything in return. Strategic deliberateness will also protect the alliance against the understandable desire to call off the entire process if North Korea reneges along the way.
The first phase of engagement should focus on efforts to signal a new relationship with Pyongyang. The United States and South Korea should provide immediate economic relief in the form of humanitarian and medical aid in response to a demonstrated willingness by North Korea to engage constructively in dialogue. Aid could be provided as part of a UN-led humanitarian mission, which would be tied to a UN Security Council resolution prohibiting missile and nuclear weapons tests.
On the military front, the initial goal would be to establish a joint commitment to de-escalate tensions and mitigate conflict risks. Several potential flash points continue to pose the risk of rapidly escalating conflict and a resumption of open warfare on the Korean Peninsula. The Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA) took steps to increase military cooperation between 2018 and 2019, but cooperation since then has failed to advance. The military-to-military channel that created this agreement, however, is one of the most important avenues to achieving a permanent lowering of tensions and a declaration of an end to the Korean War.
The United States and South Korea will have to take risks to signal their commitment to progress. For example, declaring an end to the state of war with North Korea would represent a fundamental change to politics on the Korean Peninsula and potentially provide Kim with an opening to pivot his own domestic rhetoric regarding the United States and South Korea. It could enable further confidence-building measures, which could in turn open a pathway toward denuclearizing the peninsula and achieving the multifaceted security guarantees North Korea truly seeks. The end-of-war declaration should not be confused with a peace treaty that would replace the current armistice agreement. The declaration would not change the current armistice system and would not be linked in any way to a peace treaty, which would have to be negotiated between the two parties.
U.S. and South Korean leaders should offer Kim a path toward what he desires most: a way out of his economic and political woes.
The second phase would normalize relations with North Korea and rebalance its position vis-à-vis China. The United States and South Korea should take bold steps to revitalize the North Korean economy: for instance, Washington could enable financial donors to create an infrastructure development fund that offers Pyongyang a ten-year interest-free loan, which would broaden the influences on North Korea’s economy beyond China. Signing a South-North Korea free-trade agreement could complement the infrastructure development fund and could be framed as a way to develop Korean solutions to Korean problems, a portrayal that appeals to both sides of the separated Korean population.
This economic package would go a long way toward diminishing North Korea’s economic dependence on China. South Korea should take a proactive role to effectively manage this new investment inflow and support capacity building and societal development in North Korea. Seoul and Washington should exchange these economic benefits for demonstrated progress from North Korea on denuclearization.
The U.S.-South Korean alliance and North Korea must also normalize their military relations. South Korea and North Korea should search for ways to prevent traditional maritime conflicts and thwart illegal Chinese fishing in the seas surrounding the Korean Peninsula. These efforts should also provide greater security and stability in the demilitarized zone (DMZ). When South Korea and North Korea can prevent these types of conflicts without escalation, the role of the UN Command will naturally be reduced.
The next step would be a peace treaty between the parties. When there is the verified destruction of nuclear weapons and the armies of South Korea and North Korea cannot realistically invade each other, it will be possible to pursue an agreement that permanently replaces the armistice. To arrive at a peace treaty, however, it is important that the alliance continues to adopt strategic deliberateness, ensuring that there are proportionate measures and concessions made by North Korea along the way. Until then, it is imperative that the U.S. and South Korean militaries maintain their robust defense posture.
A SUSTAINABLE PEACE
In the final phase, Seoul and Washington would move beyond a peace treaty and completely integrate North Korea into the alliance-led order. South Korea would take the lead as North Korea’s primary provider of trade and direct investment. For its part, the United States would become North Korea’s second-leading trading partner and primary enabler of international financing. An economic plan would chart out Pyongyang’s long-term economic growth, and the South-North free-trade agreement could be expanded into an Indo-Pacific trade partnership—giving North Korea access to markets across Asia.
These steps would cement the new economic order in Northeast Asia, improving the quality of life for millions of people. Militarily, a permanent peace plan would offer security by verifying that Pyongyang was complying with its international obligations and had destroyed its nuclear weapons. And politically, this reimagined relationship with North Korea would craft a new balance of power that diminishes China’s influence across the region.
There are many obstacles that will likely frustrate or even prevent progress in this direction. China will not cede its near monopoly over the North Korean economy easily and will likely try to disrupt U.S.-South Korean diplomatic initiatives. Furthermore, the international community will need to evaluate the risks of “saving” North Korea from the decrepitude that, if not alleviated, will likely destroy it in the future. Saving North Korea may preserve for an intolerable time the current structures of the ruling party, the more than one-million-strong Korean Peoples’ Armed Forces, and the state’s deplorable trampling of human rights. This risk may limit the number of countries that are willing to participate in helping a potentially unrepentant North Korea recover.
