Breaking Down North Korea: May 2021 Headlines

10,000 North Korean students reportedly confess to consuming South Korean media

• Over 10,000 North Korean students surrendered themselves to authorities for consuming K-pop and Korean dramas in late April of 2021 with hopes for reduced sentences.

• North Korean citizens must perform a practice called “saenghwal cheonghwa” or “self-criticism” in which they confess their shortcomings in loyalty to the state and publicly report on those who do not conform to state laws to local authorities. The practice is used to enforce the nation’s control over its citizens through self-monitoring.

• Those who break the law may face up to 15 years in labor camps and fines for parents of children violating bans.

• Those caught importing banned materials from South Korea receive life-sentences for imprisonment. Those importing materials from the US or Japan may face execution charges.

Learn More:

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/youth-05102021190202.html

https://www.todayonline.com/8days/sceneandheard/entertainment/10000-north-korean-students-reportedly-gave-themselves-authorities

Alarming and candid warnings of a possible famine from Kim Jong Un

• Kim Jong Un recently stated that North Korea must “wage another more difficult ‘Arduous March’” and that "many obstacles and difficulties are ahead.”

• The “Arduous March” refers to the horrific North Korean famine from 1994 through 1998 in which an estimated 200,000 to 2 million people perished due to starvation.

• Reports from experts point to North Korea’s spiraling economy in the COVID pandemic and the possibility that Kim’s statement may be entirely true.

• North Korea’s trade relations with its only lifeline, China, dropped 80% in 2020, according to Chinese trade data.

• The USDA currently projects that approximately a million more North Koreans have become food insecure during the course of the 2020 pandemic.

Learn More:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/04/12/north-koreas-leader-warns-famine#

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-26/north-korea-s-economy-seen-barely-growing-as-pandemic-pain-lasts

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-how-the-pandemic-is-hitting-north-korea-hard/a-57168554

https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/global-trade-is-recovering-from-the-pandemic-north-koreas-economy-isnt/

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/09/985743058/north-koreas-kim-alludes-to-1990s-famine-warns-of-difficulties-ahead-of-us

South Korean President Moon’s last chance to achieve a lasting peace with North Korea

• "I will consider the remaining one year of my term to be the last opportunity to move from an incomplete peace toward one that is irreversible," Moon said.

• Moon has made engaging with North Korea a signature project of his presidency

• The South Korean president is expected to push the US to seek engagement with North Korea, though Biden has shown little interest in making North Korea a top priority.

Learn More:

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/skoreas-moon-says-looking-nkorea-response-peace-talks-2021-05-10/

Still Virus free

• North Korea has told the World Health Organization that it has tested 25,986 people for the coronavirus through April but still has yet to find a single infection.

• Experts have expressed skepticism about North Korea's claim given its poor health infrastructure and a porous border it shares with China.

Learn More:

https://www.thenationalherald.com/coronavirus/arthro/north_korea_again_claims_zero_coronavirus_infections-2410816/

Breaking Down North Korea: April 2021 Headlines

No Tokyo: North Korea will not be attending the 2021 Olympics.

• North Korea declared through its Olympic committee that “The committee decided not to join the 32nd Olympic Games to protect athletes from the global health crisis caused by the coronavirus.”

• The decision may be motivated by two factors:

  • North Korea may truly be paranoid about the COVID-19 pandemic, further revealing that nation’s inability to respond to the virus within the country, while still claiming zero infections.

  • North Korea’s response may have been influenced by Japan’s recent decision to extend sanctions on North Korea for two more years.

Learn More:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/olympics-north-korea-japan-covid/2021/04/06/cafec75a-968b-11eb-8f0a-3384cf4fb399_story.html 

https://www.insider.com/north-korea-quits-tokyo-olympics-after-japan-extends-sanctions-2021-4

Kim Jong Un acknowledges failures: North Korean is in an economic crisis.

• Kim Jong Un addressed party members in a political conference this month and stated that the nation was facing its “worst-ever situation.”

• Kim is likely referring to the catastrophic failure of his five-year plan introduced in May 2016 that promised to bring North Korea to economic independence.

• Experts are referring to North Korea’s current economic crisis in the pandemic as “the Great Leap Backwards” as the nation is struggling to respond to fears of economic collapse, complete loss of food security, and inability to vaccinate its 25 million citizens.

• “Following a triple hit from the strict border closures, economic sanctions and devastating flooding last year, the economy is suffering its worst decline since famine killed millions of people in the mid-1990s” - The Financial Times

• Kim Jong Un has stated the current crisis is the result of the party’s smallest units of administration and management, and has accused this network of party authorities of “shortcomings.”

