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Quotes of the Day:
"Fear less, hope more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Hate less, love more; And all good things are yours."
– Swedish Proverb
"Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force."
– Tom Blandi
"The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime."
– Babe Ruth
1. Defense chief calls for maintaining capabilities to strike N.K. leadership
2. Is Kim Jong Un Preparing for War?
3. Websites of N. Korean propaganda outlets inaccessible for 2nd straight day
4. N.K. envoy calls Russia's use of Pyongyang missiles 'groundless accusation'
5. Russia-North Korea Military Cooperation Under UN Spotlight
6. Russia is revealing North Korea's ballistic missile secrets
7. North Korea is using Ukraine as a test site for its nuclear-capable missiles, South Korea says
8. Facebook post raises alarm about safety of water on Army base in South Korea
9. N. Korea’s elite defectors working at NIS increases during Yoon administration
10. Foreign Minister emphasizes North Korea coordination in China relationship
11. North Korea: Covid-19 Still Used to Justify Repression
12. Expect North Korean Provocations in Low Earth Orbit
13. Over 17 North Koreans prosecuted for using S. Korean slang: Human Rights Watch
14. ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Government implements wage hike of more than 10 times (2) What are the intentions and goals of the KJU regime? People’s incomes have risen, but discontent is still deep…Wage hike part of the regime’s “rule over calories”
15. South Korea’s over 70 population overtakes 20-somethings
1. Defense chief calls for maintaining capabilities to strike N.K. leadership
The MINDEF is not pulling any punches. He is apparently supporting an influence campaign to message Kim Jong Un to beware of the KMPR plan.
Engagers will criticize this and others will say this helps Kim justify a threat from the South and the alliance to be used in the regime's own propaganda against the Korean people in the north and for calls for withdrawal of US forces and an excuse not to engage. I think the reality is that the Kim family regime only respects one thing and that is strength and power. It will exploit weakness but in the face of determined strength it will be deterred (until it no longer can - which will likely be the result of internal situation and nothing external). This is why I argue we need to be focused on the indicators of the internal situation as much as we need to be prepared for any contingency across the spectrum of conflict.
Defense chief calls for maintaining capabilities to strike N.K. leadership | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · January 12, 2024
SEOUL, Jan. 12 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's defense chief on Friday called for maintaining operational capabilities to eliminate the North Korean leadership in a contingency in order to deter its nuclear threats, his ministry said.
Defense Minister Shin Won-sik made the remark as he visited the Agency for Defense Development in Daejeon, 139 kilometers south of Seoul, days after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he has no intention of avoiding war with the South.
"In order to deter North Korea's nuclear threats, (we) must be equipped with capabilities for the Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR) operations at all times," Shin was quoted as saying by the ministry.
The KMPR refers to an operational plan to incapacitate the North Korean leadership in a major conflict. It is a pillar of the military's "three-axis" deterrence system that includes the Kill Chain preemptive strike platform and the Korea Air and Missile Defense system.
Shin inspected weapons systems being developed for the three-axis system, such as the long-range air-to-surface missile and the low-altitude missile defense system, as well as advanced unmanned assets, including stealth and killer drones, his office said.
The North's leader threatened to annihilate the South if it attempts to use force against the North, as he inspected major munitions factories earlier this week.
Defense Minister Shin Won-sik (front row, L) is briefed on weapons systems under development at the Agency for Defense Development in Daejeon, 139 kilometers south of Seoul, on Jan. 12, 2024, in this photo provided by his office. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · January 12, 2024
2. Is Kim Jong Un Preparing for War?
Some important analysis here from a certain perspective (the engagers).
However, I have a completely different set of assumptions about the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime. The regime has been preparing for war and the use of force to dominate the peninsula since the 1953 Armistice. It has been trying to set the conditions for this for 7 decades (the most important condition being the withdrawal of the US troops from the peninsula).