Alliance leaders will have to grapple with these and many other obstacles. Such is the nature of leading the transformation from an unacceptable status quo to a better future, without passing through the crucible of war once again.
9. Japan Wasted a Golden Chance for Olympic Reconciliation
What could have been?? I still think the Olympics was a tough time for ROK-Japan diplomacy.
Japan Wasted a Golden Chance for Olympic Reconciliation
Tokyo-Seoul relations remain mired in bad history and petty insults.
Ever since the Greek city-states established their Olympic truce, the Games have been an opportunity for diplomacy. Just three years ago, South Korea made diplomatic hay out of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics by coaxing North Korea into participation, which headed off a potential war and paved the way to a series of summit meetings among South Korean President Moon Jae-in, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and then-U.S. President Donald Trump.
But there will be no similar diplomatic breakthrough during the Tokyo Olympics: After negotiating for a potential visit, Moon declined to attend the Games following a vulgar insult from a high-ranking Japanese diplomat. This near-miss is not just a squandered opportunity to improve a relationship that is at its lowest point in years. It also indicates the failure of the Japanese government to conduct diplomacy with its closest neighbor and fellow democracy based on mutual respect.
Ever since the Greek city-states established their Olympic truce, the Games have been an opportunity for diplomacy. Just three years ago, South Korea made diplomatic hay out of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics by coaxing North Korea into participation, which headed off a potential war and paved the way to a series of summit meetings among South Korean President Moon Jae-in, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and then-U.S. President Donald Trump.
But there will be no similar diplomatic breakthrough during the Tokyo Olympics: After negotiating for a potential visit, Moon declined to attend the Games following a vulgar insult from a high-ranking Japanese diplomat. This near-miss is not just a squandered opportunity to improve a relationship that is at its lowest point in years. It also indicates the failure of the Japanese government to conduct diplomacy with its closest neighbor and fellow democracy based on mutual respect.
The current standoff began a little more than two and a half years ago. In October 2018, South Korea’s Supreme Court ordered Japanese companies to pay reparations to elderly Koreans who had been conscripted as slave laborers during World War II, when Korea was an imperial Japanese colony. Japan, in response, retaliated by implementing export controls on critical materials for high-tech industries, touching off a diplomatic storm that still continues. After Tokyo refused to remove the export controls, Seoul threatened to cancel the military intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan. After intervention from the United States, the intelligence pact was not formally canceled, but it was practically suspended. Two years later, the situation remains the same: Japan’s export controls are still in place, and South Korea refuses to share military intelligence with Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga never held a meeting with Moon since Suga became prime minister in September 2020. At the June G-7 summit held in Cornwall, England, a Moon-Suga summit failed to materialize as Tokyo canceled at the last minute after having tentatively agreed to a summit meeting. The two countries tried again for the Tokyo Olympics, with Moon attending the opening ceremony and holding a meeting with Suga. But the two countries quickly ran into an impasse: South Korea wanted tangible results from the summit like lifting the export controls while Japan demanded South Korea come to the table with a solution for the Supreme Court decision ordering reparations. The format of the summit meeting was also an issue: South Korea wanted an hourlong meet for an in-depth discussion while Japan insisted on a brief, 15-minute meet, the same as other dignitaries visiting for the Olympics.
Then came the final straw: Hirohisa Soma, a high-ranking diplomat at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, told a South Korean journalist on July 16 that Moon was “masturbating” in his suggestions for a dialogue because “the government of Japan does not think about the Japan-Korea relationship as much as Korea does.” Although the Japanese ambassador apologized for the statement, calling it “extremely inappropriate and regrettable,” the damage was done. South Korea’s presidential advisors, who reportedly had been evenly split in their opinions on whether Moon should visit Tokyo, quickly soured on the idea. Finally, on July 19, four days before the opening ceremony, the Blue House announced the president would not be visiting Tokyo.
Soma’s vulgar comment is indicative of a larger issue: Japanese diplomacy is caught up in messy grievances with South Korea, not a cold-eyed, interest-based analysis, which would favor a better relationship with its closest neighbor that is also a prosperous liberal democracy. If Tokyo’s trade war was a bad idea two years ago, today it looks indefensible as protection of the semiconductor supply chain has emerged as one of the world’s most important economic and national security issues.
The semiconductor shortage has led to a global shortage in automobiles and electronics with soaring prices. Because only two countries—South Korea and Taiwan—currently have the ability to produce the most sophisticated types of semiconductors used in the world’s cars and smartphones, the United States under the Biden administration has focused strongly on protecting this supply chain, especially as China emerges as the next major semiconductor producer. Had it worked as intended, Japan’s trade war would have crippled South Korea’s production of semiconductors, leaving the global supply chain even more tenuous and vulnerable.
