Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners


Quotes of the Day:

“It is impossible for Westerners to understand the force of the people’s will to resist, and to continue to resist. The struggle of the people exceeds the imagination. It has astonished us too.” 
- Pham Van Dong

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan

"Too many of our countrymen rejoice in stupidity, look upon ignorance as a badge of honor. They condemn everything they don't understand. "
- Tallulah Bankhead





1. U.S. deploys B-1B Lancers at Andersen Air Force Base
2. Korean government reviews arms aid to Ukraine
3. Kim Jong Un’s Tortuous Path to Economic Reform
4. Seoul contributes to protect Ukraine's nuclear plants
5.  N. Korea holds key party meeting amid reports of nuclear test possibility
6. S. Korean foreign minister to visit U.S. next week
7. Top S. Korean, Chinese nuclear envoys discuss N. Korea issue
8. The North Korean gov't tightens the screws on foreign trade
9. N. Korea lifts restrictions on the operation of markets in some major cities
10. N.Korea Squandered $650 Million Firing Missiles This Year
11. Malnourished soldiers providing little help to N. Korea's agricultural areas
12. Defense ministry pushes for new post focusing on N.K. threats: sources
13.  Yoon says he expects S. Korea-Japan issues to be resolved smoothly
14. N. Korea's new suspected COVID-19 cases fall below 60,000
15. Unification minister, Sherman discuss need for N. Korea to resume dialogue
16. Hollow US threat to North Korean nuke test
17. U.S. asks if China, Russia favor their ties over world security with North Korea vetoes
 





1. U.S. deploys B-1B Lancers at Andersen Air Force Base


​Every deployment of strategic assets as well as other military activity corresponding to readiness, deterrence, and defense ​is a message that says there will be no appeasement of Kim Jong Un and that the Kim family regime's political warfare strategy and blackmail diplomacy will not work. This is going to take some time and a continued and consistent response to increased tension, threats, and provocations because we have to force the regime to unlearn nearly seven decades of learned behavior and especially the behavior over the last five years during which time we used the weakening of military readiness, deterrence, and defense as a bargaining chip to try to entice Kim Jong-un into negotiations and denuclearization. We erroneously thought our cancellation, postponement, and scaling back of exercises would be accepted as a security guarantee for the regime - think about that - we weaken our defense of the ROK to provide a security guarantee to the north. Such action indicates a lack of understanding of the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime. Kim seeks the weakening of the military not for his own security but to cause damage to the alliance, force US troops off the peninsula and allow Kim to use coercion and if necessary force to dominate the peninsula.

As objectionable and counterintuitive as it may seem we need Kim to coniunue to try to execute his political warfare strategy and blackmail diplomacy and specifically conduct provocations so we can continue to respond with strategic reassurance and strategic resolve as well as a comprehensive information and influence activities campaign. It is going to take time for Kim to understand his strategy will not work as well as for the leite and military leaders to exert pressure on Kim for his failure to gain political and economic concessions through provocations. At some future unknown point Kim may come to the realization that he cannot be successful, that the alliance will not give in with concessions and appeasement and his only option will be to come to the negotiating table to and act as a responsible member of the international community (probably a dream and a bridge too far) or that Kim is pressured in some way that causes new leadership to emerge (also a long shot).  We should not fear any north Korean provocations.​ ​Every prov​o​c​a​tion is an opportunity to prove to Kim Jong Un that his strategy will not work. ​We have to take advantage of that opportunity.​


U.S. deploys B-1B Lancers at Andersen Air Force Base
Posted June. 09, 2022 08:17,
Updated June. 09, 2022 08:17
U.S. deploys B-1B Lancers at Andersen Air Force Base. June. 09, 2022 08:17. by Sang-Ho Yun ysh1005@donga.com.
The U.S. Air Force has deployed B-1B Lancer in Guam amid signs of an imminent seventh nuclear tests of North Korea, seemingly a warning that it can be immediately deployed to the Korean Peninsula should North Korea attempt nuclear provocations.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command disclosed photos of B-1B fighter jets landing at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam on Wednesday, four days after U.S. military magazine The War Zone reported on Saturday satellite photos of four B-1B aircrafts stationed in Guam. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command stated that the deployment of B-1B bombers was intended for PACAF training and missions. It also stated that the aircrafts joined a joint exercise with F-15 fighter jets from Japanese Air Self-Defense Force.

A South Korean military official said that the B-1B Lancers deployed in Guam will be among the first assets to be deployed to the Korean Peninsula in the event of North Korea’s provocations to deter North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.





2. Korean government reviews arms aid to Ukraine

Step up.

Korean government reviews arms aid to Ukraine
Posted June. 09, 2022 08:15,
Updated June. 09, 2022 08:15
Korean government reviews arms aid to Ukraine. June. 09, 2022 08:15. by Jin-Woo Shin niceshin@donga.com.
The Korean government decided to engage in an active review over the possible arms aid to Ukraine. The government is expected to decide on whether to provide aid around mid-June after reviewing the expert report on the expected benefits from arms aid by next week and then listen to the feedback of related officials from the government, ruling party, and academia. As President Yoon Suk-yeol is highly likely to participate in the NATO Summit scheduled for June 29, and 30 in Madrid, Spain, and as the Korean government set the policy direction to actively participate in the re-construction of Ukraine after the war, opinions are being alleged raised inside the government that arms aid prior to such steps is inevitable.

Based on the Dong-A Ilbo coverage as of Wednesday, the Korean government kept its internal position that arms aid is technically difficult until last month. In other words, providing Ukraine with arms beyond humanitarian aid was deemed difficult considering concerns over retaliation from Russia. Korea has so far offered only humanitarian aid including 3 billion won worth of non-lethal military war supplies and 40 million dollars (about 50 billion won) worth of first-aid kits

However, a key Korean government official explained that now we can no longer avoid reviewing arms aid for not only the United States and Europe but also Canada and Australia are engaging in active arms support and as Ukraine has repeatedly asked for arms support to Korea. On Tuesday, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Dmytro Senik commented that he asked for arms aid to the Korean government after he met Korean Second Vice Foreign Minister Lee Do-hoon.

The U.S. government is known to be taking rather aggressive moves in communicating its messages on Ukraine aid to the Korean government. Another government official said, “The United States did not precisely say arms support, but succeeding the economic sanction against Russia, this time, the arms aid could possibly become a symbolic measure to reconfirm‎ future alliance.” Some are raising the opinions that arms aid to Ukraine is necessary considering the political and diplomatic position of the Korean government when President Yoon Suk-yeol attends NATO Summit.

Provided however, the Korean government first plans to take caution to compare the pros and cons of arms aid meticulously as the internal and external pressure resulting from arms aid will be significant. The government official was quoted, “We will look into matters including how desperate the situation in Ukraine is, how important arms aid is in cooperating with the Western world, and whether there are correlations between arms support and participation in post war reconstruction.”

3. Kim Jong Un’s Tortuous Path to Economic Reform
Interesting analysis. I will restate my belief in the regime's economic paradox. north Korea must reform economically for the survival of the country and the Korean people living in the north. However, economic reform will undermine the legitimacy of the Kim family regime and will be a threat to the regime's survival because effective economic reform requires opening, contact with the outside world, and information flowing into the north.

I also think that Kim is suffering from the COVID paradox that is also damaging the failed economy even worse than a failed economy can be damaged. Kim is deathly afraid of COVID so has instituted measures to try to defend against it. However, Kim also recognized the opportunity COVID provided in that he could justify the hard population and resources control measures to further oppress and repress the population to prevent any resistance to his rule. His actions of closing the Chinese border to trade and smuggling, trying to confiscate foreign currency, cracking down on market activity, trying to prevent information flow, and stopping internal movement, etc., all impact the welfare of the Korean people and their resilience and ability to survive. Kim is doing everything that is the opposite of economic reform and doing more to harm the economy (and people) than sanctions could ever do.

Excerpts:

Given this history, we may say North Korea’s current lack of appetite for diplomatic engagement since 2019 indicates economic reform is not a top priority. North Korea’s continued endorsement of reform at the highest levels indicates it has not reversed or given up on it, but the regime appears to be content experimenting with and improving reform initiatives for the time being. Pyongyang’s priority appears to be maintaining the economic status quo and, if possible, improving the economy. It appears to believe it can manage to keep the economy afloat — even improve it — by using this self-isolation period to work out various domestic political and economic issues and maximizing the country’s capacity for “self-reliance,” primarily through encouraging local production and recycling and improving science and technology, which are some of the prominent economic themes in North Korean literature.
When North Korea decides it is time to focus on economic development and by a natural extension of that, reform, it will return to diplomacy as it did in 2018. But that likely will happen only after the North attains or at least makes substantial progress with its weapons advancement goals as outlined during the Eighth Party Congress, which it believes will give the country more negotiating power vis-à-vis Washington. And the current global environment, one where the United States and the West are pitted against China and Russia, provides the perfect opportunity for Kim Jong Un to advance his nuclear and missile capabilities without running too many political or economic risks.
Kim clearly envisioned improving the economy by injecting foreign capital into the country. To that end, the North enacted and amended investment laws and even created special economic zones between 2013 and 2019. For now, all these ideas, laws, and zones look good on paper only. The next time Pyongyang decides to return to negotiations, enough progress will hopefully have been made for the country to follow through on these and other economic initiatives. Until then, North Korea will chug along wearily but tenaciously as it always has, with promised economic development and reform remaining far from reach.


