Quotes of the Day:
"People can contradict an opinion solely because of the tone in which it was expressed."
- Nietzsche
"Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead. Focus on your ultimate goal and plot to reach it.”
- Robert Greene, The 33 Strategies of War
"Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence."
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1. Calls for delaying allied military drills gain traction inside ruling party
2. A Policy of Public Diplomacy with North Korea [Report Launch]
3. Diplomats of S. Korea, U.S. discuss resumption of dialogue with N. Korea
4. Cheong Wa Dae repudiates NIS chief’s claim on hotline restoration
5. Chinese imports of refined oil may have led to falling oil prices in North Korea
6. DP reps want drill with U.S. postponed
7. North Korea supplies second round of provisions to families facing food shortages
8. Former Korean ambassador to Somalia tells the real story of Mogadishu
9. Kowtowing to Kim Yo-jong
10. North Korean border patrol cadre arrested for abetting remittances from overseas
11. Strong U.S.-Korea alliance enables diplomatic engagement with N. Korea: Adm. Aquilino
12. Blinken reaffirms U.S. commitment to denuclearization of Korean Peninsula
13. S. Korea, U.S. agree to expand cybersecurity cooperation
14. Tracing Freedom to a Pair of Jeans (north Korea)
15. Don't Give North Korea Sanctions Relief for Just Talking
16. N. Korea puts major rice-producing areas on high alert against flooding
17. 272 members of Cheonghae unit presumed to have contracted delta variant: authorities
18. 20 USFK-affiliated people test positive for COVID-19
19. Why Kim may be re-emphasizing guerrilla warfare
1. Calls for delaying allied military drills gain traction inside ruling party
Kim Jong-un's political warfare strategy is working. Please help these ruling party members to understand the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime. They are actually supporting Kim Jong-un's objectives to sow internal division (and subvert the political systems ) inside the ROK and to drive a wedge in the ROK US alliance with the added bones of weakened ROK.US military combined readiness. These ruling party members are putting the ROK at risk and they must be called out.
A provocative question is will the Biden administration's (correct) priority on alliance strength be able to survive this? The combined training this month has not become the first test of alliance management.
(2nd LD) Calls for delaying allied military drills gain traction inside ruling party | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: UPDATES with more info in last para; ADDS photo)
SEOUL, Aug. 5 (Yonhap) -- Calls for postponing the regular joint summertime military drills between South Korea and the United States were gaining traction inside the ruling party Thursday amid growing hope for the resumption of inter-Korean dialogue.
"The atmosphere (here) is that postponing the military exercise might be inevitable despite some potential internal resistance," a high-profile source from the ruling party told Yonhap News Agency a day earlier.
Talk of a possible delay or scale-down of the annual joint military exercise set to take place later this month has surfaced after the two Koreas reopened direct cross-border liaison hotlines last week.
On Sunday, Kim Yo-jong, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister who is in charge of inter-Korean affairs as a senior Workers' Party official, warned that the joint drill will cloud the future of inter-Korean relations. Pyongyang regards the joint Seoul-Washington military drills as the allies' dress rehearsal for invading North Korea despite repeated assurance that they are only defensive in nature.
Joining the calls for delay, DP lawmakers launched a signature campaign a day earlier, petitioning for a postponement of the joint drills on the condition that the two Koreas resume dialogue. A total of 74 lawmakers from in and outside the DP have joined the petition as of Thursday.
Having signed the petition himself, two-term DP lawmaker Jin Sung-joon, as well as six other DP and independent lawmakers, held a press conference Thursday, urging the government to put off the joint drills.
"On the occasion of this petition, we hope the government will absolutely achieve a breakthrough in opening dialogue between the Koreas, as well as between North Korea and the U.S.," Jin said.
Rep. Sul Hoon also joined the call, saying in the press conference that the government "should make the most of this important time to facilitate an occasion to resume the inter-Korean peace process."
Amid a debate over whether to postpone the drills, President Moon Jae-in instructed South Korea's defense chief Wednesday to consult with the U.S. "with prudence in consideration of various elements," a senior presidential official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Park Jie-won, director of the National Intelligence Service, also said during a parliamentary committee session Tuesday that the government needs to review ways to "flexibly" handle the joint exercise for the sake of the broader cause of denuclearizing the North.
DP Chairman Rep. Song Young-gil, however, reasserted his stance that the military exercise needs to take place as scheduled.
"(The implementation of) the exercise agreed upon between South Korea and the U.S. is inevitable," Song said during his radio appearance Thursday.
"The drills, designed to maintain the balance of power in Northeast Asia, would not be taken as a threat if there were trust between North Korea and the U.S.," Song said, adding that time constraints will also make it hard to delay the drills already under preparation.
He again brushed off calls for delay, telling reporters during his inspection of a local grocery market later in the day that it is "not right" to postpone drills that are already being prepared because of something Kim Yo-jong said.
pbr@yna.co.kr
(END)
2. A Policy of Public Diplomacy with North Korea [Report Launch]
A Policy of Public Diplomacy with North Korea [Report Launch]
Thu., Aug. 12, 2021 | 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Online
The North Korean nuclear threat remains one of the most persistent and complex foreign policy issues facing the United States today. The growing risk that the Kim regime’s nuclear and missile programs pose to the U.S. underscores the need to consider every tool of statecraft available to pursue the United States’ policy objectives on North Korea. The Biden administration has emphasized the importance of alliances and core values of democracy in its foreign policy approach. Given this emphasis, public diplomacy—activities intended to understand, inform, and influence foreign audiences—should be considered an essential tool in achieving our long-term policy objectives in North Korea. Public diplomacy has the potential to spur domestic change in North Korea—change that could result in improved human rights conditions, leading to behavioral change in the Kim regime, and eventually denuclearization.
This report proposes three recommendations for how the USG can adopt a public diplomacy policy with North Korea:
Recommendation 1: The White House affirm that public diplomacy is a critical tool in the long-term pursuit of U.S. foreign policy objectives in North Korea.
Recommendation 2: Identify and empower a lead to strengthen the direction, coordination, and accountability of U.S. public diplomacy efforts on North Korea.
Recommendation 3: Expand existing efforts to inform, understand, and empower North Koreans.
12:00 - 12:15: Opening Session
Welcoming Remarks
Dr. Jieun Baek (Fellow, Belfer Center)
Opening Remarks
Professor Graham Allison
Andrew Kim (Fellow, Korea Project)
12:15 - 12:50: In conversation
Moderator: Dr. Jieun Baek
Speakers: Dr. Sue Mi Terry
Markus Garlauskas
Greg Scarlatoiu
David Maxwell
12:50 - 1:15 : Q&A
Professor Graham Allison is the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University. He is a leading analyst of national security with special interests in nuclear weapons, Russia, China, and decision-making. Prof. Allison was the “Founding Dean” of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and until 2017, served as Director of its Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, which is ranked the “#1 University Affiliated Think Tank” in the world. As Assistant Secretary of Defense in the first Clinton Administration, he received the Defense Department’s highest civilian award, the Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, for “reshaping relations with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to reduce the former Soviet nuclear arsenal.” Prof. Allison’s latest book, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (2017), is a national and international bestseller. His first book, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (1971), ranks among the all-time bestsellers with more than 500,000 copies in print. He was educated at Davidson College; Harvard College (B.A., magna cum laude, in History); Oxford University (B.A. and M.A., First Class Honors in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics); and Harvard University (Ph.D. in Political Science).
Jieun Baek is a Fellow with the Korea Project and the Applied History Project at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center where she focuses on North Korea policy. She is the author of North Korea’s Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground is Transforming a Closed Society, and is the founder and co-director of Lumen, a non-profit organization that works to make information available to all North Koreans. Prior to receiving her doctorate in Public Policy at the University of Oxford, she was a Research Fellow at the Belfer Center, and worked at Google headquarters for several years where, among other roles, she served as Google Ideas’ North Korea expert. Baek received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Harvard. She is a proud Los Angeles native. Visit her at www.JieunBaek.com.
Andrew Kim is a Fellow with the Korea Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. He retired in November 2018 as a Senior Intelligence Officer from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) after 28 years of service. His last position was Assistant Director of CIA for the Korea Mission Center. He established the Korea Mission Center in April 2017 in direct response to a Presidential initiative to defuse North Korea’s longstanding threat to global security. He also managed and guided CIA analysts who have unique and extensive expertise on Korea to provide strategic and tactical analytic products for a range of policymakers. He successfully negotiated the foundation for the U.S.-North Korea Summit in Singapore in June 2018 – a diplomatic initiative aimed at resolving seven decades of conflict on the Korean Peninsula. Mr. Kim also held the Associate Deputy Director of CIA for Operations/Technology position. In this capacity, he led and orchestrated all efforts to update their operational technology and incorporated state-of-the-art doctrine into CIA training curricula. Mr. Kim, who served as the Chief of CIA Station in three major East Asian cities, managed the collection, analysis, production, and distribution of information that directly affected national security. In recognition of his many contributions, CIA honored Mr. Kim with the Director’s Award (2018), Presidential Rank Award (2012), and the Donovan Award (1990). He speaks fluent Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese.
