Quotes of the Day:

“Self-education, I firmly believe, is the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self-education easier; failing that, it does nothing.

- Isaac Asimov

“I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of mediation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.

- Kurt Vonnegut

“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

- William Blake

1. Will North Korea Test a Nuclear Weapon This Year? We Put The Question to 10 Experts

2. Defense chief visits wartime command bunker to encourage allied troops

3. Russian military aircraft enter Korea's air defense zone without prior notice: S. Korean military

4. US media must lay groundwork for peace offensive on Korean peninsula

5. No, North Korea did not “manage” COVID. It piled famine on plague.

6. Hyundai supplier accused of child labor violations by U.S. authorities

7. At least 35 North Korean prisoners are said to have starved to death in July

8.  Seoul's 'audacious plan' entirely consistent with U.S. approach toward N. Korea: State

9. ‘ROK-US drill conducted to deter China,’ says Chinese media

10. [NEWS IN FOCUS] For Korea's nuclear business ambitions, it's all in the taxonomy

11. Anti-China sentiment overshadows 30th anniversary of Korea-China ties

12. N. Korea moves to bolster Storm Corps along China-North Korea border

13. US, South Korea drills give life to Kim’s worst nightmare

14. South Korea’s new stealth drone built to hunt and hit Kim

15. N. Korea eases certain travel restrictions on border residents amid “victory” against COVID-19

16. Extreme Anti-American, Pro-North Korean Protests in Seoul

1. Will North Korea Test a Nuclear Weapon This Year? We Put The Question to 10 Experts

Note the first sentence from Dr. Balbones. I am confused.

Dr. Salvator Babones, University of Sydney:

Bruce Bennett, RAND Corporation:

Dr. James Jay Carafano, Vice President at the Heritage Foundation:

Ted Galen Carpenter, CATO Institute:

Gordon G. Chang, Author of the Book the Coming Collapse of China:

Malcolm Davis, Senior Analyst, Australian Strategic Policy Institute:

Daniel L. Davis, Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and former LT. Colonel, U.S. Army, and Combat Veteran:

Wallace Gregson, former Assistant Secretary of Defense, Obama Administration:

Robert Manning, Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council:

David Maxwell, Senior Fellow for FDD:

Will North Korea Test a Nuclear Weapon This Year? We Put The Question to 10 Experts

19fortyfive.com · by Harry Kazianis · August 22, 2022

Since 2017, I have been asked one question repeatedly when it comes to North Korea: when will they test another nuclear weapon?

It’s certainly a fair and essential question to ask.

North Korea has been quiet on the atomic testing front since September 2017, when they tested their last nuclear weapon. Since then, they have claimed to have closed their nuclear testing site and pledged to no longer need to test nuclear bombs – a pledge they have rescinded on several different occasions.

Why the Kim family might want to start testing again seems straightforward, they would love to ensure their goal of deployable tactical nuclear weapons, meant for regional use on the Korean Peninsula, are of a working design. Or, perhaps they want to test further their supposed hydrogen bomb that could be put on massive ICBMs to deter the United States and its allies of something thinking about regime change.

With all of that laid out as context, I reached out to several top experts I have known for years to get a sense of what they are thinking and if we could indeed get a North Korean nuclear test this year. Here is the expert analysis I gathered, and I suspect the first response will be the most controversial of all:

Dr. Salvator Babones, University of Sydney: North Korea does not have nuclear weapons, but that doesn’t mean it won’t test them.

A strong case can be made that North Korea’s entire nuclear program has been nothing but a nuclear Potemkin village.

Certainly, North Korea possesses medium-range missile technology and enough fissile material to create a dangerous number of dirty bombs. But every North Korean nuclear test, from the first fizzle in 2006 to the supposed H-bomb of 2017, occurred under suspicious circumstances and generated contradictory data.

The narrative that North Korea is a real nuclear weapons state serves the interests of everyone involved in North Korean affairs, from the think tank analysts to the Western intelligence agencies to the North Koreans themselves. It is, however, unconvincing when examined skeptically by an outside observer with no horse in the race.

Will Kim Jong-un “test” a nuclear device, in order to challenge the Biden administration, assert his independence from China, and make himself relevant again?

He might well do so. He will have more latitude to make a ploy for the world’s attention once China’s Xi Jinping has re-cemented his place at the top of China’s power hierarchy. Any decision to stage a seventh test (with an emphasis on the word “stage”) will depend on the leadership situations in China, the United States, and North Korea at the time. Ironically, it seems likely that China’s situation will be the most stable of the three, and if Xi decides to use his renewed political mandate to assert his power abroad, a North Korean nuclear test might be targeted as much at Beijing as at Washington or Seoul.

Whoever the political target may be, skeptical observers should ask: qui bono? If the answer is “nearly everyone involved,” they should be skeptical indeed.

North Korean Special-Operations Forces. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Bruce Bennett, RAND Corporation: “North Korea usually commits its provocations like nuclear weapon tests to achieve both political and military objectives. On the political side, North Korea probably wants to attract media attention, demonstrate regime empowerment (for internal purposes), and coerce the ROK/US into offering concessions, among other things. The North may be waiting for major regime events to achieve its political purposes. For example, the North Korean National Day—the day when the North commemorates the founding of its country, is September 9. The last two North Korean nuclear weapon tests were both done in early September, associated with this date.

But the North’s military objectives may be dominating.

Many people argue that the North’s 7th test will be of a tactical nuclear weapon. That may be true, but the North’s first 5 tests were all of weapons that had a tactical nuclear weapon yield of less that 20 Kt. So another North Korean test with modest explosive power would be nothing new. The North may instead be hoping to set off a nuclear weapon with a much bigger yield than even its 6th nuclear weapon test—perhaps 500 Kt or 1 Mt. If so, Kim’s scientists may be telling him that they are not sure they can get that result yet. Kim won’t want a nuclear test that fails to exceed the yield of his 6th test significantly if this is the case, so he may be waiting for the scientists to tell him that they have mastered the needed design. That might require more time than being ready by the end of the year.”

Dr. James Jay Carafano, Vice President at the Heritage Foundation: “There is no reason why they can’t. They don’t like the South Korean regime which has taken a harder line on dealing with the North. At the same time, the Biden administration has shown little interest in engaging. North Korea doesn’t like to be pressed or ignored. So sure, a test could definitively be in the works. Expect Biden in response to finger wave and little more.”

Ted Galen Carpenter, CATO Institute: “It is now more likely than not that North Korea will conduct a nuclear test before the end of 2022. Even if it does not occur that soon, a test sometime in 2023 is almost certain. Washington’s sterile policy toward Pyongyang bears a great share of the blame.

During Donald Trump’s administration, it appeared that the United States and North Korea were making progress toward establishing something akin to a normal relationship. As part of that rapprochement, Pyongyang embraced a self-imposed moratorium on both missile tests and nuclear tests. Unfortunately, the Trump administration abandoned its promising approach and reverted to the long-standing U.S. policy of demanding that North Korea commit to full de-nuclearization before meaningful negotiations can take place on other issues. Washington’s demand guaranteed a perpetual impasse—even as North Korea expanded its nuclear arsenal and missile fleet.

Joe Biden’s administration has kept that futile policy on autopilot. However, Pyongyang’s growing impatience at the lack of progress toward normalizing relations was becoming apparent even during the final year of Trump’s presidency, and it intensified during the Biden years. The moratorium on missile tests has already largely unraveled. The resumption of tests confined to short-range missiles in 2021 warned tone-deaf Biden administration officials. When that signal went unheeded, tests of longer-range missiles followed.

The self-imposed moratorium on nuclear tests is the only component of Pyongyang’s restraint that remains in place. However, unless the Biden administration offers some meaningful concessions, it is just a matter of time until Kim Jong-un’s government resumes nuclear tests.

Indeed, that time may soon be measured in weeks rather than months.”

Gordon G. Chang, Author of the Book the Coming Collapse of China: “In North Korea’s one-man system, Kim Jong Un has the final say when the regime conducts the next test of a nuclear device.

Yet Kim is not entirely free to make the decision. China, for instance, could call and demand a test occur—or not occur.

Does China really have that clout in Pyongyang? Yes. When the Chinese make demands, Kim Jong Un complies. After all, in 2018 and 2019 he traveled to China four times without a return visit by Chinese ruler Xi Jinping. During the last of these trips, in January 2019, Kim spent his birthday in the Chinese capital.

Xi did not step foot in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea until June 2019, the first—and so far only—time he has done so.

Kim will continue to brag about juche—self-reliance—but the North Korean is, in reality, a vassal.

Xi could use a foreign crisis right about now because he is being blamed for, among other things, a contracting economy, plunging property prices, and uncontrollable COVID-19 outbreaks. Being seen as solving the next Korean crisis would go a long way to bolstering his image at home.

It appears Xi will meet President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Bali in mid-November. My guess: Kim will pull the trigger on the eve of the meeting and Xi, in return for significant concessions from Biden, will promise the American leader to rein in Kim. This stratagem worked with George W. Bush and during the first term of the “Obama-Biden administration,” so the Chinese undoubtedly believe it will work now.”

Malcolm Davis, Senior Analyst, Australian Strategic Policy Institute: “The resumption of US-South Korean exercises later this month is likely to coincide with a growing risk that North Korea could proceed with a new round of nuclear testing. In particular, Pyongyang looks set to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on short-range missiles that are designed to offer the North a means to both coerce and deter. Tactical nuclear weapons aimed at South Korea could be used coercively to force South Korea to make concessions in a crisis, or offset the ROK’s conventional superiority, while strategic nuclear weapons on ICBMs and IRBMs could be employed to deter US responses if, in a crisis, Pyongyang were to use a tactical nuclear weapon against the south. Pyongyang may be taking a leaf out of Russia’s playbook with its own ‘escalate to de-escalate doctrine, to which tactical nuclear weapons contribute a key role.

Those tactical nuclear weapons will likely need to be tested to make sure they are effective, especially in generating very low yields. Pyongyang seems intent on restoring its principle nuclear test site at Punggye-ri even as it continues to test a range of battlefield rockets and short-range ballistic missiles that would be suited to deliver low-yield battlefield nuclear weapons.

Another key issue regarding the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons by North Korea is whether Kim Jong Un would be willing to devolve nuclear launch authority for such weapons to lower levels of command within the DPRK Army, to mitigate the risks posed by possible South Korean or US non-nuclear decapitation strikes.