Learn More:

https://www.crossingbordersnk.org/blog/could-north-korea-be-headed-towards-another-famine/2021/1/12 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kim-jong-un-north-korea-worst-ever-situation/

https://www.ft.com/content/49dd499f-e7a1-4dd1-9803-9702fbc52f11

Missiles are back in the air: North Korea begins 2021 weapon tests.

• In late March, North Korea launched its first set of ballistic missiles in 2021, testing rockets with guiding technology.

• North Korean Official Ri Pyong Chol stated that the weapon’s development was “of great significance in bolstering up the military power of the country and deterring all sorts of military threats existing on the Korean Peninsula.”

• President Biden stated in response to the missile tests: “... there will be responses if they choose to escalate. We will respond accordingly. But I’m also prepared for some form of diplomacy, but it has to be conditioned upon the end result of denuclearization.”

• It is possible that the weapons test was to further emphasize the warning issued by Kim Yo Jong, sister to Kim Jong Un, regarding planned joint military exercises with South Korea.

Learn More:

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-south-korea-north-korea-united-nations-pyongyang-4ff07ea48279a6d8d739415d2bab9f06

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/north-korea-fired-least-one-missile-over-weekend-u-s-n1261860

https://www.crossingbordersnk.org/blog/north-koreas-missile-tests/2021/2/16

Brewing nuclear tension: North Korean nuclear labs show further activity

• The latest satellite imagery of North Korean nuclear sites show steam and smoke being emitted from the Yongbyon Radiochemistry Laboratory in North Korea, a plant that is used to extract plutonium for nuclear bombs.

• In consideration of the reactivated nuclear plant and the missiles tested in March, the efforts may be in an effort to force President Biden to the table for diplomatic discussions. 

• “It is a series of escalations. I think it's pretty calculated. They're ratcheting up pressure as they had done to President Trump and to President Obama.” - Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies

Learn More:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/satellite-image-shows-renewed-activity-north-korean-nuclear-lab-n1262530

China and the Balancing Act

One of China’s greatest cultural wonders is its history in acrobatics, as home to some of the most talented and athletic performers in the world. But perhaps no performer in China is nearly as capable, powerful, or impressive as the Chinese Communist Party.

Biden Administration’s Tightrope to North Korea

• “Beijing has an interest, a clear self-interest, in helping to pursue the denuclearization of [North Korea] because it is a source of instability.” -  Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in Seoul, South Korea in March 2021

China’s leading diplomats Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi met with Secretary Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in Anchorage, Alaska in their first high-level diplomatic meeting.

The resulting combative and contentious meeting between the two parties resulted in a series of accusations that the Chinese officials described as “exaggerated diplomatic presentations” and the American representatives claimed were “public theatrics and dramatics over substance.”

Nevertheless, with growing tensions over missile tests and nuclear armament on the Korean Peninsula, United States diplomats such as Secretary Blinken have stated explicitly that while China remains America’s “biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century,” Beijing simultaneously “has a critical role to play” in the efforts to reach out to Pyongyang.

Frank Aum, a North Korea expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace states, “It’s reasonable to try and enlist China’s support, given its political and economic relationship with North Korea and its overall heft in the region.”

As concerns regarding North Korea’s provocations grow, the Biden administration faces the challenge of criticizing China’s ongoing expansionist and autocratic policies while persuading the same country to aid its efforts in stabilizing a nuclearizing nation.

North Korea’s Wavering Lifeline

• “All parties should work together to sustain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula… China will continue to play a constructive role in this process.” - Spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhao Lijian

In January of 2020, China closed its border to North Korea, effectively crippling a nation on life support, almost entirely dependent on the flow of trade and goods supplied by Beijing. Without China’s support, North Korea entered a state of economic freefall.

Over a year later, recent news has confirmed that the Chinese border city of Dandong has prepared inspections, quarantine facilities, and customs offices to resume trade with North Korean trains that will cross the border. Further information has revealed that the trains that will be shuttled into the city will only include freight, with no passenger cars. Exports to North Korea will be building materials, essential goods, food, and infant formula.

Questions may arise as to why China continues to bolster an isolationist country that acts as a source of insecurity and tension in the region. Analysts who assess this same question propose that China’s focus is a careful balance. To maintain the status quo, China must guarantee two elements:

1. North Korea cannot become so unstable that it risks American expansion on the Korean Peninsula or uncontrolled destabilization.

2. North Korea cannot grow so provocative and emboldened that the United States is compelled to increase its military presence in East Asia.

While Beijing cannot simply cripple North Korea into a collapsing state or source of chaos. Simultaneously, China cannot simply deny assistance to the United States in talks to denuclearize North Korea, thereby instigating nondiplomatic intervention.

