Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"The essence of evil is its refusal to think."

– Hanah Arendt

"Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know."

– Aldous Huxley

"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."

– Robert A. Heinlein

1. Blocked Voices, Silenced Freedom (Korea)

2. South Korea suspends anti-North Korea radio broadcasts

3. Measuring the loss of VOA around the world

4. US Deploys Typhon Missiles to Japan, Putting China, Russia, and North Korea in Range

5. China Ups Surveillance of Troubled People to Quell Rising Unrest

6. Doctors in South Korea Return to Work After 18-Month Walkout

7. South Korea’s Export Growth Slowed in August

8. Meet the world’s hottest upstart weapons dealers

9. Kim Jong Un promotes ‘new’ missile production capabilities ahead of China visit

10. ROK military halts ‘Voice of Freedom’ radio broadcasts aimed at North Korea

11. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jin Yong-sung named new JCS chairman nominee

12. Exclusive: North Korea jammed South's GPS for 329 straight days

13. The Korean crisis of freedom and democracy

14. Special counsel suspects link between ex-first lady and Unification Church

15. MASGA project could strengthen Korea-U.S. alliance security

1. Blocked Voices, Silenced Freedom (Korea)

From my good friend and colleague in the UK who is originally from north Korea. She can speak with authority on the subject of the information instrument of national power and of course freedom..

Blocked Voices, Silenced Freedom

https://m.blog.naver.com/freedom88-/223991499987

m.blog.naver.com

freedom88-

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본문 기타 기능

Blocked Voices, Silenced Freedom

Most people feel a sense of horror when reading George Orwell’s 1984.

Yet the core warning Orwell gives is not about violence or fear itself, but about how totalitarianism seizes control over people’s thoughts and culture, dominating human imagination and judgment.

When we think of North Korea, images of public executions and torture come to mind. Certainly, fear is real. But the true terror of totalitarianism lies in its invisible methods—reshaping the hearts and minds of its people without them even noticing.

Tony Judt, in his book’s “When the Facts Change” discussed the concept of Freedom and Freedonia, emphasizing that freedom is not simply a right.

Freedom is inseparable from the ability to access truth and information, and without communication with the outside world, freedom becomes an illusion.

Astonishingly, even today, the South Korean government has chosen to block channels of information to North Korean citizens.

A representative example is the suspension of the North Korea-focused radio broadcast Voice of Freedom after the ROKS Cheonan sinking

which had been resumed to reach North Koreans.

North Korean people were deprived of opportunities to access international news, Korean popular culture, and reports on the North Korean regime’s crime against humanity human rights violations.

By restricting information and freedom, democratic nations inadvertently limit North Koreans’ horizons.

Here, Hannah Arendt’s analysis becomes crucial. She defined totalitarianism not merely as violent rule, but as an attempt to dominate human perception of reality itself by mixing truth and falsehood.

When information is blocked and people cannot verify reality for themselves, they inevitably become dependent on power. Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil” applies not only to those living in fear but also to those of us who, by blocking information and remaining silent, indirectly cooperate with totalitarian systems.

The Cultural Genocide initiated by Kim Jong-il in North Korea, and the production of the Five Major Revolutionary Operas, were not mere artistic performances.

They were instruments designed to control citizens’ thoughts and emotions, glorify the regime, and block external perspectives. Culture became not entertainment, but a tool to reshape human thinking.

Today, Kim Yo-jong continues her father Kim Jong-Il’s cultural control, perpetuating a new form of cultural genocide that suppresses both freedom of expression and access to information.

As Judt and Arendt emphasized, freedom is not realized solely through legal rights or superficial democracy. Humans are truly free only when channels to truth and information are open.

Conversely, when external information is blocked and culture and art are turned into tools of indoctrination, people live constrained within the confines of state-controlled thought. North Korean citizens are already trapped in this reality. If we, as citizens of a free democratic society, block those voices, we become complicit through our silence.

Blocking information is not mere obstruction—it is enabling totalitarianism. Allowing North Koreans to hear the voices of the outside world is the true act of preserving freedom.

Orwell’s warning about the horrors of totalitarianism, Judt’s insistence on the conditions of freedom, and Arendt’s caution regarding the banality of evil all ask the same question: Will we remain silent, or will we reconnect the blocked voices?

Freedom is not only a right for ourselves but a responsibility toward those whose voices cannot be heard.

Preventing access to channels that could restore North Koreans’ imagination and judgment is tantamount to endorsing totalitarianism and cultural genocide.

A silenced freedom is hollow, and blocked information becomes a tool of power. The choice is clear: our freedom is not merely a right; it is realized through actions that extend the reach of external voices.

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꿈을 이룬 사람은 다른 사람의 꿈이 된다! 매일 일상을 기록하고 나 만의 공간을 만들어간다. 중년의 나이 이지만 영어를 배우는 사람 #탈북자

2. South Korea suspends anti-North Korea radio broadcasts

Now I do not think there are any ROK or US government broadcasts going into north Korea.

And the ROK is trying to prevent civil society from sending information into the north.

I think the BBC is the only foreign government broadcaster sending information in the north. And interestingly the UK has diplomatic relations with the north and yet still broadcasts there.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41389030

But should the ROK and the US be abandoning the 25 million Koreans in the north who are not only starved for food by the regime but also starved for information and the truth.

South Korea suspends anti-North Korea radio broadcasts

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-suspends-anti-north-korea-radio-broadcasts-2025-09-01/

By Reuters

August 31, 202510:59 PM EDTUpdated 8 hours ago

North Korean propaganda village "Gijungdong" is seen from an South Korea's observation post inside the JSA during a media tour at the Joint Security Area (JSA) on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, 03 March 2023. JEON HEON-KYUN/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

SEOUL, Sept 1 (Reuters) - South Korea has suspended a military radio broadcast that transmits to North Korea as part of measures aimed at easing tensions with Pyongyang, Seoul's defence ministry said on Monday.

It is the first time that South Korea has stopped the radio broadcast in 15 years since they resumed after North Korea's sinking of a South Korean warship, according to media reports.

The Reuters Tariff Watch newsletter is your daily guide to the latest global trade and tariff news. Sign up here.

The radio broadcast, called "Voice of Freedom", carries items such as news on the North's regime, South Korean economic development or K-pop culture. It has been used as one of South Korea's tools for psychological warfare against the North.

"The Ministry of National Defence has suspended broadcasts of Voice of Freedom as part of measures to ease military tensions between the South and North," Lee Kyung-ho, deputy spokesperson at the ministry, told a press briefing.

The two Koreas remain technically at war since the 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

Shortly after he took office in June, the administration of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung switched off propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts on the border criticising the North's regime as it looks to revive stalled dialogue with its neighbour.

Lee has vowed to take further steps to dial down tensions with North Korea and proposed a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to build peace.

But so far North Korea has rebuffed Lee's overtures and said it is not interested in dialogue with South Korea.

The North Korean leader plans to visit China this week, its major ally and economic lifeline, to attend a military parade, along with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Ed Davies

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

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3. Measuring the loss of VOA around the world

Some excellent data for those unfamiliar with the work and reach of VOA. Cutting off VOA is one of the biggest strategic mistakes we have made.

Please go to the link to view the interactive graphics and proper formatting. There is some very interesting and useful data.

https://savevoa.com/data/measuring-the-loss-of-voa-around-the-world.html

Please bring back our beloved Korean Service to broadcast to the peninsula.

Measuring the loss of VOA around the world

A look at how VOA’s output has declined since the Trump administration shut down most of the organization

Measuring the loss of VOA around the world

savevoa.com

East and Southeast Asia

VOA’s programming to the East and Southeast Asia region includes some of its longest running. Seven of the region’s language services launched before or within the first few years of VOA’s official establishment in 1942 — Cantonese, Mandarin, Burmese, Indonesian, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese.

During its long run in the region, VOA has provoked the ire of authoritarian regimes by covering events that governments across Asia did not want their people to know about. After VOA was largely silenced in March, state run media as well as current and former government officials in countries from , and praised President Donald Trump for ending most of VOA’s programming.

In recent years, VOA has made its broadcasts to China a high priority, with more than 169 hours of content each week in Mandarin on satellite TV, radio and digital platforms.

However, since the March shutdown of most VOA operations, the Mandarin Service has stopped producing all radio and television programs, issuing only minimal web and social media content.

VOA reporters have covered demonstrations around the globe, including the 2019-2020 anti-government protests in Hong Kong.