Kim Jong Un’s Tortuous Path to Economic Reform - War on the Rocks
warontherocks.com · by Rachel Minyoung Lee · June 9, 2022
“Though the epidemic prevention situation is harsh at present … there should be nothing missed in the planned economic work,” Kim Jong Un said last month. The North Korean leader’s appeal to keep up economic production while combating a COVID outbreak — which Kim described as a “great upheaval,” an unusually strong formulation to refer to a domestic situation in North Korea — shows just how vulnerable the country’s economy is. Pyongyang’s surprising acknowledgment of a COVID-19 outbreak in the country raises many questions, one of which is how the epidemic might impact the economy. That it was already ailing before COVID arrived is something Kim himself has alluded to and admitted on multiple occasions.
Notwithstanding the high level of interest in the North Korean economy, it is a murky topic for most followers of the country. For a nation that devotes a great deal of its media space to economic news, it reveals surprisingly little useful information about the actual state of the economy. Even the annual budget breakdowns and production growth rates at parliamentary sessions — the only set of official economic statistics provided by the North — are all percentages and not actual amounts, which is hardly helpful to economists seeking hard data on the country’s economic conditions. Articles that seem as though they might provide some insight into the Kim regime’s thinking on economic policy are often long and obscure, taking the art of deciphering state propaganda to new heights.
While numbers and percentages may provide instant gratification in finding answers to North Korea’s current economic conditions, the fundamental matter at hand is economic policy, for it is this that will have longer-term consequences for the future of the country and possibly even the Korean Peninsula. And central to North Korea’s economic policy is the Kim regime’s current and future calculus on market-oriented measures, which this article shall loosely refer to as “reform.” How much progress North Korea makes on these initiatives, as well as the extent to which it is willing to forge ahead with them, will shape the country’s domestic and foreign policy agenda. How North Korea’s increased focus on defense programs — as demonstrated by its missile campaign since the beginning of the year that included intercontinental ballistic missile tests — figures into its economic thinking also is food for thought.
In that vein, the questions to ask at this juncture are as follows: What is the status of North Korea’s economic reform under Kim Jong Un? What might we expect of the country’s discourse on reform in the light of reinforced central control, the North’s renewed commitment to strengthen its nuclear and missile capabilities, and its apparent lack of interest in diplomatic engagement with the United States and South Korea? Pyongyang’s continued quest for reform will to a large extent hinge on how it manages issues related to control, as well as the allocation of national resources. This balancing act will be seriously challenged by the country’s pivot to greater centralization and isolationism.
Kim’s Reform: A Work in Progress
In December 2011, Kim Jong Un inherited a decrepit economy that was still reeling from the aftermath of a failed currency reform two years earlier. Resuscitating the economy was clearly a top priority on his mind. The new leader sought to do just that by resuming his father’s “July 1 economic measures,” reforms that were launched in 2002 but in effect had been reversed by the end of Kim Jong Il’s rule. Immediately after his father’s funeral, Kim gave senior Workers’ Party functionaries broad guidelines on “economic management methods of our style,” a code for market-oriented policies within the parameters of socialism that would be the governing principle of his economic policy.
After undergoing a period of research, planning, and conducting trial runs, North Korea between 2014 and 2015 rolled out reforms –– in farms, enterprises (the equivalent of companies in a capitalist system), and the financial and banking sector, in that order. The essence of the reforms was incentivizing individual units and workers to become more productive by decentralizing decision-making. Notably, North Korea codified Kim’s hallmark reform initiative, the “socialist enterprise responsibility management system,” or SERMS, in the constitution in 2019, indicating the regime’s firm resolve to continue with its reformist policies. SERMS grants individual enterprises actual management rights across planning, resources, production, and profits.
Where, then, does North Korea’s reform stand now? After a decade, Kim’s reform-oriented economic measures are still a work in progress. Reform has suffered setbacks, most clearly evidenced in the form of greater central control, but there is no evidence that these initiatives are being reversed.
North Korea’s Eighth Party Congress in January 2021 generated much debate among North Korea watchers about the fate of Kim’s economic reform. The prevailing view seemed to be that reform was in retreat, with some arguing that reform was still in place, albeit with increased emphasis on centralization.
It is understandable why the party congress readout should have led to so many conclusions about North Korea backtracking on reform: State media’s summary of Kim’s report to the party congress contained formulations indicating tighter central control, such as the state’s “unified” guidance on or management of resources and products, and the restoration of the state’s “leading role and control” in commerce. Moreover, greater central control had been a dominant theme in North Korean propaganda in the months leading up to the Eighth Party Congress.
The question then becomes: Is greater central control necessarily an antithesis of market-based economic reform? Or is Pyongyang trying to achieve both — implementation of reform in a more controlled setting, one where it can better manage how reform initiatives are carried out? Evidence points to the latter.
North Korea continues to publicly endorse reform initiatives in enterprises and farms at authoritative levels. Reform in the financial and banking sector continues to be supported less publicly in academic journals by scholars who are likely involved in economic policymaking. Kim Jong Un, in his concluding speech at the Eighth Party Congress, called for “push[ing] forward energetically with the research and completion of the economic management methods.” This, when placed in the context of Kim’s earlier remarks that pointed to greater central control, indicated the country’s intent to carry on with reforms in a more controlled environment. In fact, the North is still in the stages of “continuously improving and completing economic management methods of our style,” according to a recent meeting of the North Korean Cabinet.
Logically and technically speaking, greater centralization results in reduced autonomy, initiative, and creativity in individual work units and among workers — all essential ingredients of economic reform. But we need to recall that “reform” in the North Korean context comes with certain strings attached. In short, central control — specifically the state’s unified guidance of the economy, giving greater freedom to enterprises within the bounds of the socialist economy, and the party’s leadership over economic work — has been an innate part of Kim Jong Un’s reform policy since its inception.
Bumps in the Road
The general assessment is that giving greater autonomy to farms and enterprises and incentivizing workers have by and large resulted in increased production and the growing marketization of the economy under Kim Jong Un. But one can reasonably deduce that economic reforms have not been as easy to shape or implement as Kim Jong Un had hoped. If nothing else can serve as a data point, this can: Nine years after Kim called for the “completion” of economic management methods, North Korea is still working on them.
There are multiple internal and external reasons for this difficulty. The most obvious one is that there has been no progress on the nuclear issue, without which international sanctions will remain in force and continue to undermine the country’s economy and its prospects for reform and opening. The border closures the North has instituted since early 2020 to keep COVID-19 at bay, including nearly two years of suspended trade by rail with China and the continued prohibition of border crossings by individuals, and the recent outbreak of the virus at home have posed further obstacles.
As is often the case, the bigger, more fundamental challenges have lain tucked within the intricacies of policymaking. Of all these, Pyongyang seems to be faced with two enduring dilemmas associated with economic reform: the balance of control and the allocation of national resources. They have no doubt shaped discussions within the regime about the direction of, and impacted its ability to deliver, reform. And they will determine the future of North Korea’s reform, depending on how Pyongyang chooses to tackle these issues.
Control Versus Autonomy
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the question of central control versus autonomy for lower-level economic units lies at the heart of North Korea’s reform. The North has wrestled with this issue for the past decade. It will likely remain a sensitive issue as the regime continues to research, improve, and perfect its reform initiatives.
North Korean academic journals often serve as a platform for policy discussions that are not evident in central media like newspapers, where messaging tends to be more consistent and uniform. The journals are thus useful for gaining insight into the different lines of argument taken in the country’s policymaking circles — sometimes vocally, sometimes subtly — on a range of reform-related topics, some of which are contentious. And all key reform issues discussed in these journals boil down to lines of responsibility between central institutions and individual economic units, how much control the party or the cabinet should exert, and how much latitude — typically expressed in terms of “initiative” and “creativity” — lower-level units and workers should be granted. And more articles actually support giving greater autonomy to individual economic units than we might expect.
The cabinet-party dynamic is another key problem associated with control. North Korea continues to reaffirm the cabinet’s leading role in the national economy at high-level party and state meetings despite Kim Jong Un’s repeated criticism of the cabinet’s failure to lead the economy properly. This is meaningful in the North Korean context, as the cabinet traditionally has stood for pragmatism (economic reform) — and still appears to — while the party has represented conservatism (ideology). However, North Korean media have both emphasized the party’s economic leadership and repeatedly attempted to clarify a long-standing principle governing the party-state relationship in the management of the country’s economy: the party’s role is to provide broader guidance on party policies without encroaching on the execution of party policies by state organs, including the cabinet. This recurring reminder suggests the lines of responsibility between the party and the cabinet are not always clear and there is room for the party to exert more control over the economy than is intended or desired.
As North Korea continues to struggle with the fundamental question of control and lines of responsibility, the country’s shift to a hard line since the collapse of the Hanoi summit in February 2019 is concerning. The country’s stronger pivot to conservatism since it sealed off its borders in early 2020 makes it probable that North Korea will stay on the course of greater centralization revolving around the party for the time being.
Kim Jong Un’s main message at a party meeting held in April 2019, while the wound was still fresh from the failed Hanoi summit, was “self-reliance,” an isolationist term historically used by North Korea when it is not interested in engagement or diplomacy with the outside world, namely the United States. Kim’s message was quickly followed by North Korea’s resumption of missile launches that coincided with a broader media campaign emphasizing ideological purity, the rule of law, and discipline, including in the economic sector — in short, tightening the noose and preparing the populace to hunker down for a potentially prolonged period of hardship. The “head-on breakthrough battle” policy that Kim proclaimed at the December 2019 Party Plenum as he warned of a “protracted confrontation” with the United States was an extension of the self-reliance narrative.
North Korea has further expanded social controls and reportedly exercised greater dominance over markets since it instituted border closures, partly taking advantage of self-isolation to rein in the public and partly out of need to control market prices and foreign currency reserves. In early 2022, the North Korean premier said the country will keep working to “recover the unitary trade system of the state,” indicating unified resource and foreign currency management by the state and diminished (or perhaps little to no) trade autonomy for enterprises. Pyongyang appears poised to tighten the party’s control even more as it combats the COVID-19 outbreak, with Kim Jong Un repeatedly emphasizing “unconditionally” obeying party policies at a recent meeting with the country’s top leadership. North Korean state media has renewed calls since early 2021 for building communism, the supposedly ideal end state of socioeconomic development and a concept that was wiped from the party charter and the constitution in the last reigning years of Kim Jong Il. These calls may simply be exhortative and have limited, if any, policy implications. But the campaign reflects a conservative shift in the country and is by no means reassuring from the viewpoint of reform.
Civilian Economy Versus National Defense
Kim Jong Un’s ambition to continue nuclear development, coupled with the North’s resumption of intercontinental ballistic missile tests and a probable seventh nuclear test, begs the question of whether North Korea is reverting, or already has returned, to the byungjin line of simultaneously developing the economy and nuclear forces. The byungjin line was in effect from March 2013 to April 2018, when Kim declared the “victory” of byungjin and announced a transition to the “new strategic line” of “concentrating all efforts” on the economy. During the byungjin years, North Korea accelerated its nuclear and missile programs and declared that it attained the goal of “completing the state nuclear force.” And Kim’s commitment in recent months to prioritize the economy while defining national defense as an “invariable priority policy and goal” would seem to signal a return to byungjin, although North Korean media’s focus by and large remains on the economy. Unlike in the past, Kim is present at only select missile launches, and missile launch reports, if they are carried by state media at all, have been pushed back to the second or third page of the country’s most authoritative daily, Rodong Sinmun.
If North Korea has in effect returned to byungjin without publicly announcing such a major policy transition from the “new strategic line,” it would only underscore the sensitivities of reconciling increased defense spending with Kim Jong Un’s “people-first principle.” Irrespective of North Korea’s current policy brand, Pyongyang has clearly shifted to a greater prioritization of national defense, and this will almost certainly have negative ramifications for reform. It is not so much that byungjin and economic reform are incompatible. In fact, North Korea introduced and made progress on its reform initiatives during the years of byungjin, while at the same time making strides in its weapons programs. But a greater focus on national defense does mean competing priorities and possibly even a shift in policy priorities. This leads us to a question fundamental to reform: resource allocation.
study of North Korean journals suggests that the regime has been discussing questions relating to defense spending and the allocation of resources between the civilian economy and the defense industry for years. These questions revolve around the defense industry’s place in the national economy, whether the industry contributes to the civilian economy, and whether the country should be spending more money on longer-term investment like national defense or on the more immediate economic needs like spurring growth and providing greater material incentives to workers.
And North Korea’s position on these questions will have profound consequences for reform. This is because the more foothold gained by those in the North Korean leadership who support building up national defense, the more resources that will be earmarked for defense spending, leaving that much less resources for revitalizing the civilian economy and for reformist ideas and initiatives to blossom and take root. Unfortunately, North Korea’s renewed pledge to advance its nuclear and missile programs suggests that the regime may once again be diverting resources away from the civilian economy to the national defense industry. North Korea typically cites the Iraq and Libya examples to emphasize the importance of strength. Likewise, it is possible that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has empowered proponents of greater defense spending in Pyongyang.
At this juncture, Kim Jong Un’s remark at the country’s first national defense exhibition in October 2021 may be worth highlighting: “[A]ny development and success of our revolution is inconceivable separated from the preferential development of the national defence capability.” North Korea typically uses the logic that strong national defense is essential for stable economic development when it needs to justify greater defense spending.
Looking Ahead
There is a clear pattern of North Korea shifting to diplomatic engagement when it prioritizes economic development and intends to give impetus to economic reform. A peaceful external environment would be favorable to economic development not only because it increases the likelihood of improving diplomatic relations with the United States and attracting foreign capital but also because it is easy to justify directing more resources to the civilian economy.
The connection between Pyongyang’s increased diplomatic outreach and economic development was clear in the lead-up to and following the launch of Kim Jong Il’s economic reform measures in July 2002. Kim Jong Il sought to improve relations with the United States, met with the South Korean president for the first time, held summit meetings with the Chinese and Russian presidents and the Japanese prime minister, and established relations with European nations. Similarly, North Korea made diplomatic overtures toward China, South Korea, and the United States in early 2018 in the lead-up to a major policy shift from byungjin to concentrating on the economy.
Given this history, we may say North Korea’s current lack of appetite for diplomatic engagement since 2019 indicates economic reform is not a top priority. North Korea’s continued endorsement of reform at the highest levels indicates it has not reversed or given up on it, but the regime appears to be content experimenting with and improving reform initiatives for the time being. Pyongyang’s priority appears to be maintaining the economic status quo and, if possible, improving the economy. It appears to believe it can manage to keep the economy afloat — even improve it — by using this self-isolation period to work out various domestic political and economic issues and maximizing the country’s capacity for “self-reliance,” primarily through encouraging local production and recycling and improving science and technology, which are some of the prominent economic themes in North Korean literature.
When North Korea decides it is time to focus on economic development and by a natural extension of that, reform, it will return to diplomacy as it did in 2018. But that likely will happen only after the North attains or at least makes substantial progress with its weapons advancement goals as outlined during the Eighth Party Congress, which it believes will give the country more negotiating power vis-à-vis Washington. And the current global environment, one where the United States and the West are pitted against China and Russia, provides the perfect opportunity for Kim Jong Un to advance his nuclear and missile capabilities without running too many political or economic risks.
Kim clearly envisioned improving the economy by injecting foreign capital into the country. To that end, the North enacted and amended investment laws and even created special economic zones between 2013 and 2019. For now, all these ideas, laws, and zones look good on paper only. The next time Pyongyang decides to return to negotiations, enough progress will hopefully have been made for the country to follow through on these and other economic initiatives. Until then, North Korea will chug along wearily but tenaciously as it always has, with promised economic development and reform remaining far from reach.
Rachel Minyoung Lee is Regional Issues Manager at Vienna-based Open Nuclear Network and a nonresident fellow at Stimson Center’s 38 North Program. Lee was a North Korea open source collection expert and analyst with the U.S. government from 2000 to 2019.
Image: CC-BY 2.0, Flickr user Prachatai
warontherocks.com · by Rachel Minyoung Lee · June 9, 2022