Markus Garlauskas is an independent author, strategic analyst and consultant, who focused on North Korea issues for nearly twenty years as a US government official. He concluded his term as a member of the Senior National Intelligence Service in June 2020, after nearly six years leading the US Intelligence Community's analysis on North Korea as the National Intelligence Officer for North Korea on the National Intelligence Council. He also served in Seoul at the headquarters of United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command and US Forces Korea from 2002 to 2014 in a variety of key positions, including as Chief of Intelligence Estimates and as Chief of Strategy. He is currently a nonresident Senior Fellow with the Scowcroft Center of the Atlantic Council and an adjunct professor in Georgetown University’s graduate-level security studies program. He holds a Master's degree in security studies from Georgetown University.
David Maxwell is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is a 30 year veteran of the US Army retiring in 2011 as a Special Forces Colonel with his final assignment serving on the military faculty teaching national security strategy at the National War College. He has spent more than 20 years in Asia with 3 years on the Korean DMZ and served on the United Nations Command / Combined Forces Command / United States Forces Korea CJ3 staff where he was a planner for OPLAN 5027 and co-author of the original CONPLAN 5029 (North Korean Instability and Collapse) and later served as the Director of Plans, Policy, and Strategy (J5) and the Chief of Staff for Special Operations Command Korea (SOCKOR). He is a fellow at the Institute of Corean-American Studies (ICAS) and on the Board of Advisors for Spirit of America. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), the International Council of Korean Studies (ICKS), the Council of US Korean Security Studies (CUSKOSS), the Small Wars Journal, and the OSS Society. He teaches a graduate course, “Unconventional Warfare and Special Operations for Policy Makers and Strategists” in the DC area.
Greg Scarlatoiu is the Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK). He is a visiting professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and instructor and coordinator of the Korean Peninsula and Japan class at the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute (FSI). Scarlatoiu is vice president of the International Council on Korean Studies (ICKS). For the past 18 years, he has authored and broadcast the Korean language “Scarlatoiu Column” for Radio Free Asia (RFA). His past experience includes three years with Korea Economic Institute in Washington, D.C. and over six years in international development. Scarlatoiu holds a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School, Tufts University, and a Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts from Seoul National University’s Department of International Relations. He completed the MIT XXI Seminar for U.S. national security leaders in 2016-2017. Scarlatoiu was awarded the title ‘Citizen of Honor, City of Seoul,’ in January 1999. Born and raised in communist Romania, Scarlatoiu is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He is fluent in Korean and French and a native Romanian speaker.
Sue Mi Terry is Senior Fellow for Korea at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Prior to joining CSIS, she had a distinguished career in intelligence, policymaking, and academia following Korean issues. She served as a Senior Analyst at the CIA from 2001 to 2008, where she produced hundreds of intelligence assessments—including a record number of contributions to the President’s Daily Brief, the Intelligence Community’s most prestigious product. She received numerous awards for her leadership and outstanding mission support, including the CIA Foreign Language award in 2008. From 2008 to 2009, she was the Director for Korea, Japan, and Oceanic affairs at the National Security Council under both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In that role, she formulated, coordinated, and implemented U.S. government policy on Korea and Japan, as well as Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania. From 2009 to 2010, she was Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council. In that position, she led the U.S. Intelligence Community’s production of strategic analysis on East Asian issues and authored multiple National Intelligence Estimates. From 2010 to 2011, she served as the National Intelligence Fellow in the David Rockefeller Studies Program at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Since leaving the government, she has been a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute (2011-2015), where she taught both graduate and undergraduate courses on Korean politics and East Asia. She holds a Ph.D. (2001) and a Masters of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (1998) from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and a Bachelor of Arts in political science from New York University (1993).
3. Diplomats of S. Korea, U.S. discuss resumption of dialogue with N. Korea
We continue to sustain high level alliance engagement. Our alliances are a priority.
Diplomats of S. Korea, U.S. discuss resumption of dialogue with N. Korea | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, Aug. 5 (Yonhap) -- Diplomats of South Korea and the United States have held talks in Washington to discuss joint efforts to resume dialogue with North Korea, the foreign ministry said Thursday.
Wednesday's talks between Rim Kap-soo, director general at the ministry's peninsula peace regime bureau, and Jung Pak, the deputy U.S. special representative for North Korea, came as last week's restoration of inter-Korean communication lines fueled hopes for the resumption of nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang.
"The two sides reaffirmed that to achieve substantive progress in the Korean Peninsula peace process, the swift resumption of dialogue between the South and the North and between the North and the United States is essential," the ministry said in a press release.
"They had concrete, in-depth consultations on ways for the early resumption of talks between the North and the U.S. as well as for progress in inter-Korean relations," it added.
The two Koreas reactivated communication lines on July 27, 13 months after the reclusive regime unilaterally severed them in anger over South Korean activists sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.
Since then, Seoul has been cranking up diplomacy with the U.S. and other concerned countries to advance its drive to build peace with the North.
sshluck@yna.co.kr
(END)
4. Cheong Wa Dae repudiates NIS chief’s claim on hotline restoration
It seems both the NIS is speaking out of school per the Blue House.
But this is the buried lede - a fight for roles and missions within the foreign policy apparatus in South Korea. I wonder if what we are seeing is President Moon taking a slightly more pragmatic and realistic approach toward north Korea in conjunction with his foreign policy and national security professionals but the progressive partisans including the leadership of certain agencies are pushing back and still hoping against hope that north Korea is going to engage and negotiate.
Excerpt:
Some observers say that different agencies responsible for South Korean foreign and national security affairs are either vying for leadership or disagreeing over North Korea policy. “Cheong Wa Dae is being very careful not to compromise the fledgling relationship with North Korea,” a government official said. “When any government agency makes spontaneous remarks or passes the government ahead and act peremptorily, it becomes difficult to coordinate response. This is why Cheong Wa Dae promptly released a rebuttal.”
Cheong Wa Dae repudiates NIS chief’s claim on hotline restoration
Posted August. 05, 2021 07:17,
Updated August. 05, 2021 07:17
Cheong Wa Dae repudiates NIS chief’s claim on hotline restoration. August. 05, 2021 07:17. by Jin-Woo Shin niceshin@donga.com.
Cheong Wa Dae announced Wednesday that South and North Korea arrived at a mutual consensus after many discussions, rather than at the request of one of the parties, on restoration of a communication hotline, in refutation of the National Intelligence Service’s Director Park Jie-won’s statement that it was North Korean leader Kim Jong Un who requested restoration of the hotline. The director’s remark was made at the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee meeting on Tuesday Park voluntarily attended, which was immediately denied by the Ministry of Unification on the same day and was again rebutted by Cheong Wa Dae on Wednesday. It is quite unprecedented for Cheong Wa Dae to expressly make a rebuttal, hinting at a possible disagreement between Cheong Wa Dae and the NIS over North Korea policy, with the end of President Moon Jae-in’s term nearing.
Regarding Director Park’s remark that Kim Jong Un requested the restoration of the hotline, a Cheong Wa Dae official told in a phone conversation with The Dong-A Ilbo on Wednesday that such statement was not communicated to Cheong Wa Dae in advance. “(Park’s claim) is different from the truth, and it is a principle not to disclose details of diplomatic conversations,” the Cheong Wa Dae official who refused to identify himself said, making a show of discomfort. The official emphasized that Cheong Wa Dae’s position is that the two sides mutually agreed to restore the hotline.
The Ministry of Unification also told reporters late on Tuesday that the restoration of the communication hotline between the two Koreas was the result of mutual agreement and discussion, contrary to the argument that either one of the parties asked for it first.
Some observers say that different agencies responsible for South Korean foreign and national security affairs are either vying for leadership or disagreeing over North Korea policy. “Cheong Wa Dae is being very careful not to compromise the fledgling relationship with North Korea,” a government official said. “When any government agency makes spontaneous remarks or passes the government ahead and act peremptorily, it becomes difficult to coordinate response. This is why Cheong Wa Dae promptly released a rebuttal.”
5. Chinese imports of refined oil may have led to falling oil prices in North Korea
China is trying to ensure north Korea remains afloat. It will not bail it out but it wants to maintain the status quo indefinitely.
But per the article there is no sign that Chinese-north Korean trade has resumed, which likely remains a function of Kim Jong-un's decision making.
