Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

This Young Woman Was the First CIA Agent Killed in Vietnam

Quotes of the Day:

"Self education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self-education easier; failing that it does nothing."

- Isaac Asimmov

"I begin to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy ... censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, this you may not read, this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything–you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

- Robert A. Heinlein - "If This Goes On–"

"The arch enemies of society are those who know better but by indirection, misstatement, and slander, seek to accomplish their concealed purposes or to gain profit of some sort by misleading the public. The antidote for these poisons must be found in the sincere and courageous efforts of those who would preserve their cherished freedom by a wise and responsible use of it.."

- Charles Evans Hughes

1. S. Korean groups send 1.2 bln won worth of nutritional goods to N. Korea in aid program: ministry

2. S. Korea votes in favor of Iran's removal from U.N. women's rights body

3. S. Korea draws up unmanned defense system development plan

4. USFK calls recent drills 'routine'

5. Yoon asks IAEA chief to step up efforts to stop North Korea's nuclear program

6. Consumerism emerges in North Korea as middle class grows

7. What Kim Jong Un really wants

8. North Korea and Russia: The Only Winners in a U.S.-China Cold War?

9. Experts: China Unlikely to Sway North Korea on Missile, Nuclear Tests

10.[INTERVIEW] China, North Korea do not trust each other: CSIS

11. From chips to ships, South Korea and Vietnam cozy up

12. Did North Korea Really Fake an ICBM Test in March?

1. S. Korean groups send 1.2 bln won worth of nutritional goods to N. Korea in aid program: ministry

Hopefully this will help some Koreans in the north who are in desperate need. While this is the right thing to do we must also keep in mind that the people are not suffering due to sanctions, the failed economy, and natural disasters. They are suffering because of the deliberate policy decisions of Kim Jong Un to prioritize the development of nuclear weapons and missiles over the welfare of the Korean people. One recent report said that the 75 missile tests this year wasted about $170 million which would have been put to better use to help the people.

We should also keep in mind the many escapees who recommend against this kind of aid because it could be diverted as it has been in the past and that the regime will exploit its distribution to give credit to the regime.

S. Korean groups send 1.2 bln won worth of nutritional goods to N. Korea in aid program: ministry | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 김수연 · December 15, 2022

SEOUL, Dec. 15 (Yonhap) -- Three South Korean civic groups have sent nutritional goods worth 1.2 billion won (US$922,000) to North Korea since September last year under the government's aid program designed to help vulnerable North Koreans, Seoul's unification ministry said Thursday.

Two shipments of such goods were delivered to the North after the Yoon Suk-yeol administration took office in May, according to the ministry in charge of inter-Korean ties. All of the goods are known to be soybean oil.

"Like previous governments, the Yoon administration has a consistent principle that it will seek to offer humanitarian aid (to the North) regardless of political and military situations," a ministry official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

The aid program, which was launched in September 2021 and ran through Dec. 10, called for the ministry to provide 10 billion won to civic groups to support their bid to offer nutritional aid to the North amid chronic food shortages and the COVID-19 pandemic.

sooyeon@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 김수연 · December 15, 2022

2. S. Korea votes in favor of Iran's removal from U.N. women's rights body

Korea is engaging on multiple human rights issues.

(LEAD) S. Korea votes in favor of Iran's removal from U.N. women's rights body | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 장동우 · December 15, 2022

(ATTN: UPDATES with Iranian Embassy's reaction at bottom)

SEOUL, Dec. 15 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has voted in favor of a resolution ousting Iran from a U.N. women's body on Wednesday (New York time), along with 28 other countries, amid Tehran's monthslong crackdown on protests.

The 54-member U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted a resolution to oust Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), effectively removing Tehran from the remainder of its four-year term till 2026. Eight countries, including China and Russia, voted against the resolution.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., called Iran's membership in the CSW an "ugly stain on the Commission's credibility" and urged member countries to stand in solidarity for "woman, life, freedom" in her remarks before the vote.

The resolution comes after nearly three months of nationwide clampdown in Tehran against protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She died in hospital in September while in custody by the religious morality police for allegedly not wearing the hijab properly.

The Iranian Embassy in South Korea, meanwhile, slammed Seoul's backing of the resolution, calling it unexpected and an "unfriendly decision," given its "long historical and cultural relationship" with Tehran.

In its Korean-language statement, the embassy argued the adoption of the resolution was an "illegal move" and claimed it would end up creating a "strong barrier" to the promotion of Iranian women's basic, economic, social and educational rights.

julesyi@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 장동우 · December 15, 2022

3. S. Korea draws up unmanned defense system development plan

Excerpt:

The committee was born earlier this year after the ministry incorporated two related consultative bodies in charge of defense artificial intelligence and unmanned defense systems under the goal of effectively applying cutting-edge technologies to military operations.

S. Korea draws up unmanned defense system development plan | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 송상호 · December 15, 2022

SEOUL, Dec. 15 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has drafted its first plan to develop unmanned defense systems with an aim to reduce combat casualties and address potential troop shortages caused by its low birthrate, the defense ministry said Thursday.

Vice Defense Minister Shin Beom-chul presided over the inaugural session of the defense science technology coordination committee to discuss the draft plan and the possibility of the military using civilian drones for security operations.

The plan centers on efforts to establish unmanned defense infrastructure, develop related technologies and standards, and craft procedures for their potential development, according to the ministry.

The committee meeting was attended by officials from the ministry, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, as well as the ministries of science, industry and land, and other related state research agencies.

Shin stressed the importance of putting the plan "into action."

"I call on all related organizations to play an active role (in implementing it)," he was quoted as saying.

The committee was born earlier this year after the ministry incorporated two related consultative bodies in charge of defense artificial intelligence and unmanned defense systems under the goal of effectively applying cutting-edge technologies to military operations.

sshluck@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 송상호 · December 15, 2022

4. USFK calls recent drills 'routine'

Routine or new normal. ROK and US forces are going to sustain the highest level of necessary readiness to defend the ROK and deter a north Korean attack. And the alliance is not conducting training just in response to north Korean actions. It is just going to continue aggressive training to sustain readiness training that may take place before, during, or after north Korean provocations.

Thursday

December 15, 2022

dictionary + A - A

USFK calls recent drills 'routine'

A tweet from the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division on Thursday described the Dec. 5-6 artillery drill as a routine training exercise. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

The United States Forces Korea (USFK) described an artillery drill conducted last week, which the North Korean military cited as a pretext for shelling the eastern and western maritime buffer zones, as a "routine" training exercise.

Photos released by the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division through its Twitter account on Thursday were accompanied by a caption that read, “1st Battalion, 38th Field Artillery Regiment conducted a routine, regularly scheduled live-fire exercise from 5-6 December in order to certify launcher crew members.”

The time period in the caption corresponds to the dates that the South Korean and the U.S. militaries conducted live-fire drills in Cheorwon, Gangwon, close to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

The North’s military said the allies’ drills prompted it to fire 130 artillery shells into the eastern and western maritime buffer zones on Dec. 5 and 90 shells into the eastern maritime buffer zone on Dec. 6.

Maritime buffer zones were set up under a 2018 inter-Korean comprehensive military agreement that called for the de-escalation of cross-border tensions and was intended to reduce the risk of military clashes at sea.

While the Twitter post uploaded by the 2nd Infantry Division did not elaborate, its description of the artillery drill as a “regularly scheduled” training exercise appeared to push back against the idea that the exercise constituted a provocation, as characterized by the North Korean military in a Dec. 5 statement.

“The enemy should immediately cease military actions that cause escalation of tensions in areas near the front lines where visual surveillance is possible,” an unnamed Korean People’s Army spokesperson said, warning that the North would respond “firmly” and with “overwhelming” military action to any provocation.

The North’s opposition to joint drills by the South Korean and U.S. militaries, which it has continuously described as rehearsals for an invasion, has been echoed by China and Russia, veto-wielding members of the United Nations Security Council. They have blamed the United States for tensions on the peninsula and blocked new sanctions against Pyongyang for its missile and nuclear weapons programs.

The tweet from the 2nd Infantry Division also came amid signs that the North is preparing for a massive military parade.

Satellite images from Planet Labs show full-scale marching practices began in the first week of December at the Mirim military parade training ground in southeast Pyongyang.

The photos, taken on Dec. 9, 11, 13 and 14, show large numbers of soldiers in block formations throughout the compound’s replica of Kim Il Sung Square in downtown Pyongyang, which is the usual location of the regime’s celebratory parades.

