A North Korean defector’s life in webtoon

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When North Korean defector Choi Sung-Guk decided it was time to go public with his experiences, he avoided the well-trodden “harrowing memoir” route in favor of a cartoon strip.

Drawing skills and some online space provided Choi with everything he needed to reach a young Korean-speaking audience that might otherwise have little attention to spare for a 36-year-old escapee from over the border. Choi, who spent eight years making cartoons at a Pyongyang animation studio, now posts a weekly online comic strip, or webtoon, on South Korea’s largest internet portal, Naver.

Rodong Simmun webtoon Choi Sung GukThe strip is called Rodong Simmun (Labor Interrogation) — a play on the name of the North Korean ruling party’s official mouthpiece Rodong Sinmun (Labor Newspaper) — and details the struggles of North Korean defectors adapting to life in the capitalist South. A lot of the material is based on Choi’s own experiences since arriving in Seoul as a 30-year-old defector in 2010.

Choi only started posting his strips in May and, in what is a crowded and highly-competitive field, they are already averaging around 20,000 views and garnering fawning reviews from a growing number of South Korean fans. The YouTube channel also has Korean subscribers living overseas in countries like the United States.

[Read full Korea Herald article]

North Korean diplomat defector now in South Korea

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A senior North Korean diplomat based in London has defected to South Korea, becoming one of the highest Northern officials to do so, South Korea said Wednesday.

Thae Yong Ho, minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, has arrived in South Korea with his family and is under the protection of the South Korean government, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said. Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee said Thae told South Korean officials that he decided to defect because of his disgust with the government of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, his yearning for South Korean democracy and worries about the future of his children.

Jeong said Thae was the second-highest official in North Korea’s embassy, and is the most senior North Korean diplomat to defect to South Korea. (In 1997, the North Korean ambassador to Egypt fled but resettled in the United States.) The highest-level North Korean to seek asylum in South Korea is Hwang Jang-yop, a senior ruling Workers’ Party official who once tutored Kim Jong Un’s late father, dictator Kim Jong Il. Hwang died in 2010.

Ramon Pacheco Pardo, senior lecturer in international relations at King’s College London, said this diplomatic defection “could prove very valuable to South Korea, the U.S. and other countries. … Most North Korean defectors have limited access to the inner workings of the North Korean regime,” he said. “The defection of a diplomat would allow intelligence services and military forces in other countries to learn more about the level of support that Kim Jong Un enjoys, recent developments in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs or the extent to which real economic reforms are being implemented.”

Thae, 55, is a veteran diplomat who is experienced in dealing with countries in Western Europe. He led a North Korean delegation that held talks with European Union representatives over the North’s human rights situation in Brussels in 2001, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. He had worked at the North Korean Embassy in London for about 10 years.

[Associated Press]

North Korean diplomat at London embassy defects

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A diplomat at the North Korean embassy in London has defected and fled abroad with his family, BBC News understands.

The diplomat, Thae Yong Ho, had served as deputy to the ambassador and was responsible for promoting the image of his country to British audiences. He had reportedly lived in the UK for 10 years with his wife and family and disappeared from his home in west London.

The South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reports:”A DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] diplomat in London is going through procedures to seek asylum in a third country.” The paper said that in this context “a third country” means one that is neither North nor South Korea.

“A high-level defection, if confirmed, will be deeply embarrassing for the regime,” said John Nilsson-Wright, an expert on Asian affairs at the London-based Chatham House think tank. “The intelligence benefits to the UK and its allies from such a defection are likely to prove valuable.”

[BBC]

Kim Jong Un seeking to strengthen ties with Russia

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sent Russian President Vladimir Putin a friendly message expressing his desire for greater relations between the two countries.

Historically, Moscow was a strong backer of the North Korean regime during Soviet times and, after a drop in ties since the Soviet collapse, Putin has moved Russia to stronger dialogue with the North Korean leadership. Russia invited Kim to a May parade in Moscow in 2015, although he did not attend.

Kim, however, appears keen to upgrade relations with the Kremlin, sending Putin a message with “friendly greetings” for North Korea’s anniversary of the allied defeat of Japan in Korea during the closing months of World War II, Pyonyang’s state news agency KCNA reported Monday.