“Generations of Chinese citizens risked their lives to listen to VOA just to access truthful information,” said prominent Chinese journalist Gao Yu in a court filing on behalf of VOA employees suing the Trump administration over the shutdown of VOA. She said that China is currently spending vast sums of money on its national media firewall, international propaganda and to infiltrate Western mainstream media. Gao argued that shutting down VOA, a media agency “the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] regime fears, is akin to cutting off one of America’s own arms or slitting its own throat.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar Derek Mitchell told the SaveVOA campaign, “The Chinese are filling the space that we’re leaving. So we’re allowing China to be [on] an information offensive during the information age.”

Russia is also poised to fill the space. The Sydney-based Lowy Institute found that Voice of America was the most sought-after radio broadcaster in Asia in 2024, in many countries by a considerable margin. But the next most popular radio broadcaster was Russia’s Sputnik.

Service Year started Weekly broadcast hours 2024* July 2025 weekly hours Burmese 1942 182.25 0 Cantonese 1939 61.67 0 English to Asia Programs 2010 6.55 0 Indonesian 1942 66.87 0 Khmer 1955 21.74 0 Korean 1942 51.88 0 Lao 1962 4.67 0 Mandarin 1941 169.00 0 Thai 1942 7.20 0 Tibetan 1991 204.00 0 Vietnamese 1943 6.00 0 Total 781.83 0

* Total fiscal year 2024 annualized average weekly broadcast hours including audio and video (PDF).

Eurasia

VOA, with its fact-based reporting, is widely credited with playing a significant role in helping to end the Cold War. “Among the forces that tore holes in the Iron Curtain was the steady bombardment by the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, and the BBC,” said Strobe Talbott, former U.S. deputy secretary of state during the Clinton administration.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, VOA again played a large role in bringing truthful information to people across Eastern Europe. A third of Ukraine received its news from either Voice of America or one of its sister networks, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, in 2024, according to survey data. The Russian audience of those networks stood at 10.1 million that year. And around a third of the populations of Kosovo (32%), Albania (31%) and Armenia (29%), and about a sixth of the populations of Bosnia-Herzegovina (15%) and Montenegro (14%) got their news from Voice of America.

VOA journalists are responsible for explaining U.S. news and changes in government policies to a global audience.

Immediately following VOA’s closure in March, Russian state officials cheered. “Today is a celebration for my colleagues at RT [formally Russia Today], Sputnik, and other outlets, because [U.S. President Donald] Trump unexpectedly announced that he’s closing down Radio Liberty and Voice of America, and now they’re closed. This is an awesome decision,” said Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor-in-chief. “We couldn’t shut them down, unfortunately, but America did so itself.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine that “Voice of America is the best way to counter the bad information that is coming out of Russia.”

Service Year started Weekly broadcast hours 2024* July 2025 weekly hours Albanian 1942 (paused 1945-1951) 3.80 0 Armenian 1951 1.75 0 Bosnian 1996 1.75 0 Georgian 1951 1.50 0 Macedonian 1991 1.00 0 Russian 1947 13.50 0 Serbian 1943 1.75 0 Ukrainian 1949 30.50 0 Total 55.55 0

South and Central Asia and the Middle East

VOA and its sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reached huge audiences in Afghanistan, with two-thirds of the population using one or both outlets for news. VOA launched programming to the country in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion in 1979, increased it after 9/11 to include around-the-clock radio reports, and expanded it further in 2022, when the Taliban sought to ban VOA radio and television. VOA responded by launching a 24/7 direct-to-home satellite-delivered television channel for the country.

VOA’s history of honest reporting in Afghanistan, including in the aftermath of the U.S. military withdrawal from the country, had made VOA the most trusted news source in Afghanistan, according to VOA Director Michael Abramowitz in testimony he gave to Congress last year. However, since the March shutdown of most VOA operations, broadcasts to Afghanistan have dwindled to 15 minutes of weekday radio news in Dari and 15 minutes in Pashto.

Service Year started Weekly broadcast hours 2024* July 2025 weekly hours Dari 1980 53.38 1.25 Pashto 1982 64.38 1.25 VOA Radio Deewa (Pashto) 2006 75.33 0 Azerbaijani 1982 3.75 0 Bangla 1958 5.50 0 Kurdish 1992 68.10 0 Turkish 1942 (paused 1945-1948) 6.00 0 Urdu 1951 28.75 0 Uzbek 1972 2.50 0 Total 307.69 2.5

Another country in the region where VOA has garnered an audience share in the millions through its reporting is Iran: 12.2 million people were tuning in weekly to VOA or RFE/RL programs. VOA’s Persian Service, which debuted in 1942, was paused several times from the 1940s to the 1970s, and was renewed in 1979, two months after the Iranian Revolution overthrew the shah.

The Iranian government has frequently sought to jam satellite television services that carry VOA signals, fearful of its population receiving such news coverage, especially during times of national protests. Afsoon Najafi, whose sister Hadis Najafi was killed during the protest movement that swept Iran in late 2022, thanked VOA for its coverage of the demonstrations, which were sparked by the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly.

“[VOA] has been essential in amplifying my cry for justice,” she wrote in a court briefing to support VOA, adding that VOA has allowed Iranians “to see and hear about issues that were either censored or entirely ignored by state-controlled media under the Islamic Republic’s laws.”

Now, VOA’s once 24/7 news operation to Iran has been reduced to about one hour of video programming each weekday.

Service Year started Weekly broadcast hours 2024* July 2025 weekly hours Persian 1979 168.00 5

Africa

Since VOA began broadcasting in French in 1960 to 22 African countries, it has expanded to 17 languages across sub-Saharan Africa, with the latest — Fulani — added in 2024 to reach a nomadic population across West and Central Africa.

VOA’s total programming to sub-Saharan Africa had a measured reach of 93.6 million people in 2024, based on USAGM survey data. The largest audiences on the continent included Somalia, where 62% of the population received news from either VOA or one of its sister outlets, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, and Niger, where VOA had an audience of 46%. In terms of sheer numbers, Nigeria — Africa’s most populous nation — had the largest audience share in the region at 37.4 million people, or 33% of its population.

Since VOA stopped broadcasting to Africa in March, reporting shows that Russia and China are filling the void. China’s state news agencies, Xinhua and CGTN, had more than 37 bureaus in Africa as of April, and RT, formally Russia Today, signed contracts with more than 30 African TV stations since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, according to NeimanLab.

A bipartisan group of eight former VOA directors wrote to U.S. senators in March, saying that “gutting VOA [in Africa] would cede an entire continent to America’s adversaries and allow authoritarian regimes to control the narrative.”

Mohamed Abdirizak Mohamud, former Somali minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, said in a court filing in support of a lawsuit against VOA’s shutdown that VOA “provides a critical counterbalance to unreliable narratives” in Somalia, where he said “misinformation exacerbates conflict.”

Nigerian Information Minister Mohammed Idris told The Wall Street Journal in July that the departure of VOA from Nigeria “created a perceptible void, especially in terms of trusted, independent international news content.”

Service Year started Weekly broadcast hours 2024* July 2025 weekly hours Bambara 2013 11.50 0 Central Africa (Kinyarwanda, Kirundi) 1996 40.39 0 English to Africa 1963 258.75 0 French to Africa and Trans Sahel 1960 181.75 0 Hausa (includes Fulani) 1979 16.75 0 Horn of Africa (Amharic, Tigrigna and Afaan Oromoo) 1982

1982

1996 36.25 0 Portuguese 1976 10.50 0 Somali 2007 33.58 0 Swahili 1962 18.70 0 Zimbabwe (Shona, Ndebele and English) 2003 5.00 0 Total 625.17 0

Latin America

Spanish was one of the first languages broadcast by the U.S. government, beginning in 1941, before VOA was officially established the following year. Total programming to Latin America by VOA was measured to have reached 100 million people last year.

VOA had grown a huge audience share in many Latin American countries. At least half of the population of Nicaragua (59%), Costa Rica (55%) and the Dominican Republic (51%) reported getting weekly news from the networks last year. Countries that had a near majority of the audience share included El Salvador (49%), Peru (49%) and Bolivia (47%).

As in Africa, experts warn that the void left by VOA programming in Latin America will be filled by U.S. adversaries, including Russia and China. Former U.S. diplomat William Hill told the SaveVOA campaign, “If we silence VOA, we leave the field open to these rivals, and we leave the field unchallenged to their efforts. Why would we voluntarily do this to ourselves?”

In Nicaragua, which is rated by Reporters Without Borders as the ninth-worst country in the world in terms of press freedoms, Nicaraguan American democracy campaigner Damaris Rostran says VOA “remains an essential lifeline, reminding us that the world is watching, and that the voice of truth will not be silenced.”