Ironically, Japan’s trade war failed to work only because Tokyo overestimated its strength. The Japanese government expected that restricting the export of high-tech materials would bring South Korean companies to their knees because it believed Japanese materials firms had their dominant market position thanks to an untouchable level of technology. It was wrong: Japan’s trade war failed not because Japanese materials firms were more technologically advanced than everyone else, but because they formed a relationship of trust with South Korean firms that produced a tight-knit and efficient manufacturing process.
Once that trust was gone, South Korea’s high-tech companies quickly replaced the supply from Japan with domestic producers and other suppliers from the United States, Taiwan, and China. By the end of 2020, South Korea’s import of hydrogen fluoride from Japan—one of the three materials placed under export control—dropped by 86 percent from the pre-trade war level with no meaningful disruption in semiconductor production for which the material is used. Tokyo thought it had a technological spigot that could be turned off, leaving South Korean companies begging for mercy; in reality, the trade war only served to damage Japan’s materials industry. A recent op-ed in Asahi Shimbun criticized the export control as “the extreme of stupidity,” which inflicted an economic loss on Japanese companies far greater than slave labor reparations Japan would have had to pay.
This tone deafness does more than damage Japan’s economic interests. The Biden administration is fixated on achieving trilateral cooperation among the United States, Japan, and South Korea in response to North Korea and China, and Japan’s obstructionist posture has not gone unnoticed in Washington. A recent example was the April 2 meeting among the national security advisors of the three countries in Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss the Biden administration’s review of the United States’ North Korea policy. Although South Korean National Security Advisor Suh Hoon expressed agreement with the Biden administration’s “calibrated, practical approach” toward North Korea, his Japanese counterpart, Shigeru Kitamura, took a highly inflexible stance—to the annoyance of U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Each refusal by Suga to meet with Moon reinforces the impression that Japan is the obstacle in trilateral cooperation.
Japan is not to blame for the coronavirus pandemic that derailed everyone’s best laid plans around the Olympics. But it is not too uncharitable to say Japan’s failure to utilize the Olympics to improve ties with South Korea is a costly missed opportunity, especially as Suga’s time as the prime minister may be running out with a general election scheduled in October. Holding out does nothing to improve Japan’s position: Its trade war failed to create any leverage over South Korea, and at any rate, the South Korean president cannot order the Supreme Court to reverse itself.
Meanwhile, as the United States puts more emphasis on trilateral cooperation, Tokyo’s obsessive focus on avoiding wartime guilt only makes Japan look absurd. The right thing for Japan to do, both morally and strategically, has always been clear: Own up to its World War II legacy, pay reparations, and build a forward-looking relationship with its nearest democratic neighbor.
10. North Korea began the summer in a food crisis. A heat wave and drought could make it worse.
Bad luck or karma or the regime? Unfortunately the 25 million Korean people are suffering because of the policy decisions and incompetence of KimJong-un and the party anwhich is only made wrose by the natureal dsiasters.
North Korea began the summer in a food crisis. A heat wave and drought could make it worse.
The Washington Post · by Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Min Joo Kim Today at 12:28 p.m. EDT · July 29, 2021
TOKYO — At the beginning of the summer, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un described the country’s food situation as “tense” after border closures caused by the coronavirus pandemic and crippling floods. By midsummer, a cycle of grinding heat and record-low rainfall could be a sign of a greater food crisis and hunger ahead.
Temperatures in North Korea have climbed as high as 102 degrees in some areas this week — a shock in a country where temperatures do not often break 100 degrees. The heat wave has been compounded by a growing drought.
North Korea had gotten 21.2 millimeters, or less than an inch, of rain as of mid-July, an unusually low amount for the country around this time, according to state media.
It is so hot that state media reports have been repeatedly warning residents about the dangers of dehydration and low sodium levels, especially for the elderly and those at risk of heart disease or stroke. They are urging residents to stay out of the sun, eat more fruits and vegetables, and drink more than two liters (about two quarts) of water per day, according to NK News, which monitors North Korea’s state media.
The extreme conditions could have longer-range effects in a country with poor irrigation systems and an ongoing food crisis, potentially adding pressure to Kim’s regime amid a severe economic squeeze from U.N. sanctions over Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
“North Korea’s food situation was already so bad and the prolonged hot and dry spell is driving it to the rock bottom,” said Cho Han-bum, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.