Learn More:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/world/asia/biden-north-korea-china.html

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/18/china-us-alaska-meeting-undiplomatic-477118 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/north-korea-warns-us-kim-jong-un-sister-threat-japan-china-security-blinken-lloyd-austin/

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/trade-03312021200341.html

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2021/04/02/nkorea-North-Korea-China-Dandong-trade/4181617382653/

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-04-02/chinas-dangerous-double-game-north-korea

Breaking Down North Korea: March 2021 Headlines

Recent North Korea news found around the web

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in continues to hold out hopes for diplomacy with North Korea in preparation for the Tokyo Olympics.

• President Moon stated that the Tokyo Olympics may provide an opportunity for South Korea and Japan recover economically following the COVID-19 pandemic.

• “The Games scheduled for this year may serve as an opportunity for dialogue between South Korea and Japan, South and North Korea, North Korea and Japan, and North Korea and the United States,” stated Moon on March 1, South Korea’s Independence Movement Day.

Read More:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-independenceday-moon-idUSKCN2AT0ZL

North Korea has published its first biography of leader Kim Jong Un: ““The Great Man and The Age of The Powerful Nation”

• Professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul states that the novel comes at a critical time to remind the North Korean people that “we can survive this - since we are great.” North Korea’s economy is at its worst in several decades following the coronavirus pandemic.

• Reflecting on Kim’s meetings with leaders such as former president Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the biography states “There has never been a time when all the world has been this focused on our peoples’ greatness and dignity in our 5,000-year history.”

• The book is 621 pages, with seven chapters and 17 subchapters. Its biographical nature does not rely on the usual mythical proportions for North Korea’s leaders, but highlights Kim Jong Un’s “ever prevailing” nationalistic love for his people.

Read More:

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2021/03/01/nkorea-kim-biography-trump-summit-north-korea/8141614616834/ 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-koreas-new-must-read-is-kim-jong-uns-biography-11614780001

https://www.crossingbordersnk.org/blog/70-and-17/2019/2/11

North Korea expected to resume trade with China in April

• North Korea’s border city with China, Sinuiju, has recently erected a "disinfection facility” as the two countries may resume trading in low volumes.

• Trade between the two nations may resume as soon as April 2021.

• North Korea’s trade with China dropped by more than 80% in 2020, having a devastating effect on North Korea, which relies heavily on China for 90% of its total trade volume.

Read More:

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2021/03/03/NKorea-China-border-trade-resume-NKorea/8211614780067/ 

https://www.reuters.com/article/northkorea-china-trade/n-koreas-trade-with-china-plunges-80-as-covid-19-lockdown-bites-idUSL4N2JU23B

A recent report published by the Citizen’s Alliance for North Korean Human Rights accuses the North Korean government of being a “pyramid scheme” upheld by exploitative labor

• The report is a summary of North Korea’s political and economic infrastructure and its inherent reliance on prison labor

• North Korean prison camps are accused of using children as young as the age of seven and pregnant women to collect quotas of coal, prepare explosives, and work in mineshafts.

• Whilte previous reports on North Korean prisons noted downsizing, the new report cites expansion in mining operations in North Korea within political prison camps.

• It is estimated that the coal mined at these prison camps contributed to approximately $200 million attained through coal shipments made to China, Russia, Myanmar, and Syria in 2017.

Read More:

http://eng.nkhumanrights.or.kr/data/n_r_reports/20210224170215.pdf

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/26/971672936/north-koreas-network-of-prison-camps-funds-weapons-programs-rights-group-says

Biden’s cabinet members to visit South Korea and Japan to discuss East Asian foreign relations this month.

• Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are preparing a visit to Japan and South Korea from March 14-18. This will mark the Biden Administration’s first international trip conducted by cabinet officials.

• Scott Snyder, director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations urged the Biden Administration to “indicate parameters and framing for potential follow-up dialogue opportunities” with North Korea through “a private channel of communications.”

• “North Korea will remain our most immediate threat to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific,” noted Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Philip Davidson.

• Secretary Blinken stated at his confirmation hearing in January - “We have to review, and we intend to review, the entire approach and policy toward North Korea because this is a hard problem that has plagued administration after administration.”

• What the final approach of the Biden administration toward North Korea still remains to be seen.

Read More:

https://www.crossingbordersnk.org/blog/the-biden-administration-holds-unpredictable-solutions/2021/1/28

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/04/politics/blinken-austin-japan/index.html

https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/early-signals-north-korea-seen-key-keeping-door-open-diplomacy

U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises have been cancelled in Spring.

• The military exercises conducted between the U.S. and South Korean militaries have raised tensions with North Korea in the past. The springtime drills for 2021 have been cancelled due to COVID-19.

• The cancellation may be in an effort to avoid provoking  or raising animosity between North Korea and the U.S.