Overall, the potential risk of a new North Korean nuclear test, potentially this year, combined with apparent moves by the north to develop and deploy tactical nuclear weapons, and uncertainty over nuclear command and control arrangements will make future crises on the peninsula a more perilous prospect. In a major crisis in the north, whether positive control of tactical nuclear forces is maintained adds to uncertainty and risk of inadvertent escalation.

How the Biden Administration, and the government of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol would respond to a new North Korean nuclear test remains uncertain. There seems little prospect for the ‘comprehensive and irreversible denuclearisation’ of North Korea that has been an objective of both the former Trump Administration, and remains the objective of the current Biden Administration. New North Korean nuclear tests, combined with deployment of tactical nuclear weapons would force the Biden Administration to take visible steps to reinforce extended nuclear deterrence security guarantees for South Korea, and also Japan, or potentially see the South Koreans take their own steps to acquire an independent deterrent. This prospect, when seen in a broader global context of growing nuclear risks emerging from a revanchist Russia, a rapid nuclear expansion by China, and the prospect of failure in negotiations to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, suggest a new North Korean nuclear test could dramatically raise the pressure on non-proliferation regimes, and demand a more robust deterrence posture by the US.”

Daniel L. Davis, Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and former LT. Colonel, U.S. Army, and Combat Veteran – “I assess there is a medium-high chance that North Korea conducts another underground test of a nuclear warhead before the end of the year. It’s not a certainty but is in the ‘likely’ category.

Though many suggest the chances are high or even certain, I am less convinced. The reason: North Korea has a technical requirement to physically test a nuclear weapon to validate the development and advancement of its program. I believe that they will conduct the test when they have made all scientific and technical preparations and when their systems and testing facilities are ready. That could come anytime, but it may also be delayed into 2023.

The driver, in my view, will not be any elevation in the political, diplomatic, or national security environment, and thus I do not hold that the recent rise in heated rhetoric between the North and South presages a nuclear test, as though the test would be a response signal. Rather, I believe that Pyongyang’s fiery rhetoric against Washington and Seoul is in keeping with historical norms while the nuclear test will be conducted when Kim Jong Un’s objective to elevate the capacity and reliability of his nuclear force can be met, regardless of the prevailing political and military situation.”

North Korea Ballistic Missile Test. Image Credit: North Korean State Media.

Wallace Gregson, former Assistant Secretary of Defense, Obama Administration: Predicting Kim’s behavior is a sucker’s game. Predicting any autocratic ruler’s behavior is largely guesswork. Recall the sober analysts, both here and in Ukraine, predicting that Putin would not invade his neighbor.

Nevertheless, rising to this “mission impossible,” I put the chances of another North Korean nuclear test before our new year somewhere between 60 and 75%.

I base my prediction on four factors.

The first is the nature of autocratic regimes with a long-serving ruler. The framework of their logic bears very little relationship to ours. They have internal pressures and threats, largely arising from purges and “disappearances” engineered. Real or imagined is immaterial, as each incident serves to intimidate others. Saying that something “would not make sense” only means it does not make sense to us.

The second is the value of a provocative and outrageous diversion when domestic conditions are pressing. The Covid epidemic in North Korea, reportedly vanquished with fewer casualties than every other nation, is a serious challenge. There are others.

The third is a perception of adversary weakness or distraction. China’s coercion of Taiwan serves that purpose.

Fourth is “use it or lose it.” Increasing our capabilities can provide that condition.”

Robert Manning, Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council: “I would put the odds at 60-40 that Kim will conduct a 7th nuclear test in 2022. From overhead satellite observation, we know that they completed preparations for a text earlier this year.

The more intriguing question is why they have not tested?

I can’t produce the evidence, but I’m guessing China is a major reason. A North Korean nuclear test would likely put Xi in a difficult position. Where China roundly condemned Kim’s last nuclear test, cooperating in applying (and for a time, mostly enforcing) UNSC sanctions, I thing that given the collapsing state of US-China relations, it would become another test of US-China relations. My bet is that Xi would likely not cooperate and back UN sanctions. Chinese nationalists would blame the US “hostile policy.”

And the event would mark another downward turn in US-China ties. I have to wonder if there is any correlation between the uptick in Chinese oil, food and medical goods to Pyongyang and Kim’s restraint on nuclear testing. At the end of the day, I suspect if Kim feels he needs to test to perfect a warhead for an SLBM, cruise missile or tactical nuke, he will wait for some event, such as the current US-ROK Ulchi Focus military exercise, and use that to shift blame.”

David Maxwell, Senior Fellow for FDD: “Yes, it is likely that the Kim family regime will test a nuclear weapon because it supports its three-pronged strategy of political warfare, blackmail diplomacy, and advanced warfighting capabilities. All three contribute to the strategic objective of dominating the peninsula under the Guerilla Dynasty and Gulag State.

Image: Creative Commons.

Testing a weapon provides a provocation that increases threats and tension to coerce political and economic concessions. At the same time, it advances its nuclear capabilities, which will be used when the north attacks the South. The timing will depend on when Kim thinks he can achieve the optimal effects.”

Expert Biography: Harry J. Kazianis (@Grecianformula) serves as President and CEO of Rogue States Project, a bipartisan national security think tank. He has held senior positions at the Center for the National Interest, the Heritage Foundation, the Potomac Foundation, and many other think tanks and academic institutions focused on defense issues. His ideas have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, CNN, CNBC, and many other outlets across the political spectrum. He holds a graduate degree focusing on International Relations from Harvard University and is the author of the book The Tao of A2/AD, a study of Chinese military modernization.

Editor’s Note: This piece has been updated to include more expert analysis from Ted Galen Carpenter, Bruce Bennett from RAND, Wallace Gregson, and Gordon Chang.

Additional Editor’s Note: We updated this piece on 8/23/2022 to include a submission by expert Malcolm Davis.

19fortyfive.com · by Harry Kazianis · August 22, 2022

2. Defense chief visits wartime command bunker to encourage allied troops

Ah... CP Tango. I wonder if the air filtration system has improved. All the years spent underground in that bunker has had to have negative effects on many of us.

Excellent comment from the MINDEF.

The minister's trip to CP Tango, or Command Post Theater Air Naval Ground Operations, in Seongnam came a day after the start of the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise set to run thorough Sept. 1.

In a meeting with the troops, Lee cited a famous quote from the movie "Top Gun: Maverick" to highlight the importance of the role that each service member plays in a major battle, according to the ministry.

"It's not the plane, it's the pilot," he said, stressing human beings, like commanders and other military personnel, are "decisive" factors in winning a war.

The minister also called for South Korean and American troops to work as "one team" to develop combined operational capabilities.

Defense chief visits wartime command bunker to encourage allied troops | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 송상호 · August 23, 2022

SEOUL, Aug. 23 (Yonhap) -- Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup visited a wartime command bunker in a city south of Seoul on Tuesday to encourage South Korean and U.S. troops engaging in a regular combined military exercise, his ministry said.

The minister's trip to CP Tango, or Command Post Theater Air Naval Ground Operations, in Seongnam came a day after the start of the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise set to run thorough Sept. 1.

In a meeting with the troops, Lee cited a famous quote from the movie "Top Gun: Maverick" to highlight the importance of the role that each service member plays in a major battle, according to the ministry.

"It's not the plane, it's the pilot," he said, stressing human beings, like commanders and other military personnel, are "decisive" factors in winning a war.

The minister also called for South Korean and American troops to work as "one team" to develop combined operational capabilities.

Nestled in a mountain, the granite bunker complex is a primary command and control center for South Korean and U.S. forces in the event of an armed conflict. It is known to be strong enough to survive a tactical nuclear attack.

The complex boasts high-tech equipment for communications linking major U.S. bases on the peninsula and elsewhere in the world, and information gathering and analysis for around-the-clock situational awareness for top commanders.

sshluck@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 송상호 · August 23, 2022

3. Russian military aircraft enter Korea's air defense zone without prior notice: S. Korean military

A Russian statement on Ulchi Freedom Guardian? Are north Korea, China, and Russia coordinating their responses?

Russian military aircraft enter Korea's air defense zone without prior notice: S. Korean military | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 송상호 · August 23, 2022

SEOUL, Aug. 23 (Yonhap) -- Russian military aircraft entered South Korea's air defense identification zone (KADIZ) without notice Tuesday, prompting the Air Force to scramble fighters to the scene, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The JCS did not provide details, like the number of Russian planes and their types.

The entry into KADIZ came amid tensions between Seoul and Moscow over the latter's invasion of Ukraine and the former's participation in international moves against the armed conflict.

"Regarding the Russian military aircraft's entry into KADIZ, our military took tactical steps in preparation against possible accidents," the JCS said in a statement.

The air defense zone is not territorial airspace but is delineated to call on foreign planes to identify themselves so as to prevent accidental clashes.

sshluck@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 송상호 · August 23, 2022

​4​.​ US media must lay groundwork for peace offensive on Korean peninsula​

Is a nuanced media narrative on north Korea even possible? The start point must be a comprehensive understanding of the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime. Can the media identify and explain those?

Mr. Plate might like to know that there are no Radio Shacks in the US as well since the company went out of business.

The big question is what is a "revolutionary reboot" of US policy toward north Korea? I think you all know my recommendation: a policy and strategy that focuses on resolving the "Korea question" (Para 60 of the Armistice) that results in a free and unified Korea - a United Republic of Korea (UROK).

Excepts:

Regional rival China has navigated a different course. It has comparatively decent diplomatic relations with both Koreas, whereas the US doesn’t even have a RadioShack in Pyongyang, much less a formal embassy. This is not smart, but American political culture views the peninsula in black and white.

The South Korean people are more sophisticated and diverse than this. Some – especially the elderly who well recall the horror of war – are not uncomfortable with the American military presence; others, especially workers and students, demonstrably want American troops to go home.

They’re right. The centrepieces of US policy – sanctions, shows of military muscle – have not been working. It’s past time for a revolutionary reboot of US policy. The media, for starters, urgently needs to tamp down the demonisation, open closed minds, help broaden diplomatic perspectives and prepare the groundwork for a well-thought-out American peace offensive.