Service Year started Weekly broadcast hours 2024* July 2025 weekly hours Creole 1986 17.00 0 Spanish 1941 (paused

1945-1946,

1948-1953, 1956-1961) 46.99 0 Total 63.99 0

English programming

In addition to reaching people in their native languages, VOA also committed to carrying programs in America’s common tongue — English — cultivating an audience of around 80 million people each week.

The English division includes VOA’s main newsroom — the heart of news operations for the organization — with its long tradition of ensuring that “VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news,” the opening sentence of VOA’s charter.

The division includes dozens of U.S.-based reporters who cover all aspects of U.S. government policy as well as telling the stories of America’s varied residents to audiences across the globe.

VOA correspondents often travel with the press pool that covers high-level U.S. military officials in order to explain U.S. defense policy and international security issues to a global audience.

“Russia, China and Iran all invest heavily in English programming, which is filled with disinformation and lies about the United States. VOA English provided a trusted alternative before it was silenced,” said Barry Newhouse, acting director of VOA’s News Center.

VOA’s English programming has proved popular with audiences in Africa, a subset of political leaders and policymakers in non-English speaking countries, and with internet users in China. An online panel conducted by Gallup and a local partner found that 5.5% of Chinese internet users accessed VOA content in English each week.

In addition to the English website, programming for VOA’s English division also included hourly radio newscasts; a press freedom desk committed to covering the challenges journalists face around the world; “Learning English,” a popular, slow-paced broadcast to help millions to learn English while getting the news; and music shows, following the tradition of VOA’s iconic “Jazz Hour” radio show, hosted for four decades by Willis Conover.

Service Year started Weekly broadcast hours 2024* July 2025 weekly hours English 1942 415.53 0

savevoa.com

4. US Deploys Typhon Missiles to Japan, Putting China, Russia, and North Korea in Range

If only the Korean, Chinese and Russian people could hear about this. But alas we have no Voice of America to broadcast this news to the oppressed people who long for freedom. We have retired from the information warfare battlefield.

US Deploys Typhon Missiles to Japan, Putting China, Russia, and North Korea in Range

https://united24media.com/latest-news/us-deploys-typhon-missiles-to-japan-putting-china-russia-and-north-korea-in-range-11243

Aug 31, 2025 14:19

Updated Aug 31, 2025 14:24

2 min read

Authors

Ivan Khomenko

News Writer

USS Savannah Fires SM-6 Missile From Typhon’s Mk 70 Launcher, October 24, 2023. Illustrative photo. (Source: US Navy)

The United States has stationed its Typhon surface-to-surface missile system at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan, marking the system’s first permanent deployment on Japanese territory.

The move coincides with the start of Resolute Dragon 2025, a joint US-Japan military exercise scheduled from September 11 to 25, and is part of a broader strategy to enhance integrated strike capabilities across the Indo-Pacific region.

According to Army Recognition on August 30, the Typhon system—also known as the Strategic Mid-Range Fires system—is capable of launching SM-6 and Tomahawk cruise missiles. The SM-6 has a range exceeding 320 kilometers, while the Tomahawk offers strike capabilities up to 1,500 kilometers.

The system is road-mobile, containerized, and designed for survivability, allowing for rapid deployment and precision targeting in contested environments. Its dual-use design supports both maritime interdiction and land-attack missions.

China Ups Surveillance of Troubled People to Quell Rising Unrest

Communist Party’s new ‘society work’ agency helps with emotional and economic setbacks while monitoring dissatisfied people

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-surveillance-troubled-people-public-order-6e734df4

A memorial at the site where a man rammed a car into a crowd, killing 35 and injuring others, in Zhuhai. Photo: Ng Han Guan/AP

By Chun Han Wong

and Shen Lu

Aug. 31, 2025 9:00 pm ET

A 68-year-old man in China’s Zhejiang province barged into a local government office last year and declared he couldn’t go on living. His neighbors were bullying him, he claimed, and he threatened to take revenge.

The man had previously served a prison term. He was financially strained, estranged from his family and had frequent conflicts with neighbors. He was what Chinese authorities call a “five-loss individual”: someone with life setbacks, investment failures, family disputes, mental disorders or “emotional imbalance.”

Authorities swung into action. A sprawling new Communist Party agency, the Central Society Work Department, arranged a support plan that delayed some of the man’s debt repayment deadlines and provided counseling and other benefits. Within weeks, the local society-work office declared on social media that the man’s life was “back on track,” without elaborating.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping uses “society work” as an umbrella term for the Communist Party’s expanding efforts to reach left-behind communities and social castoffs. While helpful to individuals, the program’s overarching goal is to ensure that the problems don’t turn into threats to public order.

In the process, officials are cranking up the machinery of state surveillance to monitor socially fragile or dissatisfied people.

Some top officials at the new society-work department were plucked from state security and the police. Many of its local offices are directly managed by law-enforcement chiefs or placed under their supervision.

The Central Society Work Department office in Beijing. Photo: Jonathan Cheng/WSJ

Authorities asked party secretaries of each community to screen for people who have suffered losses, run background checks on them and report their information to a higher-level agency twice a month, according to a screenshot that appeared to be an order in a work chat group that was posted in December by a Yunnan-based user on China’s Xiaohongshu social-networking platform.

Companies have been asked to monitor people deemed to have suffered life setbacks, according to online directives by local government and law enforcement.

Authorities are also making use of China’s “grid management” system, an approach dating back to the early 2000s that divides communities into sections of several hundred households, each overseen by a “grid manager” who visits residents regularly and gathers data on their lives, such as contact details, employment status and housing conditions. Among other things, they promote government policies, monitor social sentiment and look for possible security threats.

Some grid managers are being asked to track people who are distressed over personal losses, and report issues up the chain before they fester into bigger problems, according to local government and media reports.

The fundamental principle, Xi has said, is to ensure that “small problems don’t leave the village, big problems don’t leave the town, and contradictions don’t get handed to higher ups.”

China’s economy is struggling under the pressure of trade tensions, a busted property market and other challenges. A series of violent attacks, including mass stabbings against seemingly random targets and cars ramming into crowds, has gripped national attention and prompted authorities to scramble for ways to address problems.

Police vehicles at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology after a stabbing attack in November. Photo: KYODO NEWS/AP

For Communist Party supporters, the efforts show how the government proactively responds to individuals’ needs, particularly when times are tough.

For critics of the party, it’s a reminder of its absolute need for social control, and its willingness to use state power to tamp down any signs of unrest.

“It’s not about rescuing the so-called ‘five losses’ at all, it’s about control,” said a man in Shanghai who went bankrupt last year and had his assets frozen after being caught in a legal battle with his former employer.

He said he fears getting labeled as a five-loss individual because it could lead to increased monitoring of his family. Such people “are seen as potential terrorists,” he said.

The Central Society Work Department and the local society-work office in Zhejiang province didn’t respond to requests for comment. The office removed the social-media post about the man it said it helped.

Spreading violence

China Dissent Monitor, a platform run by Washington-based rights advocacy group Freedom House, documented a marked increase in protests last year, mostly driven by economic grievances.

Police disclosures and local-media reports about the stabbings, car-ramming incidents and other attacks that occurred in the past year sometimes described the perpetrators as persons with financial problems, mental health issues or strained family relationships.

In November, 62-year-old Fan Weiqiu killed 35 people by driving a car into a crowd in Zhuhai in the southern province of Guangdong—an outburst that authorities said was spurred by Fan’s frustrations over his failed marriage and the financial settlement in his divorce.

People gathered near a sports center after the ramming attack in Zhuhai. Photo: Kyodo News/AP

In April, a woman drove a sedan into a crowd in Zhejiang province, killing 14. In May, one person was killed in an apparent shooting at a restaurant in the city of Wuhan—a rare case of gun violence in China.

The government needs to “focus on detecting risks, eliminating hidden dangers, and preventing incidents,” Guangdong society-work officials said days after the November ramming. Authorities sentenced Fan to death and executed him 10 weeks later.

Compared with the U.S. and Europe, China’s government provides less in terms of a social safety net, with limited financial support in cases of job losses or health emergencies.

For a while before Xi came to power, Beijing allowed civil society groups to advocate on and provide some solutions to social and environmental issues, said Holly Snape, a politics lecturer at the University of Glasgow who studies social governance in China. But Xi has clamped down on such groups, suspicious of any activism that is separate from the party.