4. Seoul contributes to protect Ukraine's nuclear plants

Again, this is an opportunity for the Yoon administration to step up globally.


Thursday
June 9, 2022

Seoul contributes to protect Ukraine's nuclear plants

Foreign Minister Park Jin, right, speaks with Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Dmytro Senik, left, at the ministry headquarters in Seoul on Wednesday. [MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS]
Korea will donate $1.2 million to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to help protect Ukrainian nuclear power plants, the Foreign Ministry said.
 
“In order to support the safe operation and security of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant, as the country is currently under military threat from the war, four related ministries in Korea jointly decided to provide support worth about $1.2 million through the International Atomic Energy Agency,” the ministry said in a statement Wednesday. 
 

The Foreign Ministry, with the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the National Safety and Security Commission, announced the decision in Vienna during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting taking place from Monday through Friday.
 
The money will be used to dispatch IAEA personnel or purchase equipment and materials necessary for securing the safety and security of nuclear power plants in Ukraine, managing radioactive waste, and implementing safety measures, according to the Foreign Ministry.
 
There are four nuclear power plants in Ukraine, with 15 pressurized water reactors, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency. 
 
Of particular concern earlier was the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl power plant, where the world’s worst nuclear accident took place in 1986. 
 
Heavy fighting in the area in February caused global concern over another possible nuclear disaster.
 
Ukraine has repeatedly asked Korea for lethal weapons. But Korea has provided Kyiv only with humanitarian relief and non-lethal military supplies such as bulletproof helmets, blankets and medical supplies.
 
The request was made again during Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Dmytro Senik’s meetings with Korean officials in Seoul this week. Senik met with Foreign Minister Park Jin in Seoul on Wednesday and with Lee Do-hoon, second vice foreign minister, on Tuesday.
 
“During the meeting, the Ukrainian side expressed gratitude for our support and requested arms support and participation in reconstruction of the nation,” said a Foreign Ministry official in speaking with the press about Tuesday’s meeting between Lee and Senik. “Korea has been supporting the Ukrainian people with a focus on humanitarian aid, and we said we will continue to provide support in this way in the future.”
 
In his meeting with Senik, Park expressed concerns for the Ukrainian people and his hopes that the conflict will end soon, according to the Foreign Ministry. 
 
On Wednesday, Senik also met in Seoul with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who was visiting for a trilateral meeting with her Korean and Japanese counterparts. 
 
In their meeting, Sherman emphasized “robust, continued support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” from the United States, and provided Senik with an update on the U.S. security, humanitarian, and economic assistance “for long-term efforts,” according to the State Department.
 

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]


5.  N. Korea holds key party meeting amid reports of nuclear test possibility

We have to wait and see what the regime will tell us.

Excerpt:

The North may issue a new message justifying its nuclear development through the party meeting, observers here say.

(2nd LD) N. Korea holds key party meeting amid reports of nuclear test possibility | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · June 9, 2022
(ATTN: ADDS comments by gov't official in paras 9-11)
By Yi Wonju
SEOUL, June 9 (Yonhap) -- A key Workers' Party meeting of North Korea opened earlier this week with leader Kim Jong-un in attendance to discuss state policies, according to Pyongyang's media, as speculation is rampant that it may soon carry out a nuclear test.
The previous day, Kim presided over the fifth enlarged plenary meeting of the party's eighth Central Committee, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. It stopped short of giving details, including agenda items and when the session is scheduled to end.
The agency reported earlier that the meeting would be held to make an interim review of state policies for 2022 and to decide on a "series of important issues."
"It began the agenda discussion amid high political enthusiasm of all the participants who are fully aware of their important duty in the historic struggle for prosperity and development of our great country and the people's wellbeing," the KCNA said.
The fourth plenary session took place late last year.