North Korean state media has not announced a date for an upcoming parade, but one potential date is Feb. 8, which marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army (KPA).

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]

5. Yoon asks IAEA chief to step up efforts to stop North Korea's nuclear program

Yoon asks IAEA chief to step up efforts to stop North Korea's nuclear program

The Korea Times · December 15, 2022

President Yoon Suk-yeol, right, and Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, shake hands at the presidential office in Seoul, Thursday. Courtesy of presidential office

President Yoon Suk-yeol met with Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on Thursday and exchanged views on the ongoing North Korean nuclear stalemate and other issues, his office said.

During their meeting at the presidential office, Yoon expressed concerns over the North's nuclear program and asked for the IAEA's participation in denuclearizing the country through strengthening of monitoring and inspection readiness posture regarding Pyongyang's nuclear activities, deputy presidential spokesperson Lee Jae-myoung said in a statement.

Grossi said the IAEA will do its best to deter the North's nuclear program and safeguard the global nonproliferation regime.

The IAEA chief arrived in South Korea on Wednesday for meetings with Seoul officials on issues ranging from the North's nuclear program to Japan's plan to discharge radioactive water from its crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean in the coming spring. (Yonhap)

The Korea Times · December 15, 2022

6. Consumerism emerges in North Korea as middle class grows

This is a threat to Kim Jong Un. Some activities should be nurtured and can be supported by an influence campaign.

Consumerism emerges in North Korea as middle class grows

The Korea Times · December 15, 2022

A woman tests cosmetics products at an exhibition of women's clothing in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released Thursday by the Choson Sinbo. Yonhap

Thirst for better life gives rise to diverse cultural products as regime embraces change: study

By Jung Min-ho

Although many North Koreans still worry about how they will find their next meal, North Korea's growing middle class and their interest in consuming culture have given rise to more diverse goods and services in the country, as the regime embraces it as contributing to stability rather than as a threat, a recent study shows.

A study led by Jeong Eun-mi at the Korea Institute for National Unification shows middle-class North Koreans are becoming increasingly selective about what they eat and wear as well as how they spend their leisure time. Over the past 10 years and under Kim Jong-un's watch, the rise of such consumerism has become more visible, even though the coronavirus pandemic slowed the trend, she said.

"There are more varieties of rice at markets. Side dishes have become more diverse and middle-class North Koreans increasingly eat at restaurants or use delivery services," she said in the online seminar. "The lack of a power supply is still a hindrance for those who want to buy home electronics. But as more people find ways to get energy through solar power systems or individual contracts with nearby factories or substations, they are spending more money on such products."

Middle-class North Koreans' growing interest in culture has been reflected by North Korean media. In a rare move, the Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the ruling Workers' Party, has covered an exhibition for women's clothes five times this year, highlighting its "own culture and style."

Middle-class North Koreans' interest goes beyond the necessities of life: They are also investing more in education, health and entertainment. The study shows a rise in demand for vitamin, collagen and lactobacillus supplements as well as for children's vaccines and mobile video games.

Since its founding, North Korea has claimed to be a communist society, which should mean that there is a lack of class divisions, but it has never erased the concept of the middle class ― a term that can be found in its official documents ― from its dictionaries, defined as "the social class that has a relatively affluent way of life."

What has changed under young leader Kim Jong-un, however, is the media emphasizing the concept of a consumer more frequently. In Wednesday's paper, the Rodong Sinmun urged soap factory employees to consider "the consumer's point of view" when they work.

This photo released on Dec. 2 by Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean state-controlled news website, shows Songhwa Street in Pyongyang, North Korea. Yonhap

Kim, who spent his teenage years in Switzerland, appears to have been interested in expanding the middle class, which he apparently thinks will be helpful for the stability of the regime, Jeong said.

"Yangdok Hot Spring Resort, Masikryong Ski Resort, Taedonggang Seafood Restaurant and Munsu Water Park are among the major leisure facilities opened under Kim. All middle-class North Korean defectors I had interviews with for the study told me that they used to visit such places once or twice a year," she said.

Based on what happened in China and Vietnam, communist states that have embraced consumerism for economic development, the middle class in North Korea is expected to build cordial relationships with the political ruling class, at least for many years to come, she said. Given the North Korean government's legal and technical efforts to adopt and promote electronic payment systems in recent years, she also believes the trend will likely continue.

"Kim has invested a great deal in construction projects. By presenting tangible examples with which people can fulfill their desires, he tries to motivate them, believing that they will help stabilize the regime," Jeong said.

The Korea Times · December 15, 2022

7. What Kim Jong Un really wants

As an accused "collapsist" I have spent a lot of time considering the effects of regime instability and collapse, I will say in my own defense that I have never wished for or sought regime collapse. I have certainly never predicted when it might happen. The only thing I emphasize is that if it happens it will likely be catastrophic and therefore we need to prepare for the possibility.

While his health may be a significant threat, the threat I believe Kim fears the most is the Korean people living in the north (especially when armed with information.)

Excerpts:

Indeed, the most serious threat to Kim’s rule would appear to be his personal health. He has long been a heavy smoker and was morbidly obese until shedding some of that weight in 2021.

Instead of continually focusing on the possibility (fuelled by wishful analytical thinking) that Kim’s regime might collapse, it would be better to focus on where he is going, and how he sees his country ten years from now. In 2032, after all, he will still be in his prime – around 50 years old – and embarking, he surely believes, on his third decade in power.

I agree with the analysis that Kim will not give up his nuclear weapons, ever (for as long as he and his regime remain in power). That said I do not think concessions will lead to anywhere that is in our interests. I think we must flipt the policy goals around. Rather than denuclearization, change, and unification, we should recognize that unification first is the path to denuclearization.

Excerpts:

Since the end of the Cold War US officials – Democratic and Republican alike – have focused on a single overriding objective with regard to North Korea: denuclearisation. But short of regime collapse or an unexpected, cataclysmic war, this is the one thing virtually all experts agree will not happen any time soon, if at all. Yet the Biden administration, like its predecessors, stubbornly persists in charging at the windmill of “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation”. For a lance, they ride Rocinante (Don Quixote’s faithful steed) to the Security Council and the Treasury Department in search of more sanctions.

No matter how many times they tilt their lances the windmill keeps spinning – now even faster. Discussion among experts and analysts has reached a point of profound fatigue, a kind of collective resignation to the intractable contradiction of political will. Kim Jong Un, like any leader, will not jeopardise his own power, regime stability or national security for the sake of economic development, and a nuclear deterrent is essential to all three. He will not accept our either/or of guns or butter. And yet, his own impossible dream is to rule over a prosperous nation, where the grinding poverty of today would recede into the past and more of the population would finally be able to feed their families. Must we persist in tilting at windmills?

The first, tentative outline of a grand bargain was on the table in 2018. As the pace of weapons tests in the North and joint military exercises in the South ramps increasingly up, it is time to look again at what future might be possible. In other words, we must deal with North Korea as it really is and understand what Kim wants, and where he plans to lead his country during his next decade in power. Perhaps his best option is also ours.

What Kim Jong Un really wants

NewStatesman · by John Delury · December 9, 2022

Photo credit should read STR/AFP via Getty Images

Kim Jong Un has ordered so many missile tests this year that it is getting hard to keep count, with rockets launched underwater from an inland lake and fired in the dead of night, landing in South Korean waters and overflying Japan. As if this were not enough to make the point, on 19 November Kim unveiled his big gun, the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile. But curiously, the 25-metre-high ICBM, largest of its kind in the world, was upstaged by a petite figure in a white jacket and red shoes standing a mere metre and a half tall: Kim’s daughter Ju Ae, thought to be no more than nine or ten, in her first public appearance.

The odd juxtaposition of doting father and curious daughter holding hands in front of North Korea’s “monster missile” called to mind another strange propaganda signal sent the previous month, on the anniversary of Kim’s Workers’ Party. Sure, there were plenty of missile tests in the lead up, but on 10 October the Workers Newspaper featured a relaxed, beaming Kim on an inspection visit not to a missile silo but a greenhouse. He was pictured proudly holding a pair of green peppers, one in the palm of each hand. Kim keeps promising his people that he will keep them (and their children) safe, and also put food on their table.