“I express belief that the relations of friendship and cooperation between the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and Russia forged in the hard struggle against the common enemy would invariably develop in line with the aspiration and desire of the peoples of the two countries,” Kim wrote, using Pyonyang’s official name for North Korea.

Although the Kremlin has not confirmed the exchange, KCNA also posted an apparent response from Putin to Kim, wishing the Korean leader good health, success and expressing the hope of mutual prosperity.

[Newsweek]

China’s crackdown on dissent described as the harshest in decades

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China is in the midst of what many overseas scholars say is its harshest crackdown on human rights and civil society in decades. Since Xi Jinping came came to power nearly four years ago, hundreds of activists, lawyers, writers, publishers and employees of nongovernmental groups have been rounded up. Internet news sites have been ordered to stop publishing reports from sources that aren’t sanctioned by the state.

“As an old timer who’s been studying China since the Mao era, I have to say it’s the worst I’ve seen since then,” said Susan L. Shirk, chair of the 21st Century China Center at UC San Diego. The current crackdown, Shirk said, represents a turnabout from what appeared to be relatively steady gains in individual freedom in China. “We didn’t anticipate what looks like a U-turn back to the bad old days of a highly repressive police state.”

For much of the outside world, grasping the extent of the campaign has not been easy, given a constant flood of headlines that seem to showcase ever-deeper diplomatic and commercial connections between China and the West.

Rebukes from overseas seem to matter little to Xi, a scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Willy Lam added: “Xi likes to thumb his nose at international opinion … to underscore his status as the new Mao Tse-tung by not giving a damn about what the major Western leaders, authors or media are saying about China.”

“What Xi Jinping is doing is, he’s really stirring up a Cold War mentality…. You’re either with China or against China–and Western values, universal values, are against China,” Shirk says.

[Los Angeles Times]

What it’s like for North Korean athletes attending the Olympics

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Imagine if you were in Rio representing one of the most notoriously authoritarian regimes in the world. Would you be proud to show the wider world that your home country isn’t as bad as it’s portrayed? Or would your interaction with other nationalities and experience in another country prompt you to reevaluate your home? Might you even try to defect?

Bear these considerations in mind when considering the 31 North Korean athletes and their supporting team members in Rio for the 2016 Summer Games.

During the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, sports reporter John Canzano tried to find out what the North Korean athletes had been doing outside of their events. He was dismayed by the response. “We’re not allowed to see places of interest,” Wang Ok Gyong, a North Korean swimmer, told him through an interpreter. “No mixing with others.”

Tight control on North Korean athletes may be an attempt to block defections. Foreign sporting events have long seen athletes from authoritarian countries run away or claim asylum–at least 45 members of the Eritrean soccer team have defected during various foreign trips over recent years. During the 2012 London Olympic Games, a variety of athletes disappeared and were later found to have defected. (There have been no known defectors from North Korea during any Olympics in which the country has competed. It’s possible this lack of defections is due to the tight control exerted by North Korean security forces and potential punishments for families left behind.)

From watching the games, North Korean athletes appear to have a real desire to make their country proud. And besides, those who win gold medals may receive considerable rewards from the state. “Successful athletes have done very well in recent years, receiving better housing in Pyongyang and other gifts from the government for their efforts,” Christopher Green, a North Korea analyst based in Seoul, says. “Sports have always been important to the government, but the resources have not always been there to develop talent; now there is more money going into sports facilities for elite athlete development, which is a reward of a sort, too.”

[Washington Post]

North Korea and the Rio Olympics

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North Korea has its first gold medal of the Rio Olympics after Rim Jong Sim won the women’s 75-kilogram weightlifting class. North Korea won four gold medals in London four years ago but started slowly in Rio, with only two silver and two bronze medals before Rim’s win.

Elsewhere on Olympic news, Samsung, notably the electronics giant from South Korea, provided each of the 11,000 athletes competing in the Rio 2016 Olympics with a special edition Galaxy S7 smartphone.

One country, guess which one, refused the gift. According to Radio Free Asia, North Korea prevented its 31 competing athletes from receiving the complimentary phone. Instead, a North Korean official reportedly went to the Samsung office and collected all of the phones that were to be provided to the country’s athletes.