US media must lay groundwork for peace offensive on Korean peninsula

By Tom Plate South China Morning Post4 min

View Original

• The American media was wrong on the Iraq war, and today continues to perpetuate wishful thinking on the Korean peninsula and the US military
• With sanctions on North Korea and shows of military might being largely ineffective, it’s time for a reboot of US policy and a more nuanced media narrative

Tom Plate

+ FOLLOW

Published: 3:30am, 23 Aug, 2022

Anti-war activists wearing Joe Biden and Yoon Suk-yeol masks protest against US-South Korea military drills, near the presidential office in Seoul on August 4. Photo: AFP

A media system can filter your world-view not unlike the narrowest religion claiming to know what’s best about everything. Truly professional media platforms, especially if print-based, will aim to do right by you. By contrast, the powerful media institutions or systems that have the effect of shielding you from reality are an enemy. Their errors can cause serious damage. We’re not talking about miscues in the crossword puzzle but life-and-death stuff – nuclear war versus peace, for example.

For decades, I was a full-time card-carrying member of the US news media. This was a period of my life that today would have to be labelled as my professional youth. Then, in the mid-90s, I began writing columns on Asia, while teaching media and politics at university.

Next week will see the start at Loyola Marymount University of my semester-long Introduction to the Media and Politics of Asia. This is my trademark course, birthed a quarter of a century ago at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). At that time, it was the only course devoted to the political news media of Asia in the University of California higher education system.

A major theme of this course is that all media systems, in one way or the other, nurture political bias – some far more than others. This unhappy generalisation applies to the US media, of course, as well as others. This is not new: what is new is that on the major current issues of war and peace, the US media’s overall performance may be more deficient than ever.

One notorious recent example was the near-unanimous American media endorsement of the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Recall that this unbelievable blunder was launched without UN Security Council authorisation and opposed by some of our savvier European allies. This rally-around-the-president moment was a disgrace.

The weapons-of-mass-destruction capability attributed to then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was fictitious – but very extensively reported by the media. Even today, who knows how many Iraqis died or suffered horribly as the US and its allies went hunting for weapons they couldn’t find precisely because they never existed?

The subsequent American media soul-searching was commendable, but in the end may well prove more bromidic and narcissistic than ameliorative. No, our world is not best reported in stark black and white. Yes, there may be some good even in the “bad guys” and some bad in the “good guys”.

We need to keep in mind that the ever-tense Korean peninsula offers a geopolitical diorama as potentially explosive as any worldwide. The North, we are told over and over, is nothing more than a perfectly putrid communist culture. Down South, the idea being sold is of a democracy with near-model elections and an electorate largely euphoric about the US military commitment to South Korean freedom and pursuit of happiness.

02:30

North Korea tells South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to ‘shut his mouth’ after aid offer

Consider the enormous stakes involved for the peninsula. North Korea is building up its nuclear capability presumably as fast as a cash-strapped nation can, and in response South Korea sticks with the severe US economic sanctions campaign. Sold as a way of pressuring Pyongyang to begin shrinking its nuclear arsenal, its effect is to render the already poor people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea even more deprived.

Poorer North Korea may well be, but less nuclear it is not. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Yet the US leads enforcement of the harsh sanctions campaign year after year against all reason.

Joint military exercises between the US and South Korea that extend through this week are framed as entirely defensive. But Pyongyang feels existentially challenged. And nearby Beijing is concerned too. Back when Russia, which shares a sliver of a border with North Korea, was the Soviet Union, it kept North Koreans going with very substantial aid. However, Russian aid is much diminished these days.

Japan, a former coloniser of Korea, would be content if the peninsula remained divided forever, and mainly worries about the China threat. So these US-South Korean exercises, justified as peacekeeping, have the opposite effect of maintaining a miserable status quo.

Regional rival China has navigated a different course. It has comparatively decent diplomatic relations with both Koreas, whereas the US doesn’t even have a RadioShack in Pyongyang, much less a formal embassy. This is not smart, but American political culture views the peninsula in black and white.

The South Korean people are more sophisticated and diverse than this. Some – especially the elderly who well recall the horror of war – are not uncomfortable with the American military presence; others, especially workers and students, demonstrably want American troops to go home.

They’re right. The centrepieces of US policy – sanctions, shows of military muscle – have not been working. It’s past time for a revolutionary reboot of US policy. The media, for starters, urgently needs to tamp down the demonisation, open closed minds, help broaden diplomatic perspectives and prepare the groundwork for a well-thought-out American peace offensive.

LMU clinical professor Tom Plate has served as a senior editor of New York Magazine, a senior editor of Time Magazine, editorial page editor of New York Newsday, and the editor of the editorial pages of the Los Angeles Times

5. No, North Korea did not “manage” COVID. It piled famine on plague.

Important analysis from Josh Stanton.

No, North Korea did not “manage” COVID. It piled famine on plague.

freekorea.us · by Joshua · August 22, 2022

The editors of 38 North are smart, well-informed people, and so I’m puzzled by their decision to publish this submission by Heeje Lee and Samuel S. Han, a dentist and a research assistant, declaring Kim Jong-un’s victory over COVID. Unlike the usual suspects, Lee and Han don’t avoid all criticism of the North Korean system, its leaders, or its policies. They acknowledge “the weak state of the country’s health care system,” concede its widespread malnutrition, and lack of a COVID vaccination program. But their risible claim that Pyongyang “stabilized the recent outbreak in record time with minimal deaths, at least according to the official government narrative” is … certainly a take. On what basis do they contend this when so many credible sources say otherwise? By relying almost exclusively on North Korean state media—their only footnote cites the Rodong Sinmun!

There is little available data that accurately portrays the current COVID-19 situation of North Korea. In fact, the only source is the national reports that are published daily by the government-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

But there are plenty of independent and credible sources, and we’re about to review what they tell us. There would be more if Kim Jong-un hadn’t kicked out all but three foreign aid workers and repeatedly rejected offers of food and medical aid. And it should go without saying that no one should rely on KCNA for anything, except for how to run a ten-year con job on the Associated Press. Unfortunately, behind “the official government narrative,” Kim’s strategy hasn’t worked. Recent reports from inside North Korea still tell us that the pandemic is still raging, preying on the malnourished, the very old, and the very young especially. As recently as June, there were reports of malnourished children dying after experiencing COVID-like symptoms. Last week, the Daily NK reported that large numbers of people in Kilju County, where Kim Jong-un tests his nukes, were experiencing COVID-like symptoms. Kim Jong-un’s “treatment”—a blockade that’s causing untold misery and starvation—might be worse than the disease, and remains in place despite his claims of victory.

Things only get worse when the authors try to explain the “success” of Kim Jong-un’s “stewardship.”

They declared a national emergency immediately after the first confirmed COVID-19 case,

That’s almost certainly false. North Korea began 2020 with a neglected, underfunded, and dilapidated public health system, and a sick and hungry population. For all of these reasons, North Korea was exceptionally vulnerable to a pandemic. Its government didn’t admit to its first COVID case until May of 2022. But as Lina Yoon of Human Rights Watch wrote last year, despite the state’s claims of “no recorded COVID-19 infections,” “media outlets with sources inside North Korea reported accounts of COVID-like symptoms and deaths among soldiers, and possible outbreaks in the northern cities of Manpo and Chongjin.” Amnesty International isn’t buying the state’s belated admission of the pandemic’s arrival, either, noting the “unofficial sources who reported high numbers of infections and deaths, and cremations taking place before the cause of death could be determined.”

ordered a nationwide lockdown,

That lockdown is enforced by shoot-on-sight orders at the border, which the authors did not mention. Kim first imposed the blockade in January 2020. The shoot-on-sight orders came to light later that year. According to a UN Special Rapporteur, “Draconian measures have further strengthened the State’s control over the population, such as the policy of shooting individuals who attempt to enter or leave the country.” And as Human Rights Watch, the Daily NK, and Rimjin-gang have repeatedly told us, that blockade has caused untold suffering, starvation, and death on a scale we haven’t observed since the Great Famine. People are begging on the streets. Children collapse from hunger. There has been a surge in back-alley abortions. People starve in their homes until the authorities come around to gather and cremate them. Bodies of women, children, and babies float downstream from North Korea to South Korea—one of them still wearing her Kim Il-sung pin. Food insecurity affects more than 60 percent of the people, according to one estimate. The complete, state-imposed isolation and secrecy don’t even allow us to know where, which, or how many people are starving, except that the poor suffer the most. A UN Special Rapporteur has called for the blockade to be lifted.

If the blockade isn’t an effective pandemic control measure, why impose it? Another Human Rights Watch scholar, John Sifton, sees it as “a pretext to further entrench totalitarian rule and keep North Koreans isolated from the rest of the world.” Yoon also suspects that the blockade “may even be an attempt to return to ultra-strict controls in past decades, when the government controlled all information and the distribution of food and materials, while prohibiting ‘free market’ activities.” Satellite images today show a dramatic decrease in market activity. Poor North Koreans depend on markets to supplement state rations that are rarely enough to live on. Kim may be trying to roll the clock back to the 1990s, when a discriminatory, corrupt, and inefficient rationing system allowed millions to starve to death. Now, Kim is spreading the pseudoscientific nonsense that dissidents based in South Korea introduced COVID through leaflets, in an apparent pretext for extraterritorial censorship or acts of war.

We’re due, after all.

and delivered medicine and food to houses

No, they didn’t. Outside the privileged capital, most people get no distributions of medicine and often, can’t even buy it in the markets. Days before Kim Jong-un declared victory over COVID, the state declared that it would execute anyone selling medicine on the black market. The medicine that the state does deliver can be unsafe. In some cases, the state distributed medicines for the use of adults to children, which killed them. Patients also die because they lack instructions about how to take the medicines.

while promoting the production of domestic medicine.

North Korea’s pharmaceutical industry produces first-rate counterfeit Viagra, and highly pure meth and heroin for the export market. For its poor, it makes herbal and folk medicines that don’t work: “eating honey when coughing,” “decoction of gold or silver figs or willow leaves.” Kim’s blockade has prevented imports of effective ones. He won’t accept U.S. our South Korean medicines. He only made a significant effort to import medical supplies to deal with the pandemic two and a half years after it began. Maybe in a moment of mercy, Kim decided to test one less missile to pay for them, probably for the elites in Pyongyang.

State media has also reported the case numbers and provided medical information about COVID-19 daily.

North Koreans know those numbers are fake. Local officials have almost no test kits and have no way of knowing who has COVID. Cases they suspect, they underreport because they’re afraid of being blamed and punished. Authorities cremate the bodies of suspected victims without establishing a cause of death or allowing the families to hold funerals. Poor North Koreans certainly don’t believe state statistics.

With limited geographic mobility and domestic migration even before the pandemic, North Korean society is set up in a way that makes controlling the transmission of this airborne virus easier than in most countries.