When Kim first took over as leader of North Korea after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in 2011 he was not expected to deliver on either promise. He was widely dismissed as young and inexperienced, and his ascension led experienced observers to predict the imminent collapse of North Korea as we know it. Yet more than a decade later Kim’s grasp on power looks more secure than ever. He has brutally eliminated threats from within his own family, ordering his uncle to be executed and his elder half-brother assassinated. Kim has also stacked the party, military and government nomenklatura with men who owe their position to him. He has demoted his father’s generals and promoted marshals of his own, forcing elderly cadres into retirement and appointing middle-aged technocrats, as well as cultivating ties to local officials through invitations to the capital and visits to the provinces.

With no civil society outside the state and no viable political alternative to rule by the Workers’ Party, we have not seen even the faintest hints of a Pyongyang Spring. The anti-war demonstrations in Russia or anti-lockdown clashes in China – let alone the protests rocking Iran – are without any corollary in North Korea. While the belated Covid outbreak in the country this spring may have been more serious than officials acknowledged, there is no sign that the virus or the containment measures have led to instability or a credible challenge to Kim’s continued rule.

Indeed, the most serious threat to Kim’s rule would appear to be his personal health. He has long been a heavy smoker and was morbidly obese until shedding some of that weight in 2021.

Instead of continually focusing on the possibility (fuelled by wishful analytical thinking) that Kim’s regime might collapse, it would be better to focus on where he is going, and how he sees his country ten years from now. In 2032, after all, he will still be in his prime – around 50 years old – and embarking, he surely believes, on his third decade in power.

One thing upon which almost all experts agree is that there is little chance that he will give up his nuclear weapons any time soon, if ever. But this raises the question: what are all the missiles for? Is Kim a prudent strategist cannily playing a weak hand by maximising asymmetric advantages? Or is he a risk-prone revanchist bent on coercive diplomacy against South Korea and the United States? To understand where he is going, we first need to look back at his past.

Although the world tends to focus almost entirely on the nukes, Kim Jong Un’s most important long-term priority is probably the one he first articulated in his inaugural address to his countrymen in April 2012, when he promised they would not have to “tighten their belts again”. Instead, he insisted, they would “enjoy the wealth and prosperity of socialism as much as they like”.

As he emerged from the shadow of his father, who ruled North Korea from 1994 to 2011, Kim spurred a wave of promising economic reforms in agriculture and industry and left the country’s grassroots markets largely alone, leading to a few years of solid growth. But by his five-year mark he had shifted the emphasis from butter to guns, conducting a series of nuclear and missile tests that upset even his nominal ally China and led to harsh UN Security Council sanctions in late 2017. Several months later he abruptly pivoted back to the economy, declaring his nuclear deterrent complete in January 2018 and setting out a new strategic line at a party meeting that April, which would “concentrate all efforts of the whole party and country on the socialist economic construction”.

Kim grew bullish. In the spring of 2018 he insisted to North Korea’s nouveau riche (known as donju) and the long-suffering masses that his real strategic objective was economic development. The world, alas, was more interested in the drama of Kim’s summit with Donald Trump in Singapore that June, with international media outlets covering every twist in the theatrics even as television pundits disparaged the meeting for its theatricality. When the two men met the following February in Hanoi for more substantive negotiations Kim was open about what he wanted. He asked for sanctions relief and offered to dismantle his main nuclear complex (at Yongbyon) in return. The fact that they failed to reach a deal should not obscure the significance of Kim’s request. This gave us the clearest indication yet of what Kim wants and what he is prepared to give in order to get it. But the quiet collapse of the Hanoi summit, which was a function of Trump’s loss of interest in a deal with Kim, scuppered the opportunity to see how far Kim was prepared to go. The Covid-19 pandemic that hit in early 2020 and the election of Joe Biden as US president later that year closed the possibility of another such opportunity.

As Kim proved his staying power, a new fear arose among observers in Washington and allied capitals. Whereas earlier speculation focused on the apparent danger of North Korea’s imminent collapse, the advances in the country’s nuclear and missile programme over the last decade have stoked the inverse fear – that Kim is preparing to invade the South and reunify the Korean Peninsula by force. But a careful analysis suggests that these fears are misguided. Instead, the North Korean leader’s primary ambition for 2032 appears to be running a country that is no longer dismissed as an economic backwater.

Kim has regularly chastised himself in public for his shortcomings as a leader and the difficulties faced by the North Korean people. Two years ago, during the celebrations for the 75th anniversary of the Workers’ Party in October 2020, Kim cried penitently during his speech for his failure to reduce the people’s hardship. Ten years from now, if North Korea (unlikely as it sounds) were to emerge as Asia’s latest tiger economy, Kim could declare his strategic line a brilliant success and proudly announce that, after two hard-fought decades, he had finally delivered on his initial promise. Lifting standards of living up to what Chinese Communist leaders call “moderate prosperity” would be an epochal achievement for Kim, securing a legacy surpassing his father and grandfather, neither of whom mastered the art of economic development.

To realise this ambition of economic modernisation, however, Kim will have to make hard choices. Even in a best-case scenario of state-led capitalism along the model offered by Communist Party-run China and Vietnam, the domestic sources of economic development are limited. There is simply not enough investment capital, personal wealth or market demand to generate dramatic growth. Whether his comrades like it or not (and many won’t), Kim will have to open up the country if he is serious about achieving national prosperity.

The easiest place to look for increased trade and investment is across the northern border, where both China and Russia are calling for sanctions relief and economic engagement with North Korea. Although the volume of trade with Russia traditionally has been quite modest, one can imagine significant increases in energy imports as other countries wean themselves off Russian gas and oil. North Korean overseas workers in fields like construction and forestry, while banned by UN resolutions, could come into demand as replacement labour in Russia’s wartime economy. China, meanwhile, has long been the dominant trade partner and foreign investment source for North Korea. The trade volume could rise rapidly if Kim opened the floodgates (including the recently built, mostly unused Friendship Bridge between that links the two nations) to Chinese entrepreneurs and investors.

There is one obvious flaw in this plan. Assuming Pyongyang is not about to jettison its nuclear deterrent and embark on a process that might lead to UN sanctions being lifted, Beijing would have to lobby for those sanctions to be eased or else openly violate resolutions to which it is a signatory. The former strategy is unlikely to work given that the US, UK and France will veto sanctions relief without meaningful denuclearisation, while the latter is problematic because brazen sanctions infractions would discredit China’s claims to be a responsible security council member. A third option of trying to keep such large-scale economic activity secret is functionally impossible given the intensive surveillance of North Korea’s land and sea borders.

And there is another, less obvious problem. Even if Kim were to succeed in attracting renminbi and roubles, he would face a foreign trade duopoly. Pyongyang would become almost entirely dependent on two countries for macroeconomic stability and future growth. Kim inherited a dangerous dependency on China from his father, which was precisely why he allowed relations to deteriorate so precipitously with Xi Jinping during his first years in power, refusing even to visit Beijing until 2018. Despite the warm words from officials about the two countries being “as close as lips and teeth”, Sino-North Korean relations have been coloured by mutual suspicion, distrust and even contempt, going back to the Korean War (1950-53). If North Korea were to achieve rapid growth based on Chinese capital, while at the same time relying on a Chinese defence treaty and Chinese diplomacy, the autonomy of the regime would be in jeopardy.

The radical alternative to relying on the emerging Sino-Russian bloc is for Kim to engineer a breakthrough in relations with the United States. On the basis of an agreement with Washington, North Korea could gain access to a whole new world of markets and business partners. The nearest source of capital would be South Korea, although the vulnerabilities this would create for the security of Kim’s regime would presumably circumscribe the degree of engagement he was prepared to tolerate. Unmediated exposure to the open society and political liberties of the South could have destabilising effects, while the economic sophistication of conglomerates like Samsung, LG and Hyundai could easily overpower their counterparts in the North. But two countries Kim visited during his year of summitry in 2018 – Singapore and Vietnam – might represent natural economic partners, with fewer ideological strings attached.

This second path is a far more ambitious and perilous one. It would require Kim to satisfy certain basic requirements of US-South Korean security demands, without jeopardising his own fundamental security by surrendering his nuclear deterrent. It would depend upon a radical rethink of strategy by the White House and sustained political will in Washington to break with the failed denuclearisation-sanction-deterrence policy of the past three decades. Inevitably, this process would introduce elements of instability to a system predicated on control and isolation. The risks would be even greater than the pursuit of nuclear arms – then again, so would the rewards. By 2032 Kim could be on the way to realising the long-sought goal that eluded his father, of making North Korea into a “strong and prosperous big power”.