The meeting this time, in particular, has drawn keen attention from the outside world as it comes amid signs that the North's seventh nuclear test is imminent. South Korean and U.S. officials said the North appeared to have completed related preparations.
The North may issue a new message justifying its nuclear development through the party meeting, observers here say.
In advance of a nuclear test in 2017, the North held a presidium session of the political bureau and adopted an agenda on carrying out the hydrogen bomb test.
The South's government is keeping close tabs on the possibility of the North unveiling its internal and external policy directions.
"The Ministry of Unification hopes that the plenary meeting will provide an opportunity for the North to move toward achieving real progress in denuclearization and normalization of inter-Korean relations, as well as stabilizing the lives of the North Korean people," a ministry official said on the customary condition of anonymity.
Regarding a possible nuclear test, South Korea is closely tracking and monitoring related facilities while maintaining a firm readiness posture under close coordination with the U.S., he added, in a position echoed by the defense authorities.
The North has also often used such high-profile party events to offer clues to its approach toward South Korea and the United States. Inter-Korean ties are still frosty, while denuclearization talks with the United States remain stalled.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol of the conservative People Power Party, which has fiercely criticized the previous Moon Jae-in administration's North Korea policy, was sworn in last month. The North has a track record of escalating tensions on the peninsula in the early months of a new South Korean government.
A plenary session of the Central Committee usually takes place at least once a year to decide its key policy line, organization reshuffles and other major issues. This week's session is likely to continue for at least two days.

julesyi@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · June 9, 2022


6. S. Korean foreign minister to visit U.S. next week
Sustained high level engagement.
S. Korean foreign minister to visit U.S. next week | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 김은정 · June 9, 2022
SEOUL, June 9 (Yonhap) -- South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin will next week make his first visit to the United States since taking office, his ministry said Thursday.
During his four-day trip from Sunday, he plans to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington D.C., it added. It would be the first face-to-face talks between the top diplomats of the allies since the May 10 launch of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration.
The two sides are expected to focus consultations on the North Korea issue and measures to follow up on a set of agreements that Yoon and President Joe Biden reached during their Seoul summit last month.

ejkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 김은정 · June 9, 2022


7. Top S. Korean, Chinese nuclear envoys discuss N. Korea issue


Top S. Korean, Chinese nuclear envoys discuss N. Korea issue | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 김은정 · June 9, 2022
SEOUL, June 9 (Yonhap) -- The chief nuclear envoys of South Korea and China had phone consultations Thursday on the Korean Peninsula issue, Seoul's foreign ministry said amid speculation that a nuclear test by North Korea may be imminent.
Kim Gunn, Seoul's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, and his Chinese counterpart, Liu Xiaoming, shared their assessments on regional security following the North's recent missile launches and exchanged views on ways to handle the issue, it added.
Kim stressed the importance of the international community taking a concerted and resolute stance against the North's provocations. The Chinese official agreed on the need for "close communication and cooperation" between Beijing and Seoul, according to the ministry.


ejkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 김은정 · June 9, 2022
8. The North Korean gov't tightens the screws on foreign trade

​A useful roll-up of north Korean economic action. I defer to real north Korean economic experts (other than Benjamin) to assess (e.g., all those that one or two fingers on my right hand can count, e.g., Bill and Nick?)