Chinese imports of refined oil may have led to falling oil prices in North Korea - Daily NK
Signs that there has been an official restart to Sino-North Korean trade have yet to emerge, however
The price of refined oil in North Korea has reportedly fallen once again following what appears to be another round of oil imports from China. This suggests that economic cooperation between Pyongyang and Beijing continues to intensify.
According to multiple Daily NK sources in North Korea, the price of gasoline in Pyongyang was KPW 6,800 per kilogram as of Monday. This was about 7% less than what it was a week earlier on July 26. Daily NK also understands that prices are falling in other regions as well, including Sinuiju and Hyesan.
In Hyesan, the recent conspicuous decrease in oil prices contrasts with the middle of last month, when the price of oil fell only slightly following the import of refined oil from China.
The price of gasoline in Hyesan was KPW 6,200 per kilogram and the price of diesel KPW 4,800 a kilogram as of July 29. This was 27% and 9% less, respectively, than they were on July 26.
A gas station on the outskirts of Pyongyang. / Image: Daily NK
The authorities appear to have supplied gasoline and diesel to provincial areas immediately after refined oil was imported from China late last month.
With the price of oil falling so much in Hyesan over the course of just three days, there are rumors spreading among locals that the country has taken in “a large quantity of oil” from China.
Some locals also say that North Korean authorities imported gasoline and diesel for the second time in roughly half a month to supply the military, with some of the oil being released into the market.
North Korea likely imported the oil based on some sort of contract with the Chinese. Under such a contract, China likely supplies refined oil to North Korea at prices lower than international market prices in return for North Korean minerals.
Signs that there has been an official restart to Sino-North Korean trade have yet to emerge, however.
In a telephone conversation with Daily NK on Tuesday, a source familiar with the bilateral trade situation said North Korea’s ruling party would decide whether to restart trade “based on the coronavirus situation after October, when primary work on the high-voltage fence along the border will be completed.” He added that the completion of quarantine facilities at Uiju Airfield “does not signify an immediate restart of trade.”
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
6. DP reps want drill with U.S. postponed
Very troubling. Every one of these politicians is playing into the hands of Kim Jong-un.
Thursday
August 5, 2021
DP reps want drill with U.S. postponed
A group of 74 liberal lawmakers issued a joint statement Thursday calling for South Korea and the United States to postpone an annual summertime military exercise scheduled for later this month, announced in a press briefing by Democratic Party Rep. Sul Hoon, second from left, and other lawmakers at the National Assembly in western Seoul. [NEWS1]
A group of 74 liberal lawmakers issued a joint statement Thursday calling for South Korea and the United States to postpone their annual summertime military exercise scheduled for later this month.
The lawmakers led by the ruling Democratic Party (DP) said in the statement, “We can’t help but acknowledge that the South Korea-U.S. combined exercises is an obstacle in bringing North Korea to the negotiation table, regardless of its scale.”
They proposed Seoul and Washington “actively consider making a decision to postpone the joint exercise scheduled to be held in August.”
Signers of the petition included 61 DP lawmakers as well as Justice Party, Open Democratic Party, Basic Income Party and independent representatives. The ruling party started the petition the previous day, immediately gathering dozens of signatures.
Last Sunday, Kim Yo-jung, the North Korean leader’s sister, issued a statement calling for a halt to the annual joint military exercise, warning it could undermine inter-Korean relations.
She said North Korea would be closely watching to see if South Korea chooses to follow through with “hostile war exercises in August" or makes another "bold decision."
Kim's remarks followed the restoration of inter-Korean communication lines on July 27, which had been severed by Pyongyang on June 9, 2020 in protest of what it claimed were Seoul's failures to prevent activists from sending propaganda leaflets across the border.
A group of lawmakers including DP Reps. Sul Hoon and Jin Sung-joon and independent Rep. Yoon Mee-hyang held a joint press conference at the National Assembly Thursday afternoon announcing the statement calling to delay the drill for the sake of resuming dialogue and improving inter-Korean relations.
They said that Pyongyang’s mention of the Seoul-Washington joint exercise after the restoration of communication lines “seems to indicate that they also want to resume dialogue, and that they needed an internal and external justification for this.”
The lawmakers’ statement, which follows recent remarks by Seoul’s Ministry of Unification and Park Jie-won, director of the National Intelligence Service, supporting the postponement of the joint drill, puts the summertime exercise with Washington in political and diplomatic crosshairs.
President Moon Jae-in told Defense Minister Suh Wook in a meeting with military commanders Wednesday to “carefully consider various factors” in regard to the joint exercise, said the Blue House. Suh said that Seoul's Defense Ministry is in consultation with quarantine authorities and the United States on the current Covid-19 situation and other “realistic conditions.”
The lawmakers’ statement ran counter to the view of the DP leadership.
Song Young-gil, chairman of the DP, told a YTN radio program Thursday morning that conducting the joint exercise is “inevitable,” repeating a message he has consistently conveyed in the past week.
Likewise, Kim Byung-joo, a DP deputy floor leader and a former deputy commander of the Republic of Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, said at a party policy coordination meeting Thursday, “It is now too late to argue for the postponement or cancelation of the joint exercise.”
He added, “It is not appropriate for political circles to call for a postponement or suspension of the exercise when most of the U.S. troops who will attend the drills are already in South Korea.”
However, Rep. Sul, a five-term lawmaker, said he hasn’t heard directly from DP chairman Song that the drill was inevitable, adding, “Even if it means negotiating with the United States again, delaying the exercise is a wiser way to deal with it.”
On the exercise already being in progress, he said, “It is in the preparation stage, so even if it is postponed now, it wouldn’t be a big problem.”
Joint military drills usually take between three months and a year to prepare for.
Later Thursday, in response to reporters' questions on the lawmakers' statement, Song said the DP leadership adheres to the view that the exercise needs to be carried out as scheduled.
Song referred to Kim Yo-jong’s statement and said, “It is not right to postpone for that kind of reason in a situation where training is already in progress.”
He said that the DP lawmakers’ statement “is as an expression of intention of members of the National Assembly, an independent constitutional institution."
The main opposition People Power Party (PPP) immediately criticized the DP joint statement and PPP spokesman Kang Min-guk said it panders to North Korea's Kim Yo-jong.
The Ministry of National Defense repeated its stance Thursday that the “timing, scale and method" of the joint exercise has not yet been decided.
BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]
7. North Korea supplies second round of provisions to families facing food shortages
The headline sounds nice. But read about the process (party officials are responsible for distribution decisions) and the quality of the corn provided. The Koreans in the north are in dire straits.
Note stated is that the north's Public Distribution System has long ago failed. It may seem like a real bargain that this poor quality corn is being provided at 20% below the market prices but why must citizens have to pay for food from the government in the socialist workers' paradise of north Korea? Oh the contradictions.
North Korea supplies second round of provisions to families facing food shortages - Daily NK
The provision is being provided to poor families at prices 20% cheaper than in the markets, a source explained
By Jong So Yong - 2021.08.05 12:45pm
Daily NK learned Tuesday that North Korean authorities issued a second round of food provisions to food-short households in border regions of Yanggang and North Hamgyong provinces.
According to a Daily NK source in Yanggang Province, households suffering from food shortages have been receiving food provisions since Sunday in several regions along the Sino-North Korean border, including Samsu, Kimhyongjik, and Kimjongsuk counties in Yanggang Province, and Hoeryong and Onsong County in North Hamgyong Province.
Prior to this, the provincial party committees and people’s committees conducted a fact-finding effort in mid-to-late July to ascertain the living conditions of struggling households in those regions.
Through this investigation, the committees got a picture of the economic standards and living conditions of each family, including whether they had enough to eat, the condition of their land, whether they had firewood, and if their children were going to school.
A view of Hyesan, in North Korea’s Yanggang Province. / Image: Daily NK
“After talks with local inminban [people’s unit] heads, the party and people’s committees in Yanggang Province decided to provide about 20 kilograms of corn to each family suffering from food shortages,” said the source. “However, realizing that family size differed per household, they decided to provide up to 25 kilograms to larger families.
“The corn was old, dirty, and moldy, but to poor residents, the food was life itself,” he continued, adding, “This provision isn’t part of state-supplied rations. It is being provided only to poor families at prices 20% cheaper than in the markets.”
In fact, in releasing the food supplies, North Korean authorities reportedly made clear who would receive provisions this time around, stating that they “could not supply food at cheap prices to wealthy people.”
Meanwhile, due to emergency quarantine efforts in the face of COVID-19, only the inminban heads and some of the households suffering from food shortages were allowed to obtain the provisions at state-run food shops. The provisions were then loaded onto carts to distribute to people in need.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
8. Former Korean ambassador to Somalia tells the real story of Mogadishu
Damn. A missed opportunity here in the influence environment. Why was the actual event not portrayed accurately in the movie? It would have been much more powerful and would have been useful for influence operations in the north.