“There’s a sense that that model failed, and so the party is stepping in,” Snape said, underpinned by a “a deep belief that only the party can organize society.”

Centralized support

Key to the Communist Party’s effort is the Central Society Work Department, created in 2023.

Currently headquartered in central Beijing, minutes from the Zhongnanhai leadership compound, the department helps organize and oversee the efforts of millions of party members, social workers and volunteers who are involved in government projects to engage with and provide support to underprivileged groups.

It runs social-media accounts and an official newspaper, China Society Work Daily, that tout the department’s outreach.

The department’s regional and local branches lead its engagement efforts. In some provinces, they deploy “society-work observers” to act as the party’s “nerve endings” in local communities, where they gather feedback, identify sources of discontent and help find solutions, according to government disclosures.

Officials in the southern city of Zhaoqing took steps to reduce traffic congestion near a village after an observer reported the problem. Another group helped resolve issues with waste removal and drainage.

A society work helper visiting an elderly resident who was living on his own in Guangdong. Photo: Guangdong Province Society Work Department

Sometimes, the job is simply to show residents a good time and remind them the party cares. A district in the eastern city of Hangzhou organized a concert in January ahead of the Lunar New Year to help residents “feel in their hearts the warmth and power that music brings.”

Society-work offices also step in to foster what the party calls “spiritual civilization,” an umbrella term for good morals, civic-mindedness and community spirit.

In the southern province of Guangdong, society-work officials have helped rural residents formulate village rules, including an agreement that mass dances and live broadcasts in public places shouldn’t generate sounds above 70 decibels. Another village agreed to reward good behavior, such as doing volunteer work and caring for the elderly, with cash and commendations, awarding titles like “Virtuous Family” and “Star-ranked Civilized Household.”

These efforts put the party more squarely in charge of matters once left to residents’ committees, which are meant to be semiautonomous groups that managed grassroots affairs with help from local governments.

There is also an increasingly overt state security element behind such efforts.

Local officials in the northwestern county of Weiyuan marked an International Volunteer Day by having volunteers go out to inspect fire-safety equipment and teach residents about recycling—as well as distribute pamphlets about China’s national security law, which sets expansive definitions on threats that include subversion, terrorism and cybercrime.

In the eastern city of Changzhou, society-work representatives teamed up with security officials one Saturday morning to run a “Political and Legal Affairs Milk Tea Stand,” enticing residents with free beverages and imbuing them with lessons on avoiding cults and drug use. “Residents could feel the care and warmth of the rule of law while enjoying a delicious drink,” a local society-work official said on social media.

Community volunteers in China’s northwestern county of Weiyuan last year taking an oath pledging to do their best to help local residents in need. Photo: Weiyuan County Society Work Department

Authorities have also tapped insights from China’s vast surveillance state, which under Xi has reached ever deeper into citizens’ lives through a sophisticated array of facial-recognition cameras, data-gathering algorithms and social-media monitoring systems meant to detect crime, political dissent and sources of social unrest.

In some cities, such as Beijing, society-work officials are making use of big-data analyses to assess residents’ needs and track social currents. The northwestern city of Lingwu plans to tap artificial intelligence to handle residents’ queries and monitor public sentiment, according to a government document inviting bids for the project.

The society-work department’s top official, Wu Hansheng, a career specialist in political training for party officials and personnel matters, wrote in a newspaper commentary that his agency is seeking new ways to mitigate tensions and maintain stability in a society undergoing rapid and profound change. The goal is to implement Xi’s vision of the “Fengqiao experience for the new era,” Wu said, referring to plans for modernizing a Mao-era approach to social control that relied on ordinary people monitoring each other.

The department’s first-ranked vice minister, Li Wenzhang, previously served as a provincial security czar and a senior official at China’s Ministry of State Security. Another vice minister in the department had been a provincial police chief.

The southwestern province of Sichuan appointed its security czar to lead the region’s society-work department. In the eastern city of Huainan, society-work officials have accompanied local police on “stability maintenance” inspections, visiting hospitals, schools and leisure areas to check on the robustness of their security arrangements.

Local authorities describe the department’s ties with China’s police and security apparatus as an advantage, allowing them to better serve communities. Society-work officials in the port city of Lianyungang touted their ability to deploy a mix of police officers, lawyers and volunteers to run seminars educating the public on the prevention of online scams, workers’ rights and women’s health.

‘Mobile probes’

A major focus of the department’s work has been China’s estimated 200 million gig workers, a group that Beijing sees as vulnerable to economic downturns and a source of growing labor unrest.

The workers typically earn low wages, enjoy little job security and are constantly on the move, making them harder for the party to monitor than factory workers or employees of state-owned companies. Their numbers have grown as more people drift out of other forms of employment.

Strengthening the party’s presence among such groups “is the top priority of society work,” Xi’s chief of staff, Cai Qi, said in November, telling officials to focus on “party building” in new and fast-growing labor communities.

Some local governments are setting up community spaces where gig workers can access conveniences including drinking water, child care and phone-charging points. Called “little bee courier stations” in some areas—a reference to a nickname for delivery drivers—the outposts are similar to “convenience” police stations in the western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, which offer amenities such as wireless internet and first-aid kits while conducting surveillance and enabling a strong security presence.

In Beijing, home to an estimated 330,000 delivery riders and ride-hailing drivers, the municipal society-work department has set up dedicated offices to engage riders and drivers with party membership, providing them with free legal advice, health checks and screenings of “red movies,” which promote Communist Party ideology. Elsewhere, officials are expanding vocational training.

Food delivery riders ate a meal in Beijing. Photo: Andy Wong/AP

In return for such benefits, gig workers “are encouraged to become part-time grid management workers,” said a local society-work department in the northeastern province of Liaoning. This would “give full play to their role as ‘mobile probes’ in early warning of abnormal situations and collecting social conditions and public opinion.”

“I will take the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping as a guide” and “continue to carry forward the ‘little bees’ of couriers who are dedicated to their jobs,” Yang Shuai, a delivery rider in Shaanxi province, told a state-run newspaper.

Similar programs in Shanghai have offered free haircuts and sewing services to gig workers, notes Zhang Yueting, a University of Tokyo researcher who studies Chinese grassroots governance.

“It is clear these are care projects designed for vulnerable groups,” Zhang said. “It can also be said that care is a form of social stability maintenance.”

A Beijing blogger who initially considered embracing the five-loss label, thinking the government might help him, became more skeptical after he learned authorities were surveilling such people and viewing them as sources of social instability. “This approach addresses the victims of problems rather than the problems themselves,” the blogger wrote.

A blogger in Guangdong province also criticized the monitoring. “The current governance logic doesn’t focus on what kind of help you need,” the blogger wrote on the WeChat social-media app. “Instead, it prioritizes ensuring that you do not harm society.”

Write to Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com

6. Doctors in South Korea Return to Work After 18-Month Walkout

Doctors in South Korea Return to Work After 18-Month Walkout

Thousands of residents and interns were protesting a government proposal that would have dramatically increased the number of medical students in the country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/world/asia/south-korea-doctors-strike.html

A rally during the doctors strike in Seoul last year.Credit...Soo-Hyeon Kim/Reuters

By Jin Yu Young

Reporting from Seoul

Sept. 1, 2025

Updated 3:01 a.m. ET

An 18-month doctors’ walkout that roiled South Korea’s health-care system began winding down on Monday, as two physicians’ groups said that interns and residents started returning to work at some university and private hospitals.

More than 10,000 young doctors — interns and residents — walked out last February after South Korea’s president at the time, Yoon Suk Yeol, proposed to dramatically alter the nation’s medical care landscape. Thousands of medical students also joined in and stopped going to class.

The biggest point of contention was Mr. Yoon’s plan to increase medical school admissions by around 65 percent for the next five years. Doctors argued that the move would diminish the quality of health care without solving ongoing issues in the industry. Mr. Yoon’s government, they said, failed to address inequalities in the profession that translated to some emergency care and pediatric doctors being overworked and underpaid, at times clocking in over 80 hours a week for a monthly paycheck of about $3,000.

For months, neither side budged. The government ordered striking doctors to return to work, but most refused. Mr. Yoon then threatened to cancel the medical licenses of thousands of doctors and sue those who defied return-to-work orders.

During the standoff, the longest in South Korea’s medical industry, the nation’s health-care system cracked but did not collapse. While surgeries and treatments were postponed by some hospitals for months, some nurses filled in the roles of physicians, and military doctors were deployed to civilian hospitals. The protest drew severe backlash from the public, which grew angrier over time at both the doctors and the government for putting patients’ lives at risk.