The North Korean gov't tightens the screws on foreign trade
By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein
Over the past year, Daily NK (and primarily its stellar reporter Seulkee Jang) has reported on what seems to be a fairly consistent effort by the North Korean regime to strengthen its controls over foreign trade permits. The Covid-19 border lockdown has made this, as other repressive measures of economic policy, a much easier task than it otherwise would have been. The purpose of this post is to summarize the development to date by gathering the reports in one place, hopefully generating a somewhat holistic picture of what’s been happening.
Tight government regulation of foreign trade is, of course, nothing new in North Korea. Trade has always occurred at the mercy of the state, making it a fertile ground for corruption. From May 2019:
The continuing international sanctions on North Korea are causing difficulties for the country’s traders, who are having trouble finding items not on the sanctions list to sell as well as having to pay “loyalty payments” to the state and bribes to government officials.
“Traders are saying that the business environment in North Korea is poor and that they have a lot of difficulty importing materials from China that don’t violate the sanctions. Even if products clear Chinese customs without a problem, traders face issues in North Korea […] North Korean customs agents demand bribes and the traders say they’re left with nothing,” a source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK.
“The customs officials demand bribes and justify their demands with excuses like ‘The state is building this or that project so be a patriot and hand over the money’ […] Traders don’t have much choice, so they just pay the bribes.”
[…]
Traders are faced with being branded “anti-socialist” and punished if they refuse to contribute money for so-called state construction projects.
Government officials ultimately decide whether such payments really go to state construction projects or are accepted as personal bribes. Some of the customs officials may be sending some of the money to state coffers while keeping the rest for themselves.
It is not only imports of contract-manufactured materials imported from China that are facing difficulties. Traders who manufacture products in North Korea and export them to China also face demands from customs officials for bribes.
(Mun Dong Hui, “North Korean customs officials continue to demand bribes from traders,” May 5th, 2019.)
In November 2020, the Supreme People’s Assembly revised the country’s enterprise law to strengthen state control over firms engaging in foreign trade. Late that month, a source for the Daily NK claimed that the revision reduced what private traders have to pay to the state while strengthening control over these units:
According to a Daily NK source in Pyongyang, the bill to revise and supplement the Enterprise Act includes provisions that reduce what private “kiji” pay to the state and encourage foreign exchange earning and trading activities.
A kiji is a small private business organization of about seven people that is nominally attached to a trading company.
The act has permitted payments to the state (in cash or kind) to be cut by a third and private business operators are now allowed to take a greater share. The relevant cadres have been ordered to encourage the establishment of enterprises by telling prospective entrepreneurs that they “may pay just 10% of their profits.” It remains unconfirmed, however, whether this has been clearly included in the legislation.
“Since the (individual’s) take has been increased, it could also be read as an instruction to do more private business or earn more foreign currency,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In particular, the authorities reportedly prepared the legal basis to reinvigorate trade through the latest revision to the Enterprise Act.
(Seulkee Jang, “N. Korea’s recent revision of Enterprise Act appears aimed at increasing trade,” November 25th, 2020.)
Some five months later, in April the following year, DNK reported that the state had ordered trading agencies to apply for new waku or trading permits, meaning that they would be required to submit a wide range of documents for scrutiny:
The agencies that will begin conducting trade on Apr. 20 received direct orders from the party to continue trade even after the border was closed at the end of January 2020. As companies belonging to powerful North Korean institutions, these agencies will simply have to undergo an inspection to confirm their activities. As soon as this is complete, they will be permitted to participate in official trade.
The authorities reportedly shortlisted trading companies that are a part of the Central Committee or the Munitions Industry Department (MID) to receive permission to resume trade.
Meanwhile, the authorities ordered that individual traders working for non-priority trading companies or agencies apply for new waku.
The Ministry of External Economic Relations gave each trading agency written instructions to reapply for new waku during the three days between Apr. 12 and Apr. 14. Trading agencies and companies reportedly submitted their applications and authentication materials via the North Korean intranet per the guidelines.
Even agencies and individuals who have been issued waku in the past must apply again for a new permit. If there are no issues, the firms will receive their newly-issued waku after an evaluation period of three to four weeks and be able to participate in official trade from the beginning of May.
Materials needed for the waku application reportedly include certificates regarding partner companies in China, records of previous imports and exports, and plans for future trade.
(Seulkee Jang, “N. Korea hands down order regarding issuance of trade certificates,” April 20th, 2021.)
Around the same time, the authorities reportedly began to more thoroughly investigate traders to crack down on smuggling, partially as a result of the above-mentioned scrutiny:
A Daily NK source recently reported that the authorities have been ferreting out and punishing traders involved in smuggling. This crackdown could be an attempt to encourage trade workers to be cautious until the authorities open the border.
“From the beginning of this month until recently, the authorities have been arresting anyone who engaged in smuggling and those who did not submit their ‘loyalty fees’ to the party on time. [The authorities] have exiled some of them to remote areas, or sentenced them to re-education through labor or even death,” a source in North Pyongan Province said on May 18. “They are being punished because they misappropriated trade profits for their own personal gain and not for the benefit of the country.”
The hunt for those who participated in or abetted smuggling and those who failed to pay party “loyalty fees” reportedly came to a close in late April. North Korean authorities also investigated traders and firms applying for new waku (trade certificates) during the same period.
North Korean authorities accepted new waku applications from Apr. 12 and Apr. 14. After receiving the applications, the Central Committee’s Department of Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and the Ministry of State Security began screening them.
“Twenty people ended up being targeted for punishment,” the source said. “[The authorities] arrested all of them at the same time and their punishments were meted out immediately.”
(Seulkee Jang, “North Korean authorities ferret out traders involved in smuggling,” May 24th, 2021.)
These increasingly intense investigations targeting “unauthorized trade” continued through the summer, as DNK reported in June and July:
The KPW-USD rate broke past KPW 7,000 on May 18, just before the new waku were issued. The renminbi was also going beyond KPW 1,000.
Daily NK has found that the exchange rates – which had been climbing continuously on the back of expectations surrounding the reopening of trade, and the issuance of new waku – suddenly collapsed because of new trade controls recently enacted by the North Korean authorities.
According to a high-ranking source, the Central Committee issued an order on June 3 telling recipients of new waku that their certificates did not mean they could participate in trade “right away.” If they do participate in trade without Workers’ Party approval, warned the order, it would be regarded as smuggling and subject to severe punishment.
(Seulkee Jang, “US dollar and Chinese reminbi plummet against North Korean won once again,” June 9th, 2021.)
And the report from July:
North Korean authorities are conducting large-scale inspections aimed at cracking down on unauthorized trade. This has led some North Korean trading companies involved in the trade of “unauthorized items” to cancel their transactions with Chinese traders.
According to a Daily NK source in China on Sunday, an unnamed North Korean trading company recently requested its Chinese partner suspend a transaction. The Chinese partner found this absurd as it was already prepared to ship the construction materials, paper, soap, and other sundries that had been ordered.
[…]
A Daily NK investigation – based on information from multiple sources in North Korea – has determined that the Ministry of State Security, Ministry of Social Security, and disease control authorities launched a joint inspection into illegal trading activity last month.
On June 3, North Korean authorities issued an order that warned traders against engaging in trade without prior approval from the Workers’ Party, regardless of whether they received a new waku (trade certificate). According to the order, unauthorized trade will be regarded as “smuggling” and subject to punishment.
The authorities subsequently formed inspection teams, which are now scrutinizing recent transactions by the country’s trading companies.
Trading companies that tried to import unauthorized goods along with authorized items now appear to be “scrambling” to cancel their deals with Chinese traders or are simply refusing to accept the cargo.
“North Koreans say you can trade only if you’ve gotten permission from that person [North Korean leader Kim Jong Un] – even if you’ve got a waku,” one of the sources in China told Daily NK. “Instead of trade returning to [pre-pandemic] levels, it’s getting harder [for Chinese traders] to conclude deals with North Korea.”
(Seulkee Jang, “North Korea conducts large-scale inspections aimed at ending unauthorized trade,” July 6th, 2021.)
Only days later, DNK reported that approximately 20 trading company heads had been arrested in the crackdown against unauthorized trade. The reference to quarantine procedures is a clear example of how anti-epidemic measures have often intertwined with enhanced state controls:
According to a Daily NK source in North Korea on Thursday, the authorities arrested around 20 heads of trading companies during a “joint inspection” of trade-related entities that began last month. Hundreds of trade workers have also been arrested and are undergoing questioning.
The ruling party’s Organization and Guidance Department is reportedly taking overall command of the joint inspection.
Those arrested are being charged with either importing items outside their approved import lists or distributing imported items that have not gone through proper quarantine procedures.
North Korean authorities are reportedly applying heavy punishments on importers who circumvent quarantine procedures, rather than focusing on just the import of unapproved items.
Daily NK understands that the items imported by companies busted in the latest inspection include consumer goods scarce in most of the country’s markets, including seasonings, soybean oil, sesame seeds, and sugar.
Based on Daily NK’s information, the authorities have confiscated all of the unapproved imported items. They have also confiscated the waku (trade certificates) of the relevant trading companies.
[…]
Daily NK’s source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the authorities are making no exemptions in this latest crackdown – not even for trading companies attached to Bureau 39, which handles the ruling Kim family’s slush funds. If companies are caught engaging in illegal trade, they apparently face severe and “merciless” punishment.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has reportedly ordered that individuals caught in the inspection face criminal proceedings rather than “party-related punishments”; that busted cadre-level trade officials be stripped of their party credentials; and that the authorities apply the same criteria in their crackdown to companies affiliated with “special institutions.”
Given that North Korean authorities regard illegal trade by trading companies as “political activity,” offenders apparently face the severest of punishments — including death or confinement in a political prison camp — depending on the severity of their crimes.
“At the very least, nobody will get away with a mere slap on the wrist, like time in a forced labor or reeducation camp,” the source said.
(Seulkee Jang, “North Korea arrests around 20 trading company heads in latest crackdown on unauthorized trade,” July 16th, 2021.)
The source said the committee also pointed to blocked provisions of raw materials and supplies in all areas of economic activity and serious energy shortages. The committee said discussions of trade must focus on these problems, essentially calling for traders to resolve food shortages and normalize enterprise operations by promptly restarting trade.
However, the source said the committee focused more on “system compliance.” It told traders that they must abandon rushed “campaigns” and deeply analyze trade as it involves the import and export of the state’s foreign exchange.
Moreover, it criticized officials in higher-level work units for personal and institutional selfishness, bragging about their “special” status. This well worn practice must be “uprooted,” it said.
The committee targeted corruption as well. Officials said they would show no forgiveness for traders collaborating with certain individuals to “mix goods” that have nothing to do with the national economy into their imports. It warned that “non-socialist and anti-socialist behavior” would face punishment by the party, administrative organs, or through the legal system.
(Jong So Yong, “Yanggang Province’s provincial party committee discusses China-North Korea trade,” December 31st, 2021.)
For some months, DNK reports on the issue took a pause, suggesting that the campaign may have ceased to grow in intensity for some time. In early April 2022, however, Jang Seulkee reported that a large-scale restructuring appears to be going on in the foreign trade sector, strengthening cabinet control:
North Korean authorities are disbanding trading firms that fail to produce results, and restructuring the trade sector to give the Cabinet direct supervision over the import and export details of all trading companies, as well as their profits.
According to multiple Daily NK sources in North Korea on Friday, the authorities have been placing trading companies across the nation under the direct control of the Cabinet. Trading companies that have failed to take part in import or export activity over the last couple of years are being merged out of existence, even if they are under the jurisdiction of “special bodies” like the security services.
The authorities have also created a report system that allows the Cabinet to manage or supervise trading companies’ accounting records and cash flow.
[…]
North Korea has apparently started to structurally readjust the trade sector as part of efforts to restore the state’s “unitary trading system.”
In a report on economic affairs to the Supreme People’s Assembly in February, Premier Kim Tok Hun said he would continue to push activities to restore the state’s unitary trading system in the external economic relations sector.
North Korean authorities have granted enterprises some degree of trade autonomy since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took power, but the premier’s comment could be seen as a declaration that the state would be the sole trading actor going forward.
North Korean authorities have begun merging trading companies and bringing them under Cabinet supervision as their first effort to restore the state’s unitary trading system in an apparent bid to resolve the problem of bloated trading companies making illicit gains.
(Seulkee Jang, “North Korea restructures trade sector to give Cabinet more direct supervision over imports/exports,” April 4th, 2022.)
Ten days later, Jang reported that trade certificates of several trading companies of significant size had been confiscated by the authorities, who also arrested some ten trade officials:
According to a Daily NK source in North Korea on Wednesday, the Central Public Prosecutor’s Office arrested about 10 trade officials this month, confiscating the waku of their trading companies as well.
During North Korea’s efforts over the last month to merge trading companies, the authorities have discovered cases where companies have taken on excessive debt. The government has taken issue with officials of these companies for poor accounting practices and filing false financial reports.
Daily NK recently reported that North Korean authorities have started restructuring the country’s trade sector as the first step to restoring the state’s “unitary trade system.” These efforts have included merging and disbanding trading companies and making companies directly report their trading and sales details to the country’s Cabinet.
The individuals arrested in the latest round-up include officials with trading companies attached to major state institutions, including the Supreme Guard Command, Ministry of State Security, and External Construction Guidance Bureau. North Korea has apparently punished individuals and companies when their financial audits have turned up problems, regardless of the company’s size or parent organization.
However, trading companies that had their waku confiscated are crying foul. They say it is wrong for prosecutors to take away their waku simply because “rash financial audits” turned up “excessive debts” or missing numbers when the prosecutors themselves know nothing about the companies’ trade transactions.
(Seulkee Jang, “N. Korea confiscates the trade certificates of several mid- to large-sized trading companies,” April 14th, 2022.)
All of this was, naturally, related to the state effort to collect more foreign currency in the face of what must be depleting supplies:
North Korean authorities are reviewing how well provincial trade bureaus have met their foreign currency quotas in the first quarter of the year and are auditing bureaus that failed to meet their quotas, Daily NK has learned.
“The government has assigned officials from the State Planning Commission and the Ministry of External Economic Relations to audit the provinces that failed to provide the state with the planned amount of foreign currency funds in the first quarter of the year. The auditors are supposed to review the results and correct what went wrong,” a source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Wednesday.
[…]
“The current objective of the audit is to figure out how persistently and energetically provincial trade bureaus have been in delivering foreign currency to the state. But another objective is to pressure the bureaus to unconditionally meet the state’s foreign currency quota in the future,” the source said.
The auditors have mostly been examining documents provided by managers, bookkeepers, and statisticians at trade companies in North Hamgyong Province. After marking problem areas in red, they are meeting with the people involved to check on their work processes and outcomes, the source explained.
According to him, the auditors in North Hamgyong Province have looked through all the documents not only from the first quarter of the year but from the last two years as well. They are asking hard questions about the province’s failure to meet the foreign currency quota. The auditors reportedly believe that low-level trade organizations did not make a serious effort to meet the quota.
Trade organizations did manage to get permission in Sinuiju for sending imports and exports through the Uiju quarantine center. However, the auditors were greatly disappointed by the fact that these organizations, thinking they had no way of meeting the quota, attempted to shirk responsibility for not sending any foreign currency to the government over more than two years.
(Jong So Yong, “N. Korea conducts audits on how well provincial trade bureaus met foreign currency quotas,” April 29th, 2022.)
As is often the case, provincial administration incentives appear to be misaligned with the central government’s orders:
North Hamgyong Province’s trade bureau is working hard to ensure the survival of as many trade companies as possible following orders by the central government to merge or close companies deemed ineffective.
“The provincial trade bureau is under a great deal of stress due to the government’s instructions regarding the merger and closure of trade companies,” a source in the province told Daily NK on Monday.
North Korea is carrying out several measures to either combine trade companies or eliminate them altogether as part of broader efforts to restore a system in which all trade is administered by the state, he explained.
With trade companies facing the very real prospect of elimination, many are making every effort to survive, with the hope that trade will resume in earnest once the country’s borders are reopened, the source added.
The source said that the North Korean government believes that it does not need trade companies that focus solely on either imports or imports. During the trade company registration process, the government is setting precise figures for imports and exports and emphasizing that only trade companies that can actively pursue both activities serve the state’s economic interest.
(Jong So Yong, N. Hamgyong Province’s trade bureau under stress to save as many trade companies as possible,” May 4th, 2022.)
As of last month, the process to tighten trade administration was still ongoing. The aforementioned state surveys of trading companies revealed that all of them carry substantial amounts of debt:
North Korean authorities are pushing the dissolution and merging of trading companies as the first stage of the restoration of the unitary state-led trading system. However, things are reportedly moving slowly due to debt problems with the trading companies.
According to a high-ranking Daily NK source in North Korea on Thursday, North Korean authorities started dissolving and merging trading companies to build a state-led trading system in March, making the Cabinet responsible for managing all import and export breakdowns. They have yet to complete the process, however.
This is because financial surveys conducted to dissolve and merge the companies revealed that every firm carried significant debt.
[…]
The source said the most likely plan is for the North Korean authorities and trading companies to split the debts 50/50.
The problem is that North Korean authorities lack the financial wherewithal to assume 50% of the debts. Another Daily NK source familiar with North Korea’s trade situation said no trading officials believe the authorities will take care of 50% of the debts, even if they say they will.
North Korean authorities currently set the official exchange rate at a very low KPW 150 to the dollar. Compared to the rate of KPW 6,500 to the dollar at a market in Pyongyang on May 1, the government currently sells the dollar at a price over 40 times lower than market value.
Because of this, if the North Korean authorities assume the debt using the official exchange rate, the high-level trade agencies will assume virtually all the debt.
This being the case, both the subordinate trading companies and the superordinate ones that will absorb them are complaining.
(Seulkee Jang, “N. Korea’s efforts to dissolve and merge trading companies are hitting snags,” May 16th, 2022.)
It seems fairly clear that the state intends to fully subordinate foreign trade under cabinet control, drastically tightening the screws on companies that engage in foreign commerce. It is an ambitious project given that foreign trade was relatively decentralized for some years, but it is an ambition that the state has held since at least 2018. We may see some limited measures of retreat but the overall goal will likely persist for some time.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 8th, 2022 at 2:23 pm and is filed under CabinetCentral Trade Supervision AgencyCompaniesCrimeDPRK organizationsInternational tradePolitical economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can , or trackback from your own site.