Excerpt:
“The Italian Embassy didn’t open up their gates immediately, because they had heightened security over the ongoing conflict in the city,” Kang said. “We all ran out of our cars and desperately waved the flag of South Korea to show them we were not a rebel group.”
In the movie, the actors wave a white flag — but Kang says it was actually the Korean flag that they waved together.
Thursday
August 5, 2021
Former Korean ambassador to Somalia tells the real story of Mogadishu
Kang Shin-sung, former Korean ambassador to Somalia. [JOONGANG ILBO]
Former Korean ambassador to Somalia Kang Shin-sung recalls vividly the day when he waved the Korean flag with all his might in front of the Italian Embassy in Somali capital Mogadishu in 1991, with a group of North Korean diplomats.
“We were all there, South Koreans and North Koreans, waving the flag of South Korea,” said Kang. “It was a moment of life or death for all of us, and in such a moment, people forget about the ideological differences.”
Somalia’s decades-long civil war dates back to 1991.
Kang spoke with the JoongAng Ilbo earlier this week about his experiences of escaping the heavy fighting in Mogadishu in January 1991, the scene of which has become a motion picture released in the theaters last week.
The film “Escape from Mogadishu” tells the story of a group of South Korean and North Korean diplomats dodging the bullets of an expanding strife in Somalia, finding shelter together and getting on a flight out of the city with the help of the Italian government.
A scene from the movie ″Escape from Mogadishu″ depicting the escape of South Korean and North Korean diplomats out of the Somali city during its civil war in 1991. [LOTTE ENTERTAINMENT]
But not all that has been depicted in the movie is true to the experiences of Kang and diplomats of the divided peninsula. The JoongAng Ilbo sat down with Kang recently to hear his story again, years after the paper ran a short report on the incident on Jan. 24, 1991.
It was Jan. 9, 1991, when Kang, 54 at the time, made his way to Mogadishu International Airport with seven other staff members of the South Korean Embassy in Somalia.
The ongoing civil war in the nation had turned most of Mogadishu to rubble. Armed antigovernment groups had raided homes, embassies and government buildings, and the sound of distant gunshots filled the streets.
It was at the airport that Kang met Kim Yong-su, the 55-year-old North Korean ambassador to Somalia, and 13 other staff members from the North's embassy and their relatives.
Kang suggested that Kim’s party join his as they catch a flight out of the airport, but during some confusion at the airport both parties ended up being stranded without knowledge on when the next flight out would be.
“It was too dangerous to wait at the airport because it was a key location being fought over between the warring factions in Somalia,” Kang said. “My team decided to get back to the diplomatic residence and wait there, since we had some six local police officers still protecting it. When I asked Kim what he was going to do, he said that the North Korean Embassy has already been raided eight times, and that they don’t know how to fend for themselves if another attack takes place.”
Kang suggested that Kim and the other North Korean diplomats and their families stay with him at his home.
Next thing they knew, they were cooking dinner together at Kang’s residence.
“The North Koreans brought vegetables they had grown at their embassy compound, and rice they had with them,” Kang said. “We cooked and shared the meal together.”
When Kang was asked whether he had, at any point, second thoughts about taking in the North Korean diplomats under the roof of South Korea’s diplomatic residence, he said, “There wasn’t a moment to think about such things. It was all about trying to make it out of there safely, together.”
Kang's diplomatic ID issued by the Somali government in 1988. [KANG SHIN-SUNG]
In the movie, the North Korean delegation shows up at the South Korean diplomatic residence to ask for help, which the South Korean delegation dismisses. This detail was not true, Kang said, and was tweaked by the filmmakers.
Back in real life, Kang and Kim then contacted other embassies in Mogadishu which they thought may be able to help them.
Kim got in touch with the Egyptian Embassy, which was able to communicate on their behalf about their situation to the North Korean Embassy and South Korean consulate in Cairo.
Kang got in touch with the Italian Embassy, which said it could procure a flight out of Mogadishu for them — but only for the South Koreans. Italy didn’t have diplomatic relations with North Korea at the time.
“They said that they could help procure a warplane that can take some seven to eight people at once — enough for just the South Koreans,” Kang said. “I protested to the Italian ambassador, saying I cannot leave these North Korean people behind. It has to be all or nothing.”
In the end, the Italian government was able to procure an additional plane to get both Korean groups out of Mogadishu.
In the movie, actor Kim Yoon-seok, who plays Kang, asks Heo Joon-ho, who plays Kim, if he’d like to escape to South Korea. Kang said this never happened in real life.
“I never suggested such a thing [to Kim], and I also have not, in my communications with the Italian Embassy, suggested such a thing,” Kang said.
The next move for the two parties was to get everyone safely to the Italian Embassy, where they would stay until their flight out of Mogadishu.
The group, altogether some 20 people, got into four different cars in the afternoon of Jan. 10. It was only a 10-minute ride to the Italian Embassy, but the embassy, located close to the residential palace of the president of Somalia, was nearer to the center of heavy fighting.
As they passed the central bank building in the downtown area of the city, they were hit by a score of bullets. The government forces had mistaken them as a rebel group.
A scene from movie ″Escape from Mogadishu″ [LOTTE ENTERTAINMENT]
Taking an abrupt turn to avoid the bullets, the four vehicles took a different route and at last were able to reach the Italian Embassy. It was only after arriving at the embassy that they realized that one of the drivers, a North Korean diplomat surnamed Park, had been shot. He died soon after reaching the embassy. His wife was with him at the time.
“The Italian Embassy didn’t open up their gates immediately, because they had heightened security over the ongoing conflict in the city,” Kang said. “We all ran out of our cars and desperately waved the flag of South Korea to show them we were not a rebel group.”
In the movie, the actors wave a white flag — but Kang says it was actually the Korean flag that they waved together.
Park was buried at the Italian diplomatic residence. The Koreans spent two days together, until their rescue date on Jan. 12.
Early that morning, the South Koreans and North Koreans arrived at the airport. But it wasn’t just the warplanes that showed up at the airport on time.
“We saw some 100 Somalians running towards us, trying to get onto the plane,” Kang said. “Soon all of us were swept in the crowd, some of us fell, but somehow, we all made it onto the planes.”
In two hours, they landed in Mombasa, Kenya.
As soon as they landed, Kang said, Kim came up to him to say goodbye.
“He said thanks for everything, but it’s time to say goodbye,” Kang said.
Kang mentioned that he has an accommodation ready in Kenya and suggested they stay there together until each return home.
Kim did not take up the offer.
“I realized then, that perhaps if it becomes known that North Korean diplomats received any kind of assistance from South Korea even after the escape from Somalia, it might not go well for them in Pyongyang,” Kang said.
It’s been 30 years since then, but Kang often recalls the escape from time to time, especially the people with whom he spent some of the most desperate hours.
“I would have visited Kim already had it not been for the divide between the two nations,” Kang said.
Kang, 84 this year, had been posted to Chile and then Hawaii following his post in Somalia. He retired in 1997 and wrote a novel based on his experiences of the escape out of Somalia, which was published in 2006.
The report on Kang's escape from Somalia in January 1991 in the JoongAng Ilbo. [JOONGANG ILBO]
A photo taken by Kang during his posting to Somalia from 1988 to 1991 shows a local market. [KANG SHIN-SUNG]
BY PARK HYUN-JU, ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]
9. Kowtowing to Kim Yo-jong
I am glad to see the Joongang Ilbo calling out these lawmakers for what they are really doing. They need to know their actions will result in further blackmail diplomacy. They are putting the security of th eROK at risk.
Thursday
August 5, 2021
Kowtowing to Kim Yo-jong
After 74 lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Party (DP) and other splinter parties demanded Thursday that a joint South Korea-U.S. military exercise slated for later this month be suspended, major presidential candidates from the DP joined the move. They were all reacting to Kim Yo-jong, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister and vice director of the Workers’ Party, who threatened to “watch closely what action South Korea will take” because the “drill will make the future of inter-Korean relations murky.” We wonder if the DP lawmakers really want to accept so easily Pyongyang’s demand for the cancellation of a military exercise pivotal to our national security.
Meanwhile, DP Chairman Song Young-gil stressed the need to conduct a “drill agreed to between South and North Korea.” The recent restoration of inter-Korean military communication lines can hardly justify the postponement of the drill, he said. Such discord in the ruling camp suggests internal schisms. Kim Yo-jong would be the first to welcome such strange development across the border as she has already succeeded in fueling internal conflict in the South and shaking the alliance.