Now I have to pay due respect to Carlin and Hecker as they have been to north Korea and engaged directly with the regime and I have not. I liked HR McMaster''s concept of Strategic Empathy but I fear Carlin and Hecker's strategic empathy spins their analysis to support their engagement (and concession offering) agenda.
That said, I very much do agree that we need to be wary of surprise and their concept of the hypnosis of deterrence is a useful warning. (As SIr Lawrence Freedman has written, deterrence works until it doesn't). And I am cautious about the warning from my friends from north Korea who are concerned that Kim may feel he can act at the behest of Putin and create dilemmas in Northeast Asia that would be mutually beneficial and this could lead to conflict.
Although counterintuitive, I think Kim will be deterred as long as he is confident in his power. My fear is that when he can no longer control internal conditions then deterrence will fail as Kim may come to the conclusion that he has no other option than to act in order to try to remain in power. This is where the real danger lies and why I emphasize an equal priority on indicators of instability as on indicators for preparation for attack. They are not mutually exclusive.
But the engagers want us to be nice and make Kim feel secure by offering concessions and security guarantees that they believe will reduce tension. But as I have written many times, if we provide concessions (especially sanctions relief) Kim will assess his political warfare and blackmail diplomacy strategies a success and double down. It will not cause him to act as a responsible member of the international community to come to the negotiating table to negotiate his denunciation. And arms control negotiation will come to the same conclusion - more of the same form the regime.
I am reminded of Patrick Swayze's character in the film Road House. If we want to be nice to north Korea then we need to be nice this way and follow this excellent advice (I think I might incorporate the Dalton Concept into a new alliance political warfare strategy - Be Nice to north Korea):
-
Dalton: All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And three, be nice.
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Dalton: I want you to be nice until it's time to not be nice.
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Dalton: If somebody gets in your face and calls you a c********r, I want you to be nice. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won't walk, walk him. But be nice. If you can't walk him, one of the others will help you, and you'll both be nice. I want you to remember that it's a job. It's nothing personal.
Is Kim Jong Un Preparing for War?
https://www.38north.org/2024/01/is-kim-jong-un-preparing-for-war/
The situation on the Korean Peninsula is more dangerous than it has been at any time since early June 1950. That may sound overly dramatic, but we believe that, like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war. We do not know when or how Kim plans to pull the trigger, but the danger is already far beyond the routine warnings in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo about Pyongyang’s “provocations.” In other words, we do not see the war preparation themes in North Korean media appearing since the beginning of last year as typical bluster from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea).
Raising the specter of Pyongyang’s decision to go to a military solution—in effect, to give warning of war—in the absence of “hard” evidence is fraught. Typically, it will be met with the by-now routine argument that Kim Jong Un would not dare take such a step because he “knows” Washington and Seoul would destroy his regime if he does so. If this is what policymakers are thinking, it is the result of a fundamental misreading of Kim’s view of history and a grievous failure of imagination that could be leading (on both Kim’s and Washington’s parts) to a disaster.
Historical Context
A failure to understand the history of North Korean policy over the past 33 years is not simply an academic problem. Getting that history wrong has dangerous implications for grasping the magnitude of what confronts us now. Without grasping in detail what, why, and how North Korean policy retained its central goal of normalizing relations with the United States from 1990 until 2019, there is no way to understand the profound change that has taken place in Pyongyang’s thinking since then. This bedrock policy shift by Kim to gird for a war would only come after he concluded all other options had been exhausted, and that the previous strategy shaping North Korean policy since 1990 had irrevocably failed.