North Korea, a dictatorship and arch enemy of South Korea, has strict rules for its athletes. The Washington Post reported that athletes are not allowed to visit places of interest and are discouraged from interacting with others, although no official reason was released as to why the athletes didn’t receive the phones.

Are UN sanctions against North Korea working?

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It continues to be difficult to gauge the effectiveness of the United Nations sanctions imposed on North Korea in March.

While prices for essential goods in the North remain stable, there are reports that business is stagnating at the economic development zones set up to attract foreign investment. The lack of international investment is, to some degree, the result of the U.N. sanctions that place increased financial restrictions on companies that do business with North Korea, and U.S. sanctions that authorize the seizure of assets from international organizations and individuals involved with banned North Korean industries like mining and banking.

But Adam Cathcart, an East Asia expert at Britain’s Leeds University notes that even without sanctions, international companies are reluctant to invest in North Korea’s economic development zones because they do “not provide enough infrastructure.”

There have also been reports that food and fuel prices in North Korea have not been affected by the new sanctions imposed this year. Analysts credit the growth of semi-legal private markets under leader Kim Jong Un for keeping food and fuel supplies stable despite the sanctions.

Beijing’s enforcement of international sanctions is considered crucial because 90 percent of North Korean trade flows either to or through China. North Korea analyst Andrei Lankov with Kookmin University in Seoul recently told Radio Free Asia that … “if sanctions implementation begins to threaten the survival of the Kim Jong Un regime, China will pull back.”

[VoA]

Pyongyang claims US planning surprise nuclear attack

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The US is planning to mount a surprise nuclear attack on North Korea when it stages a joint military exercise with South Korea in the coming days, Pyongyang has claimed. The drills are set to begin on 22 August.

The North pledged the country would launch a “merciless retaliatory counteraction” against the US-South Korean forces. With tensions in the Korean peninsula constantly escalating, Pyongyang has yet again stepped up its rhetoric against the US, leading to a further deterioration of the situation. The North’s comments are sharply aimed at Washington’s recent decision to deploy sophisticated B-2 Spirit nuclear-capable bombers in the US territory of Guam.

Pyongyang has constantly dubbed the joint US–South Korean military exercises as a rehearsal for an actual attack on its country. But the US and South Korea have maintained they are necessary defensive measures undertaken to combat the emerging threats from the North.

[International Business Times]

More on North Korean defection in Hong Kong

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North Korean national Jong Yol Ri snuck away from the 57th International Mathematical Olympiad at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. and on July 16 found refuge at the South Korean Consulate General in Hong Kong.

It is believed it was the first time that a North Korean defector had abdicated in Hong Kong since 1996, before the United Kingdom handed the city back to China. And it’s a situation that could test Beijing’s relations with Seoul and Pyongyang.

Hong Kong resident Owen Lau Kwun-hang said the recent case of Jong Yol Ri should prompt widespread discussion among the community on how Hong Kong should be responding when defectors from North Korea surface. “At least people would know what to do … and when necessary, a well-informed society could apply pressure on relevant authorities if the status of a defector is at risk,” he said.

Largely unknown to many, the North Korean Defectors Concern (NKDC) has recently been thrust into limelight by media organizations seeking comment since the North Korean defector sought refuge in Hong Kong. Lau and three friends founded the NKDC in 2012,  a group focused on advocating for human rights and protesting Beijing’s repatriation of defectors from the secretive state.

As part of the NKDC’s advocacy and education efforts, Lau will host the annual North Korea Human Rights Film Festival at the Chinese University from August 12 to 14. The group is hoping to have a number of other North Korean defectors attend the festival for sharing sessions.

It was a chance refueling stop somewhere between the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and the border town of Sinuiju that gave four Hong Kong students a forbidden glimpse into the secretive state back in 2012. When the train stopped, Owen Lau Kwun-hang said they were confronted by a group of beggars pleading for food. “An elderly woman with her grandchildren came up to us. We gave them cakes,” Lau, now a secondary school liberal studies teacher, recalled.

[South China Morning Post]