Category: Kim Jong Un

China shifting stance on old friend North Korea?

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No one is suggesting China will abandon the regime of leader Kim Jong-un or even implement the new sanctions to the letter, but China’s frustration grows. An exasperated China appears to have run out of patience after years of trying to coax Pyongyang out of isolation and to embrace economic reform.

To top it off, Kim Jong-un has failed to pay fealty to China, his country’s only major ally, as his father and grandfather did. He has not visited China since taking over when his father Kim Jong-il died at the end of 2011.

Even the modicum of affection Chinese used to feel towards North Koreans, brothers-in-arms during the 1950-53 Korean War, has all but vanished, the country and its leader becoming an object of derision and incomprehension, especially as China powers ahead economically and rises in global stature.

The Global Times, an influential tabloid published by Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, has called for China to cut North Korea off completely. It warned on Friday that Pyongyang should not underestimate China’s anger.

Signs of unhappiness with Pyongyang have seeped out of China’s military establishment too, although it is hard to know for certain what the top brass are thinking. “It does not matter if you were a comrade and brother-in-arms in the past, if you harm our national interest then we’ll get even with you,” retired major-general Luo Yuan, a prominent foreign policy hawk, wrote on his blog on Saturday.

Kim Jong Un’s actions have also become an unwanted headache for incoming Chinese president Xi Jinping, who is already facing a host of domestic problems from corruption to pollution. China’s new leadership, including Xi, do not have the emotional ties to North Korea that their predecessors had. Visits then used to be marked with smiles and bear hugs. Xi also understands there is little public sympathy at home for Pyongyang.

To be sure, China will not cut North Korea off completely. The country is a useful buffer from U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, and Japan too. China also does not want North Korea to go the same route as Myanmar, once a staunch ally of Beijing but which is now rapidly expanding ties with Washington.

And if China turns the screws too much then North Korea could collapse — Beijing’s ultimate nightmare scenario. Not only would that release a flood of refugees into northeastern China, it would also raise the question of what would happen to North Korea’s nuclear material.

[Excerpted from Reuters analysis] 

US signals time for negotiations with North Korea?

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North Korea threatened Tuesday to nullify the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War in 1953, citing U.S.-led international moves to impose new sanctions against it over its recent nuclear test, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

Meanwhile, a draft U.S. resolution to authorize more sanctions against North Korea in response to its recent controversial nuclear test was formally introduced today at the U.N. Security Council by U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice.

Pyongyang continues to make “belligerent and reckless moves that threaten the region, their neighbors and now, directly, the United States of America,” said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in a CNN interview. “It’s very easy for Kim Jong Un to prove his good intent here also. Just don’t fire the next missile. Don’t have the next test. Just say you’re ready to talk,” said Kerry, speaking on the last full day of his first international trip as the nation’s top diplomat.

“Rather than threaten to abrogate and threaten to move in some new direction, the world would be better served” if Kim took some action to engage in legitimate dialogue, Kerry said. “Our preference is not to brandish threats to each other. It’s to get to the table” to negotiate, he said.

Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Programme at the UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, characterized North Korea’s threat to nullify the 1953 armistice as “largely bluster,” pointing out that North Korea has “broken the armistice many times, most recently in 2010 by sinking a South Korean corvette and shelling a South Korean-populated island.”

But, he added, “the threat does point to more trouble to come from the recalcitrant hermit kingdom. Things are going to get worse before they get better.”

A glimpse into the North Korean soul

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So bad boy basketball star Dennis Rodman left Pyongyang Friday after stunning the diplomatic world with his basketball diplomacy. Rodman upstages the US State Dept, a US Governor and a top Google executive by being granted exclusive downtime with Kim Jong-un!  After watching an exhibition game with a laughing Kim, dining and drinking with him, even hugging the regime strongman, Rodman offered his home-boy homily and praise for Kim and his father and grandfather.

No other American as far as anyone can tell has met with Kim since he assumed command of North Korea following his father’s death in 2011. (And despite his access to Kim, apparently Rodman will not be debriefed by American diplomats?)