Which is to say, North Korea’s totalitarian system allows it to enforce death by starvation instead of death by disease.

In short, North Korea was able to quickly stop community spread through aggressive public health measures, and as such, has not experienced a catastrophic situation.

Eventually, the authors touch lightly on the question of vaccines.

Although the nation has a history of success in mass vaccinations, few, if any, COVID-19 vaccines are known to have been administered.

Today, North Korea is one of just two countries on earth without a COVID vaccine program. The authors concede that Pyongyang refused (or ignored) offers of vaccines from AstraZeneca and China’s (less effective) Sinovac. They might also have mentioned Joe Biden. North Koreans who hear that South Koreans are vaccinated for COVID are often stunned to learn that the vaccine even exists. They cite one example of a successful vaccination campaign—a 2007 measles vaccination program that reached 3.3 million out of roughly 23 million North Koreans. The fact that the North Korean government just expelled teams of aid workers, including those who were trying to control a multi-decade outbreak of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, should cause us to question its “history of success.”

~ ~ ~

And the authors’ conclusion? First, great job, North Korea! Second, that “the international community” should vault money over the DMZ for medical aid programs at North Korea, because after all, “its ideology of self-reliance prevents international cooperation,” presumably including monitors to make sure we aren’t doing what Medicins Sans Frontieres called “aid-dumping” in its epic memoir of its failed aid efforts during the Great Famine. That memoir—really, a compilation of contemporaneous emails, internal reports, and press reports—should be required reading for anyone recommending or making aid policy for North Korea. It tells the story of a state that, having learned decades ago to deceive and manipulate Soviet Bloc donors, found easy marks in European (and especially American) aid workers who were greedy to ingratiate themselves with Pyongyang and exceptionally naive about how they did so.

I’m more inclined to believe that these authors just didn’t do their research than believe they intentionally echoed the state’s propaganda and selectively disregarded everything that contradicted it. If only they’d spent a few minutes reading the outstanding and hard-hitting work of Human Rights Watch’s Lina Yoon, whose work has the advantage of listening to the North Korean people, or this well-researched commentary that calls North Korea’s response to the pandemic “a state-fueled tragedy.” Without clarity and truth, even the best intentions can do serious harm. For four decades, our refusal to face the real nature of the state in Pyongyang has prolonged North Korea’s humanitarian crisis. The risks of more outbreaks from new variants are rising. Now that we’ve all made a grim peace with the inevitability of more variants, any premature declaration of victory is sure to end as badly as it began. Just weeks ago, the World Health Organization warned that the pandemic in North Korea was likely going to get “worse, not better.” Even Pyongyang insists that despite its “victory,” the blockade at the border will remain, even if it ends up killing more North Koreans than the pandemic. Pyongyang’s declaration isn’t just transparent bullshit—forgive me for rephrasing the expert consensus—it’s dangerous bullshit that obstructs effective humanitarian and public health responses.

~ ~ ~

Still, we can assign the authors to a different category than the usual suspects who are mostly or entirely silent about Kim Jong-un’s blockade, but decry targeted counterproliferation sanctions for causing hunger and suffering, despite their many humanitarian safety valves—Christine Ahn, Kee Park, Henri Feron, Dan Jasper, or recently appointed State Department “senior advisor” Jessica Lee. Kee Park actually defends the blockade, writing, “To its credit, this strategy of prioritizing the prevention of the virus from entering its borders seemed highly effective, with apparently no confirmed cases for over two years.”

Lee, whose responsibilities will now include explaining the State Department’s policies to Congress, blames sanctions (rather than the blockade, or Kim’s culpable misappropriation of resources, or attacks on private agriculture) for food shortages. She has criticized State Department visa restrictions on travel to North Korea, whose government has a tendency to take aid workers hostage. She omits to mention that aid workers are eligible for exemptions to the policy, and that NGOs can easily avoid the restriction by hiring non-U.S. employees. She offers token criticism of Kim’s expulsion of aid workers, rejection of food aid and vaccines, and a blockade that has almost completely stopped aid shipments. Whatever the regrettable effects of sanctions—the solution to which is targeted humanitarian aid for workers in sanctioned industries, but which Kim Jong-un refuses—the effects of the blockade are far greater.

Hypocrites, the lot of them. Kim Jong-un’s indiscriminate blockade not only prevented North Koreans from importing food, it prevented them from importing fertilizer, seed, and other materials they need to grow it. It has exacerbated North Korea’s long-standing food crisis profoundly, and its effects are felt most acutely by the country’s poorest people. When people repeatedly demand the lifting of targeted sanctions that inhibit the state’s proliferation, crimes against humanity, systematic kleptocracy, and militarization, while remaining silent about the state’s own indiscriminate blockade of people whose poverty it has enforced for generation after generation, it’s fair to assume that these critics aren’t motivated a sincere interest in peace or the welfare of the people.

0Shares

freekorea.us · by Joshua · August 22, 2022

6. Hyundai supplier accused of child labor violations by U.S. authorities

​Ouch.

Hyundai supplier accused of child labor violations by U.S. authorities

Reuters · by Mica Rosenberg

• Companies
• SL Corp

NEW YORK, Aug 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Labor on Monday accused a Korean-owned auto parts maker and supplier of Hyundai Motor Co of violating federal child labor laws at an Alabama factory, federal court filings reviewed by Reuters show.

The Department of Labor (DOL) said that SL Alabama LLC, a subsidiary of South Korea's SL Corp (005850.KS), employed underage workers at its Alexander City, Alabama factory, according to filings on Monday with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

Since last November, SL Alabama "repeatedly violated" labor regulations by "employing oppressive child labor" and "minors under the age of 16," the DOL said in a six-page complaint.

In a statement to Reuters, SL Alabama admitted children had worked at the plant, which makes headlights, rear lights and other components for companies including Hyundai and its Kia affiliate. SL said the minors had been hired by an outside labor recruitment firm, which it didn't identify.

The revelations come one month after Reuters reported the use of child labor at another Alabama auto parts plant operated by Hyundai subsidiary SMART Alabama LLC. read more The Alabama Department of Labor at the time said it would coordinate with federal authorities to probe labor practices at that plant.

The discovery of child workers at a second Hyundai supplier signals widening scrutiny of labor practices in the automaker's U.S. supply chain. In an emailed statement late Monday, Hyundai said "it does not tolerate illegal employment practices in any Hyundai entity."

"We have policies and procedures in place that require compliance with all local, state, and federal laws," it added.

Along with the complaint against SL Alabama, a proposed settlement agreement between the government and the parts manufacturer was filed with the court. Under the terms of that agreement, SL Alabama agreed to stop hiring minors, punish any managers aware of the use of underage employees, and suspend any relationship with any recruiters who supply child workers.

The proposed agreement was signed Aug 18 by an SL Alabama attorney and a Department of Labor lawyer. It hasn't yet been signed by a judge.

The filings didn't detail how many minors worked at SL Alabama or what type of jobs they performed. It isn't clear whether the company or the labor contractors it works with face any fines or other penalties.

The DOL didn't respond to requests for comment.

In its statement to Reuters, SL Alabama said "we fully cooperated with the investigation by the Department of Labor, and we are in the process of complementing our verification system so that minors will not work going forward."

Both federal and Alabama law prohibit teens and children under the age of sixteen from working in most industrial factory settings because they can be dangerous for minors.

SL Alabama employs about 650 people at the Alabama facility, according to its website. Parent company SL Corp also operates a factory in Tennessee and research facility in Michigan.

Previous Reuters reporting has shown how some minors, often immigrants, get hired for Alabama factory jobs through recruitment agencies. read more

Although staffing firms help fill industrial jobs nationwide, they have been criticized by labor advocates because they enable employers to outsource responsibility for vetting employees and their eligibility to work.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comReporting by Mica Rosenberg and Joshua Schneyer in New York and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Kristina Cooke in San Francisco. Editing by Paulo Prada

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Mica Rosenberg

7. At least 35 North Korean prisoners are said to have starved to death in July

More examples of the evil nature of the Kim family regime.

At least 35 North Korean prisoners are said to have starved to death in July

COVID restrictions kept families from bringing the extra food that inmates rely on to stay alive.

By Hyemin Son for RFA Korean

2022.08.22

rfa.org

At least 35 North Korean women serving time at prisons north of the capital Pyongyang died of malnutrition in July because their relatives could not visit them to deliver food due to COVID-19 restrictions, sources in the country told RFA.

Though Kaechon Prison in South Pyongan province provides food for inmates, it is not nearly enough, especially since prisoners are made to perform hard labor for long hours every day. Their survival depends on their families bringing them extra food when they visit.

North Korea in May declared a “national maximum emergency” after a major outbreak of the virus the previous month. During the emergency, which only ended this month, families who live far away from the prison could not make the trip.

As a result, malnutrition cases increased among the prison population, and 20 women lost their lives, a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA’s Korean Service Aug. 18, on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Last week, I visited my sister at Kaechon Prison and she told me 20 female prisoners died from malnutrition and harsh labor,” the source said.

Prior to the pandemic, it was normal for three or four prisoners to die each month, she said.

The source’s younger sister is serving a five-year sentence for getting caught making phone calls to a family member who had escaped the country and resettled in South Korea.

“There are still about 50 prisoners diagnosed with malnutrition in the women's prison and they were isolated into a group of sick inmates. They can't get up or sit down. They seem like they are waiting to die,” said the source.

“When a death occurs … the guard enters the prison and piles the bodies on one side. At the end of each month, the prisoners are told to transport the dead bodies on a stretcher to bury them in the mountains behind the prison,” she said.

According to the source, families normally visit their inmates and deliver foods like corn flour that can last until their next visit.

“The increased number of prisoners dying of malnutrition was due to the restriction of movement during the COVID-19 outbreak. It became difficult for families to come and visit,” she said.

“The prisoners cannot withstand intense labor after only eating a single rice ball each day as provided by the prison,” said the source.

Prisoners in Chungsan Prison, also in South Pyongan province, are allowed to receive family visits once every three months, a resident of the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“As the movement of residents was restricted, residents closer to Chungsan prison were able to provide food to their families in prison. But it was difficult for those who live far away, like out here in Ryanggang province,” he said

“They can only come using servi-cha and can bring food only once every six months,” said the source. Servi-cha are privately owned trucks or vans that can be hired to transport goods or people to places inaccessible by trains and buses.

The second source said that there are some in Chungsan Prison who have not received any food from their families during the pandemic.