Although Pyongyang’s decision-making often appears ad hoc and short sighted, in fact, the North Koreans view the world strategically and from a long-term perspective. Beginning with the crucial, strategic decision by Kim Il Sung in 1990, the North pursued a policy centered on the goal of normalizing relations with the United States as a buffer against China and Russia. After initial movement in that direction with the 1994 Agreed Framework and six years of implementation, the prospects for success diminished when—in Pyongyang’s eyes—successive US administrations pulled away from engagement and largely ignored North Korean initiatives. Even after the Agreed Framework fell apart in 2002, the North tried to pull the US back into serious talks by giving unprecedented access to the nuclear center at Yongbyon to one of us (Hecker). During the Barack Obama Administration, the North made several attempts that Washington not only failed to probe but, in one case, rejected out of hand. There is much debate in the United States whether the North was ever serious, and whether dialogue was simply a cover for developing nuclear weapons.
Our view is that argument was seriously flawed at the time, and today, it stands in the way of understanding not simply why things have developed to such a perilous stage, but more importantly, how dangerous the situation actually is. The issue has moved far beyond assigning blame. What is crucially important is to understand how central the goal of improving relations with the United States was to all three of the Kims who led the DPRK, and thus, how the North’s completely abandoning that goal has profoundly changed the strategic landscape in and around Korea.
Strategic Empathy
The second part of the answer as to why the current danger is being missed is the failure to fully understand how the failed February 2019 Hanoi summit affected Kim Jong Un’s views, and how over the next two years the North reexamined its policy options. The June 2018 Singapore summit with President Donald Trump was to Kim the realization of what his grandfather had envisioned, and his father had attempted but never attained—normalization of relations with the United States. Kim poured his prestige into the second summit in Hanoi. When that failed, it was a traumatic loss of face for Kim. His final letter to President Trump in August 2019 reflects how much Kim felt he had risked and lost. Overcoming that psychological barrier would never have been easy, and it goes a long way in explaining the huge subsequent swing in North Korean policy. This was not a tactical adjustment, not simply pouting on Kim’s part, but a fundamentally new approach—the first in over thirty years.
The first obvious signs that a decision had been made and a decisive break with the past was underway came in the summer and autumn of 2021, apparently the result of a reevaluation in Pyongyang of shifts in the international landscape and signs—at least to the North Koreans—that the United States was in global retreat. This shift in perspective provided the foundation for a grand realignment in the North’s approach, a strategic reorientation toward China and Russia that was already well underway by the time of the Putin–Xi summit of February 2022 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There are few signs that relations with China have moved very far, and, in fact, signs of real cooling in China-DPRK relations. However, ties with Russia developed steadily, especially in the military area, as underscored by the visit of the Russian Defense Minister in July and the Putin–Kim summit in the Russian Far East last September.
The North’s view that the global tides were running in its favor probably fed into decisions in Pyongyang about both the need and opportunity—and perhaps the timing—toward a military solution to the Korean question. At the start of 2023, the war preparations theme started appearing regularly in high-level North Korean pronouncements for domestic consumption. At one point, Kim Jong Un even resurrected language calling for “preparations for a revolutionary war for accomplishing…reunification.” Along with that, in March, authoritative articles in the party daily signaled a fundamentally and dangerously new approach to the Republic of Korea (ROK or South Korea), introducing formulations putting South Korea beyond the pale, outside what could be considered the true Korea, and thus, as a legitimate target for the North’s military might. At the plenum last month, Kim made that shift crystal clear, declaring that “north-south relations have been completely fixed into the relations between two states hostile to each other and the relations between two belligerent states, not the consanguineous or homogenous ones any more.”
Hypnotized by “Deterrence”
Washington and Seoul cling to the belief that their alliance backed by “ironclad” deterrence will keep Kim on the status-quo trajectory, perhaps with some minor provocations. There is a belief, entirely understandable, that more and more frequent symbols of our intent to retaliate will keep the North at bay, as will our oft-stated conviction that if the North attacks, the counterattack will totally destroy the North Korean regime. Yet, in the current situation, clinging to those beliefs may be fatal.