The heat in North Korea is tied to an unusually intense zone of high pressure over the western Pacific. The “heat dome” — similar to ones that have gripped parts of North America this summer — extends over northeast China, the Korean Peninsula and northern Japan, where numerous record temperatures were set Wednesday.
This summer’s heat wave in North Korea is one of the top three harshest summers on record, and is particularly notable for its high humidity rate, said Maximiliano Herrera, a Bangkok-based climatologist and weather historian who specializes in extreme weather. Temperatures are expected to drop a bit in a few days, but not by much, he said.
North Korea last year faced its worst economic slump in more than two decades from a combination of blows: closing its border with China in an effort to keep coronavirus infections from spreading, floods and typhoons that caused more damage. The South Korean government said this week that it is monitoring North Korea’s food situation and crop levels, including the effects of the recent heat wave.
Experts say that the lack of a rural water supply exacerbates the struggles North Korean farmers are facing this year, including the lack of access to trade-dependent items such as fertilizer, fuel and specialized machinery that they can no longer obtain. North Korea has shut down much of its trade activity during the pandemic, and international sanctions have limited the country’s import options for farming activity.
North Korea agriculture expert Kwon Tae-jin wrote in a recent report that the country is expected to experience significant food shortages this year, including grains and rice. “This amount of shortage is beyond what North Korea can handle on its own,” Kwon wrote in the report, published by the Korea Development Institute, a think tank based in South Korea.
The current food shortage is not as dire as the devastating famine in the 1990s, which killed hundreds of thousands of people, according to North Korean figures, yet estimates by independent experts cite up to 3 million lives lost. But Kim’s rare public warnings about food insecurity in June suggest a level of concern not seen in years.
The extent of potential damage to ordinary North Koreans as well as agricultural industries is unclear because of a lack of information and data. Experts on North Korea’s agriculture, however, anticipate that the conditions would harm the production of many of the country’s food staples, including rice.
“Extreme weather events could inevitably cause a sharp reduction of rice production this year, as well as vegetables and fruits, since the irrigation systems of DPRK are known to be quite poor,” said Kong Woo-seok, a geography professor at Seoul’s Kyung Hee University, referring to the official name of North Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Kong added that the drought may also affect the country’s fishery and livestock industries.
“Hot and dry waves may also create serious socioeconomic damage to the daily life of people of DPRK, where air-conditioning and cooling systems are poorly supplied,” Kong added.
Laborers in “weeding battles” at collective farms in North Korea are working long hours to compete against one another picking weeds for payments to buy food, according to a report this week by Radio Free Asia, citing unnamed sources in North Korea. These laborers working in high heat have at times fainted, the report said.
North Korean officials have begun a nationwide effort to save crops from the heat wave, mobilizing workers to water the fields. Agricultural authorities are increasing management of water sources and repairing groundwater facilities, according to a report this week in the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
“With a persevering willpower, we are on a battle to prevent damages from the high temperature,” according to a July 21 front-page article in Rodong Sinmun, a state-run newspaper.
Kim reported from Seoul. Jason Samenow in Washington contributed to this report.
Read more coverage of North Korea:
The Washington Post · by Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Min Joo Kim Today at 12:28 p.m. EDT · July 29, 2021
11. Senior North Korea military official reappears after absence, rebuke
I wonder what the regime "rehabilitation program' is like. I guess the good part of the north's system is that you can recover from your mistakes. But of course some mistakes you cannot recover from and the punishment is catastrophic.
Senior North Korea military official reappears after absence, rebuke
Ri Pyong Chol,
July 29 (UPI) -- A North Korean official who may have been upbraided by Kim Jong Un in June for poor COVID-19 planning was shown at the North Korean leader's side during Kim's visit to the Sino-Korean Friendship Tower in Pyongyang.
Ri Pyong Chol, identified as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission last year, was mentioned in a report of Kim's visit in Workers' Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun on Thursday.
Pak Jong Chon, chief of the North Korean military's general staff and a member of the Politburo, also accompanied the North Korean leader, according to the Rodong. Ri and Pak were seen in June not voting at a Politburo meeting of the ruling Workers' Party last month, prompting speculation in the South about their possible demotion.
State media on Thursday said Kim highlighted Pyongyang's ties with Beijing.
"The noble soul and exploits of the Chinese people who aided the sacred historic struggle of the Korean people at the cost of their blood when [North Korea] was undergoing the harshest and most difficult trials will remain immortal," Kim said, according to KCNA.
"The [North Korea]-China friendship forged as kindred ties will be firmly carried forward generation after generation on the road for the common cause."
Ri and Pak were not mentioned in state media reports of other events this week, held to commemorate North Korea's "Victory Day," the 68th anniversary of the signing of the Korean War Armistice.