The government went a step further. The Ministry of Unification floated the idea of delaying the drill, saying, “It is desirable to suspend the exercise.” Two days later, Park Jie-won, director of the National Intelligence Service, accepted the baton. “If we conduct a joint drill, North Korea will make a new provocation,” he warned. Such remarks by the head of the nation’s spy agency translate into an accommodation of the North’s demand based on a preset conclusion.
In such circumstances, a leader must start to lead. In a meeting with the top brass on Wednesday, however, President Moon Jae-in ordered them to “cautiously consult with the United States over the issue after considering several factors.” It is irresponsible for the commander in chief to show such an ambiguous attitude on an issue of national security.
A military exercise cannot serve as a bargaining chip for inter-Korean talks. Discussing a suspension or scaling back of the drill is the same as admitting that the exercise is actually aimed at invading North Korea. Our top spy relayed Pyongyang’s willingness to take “reciprocal steps” in return for the suspension of the drill. In other words, Pyongyang seeks economic and medical aid from Seoul in exchange for the suspension by simply agreeing to resume talks. How could that be reciprocal steps? Park underscored the need to “flexibly review the North’s demand to achieve denuclearization.” His logic does not make sense. North Korea must first take sincere steps to denuclearize first. Period.
10. North Korean border patrol cadre arrested for abetting remittances from overseas
This is one of the reasons why family members of escapees are not always sent to the gulags. Corrupt officials can extort money from them when remittances are sent back.
Excerpts:
A Daily NK source in North Korea said Monday that the political guidance officer of the Yanggang Province-based Third Company, Second Battalion, 252nd Regiment, 25th Brigade of the border patrol — a man in his 30s identified by his family name of Pak — was arrested on July 13. He suffered the indignity of being stripped of his epaulets in front of the company, then shackled and taken away in a military truck.
Until February of this year, Pak reportedly used his soldiers to collect money from China and transfer it to remittance agents, or “brokers,” despite the closure of the Sino-North Korean border due to COVID-19.
North Korean border patrol cadre arrested for abetting remittances from overseas - Daily NK
A cadre with North Korea’s border patrol in Yanggang Province was arrested in mid-July for abetting remittances from overseas, Daily NK has learned.
A Daily NK source in North Korea said Monday that the political guidance officer of the Yanggang Province-based Third Company, Second Battalion, 252nd Regiment, 25th Brigade of the border patrol — a man in his 30s identified by his family name of Pak — was arrested on July 13. He suffered the indignity of being stripped of his epaulets in front of the company, then shackled and taken away in a military truck.
Until February of this year, Pak reportedly used his soldiers to collect money from China and transfer it to remittance agents, or “brokers,” despite the closure of the Sino-North Korean border due to COVID-19.
A sentry post on the Sino-North Korean border in Sakju County, North Pyongan Province. / Image: Daily NK
That is to say, he collected money sent by defectors in South Korea to their families in North Korea from accomplices in China on behalf of the brokers, all the while collecting a commission.
However, the authorities caught on to him during an intensive campaign against users of Chinese-made mobile phones. Pak’s activities were uncovered after a local resident whose money he had transferred was arrested.
In other words, as North Korean authorities carried out their operation against Chinese mobile phones, they conducted additional investigations on associates and even launched operations to arrest suspected wrongdoers.
“Wide-scale investigations of border patrol officers and soldiers connected with users of Chinese-made mobile phones are currently ongoing,” said the source. “The political guidance officer was arrested as an extension of those investigations.”
“[From the perspective of the authorities], the company’s political guidance officer — who should carry out the government’s policy to close the border due to COVID-19 better than anyone — broke quarantine regulations,” he continued, adding, “The punishment the political guidance officer faces will not be light.”
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
11. Strong U.S.-Korea alliance enables diplomatic engagement with N. Korea: Adm. Aquilino
Of course he is right. Someone should tell the South Korean ruling party lawmakers who seek to delay the combined training that.
Strong U.S.-Korea alliance enables diplomatic engagement with N. Korea: Adm. Aquilino | Yonhap News Agency
By Byun Duk-kun
WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 (Yonhap) -- The strong U.S.-South Korea alliance helps ensure peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula while it also allows the allies to engage with the recalcitrant North with strength and confidence, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said Wednesday.
Adm. John Aquilino noted North Korea was "certainly a security challenge" that faces the U.S. in the region.
"The U.S.-ROK alliance is strong and ironclad. Our commitment with that treaty ally has been the foundation for peace and stability on the peninsula as we work towards a denuclearized peninsula as the common goal," the four-star admiral said in a virtual forum hosted by the Washington-based Aspen Institute think tank.
"From the military aspects, the alliance, as well as the strength that we have in the region, enables the U.S. government to do diplomacy from a position of strength, and I think that's what I would do my role as a part of this," he added.
ROK stands for the Republic of Korea, South Korea's official name.
The remark comes amid a growing cry in South Korea that the allies may need to postpone, if not cancel, their scheduled joint military exercise, set to begin later in the month, to help set the stage for a resumption of inter-Korean dialogue.
North Korea reopened its direct communication channels with South Korea last week, about 13 months after it unilaterally severed them.
Pyongyang, however, said the communication lines may be shut again if Seoul chooses to go ahead with the scheduled joint military drill. North Korea periodically accuses joint military exercises of South Korea and the United States as being rehearsals for their northward invasion.
Aquilino, based in Hawaii, highlighted the importance of U.S.-South Korea alliance, reiterating that its strength allows Secretary of State Antony Blinken to pursue diplomacy toward the North.
"It highlights our commitment to our allies and partners, and it enables Secretary Blinken and the administration to take on the actions towards our common goal of a denuclearized and peaceful peninsula," he said.
bdk@yna.co.kr
(END)
12. Blinken reaffirms U.S. commitment to denuclearization of Korean Peninsula
Yes we must be committed to this.
Unfortunately my bottom line is this: The only way we are going to see an end to the nuclear program and threats as well as the human rights abuses and crimes against humanity being committed against the Korean people living in the north by the mafia-like crime family cult known as the Kim family regime is through achievement of unification and the establishment of a United Republic of Korea that is secure and stable, non-nuclear, economically vibrant, and unified under a liberal constitutional form of government based on individual liberty, rule of law, and human rights as determined by the Korean people. In short, a United Republic of Korea (UROK).
Blinken reaffirms U.S. commitment to denuclearization of Korean Peninsula | Yonhap News Agency
By Byun Duk-kun
WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken underscored his country's commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a regional forum attended by the top diplomats of 17 other countries, including South Korea, the State Department said Wednesday.
The top U.S. diplomat also reaffirmed U.S. support for the countries in battling the COVID-19 pandemic.
"He pledged continued U.S. support for a free and open Mekong subregion and reaffirmed U.S. commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," the State Department said of Blinken's participation in the virtual East Asia Summit (EAS).
"He also stressed the critical role international cooperation plays in combating cybercrime, especially in consideration of the global rise in ransomware incidents," it added in a press release.
The EAS is an annual forum, led by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It involves eight other countries, including Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and Russia.
The State Department earlier said Blinken will urge ASEAN members to fully implement U.N. Security Council sanctions on North Korea during this week's ASEAN related fora that include ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), attended by 26 countries, including North Korea.
A senior department official has said the U.S. expected North Korea to take part in the ARF has it done so in the past, but that Blinken had no immediate plans to engage with his North Korean counterpart.
The U.S. has repeatedly reached out to the reclusive North since President Joe Biden took office in January, but Pyongyang remains unresponsive to U.S. overtures.
North Korea, however, reopened its direct communication lines with South Korea last week, prompting hopes that the country may return to dialogue with the U.S. in the near future.
The North has stayed away from dialogue with the U.S. since leader Kim Jong-un held an unproductive summit with former U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi in February 2019.
bdk@yna.co.kr
(END)
13. S. Korea, U.S. agree to expand cybersecurity cooperation
Excellent move for the alliance.
In 2018 Mathew Ha and I recommended creating a ROK/US Cyber Task Force in our monograph, Kim Jong Un’s ‘All-Purpose Sword’ North Korean Cyber-Enabled Economic Warfare. (HERE)
1. Create a combined ROK-U.S. Cyber Task Force
Since the ROK and U.S. are the primary targets for North Korean cyber activities, the alliance should establish a task force of ROK and U.S. cyber experts to synchronize defenses and options for offensive operations. Although joint task forces are often ineffective, a combined entity should be pursued to ensure the alliance could adequately defend against the full range of North Korea’s cyber threats, from CEEW to wartime cyber operations.