Of course, this assumes that Kim Jong Un will still be at the helm a decade from now. Although, barring a health incident, Kim can feel fairly assured about his prospects for remaining in power, he will soon run up against a different problem, one that is familiar to all dynasts: the question of an heir apparent. If intelligence reports about Kim’s progeny are accurate, his eldest son should be graduating from university in 2032, making him eligible to begin the political grooming process that Kim and his father before him underwent around that age. Kim’s recently unveiled daughter, Ju Ae, would also be college age and perhaps in competition for the crown.

If Kim is determined to prepare the way for a fourth generation of family rule, at some point he should initiate a succession process of some kind. While most Korea experts would assume a male lineage, it is not unthinkable that Kim might opt for his daughter. He is himself the product of tanistry (succession to the most able offspring) rather than primogeniture, and a 21st-century extension of that principle would be for Kim to entrust the supreme leadership role to his daughter. Kim has promoted his sister Yo Jong to high office, while his elder brother Jong Chul is nary to be seen; and last year Kim appointed the first woman, Choe Son Hui, to serve as foreign minister in the country’s history.

It is also conceivable that Kim might do away with the hereditary principle entirely. He may wish to spare his children the experience, or they may show no interest or no aptitude for it (although Ju Ae already appears to be curious about ICBMs). Converting the Korean Workers’ Party, as opposed to the Kim family, into the true ruling organ of North Korea would make it look more like fraternal communist party states in China and Vietnam. Then again, this would deprive the regime of a central component of its mythical legitimacy, as successive leaders claim a sacred “Paektu blood” link to the “eternal president” and founding leader, Kim Il Sung (the current leader’s grandfather). Even if Kim Jong Un is in good health physically and politically in 2032, the issue of succession will be increasingly hard to ignore, and how he manages the question of what next is likely to shape the third decade of his reign in profound and unpredictable ways.

With Nato focused on Russian aggression in Ukraine and Asia Pacific countries worried about US-China rivalry, storm clouds have been gathering over the Korean Peninsula all year. North Korea is emerging out of the preternatural quiet of the Covid-19 lockdown, when it cut off virtually all cross-border trade, by resuming and accelerating the pace of missile tests. Pyongyang has already staged more tests this year than any other on record, and intelligence agencies anticipate a seventh nuclear test could come at any time.

The confrontation between Russia and the West creates an opportunity for Kim. Vladimir Putin’s war has put Xi Jinping in an awkward position, as China tries to maintain its special relationship with Russia while deflecting international opprobrium for doing nothing to stop the violence in Ukraine. Importantly for Kim, Beijing’s vocal opposition to sanctions against Russia suggests that two permanent members of the UN Security Council will be in no mood to impose new economic penalties on Pyongyang (as demonstrated by Security Council inaction after Kim’s recent ICBM launch). Meanwhile, the low priority that North Korea policy is accorded in Washington and the hawkish views of the conservative government in Seoul mean there is not much in the way of an incentive on the table for Kim to alter course.

Indeed, Kim may decide the best use of the standoff in inter-Korean relations is to score domestic political points by besting the new South Korean president in a round of brinkmanship. These trends point towards cascading cycles of provocation and counter-provocation on the Korean Peninsula and the wider region in the near term. Kim might also wager that continued acceleration in strategic weapons capabilities is the best use of the lull in diplomacy with the United States, and would put him in a stronger position for potential negotiations if Donald Trump or another Trump-like figure captures the White House in the 2024 election. There is some burden on the Biden administration to convince Kim otherwise – that not only is the door to dialogue open, but the White House really wants to deal pragmatically with Pyongyang.

Since the end of the Cold War US officials – Democratic and Republican alike – have focused on a single overriding objective with regard to North Korea: denuclearisation. But short of regime collapse or an unexpected, cataclysmic war, this is the one thing virtually all experts agree will not happen any time soon, if at all. Yet the Biden administration, like its predecessors, stubbornly persists in charging at the windmill of “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation”. For a lance, they ride Rocinante (Don Quixote’s faithful steed) to the Security Council and the Treasury Department in search of more sanctions.

No matter how many times they tilt their lances the windmill keeps spinning – now even faster. Discussion among experts and analysts has reached a point of profound fatigue, a kind of collective resignation to the intractable contradiction of political will. Kim Jong Un, like any leader, will not jeopardise his own power, regime stability or national security for the sake of economic development, and a nuclear deterrent is essential to all three. He will not accept our either/or of guns or butter. And yet, his own impossible dream is to rule over a prosperous nation, where the grinding poverty of today would recede into the past and more of the population would finally be able to feed their families. Must we persist in tilting at windmills?

The first, tentative outline of a grand bargain was on the table in 2018. As the pace of weapons tests in the North and joint military exercises in the South ramps increasingly up, it is time to look again at what future might be possible. In other words, we must deal with North Korea as it really is and understand what Kim wants, and where he plans to lead his country during his next decade in power. Perhaps his best option is also ours.

Topics in this article : Authoritarianism , Kim Jong Un , North Korea , Nuclear weapons

NewStatesman · by John Delury · December 9, 2022

8. North Korea and Russia: The Only Winners in a U.S.-China Cold War?

An interesting thesis from Professor Kelly.

But is it a shared interest for China and the US to rein in north Korea's bad behavior? I am not sure. I think China may value the dilemmas the north creates for the US and the ROK/US alliance.

Excerpts:

For example, North Korea has long sought to play its neighbors off against each other to survive, tilting one way or the other to attract aid. During the Cold War it did this between the Soviet Union and China, pulling help from both in their wider competition to lead the communist bloc. In the 1990s, when it had no patron, it slid into a catastrophic famine.

It is in the shared interest of both the US and China to rein in North Korean bad behavior. Its nuclearization is driving South Korea toward nuclear weapons of its own. And China’s refusal to take genuinely punitive action against the North, to slow its nuclear march, is adding China to South Korea’s list of reasons to nuclearize. If the US and China fallout, Orwellian, nuclearized North Korea is the region’s biggest beneficiary.

North Korea and Russia: The Only Winners in a U.S.-China Cold War?

19fortyfive.com · by Robert Kelly · December 15, 2022

Only Troublemakers like North Korea and Russia Benefit from a Sino-US Cold War: If the United States and China fall into a cold war, the only countries in the world to benefit would be places like Russia and North Korea. The rest of the Indo-Pacific would suffer dramatically if the US and China fight what the Biden administration calls ‘great power competition.’

This may be inevitable.

China and the US are deeply different regime types. Both fear the other. China has territorial and prestige grievances – most obviously regarding Taiwan – which will not be accommodated by its neighbors and raise the spectre of conflict. But we should still do our utmost to avoid a long, potentially disastrous, cold war-style struggle with China.

East Asia’s Loss

The status quo in the Indo-Pacific is conducive to many states. The US and China balance each other. Many mid-size states, such as those in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, do not wish either to be hegemonic in the region. The current situation in which trade with China fires their economies while the US provides some pushback on China’s belligerence suits them.

Many regional middle powers have mixed perceptions of both players. The US may be farther away and more liberal than China, but the US has a record of third-world intervention which has made many developing countries wary of aligning too closely with the US. India is the paradigmatic case. It shares democratic values with the US. It also shares geopolitical anxiety about China and Islamic fundamentalism. Yet this overlap of values and interest has never resulted in an alliance or otherwise tight relationship, mainly for India’s fear of being dominated by the US.

The Philippines too has bounced between the US and China. Former President Rodrigo Duterte defected from the relationship with the US only to face intense opposition in the Philippine military. Indonesia and Malaysia have long been wary of US power due to the war on terrorism.

In short, if the US and China sharply fall out and east Asian states are forced to choose, it is not automatically clear they will choose the US. And for all of these trading states, a Sino-US cold war would be an economic disaster – and possibly a political one too if it led to the US or China intervening in their domestic politics.

The US and China have some Shared Interests – We should focus on Those

The heaviest costs of the first Cold War fell on developing states who became the arena of US-Soviet competition. This will likely happen again in a US-China cold war. East Asia’s middle powers should therefore encourage all players to remember the region’s shared interests:

-North Korea: North Korea is a regional threat. It engages in crime, fraud, and hacking. It threatens proliferation. It has committed terrorism. China can help if it finally enforces sanctions.