In April — days after Mr. Yoon was removed from office for declaring martial law — the authorities reversed course and brought the admissions quota for 2026 back to its original number of around 3,000 students. But it left quotas for subsequent years open to negotiation.

The new government, led by President Lee Jae Myung, took a softer approach to talks. Last month, it said doctors who were on strike could return to work without repercussions.

With negotiations still pending, the decision for the physicians to return to work is “not without its shortcomings,” the Korean Medical Association said in a statement in August. But “we’re glad that those at the head of training for young doctors have come to a conclusion.”

Doctors were returning to their posts on different days this week, depending on their experience, according to the Korea Intern Resident Association.

Jin Yu Young reports on South Korea, the Asia Pacific region and global breaking news from Seoul.

7. South Korea’s Export Growth Slowed in August

South Korea’s Export Growth Slowed in August

Exports rose 1.3% from a year earlier, slowing from a revised 5.8% increase in July

https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/south-koreas-export-growth-slowed-in-august-b035fb0d?pos=1&page=1

By Kwanwoo Jun

Updated Aug. 31, 2025 9:28 pm ET

Shipments to the U.S. dropped 12% from a year earlier in August, and exports to China fell 2.9%. Photo: anthony wallace/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Quick Summary

South Korea’s export growth slowed to 1.3% in August, missing economists’ projections amid President Trump’s tariffs.View more

South Korea’s export growth slowed sharply in August, with U.S.-bound shipments plunging as President Trump’s tariffs weighed on global trade.

Exports from Asia’s fourth-largest economy rose 1.3% from a year earlier to $58.40 billion, following a revised 5.8% increase in July, according to preliminary data released by the trade ministry on Monday. The latest print missed a 3.7% increase projected by the median forecast of 11 economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.

The weaker-than-expected data arrived despite a U.S.-South Korea deal in late July to lower tariffs and solid computer-chip demand.

Imports fell 4.0% from a year earlier to $51.89 billion, resulting in a trade surplus of $6.51 billion in August. That compared with a $6.61 billion surplus in the prior month.

The front-loading of shipments to get ahead of tariffs began to taper off, even though computer-chip exports remained solid amid the artificial intelligence boom. Analysts said that one fewer working day in August this year also likely made the data look softer than last year.

Shipments to the U.S. dropped 12% from a year earlier in August, and exports to China fell 2.9%, the data showed.

Semiconductor shipments, which account for roughly one-fifth of the country’s total goods exports, rose 27% year over year to a monthly record of $15.10 billion in August, marking a sixth consecutive month of growth. Shipments of vehicles and ships also increased, but those of petrochemical and petroleum products fell due to lower oil prices and a global supply glut.

South Korea’s exports have maintained growth so far under Trump’s tough trade policies, but it remains unclear if such momentum can continue.

The U.S.-South Korean trade deal in July had reduced uncertainty by lowering Trump’s blanket tariff to 15% from 25% proposed earlier. Duties on South Korean autos have been set at 15%, but steel and industrial goods containing the alloy still remain subject to a 50% tariff.

The South Korean government, in its semiannual outlook in August, cautioned that exports could weaken in the second half, with autos, steel and petrochemical products expected to bear the brunt of higher U.S. tariffs.

Write to Kwanwoo Jun at Kwanwoo.Jun@wsj.com

8. Meet the world’s hottest upstart weapons dealers

Please go to the link to view the data/graphs.

It looks like as of March 2025, South Korea is second only to the US in arms sales and appears to be the largest exporter of artillery.

I know some tire of me saying this, but South Korea is partner in the arsenal of democracies.

Excerpts:

Largest of all is the deal South Korea signed with Poland in 2022, now worth $22bn, to sell a range of weapons systems partly built in Poland. That includes 180 K2 Black Panther tanks, 672 howitzers, 48 FA-50 fighters and 288 K239 rocket launchers. Poland wants to deter Russia, and quickly. For South Korea it is a bold signal that it is ready to join the front rank of arms exporters, opening the door to other lucrative deals in Europe.

South Korea can rapidly churn out NATO-standard gear at good prices. Seven giant firms work with the government to land orders and co-ordinate research and development. Maintaining capacity has been a priority, in part, because the country is technically still at war with its northern neighbour, says Chung Min Lee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank. In shipbuilding, Korean firms have a big advantage. They may win a $17bn contract to build 12 KSS-III submarines for Canada, and the lack of shipbuilding capacity in America could see it scoop up orders from the US Navy.

Its most ambitious programme is the KF-21 fighter, which is expected to enter service late next year, and has won interest in eastern Europe, the Gulf and South Asia. Currently a 4.5-generation aircraft, it is hoped that its next update will make it a full fifth-generation stealth fighter equipped with indigenously manufactured engines. It will test whether South Korea can compete with the most advanced American platforms, such as the F-35, says Kyung-joo Jeon of the Korean Institute for Defence Analysis. Not even Japan and Israel have managed that.

Chart: The Economist

Meet the world’s hottest upstart weapons dealers

A ferocious global arms race is big business

https://www.economist.com/international/2025/08/31/meet-the-worlds-hottest-upstart-weapons-dealers

Photograph: Getty Images

Aug 31st 2025

6 min read

he Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing will be anything but peaceful on September 3rd, when Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin and others gather to celebrate the end of the second world war. Chinese troops will march in a parade designed to boost national pride and flex military muscles. Perhaps most importantly the parade will showcase China’s newest warfighting equipment to potential buyers and potential adversaries.

The world’s military planners are spending big on new weapons. The war in Ukraine, threats of abandonment by America and worries that China might invade Taiwan have countries scrambling to fill stockpiles, harden supply chains and secure flows of munitions. There is a voracious appetite for tanks, artillery, fighter jets and drones. On August 31st Britain announced a $10bn ($13.5bn) deal to supply Norway with five anti-submarine frigates. Yet not all of this is rewarding traditional exporters in America, Europe and Russia. Instead, two ambitious middle powers, South Korea and Turkey, are capitalising on the boom.

The arms race reflects a larger realignment. Europe’s arms companies need time to restore capacity lost after the end of the cold war and to rebuild inventories depleted by donations to Ukraine. Russia, usually the second-biggest arms exporter after America, is prioritising its own army after years of equipment losses in Ukraine. Western sanctions stop its firms from getting components critical to building advanced platforms, like fighter jets. Last year, Russian exports were down by nearly 50% from 2022 and its order books were subdued. Clients such as India, Vietnam and Egypt are looking elsewhere.

Chart: The Economist

Many are turning to South Korea (see chart one). While America is the biggest exporter of arms to European NATO members, South Korea and France are tied in second place. Worldwide in some categories of weapons, such as tanks and artillery, South Korea is outselling America. It is third behind America and France for combat aircraft. Last year, South Korea sold $3.2bn worth of Cheongung–II surface-to-air missile systems to Saudi Arabia, warships to Peru worth $460m and $1bn of self-propelled howitzers to Romania.

Largest of all is the deal South Korea signed with Poland in 2022, now worth $22bn, to sell a range of weapons systems partly built in Poland. That includes 180 K2 Black Panther tanks, 672 howitzers, 48 FA-50 fighters and 288 K239 rocket launchers. Poland wants to deter Russia, and quickly. For South Korea it is a bold signal that it is ready to join the front rank of arms exporters, opening the door to other lucrative deals in Europe.

South Korea can rapidly churn out NATO-standard gear at good prices. Seven giant firms work with the government to land orders and co-ordinate research and development. Maintaining capacity has been a priority, in part, because the country is technically still at war with its northern neighbour, says Chung Min Lee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank. In shipbuilding, Korean firms have a big advantage. They may win a $17bn contract to build 12 KSS-III submarines for Canada, and the lack of shipbuilding capacity in America could see it scoop up orders from the US Navy.

Its most ambitious programme is the KF-21 fighter, which is expected to enter service late next year, and has won interest in eastern Europe, the Gulf and South Asia. Currently a 4.5-generation aircraft, it is hoped that its next update will make it a full fifth-generation stealth fighter equipped with indigenously manufactured engines. It will test whether South Korea can compete with the most advanced American platforms, such as the F-35, says Kyung-joo Jeon of the Korean Institute for Defence Analysis. Not even Japan and Israel have managed that.