On June 21, the 5th U.S.-Republic of Korea Bilateral Cyber Consultations were held in Seoul “to discuss a wide range of cyber issues, including cooperation on deterring cyber adversaries, cybersecurity of critical infrastructure, capacity building, information sharing, military-to-military cyber cooperation, cybercrime, international security issues in cyberspace, and current threats and trends in the international cyber environment.” 163 An agenda item for the next consultative meeting and for the ROK/U.S. security consultative meeting in fall 2018 should be the establishment of a permanent combined ROK/U.S. cyber task force to supplement periodic consultation. A permanent task force is necessary to defend economic infrastructure and address the full range of cyber threats, including CEEW.
The Cyber Task Force should develop a combined strategy for operations during both armistice and wartime. It should consist of military and civilian experts from across the U.S. and ROK governments and include private sector experts as well. This would not contradict the indefinite suspension of combined military exercises following the Singapore summit. In fact, given that North Korea is likely to continue or escalate aggressive cyber operations during nuclear negotiations, the task force’s mission is only more urgent.
The new task force should include enhanced information sharing. For instance, South Korea’s Korea Internet Safety Agency successfully prevented a spear-phishing campaign targeting 10 cryptocurrency exchanges earlier in 2017. 164 Sharing insights from such experiences will be instrumental in fortifying cyber defenses.
The United States National Cyber Strategy calls for developing international partner capacity to support a new cyber deterrence initiative. A Combined ROK-U.S. Task Force would be one example of operationalizing the strategy. 165
S. Korea, U.S. agree to expand cybersecurity cooperation | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, Aug. 5 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and the United States have agreed to strengthen cooperation in responding to growing global cybersecurity threats as they held a joint defense committee meeting on information and communications technology, the defense ministry said Thursday.
During the inaugural session of the U.S.-ROK ICT Cooperation Committee, held via a videoconference Wednesday, they also agreed to set up various information sharing systems to boost combined combat capabilities by securing a better interoperability, according to the ministry.
"To maintain a firm combined readiness posture, the two sides agreed to enhance cooperation in various fields, including weapons systems," the ministry said in a release.
The ministry said the meeting will be held every year to continue policy coordination in the ICT sector.
scaaet@yna.co.kr
(END)
14. Tracing Freedom to a Pair of Jeans (north Korea)
The power of blue jeans.
But also note the reality many escapees experience when they arrive in South Korea and they cannot afford the fashions they saw on Korean dramas. An issue for the information and influence professionals to consider in their themes and messages to the north.
Tracing Freedom to a Pair of Jeans
For these North Korean defectors, the road to liberty was paved in denim.
Kang Nara, left, and Yoon Miso at the Gyeongui Line Forest Park in Seoul, South Korea, where the train line once connected the area to North Korea. Nara crossed the border to South Korea in 2015 and now works as a YouTube producer and a TV broadcaster. Miso crossed in 2013 and works as an image consultant in Seoul.Credit...Woohae Cho for The New York Times
For these North Korean defectors, the road to liberty was paved in denim.
Kang Nara, left, and Yoon Miso at the Gyeongui Line Forest Park in Seoul, South Korea, where the train line once connected the area to North Korea. Nara crossed the border to South Korea in 2015 and now works as a YouTube producer and a TV broadcaster. Miso crossed in 2013 and works as an image consultant in Seoul.Credit...Woohae Cho for The New York Times
By
- Aug. 4, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET
Last May, in one of those reports that seemed both unbelievable and yet too tantalizing to ignore, there was a flurry of excitement in numerous Western newspapers over the supposed news that Kim Jong-un, the autocratic ruler of North Korea, had issued an official edict banning ripped or skinny jeans.
Though it turned out to be a hyperbolic version of outdated news, three defectors who live in South Korea said the idea of jeans as symbolizing a kind of rebellion for a changed future for those living in North Korea is not as far-fetched as it might seem.
“When I lived in North Korea, I never had the freedom to wear what I wanted, but I never questioned it because I didn’t know this freedom existed,” said Jihyun Kang, 31, who grew up in Chongjin, the third-largest city in North Korea.
Ms. Kang first glimpsed that freedom when she was vacationing at Mount Paektu and saw a foreign tourist. “I was convinced that he was homeless because only beggars wore torn clothes in North Korea,” she said. “But my father told me that it was expensive for foreigners to visit North Korea and he supposed that the jeans were ripped as a form of style.”
Ms. Kang said it was the first time in her life she pondered that word — “style” — and the questions sent her toward broader interrogations about her identity and the meaning of personal liberation that ultimately led to her decision to leave her home country.
And she is not alone. Kang Nara, a 23-year-old social media star, and Yoon Miso, a 32-year-old image consultant, both of whom left North Korea for South Korea, trace their routes to freedom to fashion. Now they are trying to help others understand just how powerful clothes can be.
Kang Ji-hyun, right, and Marie Boes, the founders of ISTORY, a social impact fashion brand. Ji-hyun and Marie share the stories of North Korean defectors through their fashion designs.Credit...Woohae Cho for The New York Times
What Does Fashion Mean in North Korea?
While little information is available about North Korea’s fashion industry, styles across the nation vary significantly from one province to another and from one social class to another. In Pyongyang, for example, the intensely monitored capital where the elite live, fashion looks very different from its expression in the rest of the country, an estimated 60 percent of whose population live in absolute poverty.
North Korean citizens were once provided state rations of clothes — two-piece, uniform-like outfits in limited solid colors — but when the economy collapsed in the mid-1990s, people developed their own system of local markets and there has been a wider range of options ever since.
Market vendors initially sold whatever they could farm, cook or sew at home, but as of 2017 there were 440 official markets stocked mostly with Chinese imports, including food, household goods and apparel.
There is also an active black market, with items like USB sticks containing foreign media; makeup; and “prohibited clothing.” Defectors say true fashionistas get to know private sellers and buy the riskiest items in their homes.
Laws and punishments in North Korea are not public, so it’s unclear which garments and accessories are illegal. Instead, there are directives prohibiting “items that represent capitalist ideas” outlined in Rodong Sinmun, the country’s state-run newspaper.
Organizations like the Socialist Patriotic Youth League (S.P.Y.L.) have long interpreted this to include miniskirts, shirts with English lettering and various types of jeans, and have policed the public accordingly.
For decades, those daring to dress outside the box faced public shaming or imprisonment if caught. Ms. Kang remembered a time, for instance, when she had to beg a patrol officer to spare her from a shaming session after she was caught wearing white denim pants (she succeeded).
“If I wanted to wear something, like a pair of jeans, I had to sneak around,” Ms. Kang, the social media star, said. “I’d take back-alley streets, or I’d hide if I saw a patrol officer coming my way.”
Ms. Yoon, who is from Hyesan, said she got her first pair of jeans — blue bell bottoms — at a private dealer’s house when she was 14. “One day, I paired the jeans with a brightly colored top and got caught,” she said.
An S.P.Y.L. officer cut up her jeans at a public shaming session, she said, and he had her beg publicly for forgiveness and notified her school, where she was lectured on the dangers of “capitalist, bourgeois ideas.”
In 2009, at the age of 20, Ms. Yoon moved to China and lived there for two years before moving to South Korea in 2011. “To me, fashion is freedom and I left North Korea because I wanted to be able to wear what I wanted,” she said.
Ms. Nara had to sneak around and hide to able to wear a pair of jeans in her former home country.Credit...Woohae Cho for The New York Times
Ms. Miso was forced to publicly apologize when she was caught with jeans at age 14. The jeans were destroyed by a public officer.Credit...Woohae Cho for The New York Times
Learning to Dress Again
The Ministry of Unification in South Korea estimates that there are approximately 34,000 North Koreans who have crossed the border since 1998. Facing prison time or worse if caught, defectors typically leave through the south of China, traveling across Laos and then Thailand before reaching South Korea.
Some bring a small amount of clothes from North Korea, or pick up items in China, where they may have adapted to rural Chinese fashion. Ultimately, they enter South Korea more or less empty-handed.
Upon arrival, defectors spend up to three months being investigated by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service while living at an isolated building in the mountains. If they are approved, they move to a settlement support center called Hanawon, where defectors are taught the basics of banking, technology and shopping.
Part of this education often includes a field trip to a department store, where Hanawon students are given shopping money. Though North Korea reportedly has a handful of department stores stocked with Western brands for the 1 percent, the Hanawon trip is a first for most defectors.
Kang Nara, who lost all her clothes while crossing the Yalu River in 2014, said she remembered picking out a K-Swiss padded vest lined with raccoon fur, an item her teacher told her was stylish for kids her age. Ms. Yoon described the mall she attended, Shinsegae (meaning “new world”), as “an amazing, alternate world.” She recalled buying a pair of short cotton pajamas with frilled trim she had seen on the Korean drama “Stairway to Heaven.”