-Trade: The Indo-Pacific is filled with trading states who benefit from trade openness and agreed rules. This very much includes China, whose rise was powered by its participation trade frameworks such as the World Trade Organization

-Finance: China and East Asian banks own a lot of US debt. The dollar is the region’s currency of trade. All parties have an interest in limiting inflation and insuring convertibility.

-Climate Change: The US, China, and India are among the world’s worst polluters. East Asia’s long shorelines mean that rising ocean levels due to global warming promise catastrophe. These big industrial players could do a lot if they could cooperate.

Fight a Cold War with China only if We Must

Despite the costs and shared interests, a Sino-US cold war seems likely.

Indeed, we may already be in it.

Last month, I attended a week of academic and think-tank seminars on the subject in Taiwan, and the shared scholarly opinion from around the region was deeply negative. And indeed, Chinese pressure on Taiwan and southeast Asia is pushing the US closer to that cold war.

But we should try hard to avoid this. We should be ‘dovish’ on China when we can, and hawkish only if we must (most obviously Taiwan). China’s economic and financial ability to sustain a cold war is far greater than the USSR’s was. A Sino-US cold war could potentially last decades. Poor countries caught in the middle will likely suffer the most, as they did in the first cold war’s proxy wars and interventions. And the only states who will benefit are global trouble-makers like North Korea or Russia.

For example, North Korea has long sought to play its neighbors off against each other to survive, tilting one way or the other to attract aid. During the Cold War it did this between the Soviet Union and China, pulling help from both in their wider competition to lead the communist bloc. In the 1990s, when it had no patron, it slid into a catastrophic famine.

It is in the shared interest of both the US and China to rein in North Korean bad behavior. Its nuclearization is driving South Korea toward nuclear weapons of its own. And China’s refusal to take genuinely punitive action against the North, to slow its nuclear march, is adding China to South Korea’s list of reasons to nuclearize. If the US and China fallout, Orwellian, nuclearized North Korea is the region’s biggest beneficiary.

We should fight this twilight struggle with China only if we have no other choice.

Expert Biography: Dr. Robert E. Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly; RoberEdwinKelly.com) is a professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science at Pusan and a 19FortyFive Contributing Editor.

19fortyfive.com · by Robert Kelly · December 15, 2022

9. Experts: China Unlikely to Sway North Korea on Missile, Nuclear Tests

Concur. China will not solve our security issues

Experts: China Unlikely to Sway North Korea on Missile, Nuclear Tests

December 15, 2022 0:36 AM

Christy Lee

voanews.com

Washington —

Given its frayed relationship with Washington, Beijing is unlikely to heed U.S. and South Korean calls to urge North Korea to cease missiles and nuclear weapons tests and ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula, said experts.

In response to North Korea’s record number of missile launches this year and what would be its seventh nuclear test that has been anticipated throughout this year, Washington and Seoul have been calling on China to use its leverage over North Korea to dissuade the regime from conducting any more tests. China is North Korea’s largest trading partner and longtime ally.

To discuss North Korea’s “increasingly destabilizing and escalatory behavior,” U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Sung Kim met with Chinese Special Representative on Korean Peninsula Affairs Liu Xiaoming on December 7, according to State Department spokesperson Ned Price.

Kim “stressed the need for all U.N. member states to fulfill their obligations and fully enforce the sanctions regime” at the virtual meeting with Liu, said Price on December 8.

The next day, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that Beijing hopes all parties “address each other’s concerns in a balanced way, particularly the DPRK’s legitimate concerns.”

VOA’s Korean Service contacted the Chinese embassy in Washington seeking comments on a possible move by Beijing but did not obtain any response.

Kim and Liu’s discussion followed U.S. President Joe Biden’s efforts to persuade Chinese President Xi Jinping to convey a message to Pyongyang that it should stop testing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) when the two met on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, on November 14.

At a press conference held after their meeting, Biden said that he made it clear to Xi that Beijing has “an obligation to attempt to make it clear to North Korea” that it “should not engage in long-range nuclear tests.”

When South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol met with Xi on the sidelines of the Bali summit on November 15, he expressed hope that China will “play a more active and constructive role” on North Korea.

Yoon also said in an interview with Reuters on November 28 that “China has the capability to influence North Korea, and China has the responsibility to engage in the process.”

But experts think China is unlikely to use its leverage to ask North Korea to stop conducting tests.

Bonnie Glaser, director of Asia Program at German Marshall Fund of the U.S., said, “I highly doubt that Beijing will seek to dissuade Pyongyang from conducting ICBM and nuclear tests.”

She continued, “The Chinese appear to have concluded that sanctions have failed, and they prefer dialogue with the DPRK.” North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Strategic rivalry

North Korea is heavily dependent on China, its top trading partner, for economic support. In recent years, as the rivalry between Washington and Beijing intensified, China and North Korea forged closer ties in opposition to the U.S.

China has blocked U.S-led efforts at the U.N. Security Council in May and November to impose sanctions on North Korea in response to multiple rounds of ICBM and other ballistic missile tests.

Patricia Kim, research fellow at the Brookings Institution, said, “Chinese leaders are choosing to tread carefully around their neighbor to keep Pyongyang on their side as they focus on long-term competition with the U.S.”

She continued, “While China doesn’t ‘control’ North Korea, it remains Pyongyang’s most consequential economic patron and strategic partner.”

China sees the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy, which aims in part to maintain free and open maritime passage through the Taiwan Strait, as a bid to counter its influence and expansion in the region, especially to prevent it from seeking to exercise its claim to sovereignty over Taiwan.

Soo Kim, policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and former CIA analyst, said, “Current geopolitics furnish very few incentives for China to accede to U.S. and South Korean requests for cooperation.”

She continued, “Beijing would likely derive greater benefit to its interests if it worked to distract or hinder U.S. and [South Korean] efforts to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambition. China may perceive that in doing so, it exercises a certain leverage over the U.S. in their ongoing strategic competition.”

Trilateral ties

Meanwhile, the U.S., South Korea and Japan have vowed to coordinate their efforts to counter Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear threats.

The move might make China "nervous" as it could be seen as an "anti-China grouping,” according to Andrew Yeo, the SK-Korea Foundation chair in Korea studies at Brookings Institution.

Following his meeting with Liu, Kim, the U.S. envoy for North Korea, met with Kim Gunn, South Korean special representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs, and Funakoshi Takehiro, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs director general for Asian and Oceanian Affairs, on Tuesday.

They reviewed synchronized trilateral sanctions that the three countries imposed on North Korea earlier in December and said they will use all tools to limit North Korea’s growing weapons programs.

In response to North Korea’s missile tests, the three countries have stepped up their joint military drills, including missile defense exercises in October.

Yeo said, “China may decide that what North Korea is doing is disruptive, that it’s actually giving incentives for South Korea, Japan and the U.S. to increase exercises, and so it may pressure North Korea.”

Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, said, “Deepening U.S. and U.S-ROK-Japan cooperation is not what Beijing hoped for.”

Ahead of the Biden-Xi summit in November, China’s state-run Global Times warned against the closer trilateral ties, criticizing a joint statement the three countries issued after a November 13 meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, emphasizing a desire to strengthen their ties.

Joseph DeTrani, special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration, said he does not believe that Beijing has “the leverage” to get North Korea to stop conducting ballistic missile and nuclear tests.

But, he said, “China has the leverage with North Korea to get Pyongyang to return to talks with the U.S.”

voanews.com

10. [INTERVIEW] China, North Korea do not trust each other: CSIS

Kim Jong Un trusts no one.

[INTERVIEW] China, North Korea do not trust each other: CSIS

The Korea Times · December 15, 2022

Arms control, threat reduction could be part of denuclearization process

By Kim Yoo-chul

Does China trust North Korea and who really holds the upper hand in the denuclearization process on the peninsula? Also, does North Korea's attractive value as a buffer zone for China outweigh the risks of tolerating a defiant nuclear neighbor?

China is viewed as the crucial lifeline of the North Korean both economically and politically. But when it comes to the peace process on the Korean Peninsula, there are frustrations and doubts about China's role in North Korea's denuclearization efforts.

The most common complaint is that Beijing prioritizes the stability of the Kim Jong-un regime over the denuclearization process and thus the upholding of the non-proliferation regime, while the United States is seen as a possible destabilizer plotting to contain China. Beijing has been reluctant to apply sanctions measures for fear of triggering the North's collapse.