Complicated North Korean politics aside, this encounter does makes one wonder what the North Koreans are really like as people. Simply people. Here’s an interesting perspective by Illya Szilak, written after a visit to the country:

“I joined hundreds of intrepid tourists heading to Pyongyang for Kim Il-sung’s centenary birthday celebration. Most were seeking adventure. I was doing research for my next novel, which uses the ideological conflict between the U.S. and North Korea to explore the construction of national identity.

“Every nation has its mythology – a reason why it is uniquely destined for greatness. For many in the United States, that reason is our Constitution and the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

“The North Koreans also believe in their country’s greatness. Central to their myth is the Great Leader, Kim Il-sung and Juche, his philosophy of militant self-reliance. In North Korea, leader-worship is not a cult of personality – it’s a full-fledged religion. Images of Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il are everywhere. Going to the annual art show is like following the Stations of the Cross: Kim Il-sung as a child, Kim Il-sung fighting the Japanese, Kim Jong-il at the factory with the workers. Around the country, their words – common-sense platitudes like “Plant more crops, harvest more rice” – are inscribed like the Ten Commandments on two-ton slabs of rock.

“Judging from her offhand remarks, our local guide, Miss Song, is a true believer. When I question her in private about the repressiveness of the government, she flatly disagrees. Intelligent, educated, friendly, she is not a robot, and she certainly doesn’t act like she is afraid. Trying to put myself in her place, I imagine what it must be like to have your country occupied for 40 years, to be forced to speak another language, even to take a different name. Then the oppressor (Japan) leaves, and two other countries (the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.) come in, and literally divide your country in two.

“Touring the demilitarized zone, with its acres of barbed wire and machine-gun-armed soldiers, I remember that the U.S and North Korea are still at war. No peace agreement was signed, only an armistice. Millions of Koreans died compared with some 36,000 Americans, and every form of industry in North Korea was completely destroyed. The U.S. also contemplated the use of nuclear weapons at the time.

“Why did the U.S. [military troops remain stationed in South Korea] after World War Two? Did we suddenly realize that Korea was a sovereign nation and decide to help the fledgling democracy in the South (which was not actually a democracy)? Did we feel guilty that in 1918 we rebuffed Korean nationalists, who, inspired by our own President Wilson’s Fourteen Points, asked for help against Japan? Or did we think that Korea, situated between China and the Soviet Union, was too strategically and economically important to govern itself?

“Miss Song’s desire to believe in a certain version of history is no different from my own.

“The difference is that I have access to information and experiences that might contradict it, and most North Koreans do not. Without Internet or alternative news sources, unable to travel freely, and with little or no interaction with foreigners, the average person simply has no grounds to question the system, or hope for anything else.”

Dennis Rodman: Second attention-grabbing American visit to North Korea

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Ex-NBA star Dennis Rodman ‘s trip to North Korea is the second attention-grabbing American visit this year to North Korea. Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a four-day trip in January to Pyongyang, but did not meet the North Korean leader, like Rodman did.

dennis rodman kim jong un
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and former NBA star Dennis Rodman watch North Korean and U.S. players in an exhibition basketball game at an arena in Pyongyang, North Korea, Feb. 28, 2013.

In fact, Rodman called leader Kim Jong Un an “awesome guy” and said his father and grandfather were “great leaders.” “He’s proud, his country likes him — not like him, love him, love him,” Rodman said of Kim Jong Un. “Guess what, I love him. The guy’s really awesome.”

Rodman traveled to Pyongyang with three members of the professional Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, VICE correspondent Ryan Duffy and a production crew to shoot an episode on North Korea for a new weekly HBO series. Rodman watched a basketball game with the authoritarian leader Thursday and later drank and dined on sushi with him. Kim and Rodman apparently “bonded” and chatted in English, though Kim primarily spoke in Korean through a translator.

Kim, a diehard basketball fan, told the former Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls star that he hoped the visit would break the ice between the United States and North Korea, said Shane Smith, founder of the New York-based VICE media company. Kim said he hoped sports exchanges would promote “mutual understanding between the people of the two countries,” the official Korean Central News Agency said.

US attempts but North Korea responds never ever getting back together?