9. N. Korea lifts restrictions on the operation of markets in some major cities


​Again, an economic paradox for the regime. The Korean people need markets as a safety valve for survival since the public distribution system broke down in the 19990s. But the regime will still strictly control the markets because it has determined that too much market activity is a threat to the regime.


N. Korea lifts restrictions on the operation of markets in some major cities - Daily NK
The authorities are strictly limiting the operating hours of these general markets to two or three hours a day
By Seulkee Jang - 2022.06.09 10:00am
dailynk.com · June 9, 2022
North Korean farmers conducting the fall harvest in Sariwon, North Hwanghae Province. (Rodong Sinmun)
North Korean authorities have recently lifted restrictions on some of the country’s general markets, Daily NK has learned.
According to multiple Daily NK sources in the country on Tuesday, official markets in major cities like Pyongyang and Pyongsong now regularly open about two or three times a week.
North Korea closed down general markets in many areas, including Pyongyang, as it tightened regional lockdowns following the country’s first official announcement of a COVID-19 outbreak on May 12.
Major official markets in Pyongyang are reportedly opening once every two days, including the Tongil Market in Rangrang District — the capital’s largest general market — and the Inhung Market in Maranbong District.
Pyongsong’s Okjon General Market is also opening about three times a week, suggesting that North Korean authorities are permitting the operation of general markets in many of the country’s major cities.
That being said, the authorities are strictly limiting the operating hours of these general markets to two or three hours a day. They briefly open from 5:00 to 8:00 PM or 6:00 to 8:00 PM.
In normal times, general markets opened for eight hours a day, from 10 AM to 6 PM. Market hours may have been shortened in connection with the mass mobilization of people to rural areas for rice planting.
In past years, market operating hours were shortened to three to four hours a day when people were mass-mobilized to rural areas at the start of the farming season.
However, market operating hours appear to have been shortened even more this farming season due to lockdowns and other disease control measures, along with the shortage of labor for rural mobilizations.
Meanwhile, some regions of the country continue to keep general markets closed. In some parts of Yanggang Province, which borders China and has seen a recent spike in fever cases, markets are not operating as normal.
However, even in regions where markets have yet to reopen, unofficial alleyway markets and “grasshopper markets” are active, with crackdowns on these kinds of commercial activities easing somewhat compared to early and mid-May of this year.
Many North Koreans reportedly believe that the authorities began permitting the opening of official markets late last month because of public discontent and due to labor shortages for rural mobilizations.
“The prompt reopening of the markets was because markets are directly tied with people’s livelihoods and are also related to efforts to ensure sufficient manpower for rural mobilizations. If people can’t go to the markets to obtain food to eat, they won’t be able to do much labor,” a source in South Pyongan Province told Daily NK.
In short, people must have access to markets to buy food for meals, and they can only participate in mobilizations to rural areas if they have enough to eat.
“Even the government knows full well that people can’t survive if the markets are closed,” said a source in Pyongyang. “The recent easing of disease control measures is aimed at ensuring people can get enough to eat and are able to participate in the rural mobilizations.”
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
dailynk.com · June 9, 2022

10.  N.Korea Squandered $650 Million Firing Missiles This Year

Excellent message. Good work KIDA. If we had a comprehensive information influence activities campaign we could try to use this to inform and influence the people in the north. 

This is what the Korean people in the north need to hear and read:

With that money the North Korean regime could buy up to 32.5 million doses of Pfizer vaccines for the entire North Korean population. The amount is also equal to the cost of buying 510,000 to 840,000 tons of rice at Pyongyang market prices, which could almost make up for its shortage of 860,000 tons of rice this year.

​I would like to see ​the data expressed this way to be meaningful for the Korean people in the north. This money could have put rice on the table of every Korean family in the north or every meal for the entire year and every Korean in the north could have been vaccinated against COVID.

N.Korea Squandered $650 Million Firing Missiles This Year
June 09, 2022 12:59
The total cost of the 33 missiles North Korea has fired so far this year amounts to somewhere between US$400 and 650 million. That would buy the impoverished country enough COVID vaccines for its entire population of some 25 million and nearly solve its food shortage this year.
The North has fired six long-range ballistic missiles, one medium-range Hwasong-12 missile, and 26 short-range missiles, including KN-23 Iskander missiles, since early this year.
The Korea Institute for Defense Analyses estimates the total cost of those missiles at between $400 and 650 million, including the cost for materials (50 to 80 percent), personnel cost (10 to 30 percent), and other expenses (10 to 20 percent).
The cost of firing each long-range ballistic missile is estimated at between W25 and 37.5 billion, each medium-range missile at between W12.5 and 37.5 billion, and each short-range missile at between W3.8 and 6.3 billion (US$1=W1,257).
/News1
The North seems to be focusing on testing new missiles it has developed since 2017. Each Scud or Rodong missile, the older mainstays of the North, cost somewhere between W1 and 2 billion.
With that money the North Korean regime could buy up to 32.5 million doses of Pfizer vaccines for the entire North Korean population. The amount is also equal to the cost of buying 510,000 to 840,000 tons of rice at Pyongyang market prices, which could almost make up for its shortage of 860,000 tons of rice this year.
"This shows that the regime's wrongful policy is responsible for North Korean people’s poor health and poverty," People Power Party lawmaker Shin Won-sik of the National Assembly's Defense Committee said. "It's wrong to think we should give unconditional assistance to the North."
  • Copyright © Chosunilbo & Chosun.com

11. Malnourished soldiers providing little help to N. Korea's agricultural areas

I continue to be very concerned about the coherency of the nKPA. The loss of coherency of the military and the military's support for the regime will have catastrophic consequences for the regime but also for the alliance, the region, and the world. Are we updating our contingency plans?
 
Big 8 Contingencies
1. Provocations to gain political and economic concessions
2. nk Attack – execution of the nK campaign plan to reunify the peninsula by force
3. Civil War/Chaos/Anarchy
4. Refugee crisis
5. Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster relief
6. WMD, loss of control – seize and secure operations
7. Resistance to foreign intervention (e.g., insurgency)
8. How to handle the nKPA during regime collapse short of war


What comes after these 8 continuities? What is the acceptable durable political arrangement that will sustain, protect, and advance ROK/US alliance interests? A free and unified Korea.

Malnourished soldiers providing little help to N. Korea's agricultural areas - Daily NK
North Korea has raised military tensions by launching ICBMs yet, at the same time, the country's authorities have begun full-scale mobilizations of soldiers for farming work
By Kim Chae Hwan - 2022.06.09 2:00pm
dailynk.com · June 9, 2022
A photo of North Korean farmers spraying pesticides published by North Korean media on May 5. (Rodong Sinmun - News1)
Even though North Korea is mobilizing soldiers to support agricultural villages during the rice planting season, the soldiers are providing little help to agricultural areas because they are so undernourished.
According to a Daily NK source in North Korea last Thursday, the military’s supreme command issued an order in May pertaining to the mobilization of soldiers to agricultural communities.
Specifically, the order called on soldiers to remember that completing rice planting in a timely manner is an important factor determining how this year’s farming will go, urging soldiers to take part in agricultural support activities “both materially and morally.”
North Korea has recently raised military tensions on the Korean Peninsula and internationally by launching ICBMs and other missiles. Domestically, however, the authorities have eased battle readiness somewhat, beginning full-scale mobilizations of soldiers for farming work.
The military’s order called on units to avoid meetings or gatherings unrelated to agricultural support that could hinder activities during the mobilization period. In particular, it warned against workers at military units making excuses to get out of agricultural support activities.
In response to the order, units of the army’s Fourth Corps in South Hwanghae Province are helping plant rice and pick weeds at local farms after their morning political and ideological lectures.
However, Daily NK’s source said since many of the soldiers have been unable to eat and suffer malnourishment as a result, they have been unable to speed up rice planting efforts in agricultural areas.
In the case of one battalion of new recruits with the Fourth Corps, most of the troops heading into the fields suffer from malnutrition.
The soldiers must work at least six hours a day or more at local farms helping to plant rice or pick weeds, but many are so weak that they cannot move. All they do is pass the time sitting in the shade before returning to their units.
“We thought there’d be no agricultural mobilizations this year because of the spread of COVID-19, but they are fully mobilizing soldiers to work at farms suffering from labor shortages during the rice-planting season to resolve pressing food shortages,” said the source. “Some locals welcome the soldiers’ help, but others are complaining about frequent burglaries by hungry soldiers.”
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.

dailynk.com · June 9, 2022

12. Defense ministry pushes for new post focusing on N.K. threats: sources

Good move. The right direction forward.