Despite China and North Korea maintaining a strong partnership for decades, however, relations between the two have worsened recently because Pyongyang has accelerated its nuclear and ballistic missile development programs under its leader Kim Jong-un. Additionally, the Kim used high-profile Chinese events as a chance to level up his military provocations.

Gen. Paul J. LaCamera, center, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea attends the activation ceremony for the United States Space Forces Korea in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Dec. 14, 2022. U.S. military set up space-monitoring organizations, United States Space Forces Korea, in South Korea, aiming to keep an eye on North Korea's nuclear and missile activity as its capabilities continue to improve. AP-Yonhap

Speaking to The Korea Times, Ellen Kim, a deputy director of the Korea Chair at the Washington-based think tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said chances are low the North will support U.S.-initiated policies regarding the denuclearization process on the peninsula as both Pyongyang and Beijing know that one cannot abandon the other.

"China and North Korea do not trust each other. However, North Korea cannot abandon China for the political and economic support Beijing provides to the North Korean regime. China cannot abandon North Korea for the strategic buffer it offers. Such a mutual hostage relationship does not exist between North Korea and the United States, not to mention the fact that there is a deep mistrust between them. So I am skeptical whether North Korea would be willing to take risks and support the United States against China," the CSIS expert said in a recent interview.

CSIS Deputy Director Ellen KimKim added that China's inaction in terms of breaking the current impasse in talks aimed at denuclearizing Pyongyang can lead to negative consequences.

"Any effort by the U.S. to deepen military cooperation with South Korea, Japan, and other regional countries to address North Korea issues will likely make China uncomfortable, since China could perceive such cooperation as being targeted at itself, as we saw from the THAAD case. North Korea's nuclear escalation will lead to developments that Beijing would not want to see in the region, for instance, Japan's military rearmament, closer military cooperation between Seoul and Tokyo, and strengthened Washington-Seoul-Tokyo trilateral cooperation, and a potential nuclear arms race in Northeast Asia in the future," the deputy director said.

In the meantime, she said North Korea is "trying to force the United States and South Korea to accept it as a nuclear state, pushing the security situation on the peninsula into an unknown territory."

After inspecting a test of its latest Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the North Korean leader pledged to counter U.S. nuclear threats with nuclear weapons and stressed that his regime's prime goal is to have the world's most powerful nuclear force.

"Kim's recent remarks are extremely concerning. The country has finished the necessary preparations for the (nuclear) test, and Kim will likely choose the time that he perceives will give North Korea the maximum benefits and leverage, both domestically and internationally, to push the world to accept the reality that North Korea is a nuclear weapons state even though the United States and South Korea refuse to acknowledge it as such," she said.

Preconditions for NK's return to dialogue, restoring Seoul-Tokyo relations

Washington has long been interested in maintaining the status quo by preventing the North's military provocations and resisting North Korea's attempt to nullify the armistice agreement signed after the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War. The 1996 peace initiative between United States and North Korea failed because the U.S. didn't accept the North's request to end what it called a hostile policy against it.

The Perry Process helped revive some momentum for dialogue and nuclear diplomacy. However, the Bush administration's hardline policy against Pyongyang caused the peninsula to experience a nuclear crisis back in 2002. The CSIS expert said nuclear negotiations could begin if North Korea's core demands are addressed.

South Korean special representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs Kim Gunn, left, shakes hands with Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director General for Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau Takehiro Funakoshi, right, as U.S. special representative for North Korea Sung Y. Kim, center, who is also U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, looks on at the start of their trilateral meeting on North Korea at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, Dec. 13, 2022. AP-Yonhap

But she believes the complete denuclearization of North Korea seems to be a difficult goal to achieve.

"The current diplomatic impasse is clearly due to North Korea's disinterest in talks with the U.S. and South Korea, which seems in part because North Korea wants to signal that the complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization (CVID) of North Korea is off the negotiation table. But if North Korea's internal and/or external (particularly with respect to China and Russia) environment changes, there could be a window of opportunity that North Korea may want to resume dialogue with the United States and/or South Korea to seek a partial sanctions relief and other things," Kim said.

She stressed that the North's denuclearization "should remain a long-term goal" for the Washington-Seoul alliance, even though the denuclearization may start with arms control and threat reduction.

"We should not give up the North's denuclearization because if we do that, this will make North Korea believe that their strategy of nuclear coercion works and could lead the country to make miscalculations and become more aggressive," she said.

The CSIS deputy director said starting arms control talks with North Korea is a possible way to revive dialogue about denuclearization.

"Arms control and threat reduction could be part of the denuclearization process. They are not necessarily two separate things. The current diplomatic deadlock with North Korea, with few viable options on the table to stop North Korea's missile and nuclear tests, leaves the scenario of arms control and threat reduction talks with North Korea quite attractive. And that could be one way how negotiations could begin in the future if North Korea returns to dialogue," Kim responded.

Regarding questions over whether the start of arms control talks with North Korea would cause controversy among the United States and its key allies in Asia, including South Korea and Japan, Kim said, "This will prompt serious debates within South Korea, the United States, and Japan about what arms reduction of a nuclear North Korea means for them (for instance, do arms reduction talks mean giving up on the denuclearization of North Korea? What is the implication of that for U.S. extended deterrence commitments to South Korea and Japan? Can South Korea and Japan coexist with a nuclear North Korea? If not, will South Korea demand the United States to deploy tactical nuclear weapons?). So in that case, it would become very critical for the United States to come up with measures to provide new security assurances to its allies and work very closely with them to develop their common strategy down this path."

A TV screen shows a file image of North Korea's military exercise during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, Oct. 14, 2022. North Korea's military said Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022, that it ordered frontline units to fire artillery rounds into the sea for the second consecutive day in a tit-for-tat response to South Korean live-fire drills in an inland border region. AP-YonhapTalks between the United States and North Kores have stalled because the blockbuster in-person meeting between the North Korean leader and then U.S. President Donald Trump in Vietnam, collapsed. While the Biden administration also remains open to dialogue without any preconditions, there has been no substantial progress so far.

The CSIS official went on to say that restoring Seoul-Tokyo relations is vital for the United States, because there are so many common challenges in the region that require close cooperation with South Korea and Japan.

"South Korea and Japan are not simply military allies to the United States. They are two economically powerful countries and successful democracies in Asia, which is rare in the region, that share common values and have stakes in preserving the rules-based liberal international order. Because of that, improved Seoul-Tokyo ties are very important for the United States as Washington is trying to work with like-minded countries to deter any unilateral attempt to revise the status quo and the rise of authoritarianism," she said.

The Korea Times · December 15, 2022

11. From chips to ships, South Korea and Vietnam cozy up

Excerpts:

However, avenues of cooperation are not exclusively one-way.

China is currently the world’s largest supplier of rare earths, but if supply chains are cut, Vietnam – which is believed to have a wide, but so far unexploited supply of the materials – could help to fill the gap. Rare earths are used in the manufacture of multiple high-tech components, from superconductors to lithium batteries to electronic displays to electric motors.

“We share the view that there is great potential for cooperation between the two countries on the development of rare earths abundant in Vietnam and decided to seek concrete ways to cooperate on the sector,” Yoon said.

“China’s market share in rare earths is so high that cutting them off is not a practical option at this point, so what everyone is trying to do is diversify away from over-dependence on China,” added Foster. “There are two ways: One is to find another potential source of rare earths, the other is to develop technologies that reduce dependencies on rare earths.”

He suggested that for the Vietnamese, the first option would make sense, while ultra-high-value-added economies like Japan focus on the second.

From chips to ships, South Korea and Vietnam cozy up

Newly announced strategic partnership points to shared interests in diversifying away from China and Russia

asiatimes.com · by Andrew Salmon · December 15, 2022

SEOUL – Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc has become the first foreign leader to make a state visit to South Korea at the express invitation of President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May.

During Phuc’s three-day visit last week – accompanied by a hefty delegation that included his foreign minister, trade and industry minister and planning and investment minister – the two nations announced a new “comprehensive strategic partnership.”

South Korea is already the largest foreign investor in Vietnam, building fro the two sides’ free trade deal signed in 2015. Now, as differing political forces compel South Korea and Vietnam to diversify away from, respectively, China and Russia, wider and more fruitful avenues of cooperation may lie ahead.