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The LA Times reports a White House official made two secret visits to North Korea last year in an unsuccessful effort to improve relations after new ruler Kim Jong Un assumed power. The brief visits in April and August were aimed at encouraging the new leadership to moderate its foreign policy after the December death of Kim’s father, longtime autocrat Kim Jong Il.

The North Korean ruling elite apparently spurned the outreach effort. The former U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the back-channel trips have not been formally disclosed, said the first visit was an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Pyongyang not to launch a long-range rocket.

North Korea went ahead and carried out the launch April 12. The missile flew only a few minutes before it exploded and crashed into the sea. A subsequent test of another long-range rocket in December was successful.

The April trip was led by Joseph DeTrani, a North Korea expert who then headed the National Counter Proliferation Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which coordinates U.S. intelligence agencies, the former U.S. officials said. 

It was unclear who led the August trip. Sydney Seiler, who is in charge of Korea policy at the National Security Council, apparently went on both trips. Seiler, a veteran CIA analyst, speaks fluent Korean.

North Korea warns US commander in South Korea of miserable destruction

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On Saturday, North Korea warned the top American commander in South Korea  of “miserable destruction” if the U.S. military presses ahead with routine joint drills with South Korea set to begin next month.

Pak Rim Su, chief of North Korea’s military delegation to the truce village of Panmunjom inside the Demilitarized Zone, sent the warning to Gen. James Thurman, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said, in a rare direct message to the U.S. commander.

The U.S. stations 28,500 American troops in South Korea to protect its ally against North Korean aggression. South Korea and the U.S. regularly conduct joint drills such as the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises slated to take place next month.

North Korea calls the drills proof of U.S. hostility, and accuses Washington of practicing for an invasion. “You had better bear in mind that those igniting a war are destined to meet a miserable destruction,” KCNA quoted Pak as saying in his message to Thurman. He called the drills “reckless.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, meanwhile, has been making a round of visits to military units guiding troops in drills and exercises since the nuclear test.

[Christian Science Monitor]

World reaction to North Korean nuclear test

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While North Korea marked the anniversary of its departed ‘Dear Leader’ Kim Jong-il’s birth on February 16th with a military parade, mass dances and televised sporting activities, this week’s nuclear test drew international condemnation, with President Obama pledging to “lead the world in taking firm action in response to these threats”.

The European Union will tighten sanctions on North Korea to curb trade in gold and diamonds and crack down on financial links in protest at Pyongyang’s recent rocket launch and nuclear bomb test, EU diplomats said on Friday.

In separate developments, North Korean officials have reportedly informed counterparts in China that further nuclear tests and rocket launches are planned for this year, with Pyongyang seeking to force the US into negotiations, a source told Reuters.

Commentators interpreted the North’s aggressive move as a statement by its new leader Kim Jong-un that he plans to follow his father’s “military first” strategy.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said tests to date indicate North Korea’s weapons had a range of about 6,200 miles, making the west coast of the United States a potential target.

Meanwhile, in the South Korean bordertown of Imjingak, defectors from the North released hundreds of thousands of helium balloons containing anti-regime leaflets and $1 currency notes, and bearing slogans declaring “Stop provocative acts with missiles and nuclear tests”, “North Koreans rise up” and “The Kim dynasty will soon collapse”.

Pyongyang has in the past threatened a “merciless military strike” in response to similar anti-North Korea propaganda leaflets, forcing the evacuation of South Korean residents.

Jang Song-taek and Kim Kyong Hui, behind-the-scenes powers in North Korea

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At the time of Kim Jong Il’s apparent stroke in August 2008, his brother-in-law, Jang Song-taek (who is married to Kim’s sister, Kim Kyong-hui) was rumored to be the key backer of the older brother (Kim Jong-nam) of North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong-un.

However in early 2009, Jang shifted his support to Kim Jong-un in light of Kim Jong Il’s “special affection” for his third son and successor, and out of consideration for his own future political power. Worried about being purged as he was in 2004 for becoming too powerful within the regime, Jang reportedly reached a deal with Kim Jong Il and thus agreed to throw his support behind Kim Jong-un. In return, Kim Jong Il allowed Jang to engineer the succession by placing his allies in key posts throughout the regime.