When they left Hanawon, all three of the women found that everyday South Korean life hardly resembled what they had seen on television when they lived in North Korea. Jihyun Kang, who defected in 2009, said it was the first time she really thought about the expenses of dressing well and found everyday South Korean style disappointing.
“The more I looked at clothes, the more I understood quality,” she said. “I wanted more beautiful things, but I couldn’t afford them. In Korean dramas, everyone wears colorful, expensive clothes and changes often, but in real life, it wasn’t like that at all.”
Kang Nara said she couldn’t understand why people with money dressed so plainly and that she had a hard time swallowing some trends her first year. “I was horrified by those low-hanging, Justin Bieber-style pants,” she said.
And as much as Ms. Yoon had looked forward to living in a world of options, she said learning how to shop made her anxious.
“Initially, I only knew about shopping at department stores and I assumed the best clothes were the most expensive clothes,” she said, adding that she thought touching something meant you had to buy it, and wasn’t sure if she was allowed to try things on. She couldn’t even imagine trying to return anything. “It was as if other people had permission to do these things, but somehow if I did it, everyone would look at me.”
While Jihyun Kang said she was too busy to think about fitting in during those first years, Kang Nara and Ms. Yoon admitted to feeling self-conscious about their clothes, and their status as defectors, who are often looked down on in South Korea. Ms. Yoon, in addition to hiding her North Korean background, said she tried to look and sound local.
“I sometimes thought about outfits I wore back home and how everyone told me I looked pretty in them, but I never let myself dress that way,” she said. “I made myself dress as South Korean as possible.” To understand what that meant, she spent hours on YouTube watching beauty tutorials and got fashion tips from “Get It Beauty,” a popular South Korean television show hosted by makeup artists and fashion-forward celebrities.
Kang Nara said she regrets many of her early fashion choices, like flamboyant yellows and pinks, blouses with studs, and T-shirts with large English letters on them. “I dressed the way rich people in North Korea dressed, which was their interpretation of how wealthy Chinese people dressed,” she said. Over time, she toned down and simplified her style, taking cues from South Korean celebrities including the actress Cha Jung-won.
“When people sometimes found out I was from the North, they would say they couldn’t believe it, and their surprise always felt like a compliment,” Ms. Kang said. “It made me feel satisfied about how I dressed — like I was a crow that had managed to go unnoticed among the doves.”
T shirts designs by ISTORY feature patch designs with drawings conceptualized on the stories of North Korean re-settlers.Credit...Woohae Cho for The New York Times
Apparel designs, from left to right, The Teens, Floral Uniform, and The Twenties, created by Kang Ji-hyun, the founder of ISTORY, are displayed at a group exhibition in Seoul.Credit...Woohae Cho for The New York Times
Modeling Your Story on Your Back
Social media has come to play an important part in helping defectors adjust to their new lives, especially YouTube, which some North Koreans have been using to help South Koreans understand their struggles. Over the past five years, several defectors have used the platform to speak about their lives back home and their experiences in South Korea.
Ms. Kang, one of best-known YouTubers in this genre, has built her channel on her persona as a North Korean fashion and beauty insider. While most of her content is lighthearted, she says in one video that she once considered going back to North Korea. “People tell me that I’ve done a good job resettling, but I had days when I wanted to go back home,” she says. “I overcame a lot to come here, and it turns out South Korea is a place where people work hard to live so that’s what I did — I worked hard to live.”
Ms. Yoon said she only recently decided to be upfront about where she is from. Graduating with a degree in fashion, getting a job in the field, and becoming more involved in the defector community have boosted her confidence.
The greatest fashion lesson she has learned since coming to South Korea is to “adjust the current trends to suit yourself, not try to copy what other people are wearing,” she said. She is enrolled in an entrepreneurship boot camp called Asan Sanghoe, and hopes to start a cosmetics line, focusing on the kind of vivid colors that would be prohibited in North Korea.
Jihyun Kang graduated from the same boot camp last year. In April she started a clothing line called Istory, for which she interviews North Korean defectors and then translates their narratives into images, which in turn get printed into elbow patches and sewn onto long-sleeved T-shirts.
A QR code on the shirt’s tag leads to a web page on the defector’s story: family backgrounds, childhoods, the escape from North Korea and future goals. The T-shirt representing Ms. Kang’s own story is an outline of Mount Paektu with an orange sunset in the distance.
“Fashion allows you to tell a story,” Ms. Kang said, adding that through her work she has met so many defectors who struggled in the North and continue to overcome so much in South Korea. “The more people know about these stories, the more room there is for change, and I want to play a part in that.”
15. Don't Give North Korea Sanctions Relief for Just Talking
That; however. is exactly what Kim Jong-un wants.
Don't Give North Korea Sanctions Relief for Just Talking
The recent restoration of key lines of communication on the Korean Peninsula that had been dormant for over a year following North Korea’s severing of communications with South Korea last summer has led to hopes for renewed efforts at improving both inter-Korean and U.S.-DPRK relations. The revival of communications has led to speculation about the possibility of an inter-Korean summit meeting, which has been suggested as a possible jumping-off point for a resumption of nuclear negotiations between the United States and North Korea.
While the restoration of these lines of communication is certainly a positive development, it is important to keep it in perspective. The severing and subsequent revival of hotline communications on the Korean Peninsula are not new. In fact, in just the past decade it has proven to be a relatively common occurrence. And just as restoration of communications is not new, neither is a North Korean return to inter-Korean dialogue and negotiations with the United States. Taken together these developments could eventually lead to positive breakthroughs, as they have in the past. But those breakthroughs will only come about as a result of a diplomatic process, and treating a return to that process as a victory in and of itself risks ceding the advantage to North Korea. As such, it is important that both the United States and South Korea avoid making upfront concessions related to sanctions removal or U.S.-ROK joint military exercises as rewards for restarting inter-Korean engagement or talks with the United States.
A Familiar Process
Far from a novel tactic, the severing and subsequent revival of inter-Korean hotlines is in fact an oft-repeated element of North Korea’s diplomatic playbook. Since the first inter-Korean hotline was installed at Panmunjom in 1971, North Korea has on more than one occasion severed hotlines, including as early as 1976 following the killing of two U.S. military personnel in the Joint Security Area by North Korean soldiers armed with axes.
More recently, in 2010 North Korea severed all communications with North Korea in the aftermath of its sinking of the ROK naval corvette Cheonan, and did so again in 2013 in response to sanctions levied against the DPRK following the country’s third nuclear test. Inter-Korean hotlines were again cut off in 2016 after South Korea shut down the Kaesong Industrial Complex following North Korea’s fourth nuclear test.
The most recent severing of the hotlines on the Korean Peninsula in June 2020 followed North Korean criticism of what it claimed was a failure on the part of the South Korean government to prevent to the launching of leaflet balloons into the North by defectors and other activists.
Breakthroughs and Pitfalls
While the cycle of severing and restoring inter-Korean hotlines is not new, the restoration and subsequent use of those hotlines has led to important breakthroughs in inter-Korean and U.S.-DPRK relations in the past. Following overtures made to South Korea during North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s 2018 New Year’s speech, an order was given to revive the Panmunjom hotline in order to facilitate discussions about joint Korean participation at the 2018 Winter Olympics held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Those discussions eventually bore fruit, and the 2018 Olympic games would feature symbols of peace and reconciliation, a joint Korean ice hockey team, and high-level diplomatic contacts. This successful example of sports diplomacy led to a series of inter-Korean summits between Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, which proved instrumental in paving the way for the two summit meetings between Kim and former U.S. President Donald Trump.
The positive developments that took place in the aftermath of the 2018 restoration of the Panmunjom hotline should be seen as an example of what is possible following restored inter-Korean communications. Discussions about a possible inter-Korean summit have reportedly taken place, even as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic remains a significant barrier. Should a summit meeting – held either in person or virtually – take place, it could once again be a stepping stone to renewed U.S.-DPRK diplomatic negotiations.
It is important, however, not to treat these outcomes as victories themselves even as they might represent important checkpoints on the path towards important diplomatic breakthroughs. Shortly after the Biden administration came to power, it reportedly began back-channel diplomatic outreach efforts towards North Korea, which the DPRK subsequently ignored. It likely did so based on a strategic calculation that playing hard to get would benefit it in the long run; by refusing early talks, North Korea may have been hoping that the Biden administration would place more value on simply getting the DPRK to the table in the future, producing greater inducements and concessions as a means to do so.
The U.S. must avoid falling prey to this strategy and granting significant concessions to North Korea that it can pocket simply for restarting the diplomatic process. To be sure, the provision of such things as humanitarian aid can be offered as a measure of goodwill in response to North Korean willingness to resume the process, but larger concessions such as sanctions removal should instead be tied to reciprocal North Korean concessions.