Yoon said that Seoul will support the strengthening of Vietnam’s capability to enforce maritime laws – code for supply of naval equipment – and expand cooperation in defense, as well as in the high-tech sector and in rare earths.

In the wake of a huge deal with Poland, Seoul is currently on an international arms-sales roll at what looks like a fortuitous moment. Vietnam, which has just hosted its first-ever international defense expo, is being required to diversify away from its customary weaponry supplier, Russia.

And at a time when semiconductor companies in nations allied to Washington are being forced to rethink their supply chain, investment and export strategies as decoupling with China looms, Samsung – which already makes smartphones and home appliances in Vietnam – is set to begin chip-related production in Vietnam next year.

Vietnam, like China, is a key source of rare earths, raw minerals widely used in high-tech components. The two nations also signed an agreement in that field.

China in the middle

In 2009, Hanoi and Seoul had announced a strategic relationship covering military cooperation and strategic dialog mechanisms, but the deal largely remained dormant. In 2017, Phuc asked Seoul’s then-foreign minister Yun Byeong-se to back Hanoi’s position on the South China Sea and assist with “law enforcement” in the area.

South Korea, then led by the progressive Moon Jae-in administration, was not keen to irk China, its largest trade partner. Now, the Vietnamese may be pushing on an open door given how the conservative Yoon administration is so focused on overseas defense sales.

Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol during the former’s state visit to Seoul. Photo: South Korean Presidential Office

The two Sinic-influenced nations, situated at opposite ends of the Chinese land mass, have mirror-image recent histories.

Both were divided nations; both fought bloody Cold War hot conflicts with direct US engagement. Complicating matters, South Korean troops fought effectively – but brutally – on the US side. North Vietnam successfully unified after its 1975 invasion of South Vietnam, while Korea remains divided.

Both nations have complicated relations with China. Vietnam, while a fraternal communist state, fought a border war with China in 1979 and territorial tensions between Beijing and Hanoi continue to simmer over Chinese naval expansionism in the South China Sea.

Korea fought against China during the 1950-53 Korean War, but after the two capitals opened diplomatic relations in 1992, China has become Korea’s largest trade partner.

However, with Washington and Beijing increasingly at odds, Seoul suffered collateral damage in the wake of the deployment of a US missile defense system in 2017. Now, under US pressure, its technology giants face are facing the prospect of decoupling their supply chains from China.

Given these complex dynamics, fruitful avenues for Hanoi-Seoul cooperation beckon.

Korean arms merchants spread their wings

Heavy international sanctions on Russia, Vietnam’s traditional arms supplier of everything from jet fighters to submarines, are complicating acquisitions of new tranches of weaponry from Moscow.

While Russian missiles have proven deadly in the ongoing war on Ukraine, the questionable performance of its ground, air and naval forces has not delivered a marketing windfall for its wares. And as battle rages, huge stocks of Russian military products are being burned through by domestic users.

South Korea looks well positioned to fill that vacuum, having this year signed its biggest arms deal ever, selling tanks, self-propelled guns, multiple launch rocket systems and jet fighters to Poland in a huge, country-to-country deal that has been valued at anywhere between US$9 billion and $15 billion.

The country offers NATO-standard weaponry and its manufacturing base is noted for both price competitiveness and efficient and timely execution.

“The Korean government is committed to contributing to maritime security in the region, we will actively support the strengthening of Vietnam’s maritime law enforcement capabilities and expand defense industry cooperation with Vietnam,” Yoon said during Phuc’s visit.

While South Korean vessels have not taken part in the “Freedom of Navigation Operations” (FONOPs) off Chinese-occupied and militarized islets and reefs in the South China Sea that the US and some Western navies have prosecuted, it has donated two decommissioned Pohang-class corvettes to Vietnam. They are currently being repurposed as specialist anti-submarine craft.

According to US Congress-funded media Radio Free Asia, Vietnam is also interested in South Korea’s KF-21 fighter yet and could make a buy if technology transfer is built into a deal. The KF-21, which held its first test flight this year, is a multirole fighter that retails at a lower price point than top-tier stealth jets such as the US-made F-35.

The KF-21 jet fighter. Photo: KAI

The two countries’ defense ministers held a bilateral defense dialog in Seoul in September, covering the arms industry, maritime security, military logistics and cybersecurity.

And Yoon’s personal interest in upgrading the local defense sector is clear. He has talked it up in the past, and on December 14 his cabinet approved the establishment of a new “Defense Innovation Committee,” to be chaired by the president himself.

Stars may be aligning to South Korea’s west.

From December 8-10, Vietnam opened its first international defense show, the VIDEX, or Vietnam International Defense Expo 2022, in Hanoi, hosted by the country’s Ministry of Defense. Though Russian defense companies were pitching their wares at “Vietnam Defense 2022,” visitors were told that Hanoi is seeking to diversify its arms supply sources.

“They stated that diversification was the goal by 2030,” a source in the sector who visited the expo and who spoke on condition of anonymity as he did not have permission to speak to media told Asia Times. “They did not say diversification away from Russia, but that was implicit.”

While Russian companies were represented at the show, the source – who admitted his surprise at how professional the show was given that it was the first Vietnamese experience in running one – noted the particularly high-profile presence of Indians and Israeli vendors.

“Vietnam prizes its independence and its degrees of freedom,” the source said. “They want to be seen as equidistant from everyone as they want to act in autonomous ways.”

Samsung chips away at Vietnam

During his state visit, Phuc met Samsung Electronics vice president Han Jong-hee, who announced that Samsung will increase its investments in Vietnam to some $20 billion.

Samsung has already invested $18 billion in Vietnam, largely for manufacturing smartphones and home appliances. To date, it has not invested in semiconductor production in Vietnam.

Currently, major uncertainties hang over the future of Samsung’s NAND memory chip fabs in China due to US policy pressures.

“As the US looks to put a limit on the number of shipments of chip-making tools to China, Vietnam rises as an optimum alternative destination,” according to a September report by Vietnam Briefing, “The addition of the South Korean giant is likely to foster the development of semiconductors’ related industries, as well as push forward the development of appropriate skillsets and expertise within the country.”

Samsung is Vietnam’s biggest single foreign investor, and in 2023, will expand its presence from phones and home appliances into semiconductor components, Vietnam Briefing noted. In August, it was announced that Samsung would begin trial production of its “flip-chip ball grid array” — a packaging technology used for chips – in Vietnam.

Samsung is not alone. In August, US chipmaker Synopsis announced an investment in the country, and other competitors including Qualcomm and SK hynix already have presences. Most chip firms operating in Vietnam are operating in the downstream end of the sector, such as packaging and testing, rather than the high-end practices of design and manufacturing.

This fits with Vietnam’s industrial base and its human resources’ skillsets.

“A couple of things the Vietnamese can do if they have the right investors are back-end assembly and packaging, which is heavily concentrated in Southeast Asia and China as wages are low,” added Scott Foster, a Japan-based semiconductor analyst and Asia Times columnist. “There are a lot of components that go into chip production that are not highly sophisticated nanometer-scale things, and Vietnam could make those kinds of things.”

Samsung’s plant in Thai Nguyen Province, northern Vietnam. Photo: Samsung

Rare opportunity in rare earths

However, avenues of cooperation are not exclusively one-way.

China is currently the world’s largest supplier of rare earths, but if supply chains are cut, Vietnam – which is believed to have a wide, but so far unexploited supply of the materials – could help to fill the gap. Rare earths are used in the manufacture of multiple high-tech components, from superconductors to lithium batteries to electronic displays to electric motors.

“We share the view that there is great potential for cooperation between the two countries on the development of rare earths abundant in Vietnam and decided to seek concrete ways to cooperate on the sector,” Yoon said.

“China’s market share in rare earths is so high that cutting them off is not a practical option at this point, so what everyone is trying to do is diversify away from over-dependence on China,” added Foster. “There are two ways: One is to find another potential source of rare earths, the other is to develop technologies that reduce dependencies on rare earths.”

He suggested that for the Vietnamese, the first option would make sense, while ultra-high-value-added economies like Japan focus on the second.

Follow this writer on Twitter @ASalmonSeoul

asiatimes.com · by Andrew Salmon · December 15, 2022

12. Did North Korea Really Fake an ICBM Test in March?

All warfare is based on deception. Especially political warfare.