Chart: The Economist

Another up-and-comer is Turkey. Over the past five years, its arms exports have shot up, from nearly $2bn to over $7bn last year (see chart two). That is a result of efforts to achieve strategic autonomy, pushed in part by a civilian-run Defence Industry Agency, says Arda Mevlutoglu, a defence expert. Drones made by Baykar outcompete Chinese models. More than 500 of its TB2 fixed-wing models have been sold to over 30 countries. Saudi Arabia has a $3bn deal to co-produce a more advanced drone called Acinki. Baykar has a joint venture with Italy’s Leonardo, which is eyeing the stealthy Kizilelma fighter drone as a “loyal wingman” to fly alongside the planned sixth-generation GCAP future fighter jets.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, likes the diplomatic influence that comes with arms sales to Africa and the Middle East. But Turkish firms are looking to European countries with their big budgets. Serhat Guvenc, of Kadir Has University, says that Europeans’ longstanding concerns over human rights in Turkey are a luxury they can no longer afford.

Turkish weapons are battle-proven through its conflict with the Kurds and its interventions in Syria and Libya. They are built to NATO standards and affordable, and have a no-strings-attached sales policy. The breadth of Turkey’s offering is striking, including armoured vehicles such as the K2-based Altay tank, artillery, missiles, air-defence systems, radars, warships such as the MILGEM family of frigates and destroyers, the Hurjet light attack/trainer aircraft, the ATAK helicopter, armed drones and electronic warfare systems.

Earlier this year, Turkey and Spain agreed to a $1.6bn co-production deal for up to 30 Hurjets. Turkey is selling 1,059 Otokar Cobra II armoured vehicles to Romania in a deal worth approximately $930m, and last December Portugal signed a $134m contract for naval-replenishment ships. Last year Turkey, which has developed missiles, was invited by Germany to join the European Sky Shield Initiative. There is every chance that Turkey can go from about 11th in the league table of arms exporters to fifth, says Mr Mevlutoglu. Like South Korea, it has a fifth-generation fighter programme, the TAI Kaan. As well as replacing Turkish Air Force F-16s, it will be competing for export orders as a low-cost F-35 alternative with potential interest from Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the then president of South Korea boasted that by 2027 his country would become the fourth-largest arms exporter in the world, with a 5% share of the market. That looks like a stretch. In 2022 its sales nudged $17.3bn; this year it expects exports of around $23bn. Competition is set to get more intense. There are early signs of a “brain drain” of skilled Korean and Turkish engineers to Western firms with better pay. Cash-strapped governments may run out of money: Mr Lee reckons that South Korea must raise the share of R&D in the defence budget from 17-18% to 20-23% to remain competitive. And access to advanced technologies is limited: production of Korean-made fighter jets on order from Poland has stalled because America has yet to authorise exports of some components. Turkey is still excluded from major Western joint projects, such as the F-35. Even Russia may get back in the game. Still, for the new contenders in the escalating global arms race it makes sense to aim high. ■

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include the announcement of Britain’s deal with Norway

9. Kim Jong Un promotes ‘new’ missile production capabilities ahead of China visit

Kim Jong Un promotes ‘new’ missile production capabilities ahead of China visit

North Korea signals commitment to nuclear missiles as Kim set to meet Xi Jinping for first time in 6 years

https://www.nknews.org/2025/09/kim-jong-un-visits-new-ballistic-missile-factory-ahead-of-china-visit/

Colin Zwirko September 1, 2025

Kim Jong Un inspects Hwasong-11 series SRBMs at an unidentified "new" missile factory on Sunday | Image: KCNA (Sept. 1, 2025)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected “new” ballistic missile production capabilities on Sunday, according to state media, a few days before he is scheduled to attend a military parade in Beijing on Wednesday and meet the Chinese and Russian leaders.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Monday that Kim visited a “newly-inaugurated combined missile production line of a major munitions enterprise” and approved three new “long-term” plans for missile production and increased spending on weapons development, signaling that he will head into diplomatic talks with no intention of discussing a reduction in arms production.

NK News analysis of two photos released with the report show Kim inspecting Hwasong-11 series short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs), weapons that Kim has claimed are all capable of being equipped with nuclear warheads and targeting South Korea and U.S. bases on the peninsula.

North Korea has also exported conventional Hwasong-11A and possibly other missiles in the series of different sizes to Russia for use in their war against Ukraine.

Though only partial views of the interior of the factory are visible, they do not look like rooms at the February 11 Plant in Hamhung on the east coast where Kim previously inspected Hwasong-11 missiles — the only known factory in the DPRK producing these weapons.

Kim Jong Un inspects Hwasong-11 series SRBMs at an unidentified “new” missile factory on Sunday | Image: KCNA (Sept. 1, 2025)

It is possible KCNA is referring simply to new production capabilities at the Feb. 11 plant and showing different buildings than before, or that Kim has sought to boost production capacity of the SRBMs by establishing an additional production line for the missiles elsewhere.

Kim was told on site about a “newly designed automated assembly-line missile production system” that prepares “all components of the airframe and the equipment specialized in precision processing, measuring and assembling different parts,” increasing productivity and ensuring quality.

North Korea’s missile production capacity “has been rapidly increased” as a result, Kim reportedly said, while he “ratified three new long-term plans related to missile production capacity and the draft for defence expenditure on the plans.”

“He stressed that the missile production sector should be fully prepared to unconditionally accept and fully implement the new long-term production goals set forth by the Ninth Congress of the Party,” KCNA reported.

The Ninth Congress is expected to take place at the end of this year or early next year, five years after Kim set major missile production goals at the Eighth Congress in Jan. 2021.

The missile factory visit comes as Kim Jong Un will meet his Chinese and Russian counterparts Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in Beijing on Wednesday.

The visit is likely an attempt to show Putin that North Korea continues to improve production capabilities, setting the stage for discussions between the two leaders on increasing Russian missile purchases or cooperation in the field.

But the purposefully timed inspection also underscores Kim’s repeated vow to never give up his nuclear weapons as U.S. President Donald Trump expresses interest in reviving talks with Pyongyang.

China has never officially disavowed its long-standing support for North Korean denuclearization, but in recent years, it has increasingly given Pyongyang diplomatic cover to violate U.N. Security Council sanctions aimed at restricting its weapons development, while calling on the U.S. to address the DPRK’s “legitimate security concerns.”

Kim met with Xi five times from 2018-2019 in what appeared to be a North Korean effort to coordinate with its closest ally and strengthen its negotiating position for nuclear talks with the U.S..

The North Korean leader’s latest appearance marks his first public visit to a missile factory since inspecting the Tonghungsan Machine Plant in Hamhung in June.

Kim was on the east coast near Hamhung the day before his latest factory visit, according to state media, officially opening the Ragwon County Offshore Farm and workers’ village on Saturday after visiting the site earlier last week.

Domestic-facing state media like the Rodong Sinmun and Korean Central Television (KCTV) did not report on Kim’s missile factory visit on Monday, similar to a reported surface-to-air missile test last week.

The discrepancy points to caution by authorities over promoting increased military spending amid a focus on rural development and commemorating soldiers who died fighting in the war against Ukraine, while still hoping to send messages on weapons development to international partners and enemies.

Edited by Kristen Talman

Updated on Sept. 1 at 1:35 p.m. KST with additional background and details from state media

10. ROK military halts ‘Voice of Freedom’ radio broadcasts aimed at North Korea

A big mistake. As big a mistake as the US halting VOA broadcasts.

Note also:

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) has also reportedly scaled back its radio and television broadcasts targeting North Korea since July.

KJU assesses these actions as victory for his political warfare strategy. They also support him remaining in power.

ROK military halts ‘Voice of Freedom’ radio broadcasts aimed at North Korea

Suspension of radio propaganda is the first in 15 years and is part of Lee administration’s push to ease tensions

https://www.nknews.org/2025/09/rok-military-halts-voice-of-freedom-radio-broadcasts-aimed-at-north-korea/?t=1756734518

Joon Ha Park September 1, 2025

Image: NK News

The South Korean military has suspended its “Voice of Freedom” (자유의 소리) radio broadcasts into North Korea for the first time in 15 years, seeking to improve inter-Korean ties.

The defense ministry said Monday that the broadcasts, reportedly run by its Defense Psychological Operation Group (국군심리전단), were “halted” as part of efforts to “reduce military tensions between the two Koreas.”

The ministry told NK News it cannot confirm the exact timing of the suspension, though ROK media reported that the final transmission went out at 10 p.m. KST on Sunday and that broadcasting ceased early Monday.

The military previously broadcast the Voice of Freedom program over FM and shortwave radio, delivering news critical of the North Korean regime. The transmissions compared the two Koreas’ political systems and highlighted South Korea’s democratic development and popular culture.