“Prisoners with family and acquaintances bringing in outside food will barely survive prison, but prisoners without outside food die of malnutrition. In the past month, 15 prisoners died of malnutrition in the women's prison,” said the second source.

“When a prisoner dies, the prison calls the police from the prisoner’s hometown and asks them to take the body to the family,” he said. “However, during the COVID emergency, the family is charged with taking responsibility for the body. If they cannot arrive in time, the dead bodies are rolled up in straw bags and buried around the prison.”

After facing a barrage of international criticism over its treatment of prisoners, North Korea in 2015 began punishing officials in prisons where many inmates died, according to the second source.

Since then, families have been allowed to visit every month instead of every three months, and 10 percent of the food they brought was required to be shared with the entire prison population so that prisoners who have no one visiting them still receive the extra food.

But since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, family visits were once again reduced to once per three months. With much less food coming in, malnutrition among the prison population increased rapidly, he said.

Rather than taking measures to prevent malnutrition, however, North Korean authorities are doing their best to prevent news of the deaths getting out, both sources said.

RFA was not able to independently confirm the malnutrition death toll for the two South Pyongan prisons.

False victory

North Korea declared victory against coronavirus and ended the maximum emergency order on Aug. 10, declaring the country completely virus free, but sources told RFA that suspected cases continue to report to quarantine centers.

A source in South Pyongan told RFA that anyone with a fever higher than 37 degrees celsius (98.6 Fahrenheit) must be separated and quarantined.

“Currently, about 150 patients who are quarantined at the Anju Hotel are supplied with two fever reducers per day and they get to gargle with salt water three times a day for 7 to 15 days. They can be released only after the fever symptoms disappear,” she said.

“In a building in Songchongang district of Hamhung City, about 200 fever patients are currently quarantined,” a resident in the eastern province of South Hamgyong province told RFA.

“The city’s quarantine command requires doctors to check the body temperature of every resident of each household every morning,” she said. “They have to register and report residents with temperatures of 37 degrees Celsius or higher.”

The fourth source criticized the government’s declaration of victory over coronavirus: “For whom is this false propaganda that the authorities have declared the end of the maximum emergency?”

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

rfa.org

8.  Seoul's 'audacious plan' entirely consistent with U.S. approach toward N. Korea: State

I am sure MOFA and State coordinated policy here.

(LEAD) Seoul's 'audacious plan' entirely consistent with U.S. approach toward N. Korea: State | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 변덕근 · August 23, 2022

(ATTN: UPDATES with more remarks from department spokesperson, additional background in last 5 paras)

By Byun Duk-kun

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's offer to help North Korea in exchange for denuclearization is entirely consistent with the United States' own plan to rid the North of its nuclear ambition, a state department spokesperson said Monday.

Ned Price also called on Pyongyang to respond positively to Seoul's outreach.

"We have been clear about our support for the bold or the ambitious plan that the South Korean administration has put forward," the department press secretary said in a daily press briefing.

"It's a plan that's entirely consistent with our approach to the DPRK's nuclear weapons program, to its ballistic missile program in that it sees the potential for practical, incremental advancements towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," added Price.

DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.

The remarks come after Kim Yo-jong, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister, rejected South Korea's offer to help improve the North Korean economy in exchange for denuclearization.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol offered last week to launch aid programs for the impoverished North as long as the country showed its commitment to denuclearize.

Kim Yo-jong dismissed the offer as absurd, adding the North would never sit face-to-face with the Yoon administration to discuss its denuclearization.

Price said the U.S. and its allies will continue to reach out to Pyongyang for dialogue.

"We have seen periods of engagements from the DPRK. We have seen periods of provocation from the DPRK. It's very clear that we are in a period that has been characterized by the latter," said he.

"We are going to continue to be clear about what we are prepared to do and what we seek collectively to achieve with our South Korean allies, with our Japanese allies, and we will continue to convey those messages both publicly and directly to the DPRK," he added.

The department spokesperson also urged Pyongyang to return to dialogue.

"We have conveyed publicly, we have also conveyed repeatedly, privately to the DPRK that we are ready and willing to engage in that dialogue and diplomacy. The DPRK has more recently heard that same message from the new administration in South Korea," said Price.

"We believe it is incumbent on the DPRK to respond and to respond affirmatively to that, knowing that, believing that we can achieve progress towards what is a collective goal," he added.

North Korea has avoided denuclearization talks since late 2019.

The country is widely believed to be preparing to conduct what will be its seventh nuclear test.

bdk@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 변덕근 · August 23, 2022

9. ‘ROK-US drill conducted to deter China,’ says Chinese media

For China everything is always about China (in all fairness we think every action taken is about the US too!)

But I would like to know the Chinese analysis of the exercise as a deterrent? How does China think it is deterred? Does the exercises sufficiently flex US muscles and does that muscle flexing sufficiently deter CHina (and deter it from what).

Note how the Global Times invokes Japan and the possibility it could participate in the exercise. Seems like an obvious attempt to create friction between the ROK and Japan.

‘ROK-US drill conducted to deter China,’ says Chinese media

donga.com

Posted August. 23, 2022 07:43,

Updated August. 23, 2022 07:43

‘ROK-US drill conducted to deter China,’ says Chinese media. August. 23, 2022 07:43. by Ki-Yong Kim kky@donga.com.

Chinese state media reported that the ROK-U.S. combined military exercise-Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) is the U.S. strategy that aims to keep China in check which will raise tensions in the Asia-Pacific region.” Ahead of the ROK-U.S. military drill, China expanded its military exercise near the Taiwan Strait to include the Shandong Peninsula and Bohai Bay which are geographically close to the Korean peninsula. As China-U.S. ties have become more confrontational, not only North Korea but also China is conducting a military exercise targeting or directly denouncing the drill.

The Global Times, an English-language Chinese newspaper, reported on Monday that the purpose of the UFS is to flex Washington's muscle in the Asia-Pacific region and to demonstrate its military presence in the region and to deter China.”

According to the Global Times, the ties between the U.S. and China hit a new low after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid a provocative visit to the island of Taiwan and the military drills would escalate tensions in the Korean Peninsula, which have always been regarded as a ‘powder keg’ in the Asia-Pacific region, and the development of the situation in the peninsula would affect the peace and stability of Northeast Asia and even all of Asia." The newspaper added that during the drills, the U.S. is likely to deploy more strategic weapons, such as aircraft carriers and strategic bombers, China needs to be vigilant on this.

“If chaos breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, it will also pose a threat to China's national security. China will not sit idly by," Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert, told the Global Times. “The drills will inevitably attract the attention of Japan, and I cannot rule out the possibility that Japan could be involved in the ROK-US military exercises in the future. The U.S. is making efforts in building a trilateral military alliance.”

한국어

donga.com

10. [NEWS IN FOCUS] For Korea's nuclear business ambitions, it's all in the taxonomy

​South Korea is a "K-nuclear power."

​Tuesday

August 23, 2022

 dictionary + A - A 

[NEWS IN FOCUS] For Korea's nuclear business ambitions, it's all in the taxonomy

https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2022/08/23/business/industry/nuclear-power-nuclear-energy-korean-green/20220823182715943.html

A nuclear reactor in Barakah, the United Arab Emirates [YONHAP]

The "K-taxonomy" could help Korea in signing nuclear power projects overseas, but the green energy classification may not be enough for investors. 

A green taxonomy is a list of economic activities considered environmentally sustainable. It describes which activities and assets that can be defined as green. As ambiguity over such definitions has long acted as a barrier to scaling up green finance, it will help banks and investors determine which companies or financial products are considered eco-friendly. 

Amid the global comeback of once-shunned nuclear energy, the Korean version of the taxonomy will be announced as early as September, and is expected to have a significant effect on Korea's plan to sell 10 nuclear power plants by 2030.

During a policy meeting with President Yoon Suk-yeol on July 22, Environment Minister Han Hwa-jin said that the ministry "will include nuclear power in the Korean green taxonomy to attract green investments from the financial industry."

The first draft of Korea's taxonomy guidelines was released in December last year under the Moon Jae-in administration, but nuclear power was not included in the list. Yoon's transition committee in March pledged to scrap the former president's nuclear phase-out policy, and to include nuclear energy as a green investment.

The ministry's initial plan was to release the final draft by September and reflect the taxonomy guideline in the basic plan for electricity supply and demand — a roadmap biennially devised by the government that spells out the overall energy plan for the next 15 years — in December. But the Environment Minister suggested that it may take longer than expected to discuss the details.

Whether the local version of green taxonomy will follow the example of the EU's classification, and to what extent, is the key issue.

The European Parliament on July 6 voted in favor of the European Commission's decision to grant the green label to nuclear energy on the condition that an operational final disposal facility is built by 2050 for high-level radioactive waste, and switching to accident-tolerant fuel by 2025.

Minister Han said on July 18 that "Korea plans to include conditions related to the high-level waste disposal facility and accident-tolerant fuel, but the conditions may begin to be applied at a later point than in Europe considering the domestic situation."

In July, Korea released a 1.4-trillion-won ($1.04-billion) plan to build an interim storage facility for high-level nuclear waste by 2043 and a final disposal facility by 2060. Its deadline developing the final disposal facility is 10 years behind the EU standard, meaning that Korea's nuclear power business may not be able to attract loans or equity investments from European assets without stricter standards.

At this point, Finland is the only country with a final disposal facility. The country's deep geological repository is scheduled to begin operation in 2024. The Swedish government approved a plan to construct one in January, and France plans to submit its licensing application sometime this year.

Korea does not have an interim storage facility for highly radioactive waste yet. Most of the highly-radioactive spent fuels are stacked inside cooling pools.

Since the $20-billion Barakah nuclear power plant project deal in the United Arab Emirates was signed in 2009, Korea hasn't been able to win any plant deals. The government is eager to change that, with the aim of selling 10 nuclear power plant projects overseas over the next eight years.

Korea is competing with the United States and France for 8-trillion-won nuclear program in Dukovany, the Czech Republic, and is also bidding for a 40-trillion-won project to build a 6,000- to 9,000-megawatt plant in Poland. The Korea Hydro & Nuclear Energy Corporation was selected as the sole bidder for supplying parts for Egypt's El-Dabaa nuclear power plant project in January as well.

Korea's strength over its rivals — France, the United States, China, Russia and others — lies in its cost competitiveness. It cost $2,157 per kilowatt-electric (kWe) for Korea to construct a nuclear plant, according to International Energy Agency's 2020 report. The price is $4,013 per kWe for France, $4,250 for the U.S., $2,271 for Russia and $2,500 for China.