Kim Kyong Hui, the aunt of North Korea’s present leader Kim Jong-un, has been known as the “godmother of the royal family.” Kyong Hui is herself a four-star general – the first woman in North Korea to hold that rank –  and well known for being a “shadow power broker.” Japanese companies seeking to move into North Korea sought out personal connections that would eventually lead to her.

Kim Kyong Hui, married to the second-most powerful man in North Korea Jang Song-taek, has been described as cantankerous, obstinate and a drunk. North Korean insiders say Kyong Hui has a violent temperament and never changes her mind once she has made a decision. She was a regular member of the alcohol drinking parties hosted by Jong Il and attended by high-ranking party officials. According to sources, she cannot stop drinking once she starts. She has been known to drunkenly bellow at her husband: “Hey, Jang Song Taek, drink up!”

She met her husband, Jang Song Taek, who came from an ordinary family outside of Pyongyang, when they were students at Kim Il Sung University.

North Korea’s third nuclear test

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North Korea drew worldwide condemnation Tuesday after it announced it had successfully conducted its third nuclear test, in direct defiance to U.N. Security Council orders to shut down its atomic activity or face more sanctions and international isolation.

Experts say North Korea’s successful detonation of a miniaturized nuclear device is concerning because it indicates the country may be getting closer to the ability to put a nuclear device on a missile.

North Korea expert Andrei Lankov told Fox News that possession of such a “miniaturized” device would be necessary to create a nuclear warhead. “It shows they are advancing their nuclear technology,” Lankov said. He also noted the significance of the timing of the test, which came just months after North Korea’s successful intercontinental ballistic missile test. “It seems they are very close to being able to put a device on a missile,” Lankov said.

Peter Beck, an expert for Asia Society, tells Fox News the blast appears to be “significantly greater” than North Korea’s past nuclear tests. He, too, said the test “…shows a greater commitment by North Korea to marry the missile and nuclear programs.”

Earlier Tuesday, South Korean, U.S. and Japanese seismic monitoring agencies said they detected an earthquake in North Korea with a magnitude between 4.9 and 5.2.

The timing will be seen as significant. The test came hours before President Obama was scheduled to give his State of the Union speech, a major, nationally televised address. It’s also only days before the Saturday birthday of Kim Jong Un’s father, late leader Kim Jong Il, whose memory North Korean propaganda has repeatedly linked to the country’s nuclear ambitions. This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea said the atomic test was merely its “first response” to what it called U.S. threats, and said it will continue with unspecified “second and third measures of greater intensity” if Washington maintains its hostility.

North Korean state-sponsored propaganda

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State-sponsored propaganda was once a mainstay of Cold War attempts to persuade — or bully — the masses to fall in line. Amid reports of North Korea readying yet another nuclear weapons test, the country has stepped up its propaganda offensive against the West.

Brian Anse Patrick, a communications professor at the University of Toledo, [says it’s designed to] “keep the adrenaline high, this sort of constant hyper state of mobilization” that makes it easier for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to maintain power.

Anthony Pratkanis, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, says the script North Korea is following is not far off from the one that Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels followed in the closing days of World War II.

Just like North Korea and the United States, “in Germany, Goebbels had his scapegoats — the Jews obviously, but also fear of the Soviets.”

But Goebbels used the V-2 rocket — advertised as a super weapon that could turn the tide — to buck up the Germans’ flagging morale.

His message: ” ‘We’ve been working on a secret technology that is going to change the whole history of the world. We’re going to win this war. When we have this technology, we’re going to bring Britain to its knees.’ And their American allies would soon follow. This was a phantom dream to give hope to an internal audience.”

Given the risks of underestimating North Korea, the West might do better to study, rather than laugh at, its propaganda, he says.

Just like the denouement of the Hitler regime, North Korea faces a struggle to maintain a grip on the population amid desperation and hunger.

“Propaganda is a window into what this regime might be thinking,” he says. “A thoughtful person would ask, ‘What are they saying here, what is going on?’ What it says to me is that it’s a very difficult situation, bordering on desperate.”

[NPR]