A South Korean unification ministry official told local reporters that Ri was placed in a "superior" position among military personnel during the Friendship Tower visit, News 1 reported Thursday.
The official also said that Ri continues to maintain his "highest rank," citing information from North Korean state media, according to Newsis.
12. Is Kim even SLIMMER? North Korean leader appears to have lost weight
I guess Noom kept showing up in his social media feeds so he decided to try it out.
Is Kim even SLIMMER? North Korean leader appears to have lost weight
Is Kim even SLIMMER? North Korean leader appears to have lost even more weight in new photos - a month after state TV described his ‘emaciated’ condition as ‘heart-breaking’
- The North Korean leader is thought to have lost as much as 44 pounds this year
- Pictures showed his trademark Mao suit looking baggy and hanging off his waist
- Authorities last month decried his 'emaciated' condition in an unusual broadcast
- Analysts say authorities are hoping to use his weight change to reinforce loyalty
PUBLISHED: 04:47 EDT, 30 July 2021 | UPDATED: 04:52 EDT, 30 July 2021
Daily Mail · by Lauren Lewis For Mailonline · July 30, 2021
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appears to have lost even more weight in new photos after he shed up to 44 pounds earlier this year.
The despot was shown waving to a crowd of enthusiastic military officers and seemed to have lost weight around his waist and face with his trademark Mao suit appearing slightly baggy.
Images from the first workshop of the commanders and political officers of the Korean People's Army show held in July showed Kim with a noticeably slimmer face.
It comes a month after state TV said Kim's 'emaciated' condition was 'breaking our people's hearts' in a highly unusual broadcast in a country where public discussion of the leader's health and personal life has always been off-limits.
The tightly controlled state media on June 25 quoted an unidentified resident of Pyongyang as saying that everyone in North Korea was heartbroken after seeing images of the noticeably slimmer Kim.
New pictures from show Kim Jong Un waving to a crowd of enthusiastic military officers looking noticeably slimmer in his trademark Mao suit
The North Korean leader - seen in a picture taken on July 24 - is thought to have lost between 22 and 44 pounds already this year
Kim Jong Un also appears to have shed weight on his face, images from the first workshop of the commanders and political officers of the Korean People's Army in July 2021 show
South Korea's spy agency reported Kim (pictured in 2018) had bulked up to 285 pounds, having piled on around 90 pounds since taking power in 2011, 'bingeing on food and drink'
Analysts say the remarks showed authorities were seeking to use the change to Kim's weight to reinforce loyalty to the regime in desperate times.
The impoverished, nuclear-armed country is more isolated than ever behind its self-imposed coronavirus barricade, and this month admitted it was tackling a food crisis, sounding the alarm in a nation with a moribund agricultural sector that has long struggled to feed itself.
At the same time Kim's health has long been closely watched internationally as his sudden death would raise questions over succession and stability.
Known as a heavy smoker, the leader has long been obese, with his weight appearing to increase steadily in recent years.
But he looked noticeably less overweight in recent media images published by Pyongyang's official KCNA news agency and on state television.
Some observers say Kim - who is about 5ft8in tall and has previously weighed 308 pounds may have lost between 22 and 44 pounds.
Kim's personal life is normally taboo for North Korea's state media and Pyongyang has never even confirmed how many children he has.
But KCTV last week aired a clip of an unnamed resident of the capital claiming everyone in the country was 'heartbroken' by his 'emaciated' condition.
'Seeing our respected general secretary looking emaciated breaks our people's hearts the most,' he said.
'Everyone is talking about how their tears welled up immediately.'
North Korean state TV says Kim Jong Un's 'emaciated' condition is 'breaking our people's hearts' in a highly unusual broadcast (pictured at a concert this month)
Analysts say the remarks showed authorities were seeking to use the change to Kim's weight to reinforce loyalty to the regime
Analysts say Pyongyang is using Kim's appearance as a way to glorify him by portraying him as a 'devoted, hardworking' leader as the country struggles to tackle its food crisis and other challenges.
'If outside observers picked up on the change in Kim's appearance, you can bet your bottom dollar that the North Korean people noticed it, too, and more quickly,' said Christopher Green, a Korea specialist at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
It shut its borders in January last year to protect itself against the pandemic, and as a result trade with Beijing -- its economic lifeline -- has slowed to a trickle while all international aid workers have left the country.
'The message Pyongyang is sending is that Kim is a leader who works very hard for his people even to a degree he skips meals and loses weight,' defector-turned-researcher Ahn Chan-il told AFP.
Global speculation about Kim's health flared last year after he missed the commemoration of the birthday of his late grandfather, and was absent from public view for about 20 days.