I would like to see even more. But small steps may be necessary. By the end of the year I would like to see these actions.

First, the two sides should establish a presidential-level strategic unification task force that can provide guidance and oversight of the agencies that will plan and execute a South Korea-led, U.S.-supported unification of the peninsula. A small but committed team in Seoul and Washington can solve big challenges.

Second, the U.S. and the ROK should develop a combined strategic influence campaign to prepare for unification. This requires a successful outcome of the essential ideological war on the peninsula. The Korean people have a choice between the shared ROK/U.S. value of freedom, and the authoritarian rule of Pyongyang’s Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State. It is time to give the Koreans a chance to choose. Testimony from North Korean escapees indicates that all Koreans long for freedom when they understand that the regime has denied them their human rights. 

Third, the two allies should establish a Korean Defectors Information Institute. This will allow escapees to provide their valuable expertise to the strategic influence campaign and the unification process.

Lastly, Washington and Seoul should embrace and empower the work of civil society organizations that aim to end suffering and achieve unification. These organizations could include the Global Peace Foundation, Action for Korea United, AKU USA, and the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. Synergistic government and civil society efforts would bring positive change to the Korean people.

Biden and Yoon have an opportunity to develop a new, long-term strategy that supports an ROK-led effort to achieve a free and unified Korea. It’s long past time for Washington and Seoul to seize it and seek to create a United Republic of Korea.
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/05/yoon-biden-summit/

Defense ministry pushes for new post focusing on N.K. threats: sources | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 강윤승 · June 9, 2022
SEOUL, June 9 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's defense ministry is seeking to create a new policy post handling North Korea's military threats and abolish an existing one dedicated to promoting cross-border reconciliation, informed sources said Thursday.
The move came in line with the Yoon Suk-yeol administration's avowed stance to sternly deal with the North's nuclear and missile threats amid concerns about the possibility of the regime carrying out a nuclear test.
"The (new) defense policy bureau is designed with a focus on crisis management amid the evolving and shifting security conditions," a source said on the condition of anonymity.
Under the envisioned reorganization scheme, the ministry is pushing to install a director general-level official tasked with managing potential North Korea-driven security crisis, and remove the North Korea policy bureau that has focused largely on inter-Korean trust and cooperation, according to the sources.
Created in late 2017, the North Korea policy post is a product of the preceding liberal Moon Jae-in administration's initiative to promote cross-border rapprochement and foster lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.
The defense ministry has been consulting with the interior ministry over the organizational change, as the Yoon government seeks to beef up defense following Pyongyang's continued missile launches.
Last weekend, the North fired eight short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea in its 18th show of force this year.
colin@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 강윤승 · June 9, 2022


13. Yoon says he expects S. Korea-Japan issues to be resolved smoothly


I hope his optimism will be rewarded.

Yoon says he expects S. Korea-Japan issues to be resolved smoothly | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 이해아 · June 9, 2022
SEOUL, June 9 (Yonhap) -- President Yoon Suk-yeol said Thursday he expects historical issues between South Korea and Japan to be resolved smoothly from a standpoint of future-oriented cooperation.
His comment came amid news reports he could meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a NATO summit in Spain later this month for what would be the two countries' first summit in over two years.
"We're preparing for it, but it's difficult to say it's been fixed," Yoon told reporters at the presidential office when asked if he plans to attend the NATO meeting and whether a summit with Kishida is under consideration.
"On historical issues, I expect issues between South Korea and Japan to be resolved smoothly from a standpoint of cooperation for the future," he said.
Relations between the two countries have been stuck at a new low amid disputes stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, including the issue of Korean women forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops during World War II.

hague@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 이해아 · June 9, 2022




14. N. Korea's new suspected COVID-19 cases fall below 60,000


​Beware any optimistic reporting from the regime and the Propaganda and Agitation Department

(LEAD) N. Korea's new suspected COVID-19 cases fall below 60,000 | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · June 8, 2022
(ATTN: ADDS more info throughout, photo, byline)
By Yi Wonju
SEOUL, June 8 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's new fever cases dropped below 60,000 for the first time since it announced a COVID-19 outbreak last month, according to its state media Wednesday.
Over 54,610 more people showed symptoms of fever over a 24-hour period until 6 p.m. the previous day, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, citing data from the state emergency epidemic prevention headquarters. It provided no further information regarding additional deaths.
The total number of fever cases since late April came to over 4.25 million as of 6 p.m. Tuesday, of which more than 4.15 million have recovered and at least 103,300 are being treated, it added.
The country's daily fever tally has been on a downward trend after peaking at over 392,920 on May 15.
The death toll stood at 71 as of June 3, showed its latest mortality update released the following day.

Pyongyang is stepping up efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and to ensure the "smooth operation of all sectors of the national economy," the KCNA reported.
"Farms all over the country are intensifying medical check-ups of the volunteers involved in the farm work and responsibly sterilizing water reservoirs, wells, etc.," it added.
The KCNA also said all institutions, industrial establishments and farms are pushing ahead with their production and construction work to meet the requirements of the "maximum emergency" system.
Observers here have voiced concerns over the impact of the virus outbreak in the impoverished country known for its fragile health care system and chronic food shortages among many of the 25 million residents nationwide.
On May 12, North Korea disclosed its first COVID-19 case after claiming to be coronavirus-free for over two years and proclaimed a shift to the "maximum emergency" virus control system.

julesyi@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · June 8, 2022



15. Unification minister, Sherman discuss need for N. Korea to resume dialogue

As I have written it will be some time before Kim can be made to understand this. We need to continue consistently strong responses to north Korean actions to send the message that his strategy will not work. To continue to quote President Yoon: there will be no appeasement. But words are not enough. We have to respond with a dmontrations of our military readiness whenever Kimm acts out. We need to recognize regime strategy, understand it, expose it, and attack it (with information). 

Unification minister, Sherman discuss need for N. Korea to resume dialogue | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by 이치동 · June 8, 2022
SEOUL, June 8 (Yonhap) -- A senior U.S. State Department official had meetings here with South Korea's top government officials in charge of inter-Korean affairs Wednesday, during which they discussed the need for North Korea to return to denuclearization talks.
In a Twitter message, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said she had "productive" meetings with Unification Minister Kwon Young-se and Vice Unification Minister Kim Ki-woong.
"We discussed the DPRK's unlawful ballistic missile launches and the need for Pyongyang to engage in dialogue," she tweeted without elaborating.
Sherman was on a visit to Seoul for consultations with her South Korean and Japanese counterparts mainly on North Korea, which has reportedly completed preparations for another nuclear test.


(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by 이치동 · June 8, 2022



​16. ​ Hollow US threat to North Korean nuke test


With all due respect to Mr. Salmon who does very good reporting, his analysis illustrates the problem we have with north Korea and diplomatic statements. His interpretation, like most of ours, is that a strong and forceful response must be kinetic and that we are unwilling to initiate a kinetic response out of fear of escalation. And we should be very clear, a kinetic response is warranted, and will be executed,  if the ROK is attacked.

As I have outlined three are many non-kinetic forceful responses, the most important being the use of information which does pose an existential threat to the regime. 

Again what is most important is to respond with demonstrations of military readiness and to be consistent over time until Kim comes to the conclusion cannot be successful or his elite and military leaders sufficiently pressure him to make a change (or some other internal change takes place).

Hollow US threat to North Korean nuke test
Washington constrained by kinetic risk, broken UN unity, regime resistance and rising anti-US unity in region
asiatimes.com · by Andrew Salmon · June 8, 2022
SEOUL – US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman has warned North Korea that it would face a “swift and forceful response” if it tests a nuclear device, claiming in the same breath that “the entire world will respond in a strong and clear manner.”
The statement, made in Seoul on June 7, pours more fuel on the fire that has been heating up around the flashpoint Korean peninsula amid indications that Pyongyang is set to detonate a nuclear device.
North Korea overturned its self-applied 2018 moratorium on test firings of intercontinental ballistic missiles in May. Now, intelligence analyses and statements by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) suggest that Pyongyang is on the verge of next nullifying its nuclear test moratorium.

But it’s not clear that American tough talk would be backed up with tough action if North Korea goes through with a new nuclear test.
In fact, it has been clear for decades that the US – for all its military, economic, diplomatic and political heft – lacks workable leverage over the isolated, heavily militarized, nuclear-armed and fiercely independent state.
Shows of military force – as seen on Monday (June 6), when the US and South Korea test-fired tactical missiles, and on Tuesday, when they deployed jets after North Korean test-fired ballistic missiles on Sunday – are certainly possible.
But a kinetic response looks out of the question given the potential for a cycle of escalation that rapidly spirals from military and mass civilian deaths on the peninsula to a potential cross-Pacific nuclear exchange.
Economically, North Korea has weathered a storm of international and national sanctions for years, with especially severe measures applied since 2016. Yet, its weapons of mass destruction research and deployment continue apace.