In Nov. 2017, the program also reported on the high-profile defection of a Korean People’s Army soldier across the Demilitarized Zone at the Joint Security Area.

The latest suspension aligns with President Lee Jae-myung’s policy of easing tensions and building trust with Pyongyang, which has seen Seoul roll back hardline measures imposed under the conservative Yoon Suk-yeol administration.

Under Yoon, South Korea restored border loudspeakers and resumed propaganda broadcasts in response to North Korean balloon launches in June 2024.

But following Lee’s election in June this year, the South Korean military suspended all loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border and dismantled fixed installations by early August.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) has also reportedly scaled back its radio and television broadcasts targeting North Korea since July.

The last full suspension of the Voice of Freedom program occurred under the Roh Moo-hyun administration following a June 2004 inter-Korean general-level military agreement, which required both sides to halt propaganda activities and dismantle related equipment. The program resumed broadcasting in March 2010, however, after Pyongyang’s sinking of the ROKS Cheonan warship.

In addition to radio, NK News previously identified three border-facing TV channels airing content such as variety shows, human rights documentaries and depictions of daily life in Seoul. However, Seoul’s unification ministry denied involvement, while the defense ministry and NIS declined to comment.

It remains unclear whether the reported suspensions affected any of these channels.

The policy changes have yielded limited reciprocation from Pyongyang, aside from a cessation of the North’s anti-South broadcasts in June following Seoul’s suspension.

Days after the removal of South Korean loudspeakers, the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) reported detecting signs that North Korea had begun dismantling some of its own forward-area equipment. But the DPRK leader’s sister Kim Yo Jong disputed those assessments, denying that Pyongyang had removed any devices.

Regarding military activity along the border since the suspension of Voice of Freedom radio program, JCS spokesperson Col. Lee Sung-jun told reporters at a regular defense ministry briefing Monday that North Korean forces continue land-clearing operations and the construction of barbed-wire fortifications in forward positions.

Edited by Alannah Hill

11. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jin Yong-sung named new JCS chairman nominee

We saw him make remarks last week during Ulchi Freedom Shield.

As we look at the background LTG Jin and LTG Kim (nominated for CSA) does this indicate a ROK military focus on strategic fires and effects?

Alongside Jin, the ministry announced the promotion of six other four-star generals, including the chiefs of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force as well as the deputy commander of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC).

Army Lt. Gen. Kim Gyu-ha, who serves as the missile strategy commander, was named Army chief of staff, while Vice Adm. Kang Dong-gil, chief of the JCS' directorate of military support, was named chief of naval operations.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Son Sug-rag, who oversees the armed service's education and training, was appointed Air Force chief of staff and Army Lt. Gen. Kim Sung-min, commander of the 5th Corps, was named CFC deputy commander.

(LEAD) Air Force Lt. Gen. Jin Yong-sung named new JCS chairman nominee | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · Lee Minji · September 1, 2025

(ATTN: RECASTS lead; ADDS details throughout)

By Lee Minji

SEOUL, Sept. 1 (Yonhap) -- Air Force Lt. Gen. Jin Yong-sung has been tapped to lead South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the defense ministry said Monday, in the first major military reshuffle under the Lee Jae Myung government.

Jin, who has led the Strategic Command as its inaugural chief, was promoted to a four-star general in the high-level military reshuffle to replace JCS Chairman Adm. Kim Myung-soo, according to the ministry.

Jin is subject to a parliamentary confirmation hearing before Lee will formally appoint him.

It marked the first time in five years that an Air Force officer has been named to the top military post since Gen. Won In-choul was tapped as JCS chairman in 2020.

Alongside Jin, the ministry announced the promotion of six other four-star generals, including the chiefs of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force as well as the deputy commander of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC).

Army Lt. Gen. Kim Gyu-ha, who serves as the missile strategy commander, was named Army chief of staff, while Vice Adm. Kang Dong-gil, chief of the JCS' directorate of military support, was named chief of naval operations.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Son Sug-rag, who oversees the armed service's education and training, was appointed Air Force chief of staff and Army Lt. Gen. Kim Sung-min, commander of the 5th Corps, was named CFC deputy commander.

This file photo, provided by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), shows JCS chairman nominee Air Force Lt. Gen. Jin Yong-sung. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

President Lee Jae Myung is set to officially appoint the candidates following an approval at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, the ministry said.

The sweeping reshuffle is the first such personnel shake-up to take place after ousted former President Yoon Suk Yeol's failed martial law imposition on Dec. 3. The previous reshuffle took place in October 2023, when all seven four-star general posts were replaced.

The ministry said it conducted the latest reshuffle to maintain the military's firm readiness posture and response capabilities while stabilizing the military organization to one that is trusted by the people.

"Specifically, generals ... who have obtained various field experience, excellent combat capabilities and are deeply trusted for their operational command capabilities have been chosen amid North Korea's continued missile threats and the unstable international security situation," it added.

Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back, who took office as Lee's first defense minister and as the first civilian defense chief in 64 years, has vowed to rebuild the military into one trusted by the people and carry out powerful defense reform.

mlee@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · Lee Minji · September 1, 2025

12. Exclusive: North Korea jammed South's GPS for 329 straight days

Who is executing a hostile policy?

Rep Kang is correct here:

Rep. Kang said the findings underscored the perils of President Lee’s outreach. “An untested peace policy that relies only on the North’s goodwill endangers our security,” he said. “We must build a stronger defense on the foundation of the U.S.-Korea alliance.”

Exclusive: North Korea jammed South's GPS for 329 straight days

Attacks disrupted thousands of planes and ships and downed military drones, despite Seoul's conciliatory approach

https://www.chosun.com/english/north-korea-en/2025/09/01/WDLXCEVEA5EOTFVE5YVHZJPOMA/

By Yang Ji-ho,

Park Su-hyeon

Published 2025.09.01. 15:04

North Korea conducted GPS jamming for 329 consecutive days, from Oct. 2, 2024, to Aug. 26 this year, disrupting thousands of flights and maritime voyages and even causing South Korean military drones to crash, according to newly disclosed government data.

The disclosure came from Representative Kang Dae-sik of the conservative People Power Party, who cited figures provided by the Ministry of Science and ICT to the National Defense Committee. In that period, 4,915 aircraft and more than 1,000 ships reported interference.

Officials said the North broadcast powerful noise signals from the border regions of Kaepung in North Hwanghae Province and Haeju in South Hwanghae Province, overwhelming satellite reception needed for navigation. The operations persisted despite a series of overtures from President Lee Jae-myung, who has sought to ease tensions with Pyongyang since taking office earlier this year.

A Navy S-100 reconnaissance helicopter drone is seen during a final rehearsal for the Armed Forces Day ceremony at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, South Korea, in 2023./Yonhap

It was not the first time North Korea deployed such tactics. Between March and June of last year, it interfered with GPS signals on 19 days, disrupting 533 aircraft and 1,055 ships. That earlier campaign was tied to the crashes of three South Korean military reconnaissance drones, incidents that had not previously been disclosed in detail.

One involved the Navy’s S-100 reconnaissance helicopter drone, valued at more than 1 billion won (about $7.3 million), which went down near islands in the West Sea, or Yellow Sea, in April 2024. A joint civilian-military inquiry concluded that the crash followed jamming signals transmitted from South Hwanghae Province toward Yeonpyeong Island, rendering the drone uncontrollable before it plunged into the sea.

Yet later that spring, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff asserted that GPS interference had caused “no operational restrictions” on military activity. Lawmakers now suggest the military sought to conceal the crash. Asked by The Chosun Ilbo about the incident, the Joint Chiefs offered only that “detailed answers are restricted as the matter relates to military operations.”

Two additional drones fell in subsequent months — an Army Heron in November and a KUS-9 division-level reconnaissance drone in December. Multiple defense sources said both were also likely victims of the North’s interference.

GPS disruption can be crippling for unmanned aircraft, which lose their ability to maintain altitude and communication links. For that reason, international bodies including the International Telecommunication Union, the International Maritime Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization explicitly prohibit jamming.

South Korea has lodged three formal complaints through those organizations, urging them to press North Korea to desist. Pyongyang has not responded.

Rep. Kang said the findings underscored the perils of President Lee’s outreach. “An untested peace policy that relies only on the North’s goodwill endangers our security,” he said. “We must build a stronger defense on the foundation of the U.S.-Korea alliance.”

13. The Korean crisis of freedom and democracy

I will criticize foreign and national security policy especially as they affect US national interests. But if we believe in self determination of government (a fundamental human right of a people) then I think we have to leave domestic election politics to the Korean people.