Kim's father Kim Jong-Il and grandfather Kim Il-Sung were also obese and heavy smokers. Both died of heart attacks.
In 2016, South Korea's spy agency reported Kim had bulked up to 285 pounds, having piled on around 90 pounds since taking power in 2011, 'bingeing on food and drink'.
Some observers say Kim (pictured on February 8) - who is about 5ft8in tall and has previously weighed 308 pounds may have lost between 22 and 44 pounds
Last year it was estimated Kim Jong Un (pictured in May 2020) had put on another 20 pounds, taking him to around 305 pounds
Last year it was estimated he had put on another 20 pounds, taking him to around 305 pounds.
But Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, pointed out it was unlikely his recent weight loss was a symptom of acute ill health, as he had attended several public events this month.
'No one can really know why he lost weight,' he told AFP. 'What's clear -- from the KCTV footage -- is the regime wants the world to think that its people love care for their leader, to a point where they'd cry over his thinner appearance.'
Kim has acknowledged a 'tense' food situation that could worsen if this year's crops fail, exacerbating economic problems amid strict self-imposed border and movement restrictions that have slowed trade to a trickle.
'The most likely reason they would mention his declining weight in this way would, in my opinion, be related to ongoing COVID-19-related border measures,' said Chad O'Carroll, CEO of the Seoul-based Korea Risk Group.
'Regardless of the motivation for Kim's rapid weight loss, it seems there is propaganda value in showing that even the leader of North Korea is enduring the same food shortages that are hitting the country at the current time.'
The regime may have intended from the beginning to emphasise the fact that Kim is working hard for the people at a time of widespread hardship, or its messaging may have been an unintended consequence of Kim's inevitable appearance, Green said.
'What matters is that the North Korean regime will have received word from its many, many, many informants that Kim's condition was a talking point among ordinary people,' he said.
'From there it is a simple matter to respond by designing a propaganda strategy to use the existing public discussion to the regime's advantage.'
Analysts say Pyongyang is using Kim's appearance as a way to glorify him by portraying him as a 'devoted, hardworking' leader
The 'pseudo-voxpop' - carefully staged by state media to look authentic - such as the one from the unnamed Pyongyang resident was a common North Korean media tactic, he added.
It is unusual, though not unheard of, for North Korean state media to mention a leader's health. In 2014 it reported that Kim - who inherited his position from his father and grandfather before him - suffered from 'discomfort' after a prolonged period out of the public eye.
With succession plans unclear, a sudden decline in Kim's health could throw nuclear-armed North Korea's 76-year-old system of hereditary leadership into disarray.
'It is a major weight loss, and his health is important to the functioning and fate of the state, which is why people are watching this closely,' said Town of 38 North.
Daily Mail · by Lauren Lewis For Mailonline · July 30, 2021
13. Kim stresses military preparations ahead of U.S.-South Korea drills
No one should over react to this rhetoric. Keep calm and carry one with our critically important readiness exercises.
Kim stresses military preparations ahead of U.S.-South Korea drills
North Korea said Friday that leader Kim Jong Un called for stronger capability to cope with any foreign provocation as he met with military officers ahead of annual drills next month between South Korea and the United States that Pyongyang views as an invasion rehearsal.
Earlier this week, Kim reopened suspended communication channels with rival South Korea, raising hopes of reduced animosities on the Korean Peninsula. But some experts say Pyongyang could conduct missile tests or take other tension-raising actions in response to the drills, which Seoul and Washington have altered in past years to support diplomacy.
The official Korean Central News Agency said Kim held the workshop of military commanders and political officers from July 24-27 to discuss ways to enhance the North’s military strength. It said it was the first such meeting since North Korea’s military was founded.
During the meeting, Kim “stressed that commanders and political officers should focus all efforts on completing preparations for actively and offensively coping with any military provocation of enemies,” KCNA said.
Kim accused “the hostile forces,” an apparent reference to the U.S. and South Korea, of bolstering their capabilities for making a preemptive attack and intensifying “all sorts of frantic and persistent war drills for aggression.” Kim ordered the workshop attendees to put greater efforts to boost their units’ combat efficiency, KCNA said.
Kim’s speech carried by KCNA didn’t mention his nuclear program and didn’t contain any fiery rhetoric against the United States or South Korea.
In the past few years, South Korean and U.S. militaries have cancelled or scaled back some of their regular military exercises to support the now-stalled diplomacy on North Korea’s nuclear program or due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Asked over a possibility for next month’s drills being canceled or downsized, Boo Seung-Chan, a spokesman at South Korea’s Defense Ministry, told a briefing Thursday that Seoul and Washington were reviewing factors like the pandemic’s current status, efforts to achieve denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and their combined military readiness.