• South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that the decision to cancel the drills were contingent on “the status of the pandemic and diplomatic efforts to achieve denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

Read More:

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2021/03/07/us-and-south-korea-scale-back-military-drills-over-virus-north-korea-diplomacy/ 

North Korea’s nuclear weapons facilities are showing new activity

• The International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi stated in March that “The DPRK’s nuclear activities remain a cause for serious concern.”

• North Korea’s coal-fired steam plant at the Yongbyon nuclear complex is showing activity after a two-year hiatus. It may indicate that preparations are being made to extract plutonium or handle radioactive waste.

• This may be a continuation of Kim Jong Un’s promise to expand North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and an attempt to apply pressure on the Biden administration to return to diplomatic talks regarding sanctions.

Read More:

https://www.crossingbordersnk.org/blog/north-koreas-missile-tests/2021/2/16 

https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-north-korea-united-nations-nuclear-weapons-f01c79c4c7ab26520ad7c0f97e19b1ff 

The current favorite to succeed President Moon, Ruling Democratic Party leader Lee Nak-yon, urges the Biden Administration to push for North Korean denuclearization

• “I understand the Obama administration’s ‘strategic patience’ was perhaps unavoidable due to the situation on the Korean Peninsula, with no inter-Korean talks taking place,” remarked Lee in an interview. “But that policy basically gave North Korea the time and conditions to strengthen its nuclear arsenal. I would like to ask Biden to prioritize the North Korea denuclearization issue, and in order to do that you have to acknowledge a wider role for South Korea to play in that matter.”

• Lee also states that China may be an important ally in resolving the North Korean nuclear dilemma and establishing peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Read More:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-04/south-korea-president-hopeful-prods-biden-over-north-korea

Breaking Down North Korea: February 2021 Headlines

Recent North Korea news found around the web

North Korea made headlines in January and February with actions that affect both its own people and the world.

Vaccine hack

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) reported on February 16, 2021 that North Korea attempted to hack Pfizer’s servers to steal coronavirus vaccine information.

• It was unclear exactly when the Pfizer hack occurred or if it was successful

• Pfizer did not comment on the hack

• Through Covax, the World Health Organization’s vaccine sharing program, North Korea is expected to receive nearly 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine

• Read more on US News

Economic demise

In the COVID pandemic, North Korea’s economy continues to spiral. Kim Jong Un has criticized his cabinet for the failure and has fired a senior economic official.

• North Korea’s lack of technology and farm productivity had already caused 40% of North Korea’s population, 10.1 million people, to lack food security prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• In 2020, border closure with China caused North Korea’s trade to drop by 75%.

• North Korea’s factory outputs are at their lowest since 2011.

• Prices of imported food have quadrupled.

• The UN Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that half of the country is currently undernourished.

• Read more on apnews.com

Torture, incarceration and slavery

A landmark Human Rights Council report has accused North Korea of torture, inhumane incarceration, and slavery.

• Those convicted are charged with “crimes that constitute the exercise of fundamental human rights” such as sharing information, accessing media, or practicing religion.

• North Korean prisons focus on the “systematic infliction of severe physical and mental pain or suffering upon detainees, through the infliction of beatings, stress positions and starvation...”

• The Council has reported inhumanity equivalent to slavery: “the extraction of forced labour can amount to enslavement if it is accompanied by aggravating circumstances that effectively destroy the juridical personhood of the victim...”

• The United Nations General Assembly is set to review the newest report on North Korea published by the Human Rights Council in February.

• Read more

Buying nukes with stolen cryptocurrency

A confidential report to the UN Security Council accuses North Korea of having stolen over $300 million to produce a nuclear arsenal.

• An anonymous country has filed reports to the UN claiming that North Korea has stolen $316.4 million in virtual currency from 2019 through 2020.

• The same accusation has reported that these hacked funds were used in the production of nuclear material and building ballistic missiles

• The report, which currently held by the United Nations Security Council, is confidential and most likely be released in the next 6 months

• Read more on cnn.com

Discipline Kim Yo Jong?

It is unclear if Kim Yo Jong, sister to Kim Jong Un, is being punished for making hostile provocations toward South Korea 

• Kim Yo Jong, who became more vocal and visible in the summer of 2020 in Kim Jong Un’s mysterious absence, has recently been demoted from "first vice department director" to "vice department director” in North Korea’s Party Congress.

• Experts are unsure whether the demotion is simply due to changes in the North Korean politburo or an intentional punishment for her inflammatory actions and remarks against South Korea in June of 2020.

• In January, Kim Yo Jong continued to criticize South Korea’s leaders, calling them a “truly weird group” with a “hostile approach toward the fellow countrymen in the north.’

• Read more on cnn.com

The darkness of North Korea continues and is a reminder for us to intercede in prayer for both the leadership that pursues these acts and the people of North Korea that suffers as a result.