The Unites Stated and South Korea should also avoid allowing the prospects of renewed diplomacy and engagement to determine the level of joint military readiness. Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s sister, recently criticized upcoming U.S.-ROK joint military exercises, suggesting that progress towards improved inter-Korean relations in the aftermath of the restoration of the hotlines might be tied to whether or not those exercises take place.
The Alliance must ensure that it does not allow North Korea too so easily drive events on the Korean Peninsula by suspending or significantly scaling back the upcoming joint exercises.
The restoration of the inter-Korean hotlines has rightly been hailed as a positive development, and the potential resumption of diplomatic engagement presents an opportunity to make some progress in talks with North Korea. Even so, it is important that the United States and South Korea refrain from making substantial early concessions such as sanctions relief as a reward for North Korea’s willingness to restart the diplomatic process.
16. N. Korea puts major rice-producing areas on high alert against flooding
Why is the north so vulnerable to flooding? Is it perhaps its agricultural techniques and the fact that much of the land has been stripped of vegetation which allows water flow swiftly and creates floods?
N. Korea puts major rice-producing areas on high alert against flooding | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, Aug. 5 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has been taking flooding prevention measures in major farming areas in the country's southwest in an effort to minimize damage to grain production amid forecasts of heavy downpours, state media reported Thursday.
"Emergency steps have been taken to prevent damage from flooding at cooperative fields in Jaeryong County," the Rodong Sinmun, the organ of the North's ruling party, said. "Anti-flooding efforts have been seriously undertaken basically to prevent farming areas in Anak County from inundation."
The counties located in South Hwanghae Province are known as major rice-producing areas.
Various anti-flooding measures, such as the repair of reservoirs and streams, have also been taken in Sariwon, Hwangju and other areas of North Hawnghae Province, according to the paper.
Hwanghae provinces are in the country's southwestern region and were among those hard hit by last summer's back-to-back typhoons and floods.
North Korea is known for chronic food shortages, which appear to have been aggravated by last year's flooding. In June, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un acknowledged that the country is facing a "tense" food shortage.
Experts say that North Korea needs to produce around 5.5 million tons of food every year to feed its population. A think tank in Seoul earlier said the North could face a food shortage of around 1.3 million tons this year.
kokobj@yna.co.kr
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17. 272 members of Cheonghae unit presumed to have contracted delta variant: authorities
Another reason why all military personnel should be vaccinated before deployment.
What would be intersting to learn is why the remaining 30 members did not become infected with the virus?
272 members of Cheonghae unit presumed to have contracted delta variant: authorities | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, Aug. 4 (Yonhap) -- All of the 272 service members of the anti-piracy Cheonghae unit who contracted the coronavirus are presumed to have come down with the highly transmissible delta variant, as the unit was conducting missions in waters off Africa, health authorities said Wednesday.
The members of the 301-strong Cheonghae unit were airlifted home last month, cutting short their missions in Africa after 271 of them tested positive for COVID-19.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said 64 of them have been confirmed to be infected with the variant that was first reported in India, with others being highly likely to be infected with the same strain.
The KDCA said there has been no reported case that developed into serious condition.
Of the confirmed cases, 267 service members were released from medical facilities, and four sailors are currently under a two-week quarantine
South Korea has reported a rising number of Delta variants, with the total caseload tallied at 4,912, the KDCA said.
khj@yna.co.kr
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18. 20 USFK-affiliated people test positive for COVID-19
Are US personnel arriving in Korea without being vaccinated?
The good news is the ROK and US procedures that are in place are detecting COVID and they have effective mitigations measures in place.
20 USFK-affiliated people test positive for COVID-19 | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, Aug. 5 (Yonhap) -- Twelve American service members and eight others affiliated with the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) tested positive for the new coronavirus upon arrival in South Korea from the United States, the U.S. military said Thursday.
One service member arrived at Osan Air Base on a U.S. government chartered flight, and eleven service members, four civilians, three family members and one retiree arrived on international commercial flights at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. They arrived here between July 18 and Aug. 2, according to USFK.
Twelve of them tested positive on their first mandatory COVID-19 test prior to entering quarantine, the remaining eight were confirmed to have been infected while in isolation.
All of them have since been transferred to a facility designated for COVID-19 patients, either at Camp Humphreys or Osan Air Base, both located in Pyeongtaek, some 70 kilometers south of Seoul, it added.
The latest cases raised the total number of infections reported among the USFK-affiliated population to 1,159, most of whom tested positive upon their arrival here from the U.S.
graceoh@yna.co.kr
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19. Why Kim may be re-emphasizing guerrilla warfare
Per the subtitle: of course it does. It is shaping the information environment. It is doing so consistently. And it is, after all, a Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State.
“In the course of this struggle against factional opponents, for the first time Kim began to emphasize nationalism as a means of rallying the population to the enormous sacrifices needed for post-war recovery. This was a nationalism that first took shape in the environment of the anti-Japanese guerrilla movement and developed into a creed through the destruction of both the non-Communist nationalist forces and much of the leftist intellectual tradition of the domestic Communists. Kim’s nationalism did not draw inspiration from Korean history, nor did it dwell on past cultural achievements, for the serious study of history and traditional culture soon effectively ceased in the DPRK. Rather, DPRK nationalism drew inspiration from the Spartan outlook of the former Manchurian guerrillas. It was a harsh nationalism that dwelt on past wrongs and promises of retribution for “national traitors” and their foreign backers. DPRK nationalism stressed the “purity” of all things Korean against the “contamination” of foreign ideas, and inculcated in the population a sense of fear and animosity toward the outside world. Above all, DPRK nationalism stressed that the guerrilla ethos was not only the supreme, but also the only legitimate basis on which to reconstitute a reunified Korea.” (p. 27) (Guerrilla Dynasty, by Adrian Buzo)
Why Kim may be re-emphasizing guerrilla warfare
Pyongyang seeks to appear ferocious whenever the annual US-South Korean joint military exercises roll around
Remember the report, the month before last, saying that North Korea’s ruling party had backed off on paper from its commitment to encourage a revolution in South Korea?
The Korean Workers’ Party deleted from its supreme rulebook some explicit language that had committed it to encourage a revolution in South Korea, according to that report from the South’s left-leaning Hankyoreh newspaper. The gesture – which was bound to, and did, become public – provided encouragement to South Koreans and others who advocate peaceful engagement with the North.
Asia Times pointed out that, to the North’s reigning Kims, North-South relations had always been a zero-sum game. Pyongyang could be making a clever move to disarm Seoul and caution would be advisable.
Sure enough, here comes a new report via Seoul-based DailyNK saying that North Korean military authorities have “handed down a special order to the so-called ‘Storm Corps,’ the nation’s most elite special forces unit, to ‘prepare for guerilla warfare'” – in the process supplying the unit with three-dimensional “military maps of South Korea’s major regions.”
North Korean People’s Army special forces. Photo: KCNA
Attributing the information to an unnamed North Korean military source, the article continues:
Distributing to all branches of the army new topographical maps in the guise of an order entitled, “Systemic Transformation of Tactical Topography in Areas of Operation,” the supreme command basically ordered the Storm Corps, in particular, to begin training for urban guerrilla war to infiltrate target objectives.
To put this another way, they ordered the Storm Corps to properly familiarize themselves with the transformed urban topography of South Korea – the “enemy” – and carry out intensive training, re-establishing operation plans for small-unit combat infiltrations …
In particular, one of the unit’s major tasks during this year’s summer training is to build a new training field where personnel can practice attacking mockups of South Korea’s strategic facilities, including the presidential [Blue House] palace, Cheong Wa Dae.
According to the source, the supreme command stressed that the Storm Corps “must cherish the firm conviction that they will suppress military threats in South Korea and dynamically bring forward the unification of the Fatherland through ‘strong defensive power,’” and that the corps must “prepare all combat personnel as phoenixes of guerrilla warfare.”
Meanwhile, the supreme command reportedly issued similar orders to other special forces units as well, including the light infantry units of frontline corps, divisional sniper brigades, sniper brigades of the navy, air force and anti-air units, and the light infantry regiments of frontline divisions.
From the time when Kim Il Sung was planning the 1950 invasion of South Korea, the Kims have always imagined they would need the help of a Southern uprising against the Seoul regime in order to succeed in taking the South.
Guerrilla tactics have generally been used to try to create or exacerbate unrest in the South and destabilize the Southern regime. Thus the original, unsuccessful Blue House decapitation raid of 1968, in which the target was South Korean President Park Chung-hee.
That said, it’s also worth noting that Pyongyang always seeks to appear ferocious whenever the time for the annual US-South Korean joint military exercises comes around.
Those are getting cranked up now.
Bradley K. Martin is the author of Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty.
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