Some experts say North Korea could test-fire powerful missiles if the United States and South Korea conduct the drills in a full-fledged manner.
U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear program remain stalled for about 2½ years due to disputes over international sanctions on the North. During the diplomatic impasse, Kim has threatened to build up his nuclear arsenal if Washington doesn’t withdraw policies it considers hostile to North Korea.
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14. BRIEF REPORT: North Korea, Climate Change and Security
Something we do not think about but the climate is wreaking havoc on north Korea and (combined with Kim's incompetence and deliberate policy decisions) is having an extreme effect. And will probably only get worse.
BRIEF REPORT: North Korea, Climate Change and Security
By Catherine Dill, Alexandra Naegele, Natalie Baillargeon, Monica Caparas, Dominick Dusseau, Madeleine Holland, and Christopher Schwalm
North Korea’s provocative posture and its nuclear arsenal have shielded it from much of the pressures of globalization and integration with the international community. But neither politics nor arms can defend it from climate change. Impending climate impacts threaten to exacerbate North Korea’s already precarious ability to provide public goods for its population and thus maintain regime stability, multiplying risk factors for the Korean peninsula and the entire region.
Our new report “Converging Crises in North Korea: Security, Stability and Climate Change,” accompanied by a visual storymap, projects climate impacts on crop yields by 2040, inland flooding by 2050, and sea levels by 2050. Projections reveal rice and maize yield failures will become more likely along the Western coastlines by 2030. The country will experience significant intensification of extreme rainfall and increased flooding, with coastal areas increasingly at risk from sea level rise and inland areas – including sensitive nuclear sites – at risk of inundation if not properly protected.
These climate impacts will aggravate food insecurity, damage infrastructure, induce migration, and constrain already limited resources. The subsequent societal effects could be wide-ranging and grave. First-order outcomes could have cascading effects, ultimately increasing regional instability, exacerbating underlying tensions, introducing new escalatory pressures and posing risks of misinterpretation and failures of diplomacy.
Just as unanticipated climate change is a threat multiplier, recognized climate impacts could generate new avenues of negotiation and cooperation. Opportunity lies in understanding and mapping the climate impacts that North Korea will face in the coming decades, and supporting global and regional initiatives to increase climate resiliency in the country. This first-of-its-kind analysis lays the foundation for developing future strategies for climate mitigation and adaptation as a means to increase overall stability and security in the Indo-Pacific region.
15. Nuke envoy says humanitarian support for N. Korea can contribute to dialogue mood
Unfortunately while this is logical from a South Korean and American point of view , KJU does not believe in the "virtuous cycle." He has continuously demonstrated he is not sincere in caring for the welfare of the Korean people in the north.
Nuke envoy says humanitarian support for N. Korea can contribute to dialogue mood | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, July 29 (Yonhap) -- Humanitarian support for North Korea could help foster the mood for dialogue, Seoul's top nuclear envoy said Thursday, after this week's restoration of inter-Korean communication lines fanned hopes for the resumption of nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang.
Noh Kyu-duk made the remarks at a peace forum, expecting the reactivation of the lines to help restore a "virtuous cycle," in which progress in cross-border relations will help advance ties between Washington and Pyongyang.
The two Koreas reactivated communication lines Tuesday, 13 months after the reclusive regime severed them in anger over activists having sent anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border into the North.
"Cooperation on humanitarian support, for which the South and the United States have expressed willingness, will serve the interests of all and could contribute to forging the conditions for dialogue," Noh said at the forum hosted by the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security of the foreign ministry-affiliated Korea National Diplomatic Academy.
Noh also expressed expectations that the restoration of communication lines will be conducive to the resumption of talks between the U.S. and the North.
"To that end, our government has been looking into various ways as to what kind of concrete efforts it can make, and we have also been closely consulting with the U.S. side," he said.
The nuclear envoy also stressed the importance of the "constructive" roles by China and Russia, as well as cooperation with Japan, to bolster Seoul's drive to foster lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Nuclear negotiations have remained deadlocked since the Hanoi summit between then U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ended without a deal in February 2019 . Since then, inter-Korean cooperation has also been at a standstill.
sshluck@yna.co.kr
(END)
16. North Korea reports a ‘great crisis’ in its virus response.
We will continue to speculate about the "great crisis." Unfortunately the crisis is 70 years old and is simply the existence of the Kimfamily regime. While Kim has to deal with natural disasters, sanctions, a collapsed economy, and COVID, the major problem remains, and I hesitate to beat the dead horse any more, is his deliberate decision making and the policies he chooses to implement in response to the conditions.