Excerpts:

There is an increasing recognition that outside analyses of North Korea have been less than optimal as a field of science. Recent research has attributed this to the tendency among Western analysts to underestimate the North’s capacity, resilience, and motivation, which stems from deep-seated prejudice dating as far back as the Korean War. Concerning the launch of the Hwasong-17 ICBM, which had supposedly been debunked by eagle-eyed international analysts, the “faking” thesis was importantly buttressed by the media tropes of irrationality, impulsiveness, failure, and deception that made most analysts ignore serious reasons to be skeptical of this thesis.

Analysts may still critically monitor the North for potential fakes and bluffs, but such analyses should be conducted while guarding against the inherited stereotypes that do more harm than good in today’s geopolitical context.

Did North Korea Really Fake an ICBM Test in March?

After the recent confirmed launch of a Hwasong-17 missile, it’s time to revisit claims that North Korea “faked” a previous launch.

thediplomat.com · by Tay Jeong · December 14, 2022

Back in March, North Korea announced it had launched the Hwasong-17, its new “monster” intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which boasts the longest estimated range in its arsenal. When North Korea released a propagandistic video of the March 24 launch, international and South Korean analysts were quick to point out certain suspicious details in the footage and satellite imagery.

Some analysts subsequently claimed that the broadcast launch of Hwasong-17 was from a failed launch attempt on March 16, and that the detected successful launch on March 24 was actually a Hwasong-15 bearing a reduced payload. There was no direct evidence to identify the later launch as a Hwasong-15, but clues that North Korea had included clips from a previous failed launch in its new propaganda video fueled suspicions that the March 24 launch must have been a “fake” Hwasong-17.

There has been some controversy regarding the “faking” thesis. The Japanese Ministry of Defense retained its assessment of the missile as a Hwasong-17, and some pundits argued that merely tweaking the payload or the amount of fuel in a Hwasong-15 would be unlikely to produce such a big leap in range (there are, however, opinions to the contrary). The South Korean Ministry of Defense, however, sided with many international analysts in judging that the March 24 launch was a Hwasong-15 disguised as a Hwasong-17, while claiming that this judgment is shared by U.S. intelligence as well (The U.S. neither confirmed nor denied this). In the weeks and months that followed, the faking thesis became widely reported in international media and open source analysis.

The recent November 18 ICBM launch exhibited a highly similar flight trajectory as the one launched on March 24, leading some analysts initially to assess the missile to be a Hwasong-15. However, it turned out that the missile launched on November 18 was a Hwasong-17. This new information makes it likely that the March 24 launch was also a Hwasong-17, prompting analysts to reconsider the previously influential – but largely unsubstantiated – claim that it was a Hwasong-15 in disguise.

What is retrospectively noteworthy is not the initial divergence of opinions, or what now appears to be the misguided accusation of a fake launch by North Korea, but the scarcity of discussions about whether it made sense for North Korea to have faked a Hwasong-17 launch in the first place. The lack of attention to this concern, which was overshadowed by attention to technical details, such as the direction of sunlight in the video footage and burn marks on the ground, is most likely because few analysts saw any puzzle to be explained. After all, do we not already know that North Korea loves propaganda and fakes?

Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

One notable exception was an article by Vann H. Van Diepen published in 38 North shortly after the March 24 launch, which explored the various reasons why the North Koreans may actually have launched a Hwasong-17, just as they claimed. For one, the Hwasong-15, tested only once five years ago, is far from a missile that the North Koreans would be “pretty sure would work” and offers little advantage over testing another Hwasong-17, the components of which had been tested multiple times.

In addition, unlike most countries, North Korea has an accumulated record of testing new missiles back-to-back, so it would not be surprising even if a Hwasong-17 was tested twice within such a short interval. North Korea also likely thought that U.S. intelligence would be able to detect what type of missile it had launched, diminishing whatever posturing effect such a disguise would have had.

It is not hard to come up with additional reasons: Launching an ICBM with a heavily compromised payload would have meant wasting an expensive opportunity to test the missile with a realistic warhead. Also, the scenes of a dramatic celebration between the supreme leader and the core missile development team look extravagant for a mere relaunch of a rocket successfully tested five years ago, and “staging” such a moment of collective effervescence would have an adverse effect on leadership and inner group morale.

Finally, at no point in 2022 was the North Korean government critically pressed to make up for the supposed failure of the March 16 launch as quickly as possible. Waiting several more weeks or months to test another Hwasong-17 in due course would have been a more sensible option than telling a risky lie in a hurry.

Yet, even the 38 North article referenced above curiously concluded that “[i]t is plausible that the North launched a Hwasong-15 or modified version and achieved the performance demonstrated in the March 24 test.” Echoing numerous popular journalistic analyses, Van Diepen identified external posturing (even at the risk of getting debunked) and domestic propaganda as factors that could plausibly have counterbalanced the host of reasons to believe the contrary. Not only is “Pyongyang’s missile testing … almost certainly driven primarily by political over technical considerations,” Van Diepen concluded, but even those political considerations are apparently about building Potemkin villages designed to falsely impress both external and internal audiences.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile program has traditionally served a dual purpose of developing technology for military deterrence and providing leverage for negotiating with the United States for a potential improvement in relations. The latter purpose is what motivates speculations about fakes and bluffs among outside observers. While both purposes have played genuine roles in the past, however, the balance has shifted toward the former in recent years.

As the leaked “love letters” between then-U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un show, after the disappointment of the “no-deal” Hanoi summit meeting in January 2019 – and especially after the sensational but fruitless Trump-Kim meeting at the DMZ that summer – North Korea rapidly became skeptical that the United States is willing to alleviate sanctions for anything short of a complete disarmament of its nuclear program. North Korea has since become increasingly unresponsive to requests for negotiation and stepped up its weapons program while attempting to strengthen ties with its traditional allies.

This trend was accelerated in early 2022, when the dovish Moon Jae-In administration in South Korea lost the presidential election to a hardline North Korea hawk, Yoon Suk-yeol. Upon assuming office in May, Yoon quickly engaged in a range of actions that North Korea finds strongly provocative, such as large-scale joint military drills with the United States.

North Korea is rapidly advancing its weapons program according to the five-year weapons development plan that it established at the start of 2021 and has already made remarkable progress, especially considering the heavy sanctions it is under. The rapid development of not only asymmetric warfare capabilities but also its aging conventional fighting force strongly indicates that North Korea is serious about improving its military capabilities.

Consistent with the changed military and diplomatic circumstances, the North’s responses to South Korea-U.S. military exercises have recently diverged from the past. While North Korea in the past had responded more passively – often with little more than harsh words – to such pressures, it is currently responding with unprecedentedly bold and massive military actions that display little fear of escalation.

Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

The nearly hackneyed interpretation that North Korea’s missile launches are aimed at domestic propaganda is also losing relevance due to the unexpected stability of its government, which, despite harsh economic sanctions, is showing no signs of crisis. The economy, which had reportedly been improving prior to COVID-19, is also holding up despite continuing difficulties. There has not been any uncontrolled surge of prices, as seen in North Korea previously during the “Arduous March” as well as many other countries undergoing a socioeconomic crisis.

Admissions of failures, delays, and difficulties have been remarkably common in North Korean political and media discourse under Kim Jong Un, something that marks a notable change from the previous period and most likely reflects the regime’s increased confidence in the firmness of popular support. All in all, there is little reason to speculate that this government currently feels the pressure to placate the population even at the cost of the morale of the inner group of commanders and engineers working around the clock to develop a workable military deterrence against its much larger and more advanced state adversary.

There is an increasing recognition that outside analyses of North Korea have been less than optimal as a field of science. Recent research has attributed this to the tendency among Western analysts to underestimate the North’s capacity, resilience, and motivation, which stems from deep-seated prejudice dating as far back as the Korean War. Concerning the launch of the Hwasong-17 ICBM, which had supposedly been debunked by eagle-eyed international analysts, the “faking” thesis was importantly buttressed by the media tropes of irrationality, impulsiveness, failure, and deception that made most analysts ignore serious reasons to be skeptical of this thesis.

Analysts may still critically monitor the North for potential fakes and bluffs, but such analyses should be conducted while guarding against the inherited stereotypes that do more harm than good in today’s geopolitical context.

thediplomat.com · by Tay Jeong · December 14, 2022

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

V/R

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow

Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Phone: 202-573-8647

Personal Email: d avid.maxwell161@gmail.com

Web Site: www.fdd.org

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Subscribe to FDD’s new podcast, Foreign Podicy

FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

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

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

Access NSS HERE

Company Name | Website