Korea lags behind the competitors like China and France in terms of financing capabilities.

Financing capability is a must in order to land a multi-billion-dollar nuclear power plant contract. Nuclear power plant construction takes at least five years, requires great amounts of capital and are exposed to political risk. While traditional full-scale government funding is not a viable option for some countries or has lost its appeal due to high risk, vendor financing became increasingly common in the global market.

The Polish government hopes its partner for its 48.5-billion-euro ($48.2 billion) nuclear program to take a 49-percent stake to co-finance the project.

More relaxed requirements may undermine its financing capabilities in selling nuclear power plants in European countries.

Park Ho-jeong, a professor of resource and energy economics at Korea University, said that "the revision in the K-taxonomy guideline is expected to help us in not only bringing in the foreign investment but also expanding our investment overseas."

Park added that "when the K-taxonomy is aligned with the EU's taxonomy, it would contribute to expanding the market and collaborative response over the carbon border adjustment mechanism in terms of international cooperation."

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]

11. Anti-China sentiment overshadows 30th anniversary of Korea-China ties

Excerpts:

Kim Han-kwon, a visiting professor at the Center for Chinese Studies at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, attributed the increasing unfavorable views of China to its domestic politics and differences in values and systems.

"Since Chinese President Xi Jinping took office in 2013, the Chinese government has made efforts to stress patriotism and ideological education. Along the way, Sinocentrism has been taking center stage, causing cultural friction with neighboring countries," Kim said. Sinocentrism is the belief that China is literally the center of the world.

In that sense, there has been tension between the two countries over the origins of kimchi and hanbok, a traditional Korean outfit.

The professor also said the anti-China sentiment was also due to differences in the two countries' political and social systems.

"Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992, South Korea and China have focused mainly on developing bilateral ties, while putting aside such potential problems. However, as the U.S.-China rivalry has been intensifying, they have come to the fore," Kim said.

Anti-China sentiment overshadows 30th anniversary of Korea-China ties

The Korea Times · by 2022-08-23 16:21 | Foreign Affairs · August 23, 2022

gettyimagesbank

80% of S. Koreans hold unfavorable opinions of neighboring country

By Kang Seung-woo

South Korea will mark three decades of diplomatic relations with China, Wednesday, and both countries have become important partners of each other, as evidenced by the fact that China is Korea's No. 1 trading partner and Seoul is Beijing's fourth-largest export destination.

However, despite these quantitative developments, negative views of China have been increasing sharply among South Koreans, with the country becoming the second-least popular among South Korea's neighboring countries that also include Japan, North Korea, Russia and the United States.

According to the U.S.-based Pew Research Center, South Koreans with negative views of China stand at 80 percent this year. The study was conducted from February to June of this year.

Based on its surveys conducted since 2002, anti-China sentiment has been growing steadily, from 31 percent in 2002 to 80 percent in 2022.

The Asan Institute for Policy Studies also issued a report about its poll on South Korea's neighbors in June, and China was ranked fourth most popular after the U.S., Japan and North Korea.

On a scale of zero to 10, China's favorability was 2.71, slightly ahead of Russia's 2.13 due to Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. had 6.8, followed by Japan's 3.67 and North Korea's 2.72. China's favorability had dropped significantly from 3.25 in December 2020.

When asked to rate the favorability of major leaders from neighboring countries, respondents gave Chinese President Xi Jinping a rating of 1.99, much lower than his average ratings in 2016 and 2017 that hovered between 3 and 4.

South Korea-China relations at crossroads

"China has carried out an economic retaliation campaign against South Korea due to the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system here, which we believe is absurd," said Song Young-rock, a 43-year-old office worker.

Claiming that the THAAD system's radar can spy on its military maneuvers and undermine its security interests, China has yet to fully end its economic retaliation against South Korea. In the wake of the THAAD deployment, the Chinese government decided to ban Chinese group tours to South Korea, while curbing cultural imports.

"In addition, the Chinese government is trying to influence the Korean government, treating it like its dependency," Song said.

According to Pew Research Center, South Korea's growing anti-China sentiment was heavily affected by China's economic retaliation following Seoul's approval of stationing a THAAD battery on its soil in 2016. The U.S. missile shield was brought to Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, the following year.

"South Korea was heavily affected by Chinese economic retribution following the country's 2017 decision to install an American missile interceptor (THAAD)," Pew Research Center said.

"Negative views of China went up substantially in 2017 alongside this turmoil; they increased again in 2020 when, in the wake of COVID-19, unfavorable opinion went up in nearly every country surveyed."

The researcher said views have continued to sour, and those holding unfavorable views of China are at a historic high of 80 percent today.

"Around three-quarters of Koreans think bilateral relations with China are in poor shape, and the country stands out for having the highest share of people (54 percent) who say that China's involvement in domestic politics is a very serious problem for the country. South Korea is also the only country surveyed where young people have more unfavorable views of China than older people," it said.

Kim Han-kwon, a visiting professor at the Center for Chinese Studies at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, attributed the increasing unfavorable views of China to its domestic politics and differences in values and systems.

"Since Chinese President Xi Jinping took office in 2013, the Chinese government has made efforts to stress patriotism and ideological education. Along the way, Sinocentrism has been taking center stage, causing cultural friction with neighboring countries," Kim said. Sinocentrism is the belief that China is literally the center of the world.

In that sense, there has been tension between the two countries over the origins of kimchi and hanbok, a traditional Korean outfit.

The professor also said the anti-China sentiment was also due to differences in the two countries' political and social systems.

"Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992, South Korea and China have focused mainly on developing bilateral ties, while putting aside such potential problems. However, as the U.S.-China rivalry has been intensifying, they have come to the fore," Kim said.

The Korea Times · by 2022-08-23 16:21 | Foreign Affairs · August 23, 2022

12. N. Korea moves to bolster Storm Corps along China-North Korea border

Actions speak louder than words:

In short, once the 25th Brigade finds out which stretches of the border are more likely to experience smuggling and defections, it will inform Storm Corps headquarters, which will then deploy more men to those areas.

The source said the government “seems extremely worried” about people crossing the border following the recent end-of-coronavirus declaration.

“With the additional deployment of Storm Corps soldiers to the border region, the authorities have once again demonstrated that they have no intention to loosen the border closure,” he said.

N. Korea moves to bolster Storm Corps along China-North Korea border

“The additional Storm Corps troops may arrive on site this week at the earliest or early next week at the latest,” a source told Daily NK

By Kim Chae Hwan - 2022.08.23 11:10am

dailynk.com

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un observing Storm Corps training in 2013. (Rodong Sinmun)

Following the declaration of the end of its COVID-19 pandemic, North Korea has begun moving to reinforce the Storm Corps, a special forces unit stationed along the China-North Korea border.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared an end to the COVID-19 pandemic in a recent meeting to review the nation’s emergency quarantine efforts. However, the move to increase personnel on the border suggests that the authorities want to strengthen efforts to prevent smuggling and defections.

According to a Daily NK source in North Korea last Thursday, North Korean military authorities are considering plans to deploy more Storm Corps personnel along the border.

The border patrol’s 25th Brigade, which is stationed in Hyesan, Yanggang Province, has responded by searching for stretches of the border that require additional manpower.

In short, once the 25th Brigade finds out which stretches of the border are more likely to experience smuggling and defections, it will inform Storm Corps headquarters, which will then deploy more men to those areas.

The source said the government “seems extremely worried” about people crossing the border following the recent end-of-coronavirus declaration.

“With the additional deployment of Storm Corps soldiers to the border region, the authorities have once again demonstrated that they have no intention to loosen the border closure,” he said.

The 25th Brigade believes Taehongdan County, Samjiyon County, Pochon County, Kimjongsuk County and Kimhyongjik County in Yanggang Province experience the most smuggling and defections, the source added.

In fact, on Aug. 13, the 25th Brigade ordered its regiments and battalions to bolster their controls and patrols along the border, while announcing that additional Storm Corps soldiers would be deployed.

Storm Corps soldiers have been mobilized to shutdown the border since the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic and have since been jointly monitoring the frontier with border patrol troops. The additional Storm Corps troops look set to be tasked with several missions, including patrolling roads and entry points on the border.

In fact, the border patrol’s leadership and the headquarters of the Storm Corps recently concluded discussions around additional deployment of personnel, the source said.

“The additional Storm Corps troops may arrive on site this week at the earliest or early next week at the latest,” he said.

“People were hoping for the end of COVID-19 border blockade so they could resume smuggling,” he continued, adding, “People in the border region are unhappy because the government doesn’t intend to lift the border blockade. Instead, its moving to deploy more soldiers, and rough-and-ready Storm Troops at that.”

Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.

Read in Korean

dailynk.com

13.  US, South Korea drills give life to Kim’s worst nightmare

Who are "some experts" and these "people?" I am not sure they know what they are talking about. But the important point comes from LTG CHun In Bum. Why aren't the other "people" spekaing on the record like LTG Chun? (the answer is in my initial comment - they do not know what they are talking about).  

People charged with monitoring the exercises in years past told Asia Times that they agree – to a degree – with North Korea. The drills feature a counter-attack scenario, which could, in reality, carry the fight onto soil north of the DMZ.

“The real question is, ‘What is the objective?’ If it is to regain lost territory, that is regaining lost territory,” Chun said. “There might be instances where you want to take the opportunity to secure some more territory that will make you feel safer.”

But Chun stressed, “A counterattack is a counter to an attack, it is not an invasion. An invasion is what the Russians are trying to do to Ukraine.”

US, South Korea drills give life to Kim’s worst nightmare

Some experts admit North Korea has grounds for viewing the largest ‘defensive’ exercises since 2018 as ‘invasion planning’

asiatimes.com · by Andrew Salmon · August 22, 2022

SEOUL – Rocky Korean mountainsides erupt in clouds of dust and smoke as high explosives from tanks, artillery and jet aircraft pound home.

Heavily loaded marines – complete with tanks and armored personnel carriers – hit beaches from landing craft under the cover of dense smoke screens.

And in a darkened underground command bunker, South Korean and US troops, attired in camouflage uniforms and flight suits, peruse giant digital maps and intel screens.

It is not war – thankfully.

But these kinds of stock TV segments showing joint US-Korea military drills showcase the kind of capabilities that would come into play if the 1950-53 Korean War ever bursts back into demonic life.