Diplomatically, amid fast-polarizing great power competition, the past unanimity on North Korea in the UN Security Council has recently cracked with China and Russia vetoing the latest round of US-proposed sanctions on North Korea.
Politically, the last issue points to a wider challenge to the US and its allies in the region.
China and Russia’s defense of North Korea at the UN was just one incident in a series of recent events that suggest emerging trilateral coordination between Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang. This nascent three-way partnership may be rising as a counter to the US as it seeks to upgrade its alliance networks in the region, including through the so-called Quad.
US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman has warned North Korea against conducting a nuclear test. Photo: AFP / Pool / Andrew Harnik
Sherman’s comments came after North Korea test-fired eight short-range ballistic missiles on June 5. That generated a response the following day when South Korea and – unusually – the US conducted their own test firings of eight missiles.
On Tuesday, the two allies deployed 20 jet fighters in a show of force over the Yellow Sea west of the peninsula.

Thus far in 2022, North Korea has tested 31 ballistic missiles – the most in a single year, according to US Special Representative on North Korea Sung Kim, who spoke yesterday in Washington. Kim said that Pyongyang could conduct a nuclear test “at any time” as “they’ve obviously done the preparations.”
IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi told the agency’s board on Monday that entrances to North Korea’s underground nuclear test site at Punggye-ri have been re-opened and activity at other nuclear sites across the country is underway.
Tunnels at Punggye-ri were collapsed with explosives during North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s diplomatic dalliance with then-US president Donald Trump in 2018. Cynics then suggested that the event was more flash than substance.
After Trump walked out of a summit with Kim in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2019, relations refroze. In 2021, at a party congress, North Korea unveiled a large list of weapons it plans to develop including hypersonic missiles, which it claims to have tested in January, and tactical nuclear weapons. Pyongyang’s previous atomic research has focused on strategic weapons.
Sherman is in the region meeting with Japanese and South Korean counterparts to discuss the perennial and seemingly intractable issue of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Today in Seoul, the three deputy foreign ministers –Takeo Mori, South Korea’s Cho Hyun-dong and Sherman – pledged to upgrade trilateral cooperation to counter the North’s security threat. The meeting of the trio, who will convene again in the Fall, is a follow-up after US President Joe Biden’s first Asian trip, on which he visited both Seoul and Tokyo in May.
Washington has long sought to upgrade trilateral security cooperation between Seoul and Tokyo, with which it maintains separate bilateral alliances. But historical grievances have long strained ties.
That upgrade may, at last, be feasible given the unusual posture of newly inaugurated South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who has made improving relations with Japan one pillar of his foreign policy platform.
The Biden administration has been seeking to weave alliance networks in East Asia ever tighter. Beyond Seoul-Tokyo, these relationships include the Quad – a dialog body rather than an alliance per se – and 2021’s AUKUS pact, which unites Australia, the UK and US.
And America’s key Asia ally Japan has also been firming up its defense relationships with partners as diverse and distant as ASEAN countries, Australia and the UK. Highly unusually, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida may join this month’s NATO summit.
But experts are cynical about both an effective response to North Korea and its nuclear weapons threat.
Aerial view of North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site. Image: Wikipedia
“I was a little bit surprised when she said that,” Daniel Pinkston, who teaches international relations at Troy University, said of Sherman’s strong comments. “She is a seasoned diplomat and to say ‘forceful’ seems like armed force, a use of force. But use of force against a nuclear test has never happened.”
Indeed, North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests since 2006, without facing any military action. And Washington’s current heavy focus on Ukraine argues against any kind of strike.
“The military option is off the table,” said Go Myong-hyun, a North Korea specialist at Seoul’s Asan Institute. “Any kinetic option is bound to escalate and the US cannot afford such a distraction at the moment.”
If North Korea goes through with a nuclear test, Go expects “the classic textbook” response, namely deployment of strategic US assets to the region such as nuclear bombers, submarines and aircraft carriers.
He also suggested that more South Korea-US exercises could be conducted in and around the peninsula – placing psychological pressure on Pyongyang, which considers them preparation for an invasion. “I am not talking about annual exercises,but more informal and ad hoc drills,” Go said.
He also expects the US to transfer more sophisticated equipment to South Korea, such as ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) assets and missile interceptors, while upgrading interoperability as Seoul continues “OPCON Transfer.”
The transfer of wartime operational control of South Korean armed forces from Washington’s to Seoul’s command is a slow process that has been underway since 2007. At the time, it was expected to be completed by 2012, but as yet, there is no date for its expected achievement. Still, an ongoing upgrade of South Korean capabilities is built into the plan.
Sanctions have a long record of failing to rein in Kim’s WMD programs, and currently, North Korea is in virtual economic siege mode. After closing its borders since the advent of the global Covid pandemic, it has more recently locked down economic activities as it struggles to contain a nationwide Covid outbreak.
“They have been inflicting damage on their own economy by closing down and shutting down,” Go said. “That shows the outside world that they are immune to sanctions.”
Even so, Go said one possible avenue of pressure is upgrading the low-profile Proliferation Security Initiative, or PSI, under which the US and its allies enforce US sanctions on North Korea by monitoring and interdicting North Korean shipping in international waters. The PSI deploys both naval and air assets.
On the high seas, power-hungry North Korean ships have turned off their transponders while taking onboard fuel transfers from other vessels.
Currently, the PSI “is not at maximum capability,” said Go, who anticipates the US will upgrade the operation and the South Korean Navy will take a bigger role under the Yoon government than it had under the prior Moon Jae-in administration.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues to be a thorn in the side of the US. Photo: AFP / KCNA via KNS / Stringer
In possible anticipation of this, there has been very recent pushback against the PSI by China.
Canadian surveillance planes overseeing United Nations sanctions on North Korea and operating from US bases in Japan are being repeatedly buzzed by Chinese jets that fly so close that the Canadian crews have had to change course, Canada’s military claims. The revelation was made at a Canadian military press conference last week.
China responded by saying that the Canadian aircraft were endangering China’s national security.
Moreover, Chinese and Russian aircraft have been cooperating in joint exercises in Northeast Asian skies, notably in the Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZs) established unilaterally and without a foundation in international law by both Japan and South Korea.
And North Korea appears to be coordinating its ballistic missile tests with these fly-throughs, Asia Times has learned.
On March 23-24, Chinese aircraft and then Russian planes flew through the ADIZs, followed hours later by the test-firing of a ballistic missile by North Korea. The exact same sequence of events was repeated on May 24-25, as Biden wound his up Asia tour.
In January, UN Security Council members China and Russia vetoed a US-led initiative to impose more multilateral sanctions against Pyongyang for its ongoing missile tests. That was reportedly the first time since 2006 that the UN Security Council had split over punishing North Korea.
“It is possible,” that China-Russia-North Korea security cooperation is underway, Pinkston said. “Authoritarian regimes are transactional and there are opportunities in engaging in this kind of coordinated behavior.”
Given the “uncertainty in the world now,” the three capitals may be “testing the waters and seeing what they can do,” he added.
asiatimes.com · by Andrew Salmon · June 8, 2022


​17. U.S. asks if China, Russia favor their ties over world security with North Korea vetoes

Good question. We should keep pushing for resolutions and allow China and Russia to demonstrate to the UN and the world that they are not responsible members of the international community and do not support the rules based international order. With its veto China confirms that it seeks to export its authoritarian political system around the world in order to dominate regions, co-opt or coerce international organizations, create economic conditions favorable to China alone, and displace democratic institutions.




U.S. asks if China, Russia favor their ties over world security with North Korea vetoes
Reuters · by Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS, June 8 (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday questioned whether China and Russia had elevated their "no limits" strategic partnership above global security by vetoing more U.N. sanctions on North Korea over its renewed ballistic missile launches.
"We hope these vetoes are not a reflection of that partnership," senior U.S. diplomat Jeffrey DeLaurentis told a meeting of the 193-member U.N. General Assembly in response to the vetoes in the Security Council two weeks ago. read more
"Their explanations for exercising the veto were insufficient, not credible and not convincing. The vetoes were not deployed to serve our collective safety and security," said DeLaurentis, addressing the assembly after China and Russia.
China and Russia declared a "no limits" partnership in February, nearly three weeks before Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. Their vetoes on North Korea publicly split the U.N. Security Council for the first time since it started punishing Pyongyang with sanctions in 2006. read more
During a right of reply in the General Assembly later on Wednesday, Chinese diplomat Wu Jianjian said China categorically rejected "presumptious comments and accusations against China's voting position."
"China's vote against the U.S.-tabled draft resolution was entirely reasonable and justified," Wu said. "Continuing to increase the sanctions against DPRK (North Korea) would only make the likelihood of political solution even more remote."
The Russian U.N. mission did not immediately respond to request for comment on the U.S. remarks.
North Korea has carried out dozens of ballistic missile launches this year, including intercontinental rockets commonly known as ICBMs, after breaking a moratorium on tests that it self-imposed in 2018 after leader Kim Jong Un first met then-U.S. President Donald Trump.
The United States has warned that North Korea is preparing to conduct a seventh nuclear test, and says it will again push for U.N. sanctions if it takes place. read more
Earlier on Wednesday in his speech to the General Assembly, China's U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun blamed a "flip-flop of U.S. policies" for a renewed escalation of tensions, pushing Washington to take action.
"There are many things that the U.S. can do, such as easing sanctions on the DPRK (North Korea) in certain areas, and ending joint military exercises (with South Korea). The key is to take actions, not just talk about its readiness for dialogue with no preconditions," said Zhang.
DeLaurentis said Washington was "more than prepared to discuss easing sanctions to achieve the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." He said the United States has repeatedly tried to restart talks, sending public and private messages, but had not received a response.
North Korea defended its development of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as protection against "direct threats" from the United States. DeLaurentis said Pyongyang's missile launches and nuclear tests were unprovoked.
"The measures that the DPRK is taking for bolstering national defense capabilities are an inevitable choice to cope with the hostile threats of the U.S. within the scope of self-defense rights," North Korea's U.N. Ambassador Kim Song told the General Assembly.

Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Tim Ahmann, Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman
Reuters · by Michelle Nichols









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
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V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Personal Email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
Web Site: www.fdd.org
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Subscribe to FDD’s new podcastForeign 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."
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