The root of all problems in Korea is the existence of the most evil mafia- like crime family cult known as the Kim family regime that has the objective of dominating the Korean Peninsula under the rule of the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State.
North Korea reports a ‘great crisis’ in its virus response.
Kim Jong-un during a meeting of North Korea’s Politburo on Tuesday, where he spoke of a “great crisis” in the country’s pandemic response.Credit...Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service, via Associated Press
By
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said that lapses in his country’s anti-pandemic campaign have caused a “great crisis” that threatened “grave consequences,” state media reported on Wednesday.
Mr. Kim did not clarify whether he was referring to an outbreak in North Korea, where the authorities had said there were no cases of the virus. But state media reported that the matter was serious enough for Mr. Kim to convene a meeting of the Political Bureau of his ruling Workers’ Party on Tuesday, during which Mr. Kim reshuffled the top party leadership.
Senior officials neglected implementing antivirus measures and had created “a great crisis in ensuring the security of the state and safety of the people,” Mr. Kim said.
Mr. Kim also berated party officials for their “ignorance, disability and irresponsibility,” said the official Korean Central News Agency.
A report said there would be some “legal” consequences for the officials.
The news agency said that some members of the Politburo and its Presidium, as well as some Workers’ Party secretaries, were replaced. In North Korea, all power is concentrated in the leadership of Mr. Kim, and he frequently reshuffles party officials and military leaders, holding them responsible for policy failures.
The North claims officially to be free of the virus, although outside experts remain skeptical, citing the country’s threadbare public health system and lack of extensive testing.
Still, North Korea has enforced harsh restrictions to contain transmission.
Last year, it created a buffer zone along the border with China, issuing a shoot-to-kill order to stop unauthorized crossings, according to South Korean and U.S. officials. South Korean lawmakers briefed by their government’s National Intelligence Service last year have said that North Korea executed an official for violating a trade ban imposed to fight the virus.
Last July, when a man from South Korea defected to the North, North Korea declared a national emergency for fear he might have brought the virus.
But Mr. Kim has also shown confidence that at least his inner circles were virus-free, sometimes presiding over meetings of party elites where no one wore masks.
During the meeting on Tuesday, Mr. Kim urged party officials to double down on his efforts to build a “self-reliant” economy. As North Korea’s economy has been hit hard by the pandemic, Mr. Kim has acknowledged that his five-year plan for growth had failed and instructed his officials to wage an “arduous march” through difficult economic times. This month, he warned of a looming food shortage.
The party meeting on Tuesday “suggests that the situation in the country has worsened beyond the capacity of self-reliance,” said Leif-Eric Easley, an associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.
“Pyongyang may be setting up a domestic political narrative to allow the acceptance of foreign vaccines and pandemic assistance,” he said. “Kim is likely to blame scapegoats for this incident, purging disloyal government officials and replacing them with others considered more capable.”
17. Seoul to push for video-linked family reunion as priority project with North: Cheong Wa Dae
Zoom reunions. Remember why these families are not reunited. It is solely because of the policy of the regime. It is the cause of immense psychological and emotional suffering on both sides of the DMZ. Does anyone think a Zoom call will relieve the pain and suffering caused solely by the Kim family regime?
Seoul to push for video-linked family reunion as priority project with North: Cheong Wa Dae | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, July 29 (Yonhap) -- The government will push for a video-linked reunion of divided families with North Korea as the most urgent inter-Korean project, Cheong Wa Dae said Thursday.
A presidential official made the remark when asked to comment on speculation that the government is seeking a video-linked reunion event with the North, following Tuesday's restoration of communication lines between the two Koreas.
"It is an issue agreed upon by the leaders of South and North Korea, and (video reunions are) the most effective way to immediately move forward in the face of the coronavirus situation," the official said.
President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed in April 2018 to "swiftly resolve the humanitarian issues that resulted from the division of the nation" including the reunion of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.
The two Koreas held their last face-to-face reunion of separated families in August 2018.
"The separated families are the most urgent humanitarian issue, and must be resolved as a top priority," the official said, vowing efforts to continue consultations with the North on the matter.
The speculation on the reunions arose after South and North Korea announced their leaders' agreement to improve ties on Tuesday, restoring communication lines that had been cut off for more than a year amid stalled nuclear negotiations.
During a weekly session of the National Security Council (NSC) standing committee on Thursday, South Korea's top security officials discussed ways to improve relations with the North, checking progress made after the two Koreas reopened their communication channels.
The participants decided to strengthen consultations with related countries for a prompt resumption of U.S.-North Korea talks, Cheong Wa Dae said.
The NSC meeting was chaired by Suh Hoon, director of national security at Cheong Wa Dae.
(END)
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.