Exactly this kind of footage was airing on South Korean and international TV screens today, as Seoul and Washington kicked off summer military drills. They are the biggest joint exercises held by the two allies on and around the peninsula since 2018.

It is a move certain to infuriate North Korea – albeit, the isolated state itself has lately been engaged in its most active-ever missile testing spree. And for months, Pyongyangologists have fretted that the country is set to conduct a nuclear test – potentially its seventh – but have thus far been proven wrong.

The US-South Korea drills, customarily held in spring and summer, mark a return to a pre-Donald Trump, pre-Covid status quo.

They were significantly cut back in order to “give diplomacy space to work” as then-US president Trump, enthusiastically backed by previous South Korean president Moon Jae-in, engaged with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in 2018-2019.

That unprecedented dalliance ended in failure when Trump walked away from a 2019 summit: He refused to lift sanctions in return for the dismantling of the central North Korean nuclear complex at Yongbyon.

However, even in subsequent years, the drills remained low-key due to Covid-19.

Matters are different in 2022, however. On the public health front, both South Korea and the US are “living with Covid.” On the political front, with the liberal Moon having ended his term, the conservative Yoon Suk-yeol administration came into office promising to bring the drills back to life.

And it has. At the time of writing, North Korea has not reacted but it customarily rails against these exercises, which it considers “invasion preparation.”

While spokespersons for the Korea-US alliance insist that the drills are “defensive in nature,” some experts tell Asia Times that North Korea’s allegations are not entirely without foundation.

US and South Korean soldiers on exercise in Yeoncheon-gun, South Korea. Photo: AFP / Chung Sung-Jun / Getty Images

Action on all fronts

“Exercise Ulchi Freedom Shield” – actually a series of exercises, with troops engaged in both boots-on-ground and command-post simulations, while civic defense components also take place– started today (August 22) and will end on September 1.

They are taking place on the sea, in the air, on the ground and under it in command bunkers, and are broadly divided into two phases. The first involves repelling North Korean attacks and defending the greater Seoul area. The second is a non-specified “counterattack” phase.

Scenarios include dealing with the discovery of explosives at a nuclear power plant, a fire at a semiconductor fab, a paralyzed banking network, terrorism at airports and drone attacks, Yonhap News Agency reported, citing the South Korean defense ministry.

There will be 13 field training programs alongside simulated drills.

While the US Forces Korea website is silent on the drills and the number of assets and troops involved, US military newspaper Stars and Stripes reports further details. Ulchi Freedom Shield will include joint maneuvers, front-line reinforcement, resupply and refueling operations and removals of simulated weapons of mass destruction.

New developments seen during the ongoing Ukraine War will also be incorporated, the newspaper stated.

US military officers, speaking off the record, have grumbled for years about the lack of large-scale joint drills.

Retired officers, who are free to speak, told Asia Times that on-ground maneuvers are essential both for combat effectiveness and for generating up-to-date data to feed computer simulations.

“It is important to train hard in the environment you are going to fight in, to get a feel for Korea,” Steve Tharpe, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel with 26 years of experience in Korea, told Asia Times.

He recalled when two members of the US 82nd Airborne Division – often considered the US Army’s elite – were temporarily assigned to Tharp’s unit in Korea. “They talked a lot of trash about being airborne, and I said, ‘Shut up until you assault these mountains! It is nothing like North Carolina! It will take a toll on you,’” Tharpe recalled.

One of the pair subsequently fell out, with exhaustion, on a route march.

“Field training is important due to terrain and weather,” agreed Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean general. “You can simulate it but the individual and the unit need to feel it, and their equipment needs to be exposed to it.”

Field drills also feed computer drills.

“Having a field training exercise builds the data,” Chun told Asia Times. “So incorporating field training is integral in creating realistic simulations.”

Kim Jong Un in right royal form. He is unlikely to be pleased with the news from South of the DMZ today. Image: AFP

Why North Korea frets

One concern when bringing US assets to the peninsula for training is that Pyongyang – which has no liaison officers with South Korean or US forces – will believe the moves to be a build-up for a real attack and respond kinetically.

This is the dreaded “war by accident.” However, that scenario has not eventuated since the Korean War ended, uneasily, in 1953.

Pyongyang also rails against the drills as “invasion preparation.” It has a point.

People charged with monitoring the exercises in years past told Asia Times that they agree – to a degree – with North Korea. The drills feature a counter-attack scenario, which could, in reality, carry the fight onto soil north of the DMZ.

“The real question is, ‘What is the objective?’ If it is to regain lost territory, that is regaining lost territory,” Chun said. “There might be instances where you want to take the opportunity to secure some more territory that will make you feel safer.”

But Chun stressed, “A counterattack is a counter to an attack, it is not an invasion. An invasion is what the Russians are trying to do to Ukraine.”

But where would a counterattack stop? With the North Korean attacking force being repelled? With a decapitation of the leadership? With a seizure of parts of North Korea? Or even a full-scale counter-invasion aimed at reunifying the peninsula?

All such matters are complicated by North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. But retired US officers have told Asia Times that at least one scenario calls for a US-led Marine landing in Wonsan Bay. That is a key harbor/resort, with excellent communication links, that lies just north of the DMZ on the east coast of the peninsula.

“We execute the war plan and the war plan has a counterattack: I can’t say much more,” Tharpe said. “But it does have a counterattack and an end state.”

The end state is subject, not just to US, but also to South Korean political decisions. Potentially, any states that joined the fight on the South Korean side under the war-era UN Command could also have a say.

“The North Koreans do their exercises with the end state being sipping drinks in Busan,” said Tharpe, referring to the port city on the southern coast of South Korea. “Our end state is to settle the conflict on ‘favorable terms.’”

What those terms constitute is classified.

Today’s drills are taking place at a time when the US alliance and US troop presence in South Korea are hugely popular with the public.

According to Seoul think tank the Asan Institute, citing annual polls, support of the South Korea-US alliance has not fallen below 91.9% since 2012. This year, as per a poll in May, support for US troops in Korea was 82.1%.

Even so, there is a segment within the South Korean polity that is opposed to the drills – be it from a belief that the exercises irk Pyongyang and imperil cross-border relations; that they represent militarism; or perhaps due to anti-American and/or pro-North Korean sentiment.

A modest demonstration took place against the drills over the weekend. But in a country where 100,000-strong demonstrations are not uncommon, and where million-strong protests do occasionally occur, the protest, with 6,000 attendees, generated little coverage.

And while there was one stand protesting the US military presence in Korea outside the US Embassy in Seoul today, there were two applauding the Korean-US alliance.

A pro-US stall outside the US Embassy in Seoul is reflective of currently positive sentiment toward the US alliance. Photo: Andrew Salmon / Asia Times

Follow this writer on Twitter @ASalmonSeoul

asiatimes.com · by Andrew Salmon · August 22, 2022

14. South Korea’s new stealth drone built to hunt and hit Kim

This is really more a commentary and critique of the "decapitation strategy.".

South Korea’s new stealth drone built to hunt and hit Kim

Loyal wingman drones could be deployed to decapitate North Korea’s leadership in a conflict scenario

asiatimes.com · by Gabriel Honrada · August 22, 2022

In a quick follow-up to South Korea’s first test flight of its homegrown fighter jet, the country also aims to build its first unmanned loyal wingman drone.

Last week, South Korea named Korean Air the preferred bidder for its loyal wingman drone, which it envisions will work in tandem with manned combat aircraft and operate in autonomous swarms, reports aviation website FlightGlobal.

The report notes that the project envisages the development of stealth unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) squadrons, noting that South Korea’s Agency for Defense Development (ADD) began developing the concept last year and has completed the basic design.

FlightGlobal also mentions that ADD and Korean Air plan to work on a manned-unmanned teaming system wherein one manned aircraft and three to four stealth UAVs carry out missions simultaneously. The report states that the new stealth UAV can carry out missions on its own, such as surveillance, electronic warfare and kinetic attacks.

The development follows the ADD’s previous stealth UAV program that ran from 2019 to 2021, culminating in a contract between the South Korean government and Korean Air signed in October to develop a stealth UAV to advance South Korea’s stealth technology.

Critical aspects of the project include developing radar-absorbing materials and stealth shaping for future UAV designs.

South Korea’s new stealth UAV may operate alongside its homegrown KF-21 Boramae fighter. Asia Times has previously reported on this possibility, stating that the KF-21 may eventually partner with an indigenously-developed loyal wingman drone, which flies alongside manned aircraft to act as force multipliers and enhance the latter’s capabilities.

The KF-21 Boramae at its roll-out ceremony. Photo: KAI

The use of loyal wingman drones gives a numbers advantage to their operators, acting as mass decoys against air defenses, attack swarms or as a complement to manned aircraft by extending the range of their sensors.

As loyal wingman drones are expendable, they can operate in areas deemed too dangerous for manned aircraft due to dense anti-air defenses. They can also enable long-range standoff attacks, designating ground targets with their onboard sensors.

At the same time, the attacking aircraft launches missiles beyond the range of enemy air defenses while remaining electronically silent to avoid detection.

Such capabilities may be crucial to South Korea’s “decapitation strategy.” Defense analyst Ankit Panda describes it in a 2022 article in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as involving pre-emptive and retaliatory strikes against North Korea to deter or end a conflict by killing its leadership.

Its premise is that since North Korea is undeterred by the prospect of a limited conflict and damage against crucial military and economic targets, the logical course of action would be to threaten North Korea’s leadership.

In such a scenario, loyal wingman drones would be critical in penetrating Pyongyang’s air defenses to get at North Korea’s leadership. These defenses, while old and outdated, are still deadly, as noted in a 2021 article in The National Interest.

The source notes that while North Korea relies on Soviet-era radars and surface-to-air missiles (SAM), an equally-aging Soviet computerized command-and-control system coordinates these air defenses. In addition, it says that North Korea’s air defenses have been steadily upgraded with indigenously-built SAMs and Iranian phased-array radars.

It also mentions that North Korea possesses many license-produced and indigenous man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) and many 23 mm and 57 mm anti-aircraft guns.

These assets make for robust, if not aging, low-level air defense capabilities. The source also mentions North Korea’s capable military-industrial base, which allows it to strengthen its air defense network and replace spent munitions and combat losses.

While primitive, North Korea’s air defense network can still pose a severe threat to US and South Korean warplanes over the Korean Peninsula. Hence, South Korea can use its loyal wingman drones as decoys to force North Korea to reveal the locations of its air defense radars and missile launchers in preparation for suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) missions.