Excerpts:

What I did not foresee was how radical the new government would be in going after its political opponents and advocates of religious liberty. Mr. Lee clearly represented the left wing of South Korean politics, and his conservative opponents had warned again and again that he was too close to China and too comfortable with communist ideas.

I was skeptical of these charges, and in meetings in Seoul with Mr. Lee’s allies, I was repeatedly assured that they were exaggerations.

The recent all-out assault on political and religious liberty has been breathtaking. The new government has demanded the names of church members and the membership rolls of the Conservative Party. It apparently intends to match the two lists and then charge the churches with being political.

The Korean crisis of freedom and democracy

A breathtaking assault

washingtontimes.com · Newt Gingrich

By - Wednesday, August 27, 2025

OPINION:

When it was originally announced that Lee Jae-myung, the newly elected president of the Republic of Korea, would meet with President Trump in Washington, I expected a totally positive event.

The United States has been committed to the defense of South Korea for 75 years. My father fought there in 1953 and went back in the 1960s in the U.S. Army to help protect South Korea. With our protection, it has evolved into one of the leading manufacturing countries in the world.

South Korean shipbuilding is the second largest in the world, surpassed only by communist China. In fact, South Korea builds about 35% of all the merchant ships worldwide annually.

I had written and talked about the potential of the very efficient and technologically advanced South Korean shipbuilding industry helping solve the current crisis of an obsolete, bureaucratic and inefficient American shipbuilding system. It has led the U.S. Navy and the Coast Guard to a crisis of inadequate and increasingly antiquated ships.

On that front, this visit was a major success, as Mr. Lee brought a plan for South Korea to invest billions of dollars in modernizing the American shipbuilding system and helping modernize the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard.

What I did not foresee was how radical the new government would be in going after its political opponents and advocates of religious liberty. Mr. Lee clearly represented the left wing of South Korean politics, and his conservative opponents had warned again and again that he was too close to China and too comfortable with communist ideas.

I was skeptical of these charges, and in meetings in Seoul with Mr. Lee’s allies, I was repeatedly assured that they were exaggerations.

The recent all-out assault on political and religious liberty has been breathtaking. The new government has demanded the names of church members and the membership rolls of the Conservative Party. It apparently intends to match the two lists and then charge the churches with being political.

Major conservative and religious leaders have had their houses and offices raided on a gigantic scale. On one occasion, more than 1,000 police and prosecutors descended at 7 a.m. on the home and offices of a major religious leader.

Americans who watched the outrageous search at Mar-a-Largo, including a search of the first lady’s personal effects, will understand how even more insulting, intrusive and threatening having 1,000 government officials show up at your home and offices at seven in the morning would be.

The Lee administration has been so arrogant that it launched a raid on the South Korean part of a joint U.S.-Korean air base without telling the Americans who were there to help defend South Korea.

The arrogance of raiding a joint base without telling or coordinating with the United States led Secretary of State and acting National Security Adviser Marco Rubio to cancel his scheduled meeting with South Korea’s national security adviser, Wi Sung-lac, and cancel a meeting between the U.S. and South Korean trade negotiators.

After being briefed about how bad things were, Mr. Trump went on Truth Social to say, “WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA? Seems like a Purge or Revolution. We can’t have that and do business there. I am seeing the new President today at the White House. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!”

Later, Mr. Trump was asked what his statement referred to, and he replied, “Well, I heard that there were raids on churches over the last few days, very vicious raids on churches by the new government in South Korea, that they even went into our military base and got information. They probably shouldn’t have done that, but I heard bad things. I don’t know if it’s true or not. I’ll be finding out. As you know, your new president’s coming in just a couple of hours, coming forward to meet him, but we won’t stand for that. We just won’t stand for that.”

Because Mr. Trump raised this issue directly with Mr. Lee during their meetings, there is no question but that the new South Korean president knows his government is on a path that will arouse great opposition from the United States.

The next few weeks will be important in seeing whether Mr. Lee has gotten the message and is pulling back from the totalitarian police state tactics (tactics which Chinese Communist leader Xi Jinping could identify with) and return to the rule of law. The United States has worked for three generations (nearly eight decades) to foster that rule of law.

This is an important moment in the future of America’s relationship with the South Korean government.

• For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also, subscribe to the “Newt’s World” podcast.

washingtontimes.com · Newt Gingrich

14. Special counsel suspects link between ex-first lady and Unification Church

Special counsel suspects link between ex-first lady and Unification Church | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · Yoo Cheong-mo · September 1, 2025

SEOUL, Sept. 1 (Yonhap) -- Former first lady Kim Keon Hee asked for the Unification Church's cooperation in backing a specific candidate in the People Power Party's (PPP) leadership election in March 2023, an indictment written by special counsel Min Joong-ki's team showed Monday.

The team suspects that the Unification Church sought to request various policy favors from the administration of former President Yoon Suk Yeol in exchange for its political support.

According to the indictment for a former Unification Church official surnamed Yun, obtained by Yonhap News Agency, church leader Han Hak-ja emphasized the ideology of unity between church and state in around October 2019 and has since pushed for various projects and events related to Africa, Cambodia, a Demilitarized Zone peace park and hosting a U.N. secretariat in South Korea.

Under the instruction of Han, Yun selected Yoon as a presidential hopeful, who can not only accommodate the Unification Church's policy proposals but also establish friendly relations with the church, ahead of the 2022 presidential election, according to the indictment.

Yun is accused of offering Rep. Kweon Seong-dong of the PPP 100 million won (US$72,000) in January 2022 while promising the church's extensive support for Yoon in the presidential election in exchange for the government's support for the church's projects and events in the future.

Kweon then met with Han at the latter's office in Gapyeong, northeast of Seoul, on Feb. 8, 2022, the indictment said, adding the church leader expressed her support for Yoon during a church meeting in Seoul on March 2.

The document also alleged that Yun and a shaman close to the former first lady discussed recruiting a large number of Unification Church members to support Kweon in the PPP leadership election held in March 2023, noting that the recruitment plan was requested by Kim to Yun through the shaman in November 2022.

Former first lady Kim Keon Hee (Yonhap)

ycm@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · Yoo Cheong-mo · September 1, 2025

15. MASGA project could strengthen Korea-U.S. alliance security

MASGA project could strengthen Korea-U.S. alliance security

https://www.donga.com/en/article/all/20250829/5815123/1

Posted August. 29, 2025 07:08,

Updated August. 29, 2025 07:08

The MASGA (Make American Shipbuilding Great Again) project, in which South Korea will invest $150 billion, or about 210 trillion won, is expected to serve as a cornerstone of Korea-U.S. economic and security cooperation for decades. If realized, the plan could accelerate the project agreed upon by both countries’ leaders and potentially elevate the Korea-U.S. alliance to a higher level.

The U.S. Navy has reportedly told the South Korean government that President Donald Trump could issue an executive order as early as this year to ease the BURNS-TOLEFFSON Act, which bars the construction of U.S. warships, hulls, or components overseas. Along with the Jones Act, which requires that cargo transported between U.S. ports be carried on U.S.-built ships, this law is one of two major regulations hindering Korea-U.S. shipbuilding cooperation. Although bills to ease these rules have been introduced in Congress, their passage and timing remain uncertain, so officials are reportedly exploring temporary executive orders as a workaround.

If implemented, the executive order would allow large block modules and empty hulls for warship construction to be built in South Korea and then sent to Korean companies or partner U.S. shipyards for assembly and completion. With U.S. shipyards facing shortages of docks and skilled labor, this division of labor could significantly speed up warship production.

The U.S. government is reportedly considering such measures because expanding its numerically lagging naval fleet is urgent. The Navy currently has 296 ships and aims to increase that number to 381 by 2054. With aging vessels set for decommissioning, more than 300 new warships will need to be built over the next 30 years. Given that the U.S. shipbuilding industry has produced only 37 vessels in the past decade, achieving this goal would be impossible without support from South Korea, the world’s second-largest shipbuilding power after China.

Amid this, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent identified shipbuilding as a key industry in which the U.S. government could acquire equity in exchange for subsidies, following semiconductor companies such as Intel. His remarks could be interpreted to mean that South Korea would provide the investment to revive shipbuilding while the United States would retain strategic control.

The MASGA project is expected to serve as a cornerstone for Korea-U.S. economic and security cooperation for decades. Officials must convince the U.S. that the project aligns with the national interests of both countries, or its success will be difficult to achieve.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

Access NSS HERE

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