Loyal wingmen drones can also force North Korea to waste its missile stocks attempting to shoot down these expendable targets. In addition, the drones can also act as target designators for South Korean aircraft flying within South Korean territory, launching air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM) at critical North Korean targets and leaders.

However, Panda notes that South Korea’s decapitation strategy faces serious challenges. He mentions that North Korea has taken substantial steps to improve the survivability of its nuclear arsenal.

Previously, Asia Times reported on North Korea’s efforts to build an undersea-based nuclear deterrent, unveiling a new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) this April. This missile will likely be launched from its ballistic missile submarines currently under construction.

A submarine-based nuclear deterrent is considered the ultimate second-strike capability as it is difficult to locate once submerged. Moreover, a submarine missile launch is practically unstoppable due to submarines’ stealth capabilities and the lack of effective defenses against ballistic missiles.

If North Korea sets up an undersea-based nuclear deterrent, it is unclear how South Korea’s loyal wingman drones could detect, track and help neutralize the threat.

Panda also mentions that it is far from assured that South Korea has sufficient intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities to hunt down North Korea’s leadership. He notes that a failed decapitation attempt may only escalate the course of a conflict, causing North Korea to retaliate using nuclear and other coercive means.

While loyal wingman drones can undoubtedly contribute to a complete ISR picture, much still depends on South Korea’s ISR capabilities in other domains.

Panda elaborates that without a complete ISR picture showing the exact locations of North Korean top leaders, South Korea’s air and missile strikes aimed at destroying North Korea’s warfighting capabilities may be construed by the latter as a decapitation attempt.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaking on September 2 last year at the third enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea in Pyongyang. Photo: AFP: / KCNA / KNS

This situation can happen if one strike kills a critical North Korean leader whose location was previously unknown. Then, North Korea could see this as a justification to use nuclear weapons in retaliation.

Panda notes that even if North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is killed, North Korea has an extensive line of succession. Therefore, Kim may have a designated successor that could have nuclear launch authority in case he is taken out.

Although Panda notes that the idea of delegating authority may have negative consequences for Kim’s rule, this delegation of power is possible in a crisis scenario. Given these caveats, South Korea’s loyal wingman drone may end up being of limited value in the larger strategic picture of the mission it was designed to perform.

asiatimes.com · by Gabriel Honrada · August 22, 2022

15. N. Korea eases certain travel restrictions on border residents amid “victory” against COVID-19

Excerpts:

However, people living in the China-North Korea border region are still restricted from going to other border towns, and residents of non-border regions are not allowed to travel to the border region. In short, the authorities continue to strictly prevent people’s access to the border region, likely as a measure to prevent people under severe economic distress from defecting the country.

Meanwhile, some North Koreans say the country quickly declared an end to COVID-19 with a view to quickly reinvigorate trade with China.

A source in China said the two countries held several discussions on restarting trade last month, but the talks ultimately ruptured due to the COVID-19 issue.

“North Korea’s economic situation has grown worse following delays in restarting bilateral trade, so it declared an end to COVID-19, claiming there were no more fever cases,” he said. “[The declaration] appears to be aimed at pushing for a quick restart to trade with China.”

N. Korea eases certain travel restrictions on border residents amid “victory” against COVID-19

China and North Korea held several discussions on restarting trade last month, but the talks ultimately ruptured due to the COVID-19 issue, a source in China told Daily NK

By Lee Chae Un - 2022.08.23 4:00pm

dailynk.com

FILE PHOTO: A border patrol checkpoint in Pungso County, Yanggang Province, can be seen in this photo, which was taken in February 2019. (Daily NK)

Before declaring an end to the country’s COVID-19 crisis, North Korea eased certain travel restrictions on residents of the China-North Korea border region. However, people from other areas of the country are still restricted from entering the border area.

A Daily NK source in Yanggang Province said Friday that Hyesan authorities received an order in early August that stated people can travel to areas other than those along the China-North Korea border.

“People’s economic activities have picked up because they can travel as long as they have a certificate stamped by the head of their neighborhood watch unit and the police officer and security officer in their district,” he said.

On Aug. 10, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared “victory” in the country’s battle against COVID-19 during a meeting to review the nation’s emergency quarantine efforts. Based on the source’s report, North Korea appears to have relaxed travel restrictions on border residents in the run-up to the meeting.

Residents of Yanggang Province’s border region can now travel to parts of the province away from the border as long as they have a travel certificate. Before, people in border towns had a tough time leaving their cities or counties; now, with restrictions relaxed somewhat, travel to non-border areas of the province has become easier for them.

The source also noted that people living in Hyesan can now travel to non-border areas such as Pungseo County, Kimhyonggwon County and Paegam County with few restrictions. Of course, they must carry a certificate signed by the head of their neighborhood watch unit and their local police officer and security officer when traveling.

However, people living in the China-North Korea border region are still restricted from going to other border towns, and residents of non-border regions are not allowed to travel to the border region. In short, the authorities continue to strictly prevent people’s access to the border region, likely as a measure to prevent people under severe economic distress from defecting the country.

Meanwhile, some North Koreans say the country quickly declared an end to COVID-19 with a view to quickly reinvigorate trade with China.

A source in China said the two countries held several discussions on restarting trade last month, but the talks ultimately ruptured due to the COVID-19 issue.

“North Korea’s economic situation has grown worse following delays in restarting bilateral trade, so it declared an end to COVID-19, claiming there were no more fever cases,” he said. “[The declaration] appears to be aimed at pushing for a quick restart to trade with China.”

Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.

Read in Korean

dailynk.com

​16. Extreme Anti-American, Pro-North Korean Protests in Seoul

Just a few key points to keep in mind with this article:

Subversion

The undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution.

As in: "the ruthless subversion of democracy"

Ideological War – a choice between:

Shared ROK/US Values​:​

Freedom and individual liberty, liberal democracy, free market economy, rule of law, and human rights

Kim family regime (KFR) “values​:​”

Juche/Kimilsungism/​(​now "KIMJONGUNISM,"​)​ Socialist Workers Paradise, Songun, Songbun, Byungjin, and denial of human rights to sustain KFR power

nK engages in political warfare and active subversion of the ROK

 Political Warfare: Political warfare is the use of political means to compel an opponent to do one's will, based on hostile intent. The term political describes the calculated interaction between a government and a target audience to include another state's government, military, and/or general population. Governments use a variety of techniques to coerce certain actions, thereby gaining relative advantage over an opponent. The techniques include propaganda and psychological operations (PSYOP), which service national and military objectives respectively. Propaganda has many aspects and a hostile and coercive political purpose. Psychological operations are for strategic and tactical military objectives and may be intended for hostile military and civilian populations. Smith, Paul A., On Political War (Washington: National Defense University Press, 1989), p. 3. https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a233501.pdf

North Korean Agencies

Responsible for Subversion (UW, SO and CI/Security)

• North Korean intelligence and security services collect political, military, economic, and technical information through open sources, human intelligence, cyber intrusions, and signals intelligence capabilities. North Korea's primary intelligence collection targets remain the ROK, the United States, and Japan. They likely operate anywhere North Korea has a diplomatic or sizable economic overseas presence. 
• The Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB) is North Korea's primary foreign intelligence service, responsible for collection and clandestine operations. The RGB comprises six bureaus with compartmented functions, including operations, reconnaissance, technology and cyber capabilities, overseas intelligence, inter-Korean talks, and service support.
• The Ministry of State Security (MSS) is North Korea's primary counterintelligence service and is an autonomous agency of the North Korean Government reporting directly to Kim Jong Un. The MSS is responsible for operating North Korean prison camps, investigating cases of domestic espionage, repatriating defectors, and conducting overseas counterespionage activities in North Korea's foreign missions.
• The United Front Department (UFD) overtly attempts to establish pro-North Korean groups in the ROK, such as the Korean Asia-Pacific Committee and the Ethnic Reconciliation Council. The UFD is also the primary department involved in managing inter-Korean dialogue and North Korea's policy toward the ROK.
• The 225th Bureau is responsible for training agents to infiltrate the ROK and establish underground political parties focused on fomenting unrest and revolution.

Extreme Anti-American, Pro-North Korean Protests in Seoul

onekoreanetwork.com

By OKN Correspondent

August 22, 2022

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) held the “August 15 National Workers’ Mass Protest” and “August 15 Gathering for Independent Peaceful Reunification” in downtown Seoul to commemorate the 77th Liberation Day. Six thousand participants carried out pro-North Korean and anti-American political protests urging for suspension of the US-ROK combined military exercises and opposing the deployment of THADD in South Korea. 

The KCTU called for the dissolution of the US-ROK alliance and the withdrawal of US forces from South Korea, saying, “We must fight against the United States, which controls the fate of the Korean Peninsula.” 

The KCTU also read remarks for solidarity sent by the North Korean General Federation of Trade Unions, saying, “The United States is trying to put nuclear disaster on our people.” While not mentioning North Korea’s nuclear development, it referred to North Korea’s claim that the United States was escalating the nuclear war crisis.

There is a possibility that the KCTU would have violated the South Korean National Security Act (NSA) for reading remarks for solidarity sent by North Korea. Article 8 of the current South Korean NSA stipulates, “Any person who makes contact with a member of an anti-government organization or a person who has received an order from it, by means of a meeting, correspondence or other method […] shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than ten years.”

It was confirmed that the KCTU formed an organization called the “Central Unification Vanguard” and held “pro-North and anti-American” rallies around US military bases across the country to stir the atmosphere before holding a large-scale rally in Seoul. Starting from the main gate of the U.S. Naval Command in South Korea in Namgu, Busan, they went up to Seoul via the US base in Pyeongtaek.

The “Unification Vanguard” was originally run by pro-North Korean university student groups such as the “Pan-Korean Students Alliance for Unification” and “South Korean Federation of University Students Councils,” which were judged to be anti-government organizations. Since 2000, The KCTU has operated the “Unification Vanguard,” organizing various activities in August for issues such as the withdrawal of US forces from South Korea. Unlike its name, “unification,” its activities have been pro-North Korea.

The KCTU has gone beyond undermining the rule of law and has reached the stage of denying the liberal democracy and market economy system. Instead of protecting the rights and interests of union members, they are shaking the country by shouting slogans for the dissolution of the US-ROK alliance and the withdrawal of US forces from Korea. If lawlessness and “mob rule” behavior in the industrial field cannot be eradicated, it is difficult for a company, no matter how strong, to survive.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

VIDEO "WHEREBY" Link: https://whereby.com/david-maxwell

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com