The evidence of the past year opens the real possibility that the situation may have reached the point that we must seriously consider a worst case—that Pyongyang could be planning to move in ways that completely defy our calculations. Kim and his planners may target the weakest point—psychologically as well as materially—in what the three capitals hope is a watertight US-ROK-Japan military position. The literature on surprise attacks should make us wary of the comfortable assumptions that resonate in Washington’s echo chamber but might not have purchase in Pyongyang. This might seem like madness, but history suggests those who have convinced themselves that they have no good options left will take the view that even the most dangerous game is worth the candle.
North Korea has a large nuclear arsenal, by our estimate of potentially 50 or 60 warheads deliverable on missiles that can reach all of South Korea, virtually all of Japan (including Okinawa) and Guam. If, as we suspect, Kim has convinced himself that after decades of trying, there is no way to engage the United States, his recent words and actions point toward the prospects of a military solution using that arsenal.
If that comes to pass, even an eventual US-ROK victory in the ensuing war will be empty. The wreckage, boundless and bare, will stretch as far as the eye can see.
Robert L. Carlin is a nonresident scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and a former chief of the Northeast Asia Division in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the US State Department, where he took part in US-North Korean negotiations.
Siegfried S. Hecker is a professor of practice at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, a professor of practice at Texas A&M University, and a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and professor emeritus of Stanford University.
3. Websites of N. Korean propaganda outlets inaccessible for 2nd straight day
Conducting a propaganda makeover?
Websites of N. Korean propaganda outlets inaccessible for 2nd straight day | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Soo-yeon · January 12, 2024
SEOUL, Jan. 12 (Yonhap) -- Websites of major North Korean propaganda media outlets targeting South Korea were inaccessible for the second straight day Friday morning for an unknown reason.
As of 10:20 a.m., there were failures in connecting to the North's main propaganda site Uriminzokkiri and other similar media outlets, such as DPRK Today and Ryomyong. The servers of those sites are mainly based in China.
The exact cause for the access failure was not immediately confirmed. Access to those websites suffered setbacks sometimes in the past.
But the latest failure could be related to North Korea's move to overhaul the websites of its propaganda outlets in line with leader Kim Jong-un's order to reform agencies in charge of inter-Korean affairs.
At a year-end party meeting, Kim defined inter-Korean ties as relations between "two states hostile to each other" and said he will not regard South Korea as a counterpart for reconciliation and unification.
North Korea recently removed sections providing information on unification and inter-Korean affairs from websites of its propaganda outlets.
Still, no problem was detected in accessing the websites using North Korean official domain names ending in ".kp," such as the Korean Central News Agency and Rodong Sinmun, the main newspaper, as well as the foreign ministry.
This composite image, which compares screenshots taken from the website of North Korean propaganda outlet Uriminzokkiri on an unspecified date and Jan. 4, 2024, shows that a section on unification has been replaced. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
sooyeon@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Soo-yeon · January 12, 2024
4. N.K. envoy calls Russia's use of Pyongyang missiles 'groundless accusation'
Sigh. admit nothing, deny everything....
(LEAD) N.K. envoy calls Russia's use of Pyongyang missiles 'groundless accusation' | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · January 12, 2024
(ATTN: ADDS unification ministry's response, details in last four paras)
SEOUL, Jan. 12 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations has dismissed the claim that Russia launched North Korean missiles into Ukraine in its war against the country as a "groundless accusation," Pyongyang's state media said Friday.
Ambassador Kim Song made the remarks in a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency after members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) condemned the arms transfers between the North and Russia as a violation of multiple UNSC resolutions in a session on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, the White House revealed that Pyongyang had provided Moscow with several dozen ballistic missiles, some of which were used to strike Ukrainian targets on Dec. 30, and Jan. 2 and 6.
Kim accused the U.S. of "illegalizing the legitimate relations between independent sovereign states" and said the North "does not feel the need to comment on every U.S. groundless accusation."
"The U.S. pulled up the DPRK which has nothing to do with the discussion of agenda items," Kim said, referring to the North by the acronym of its official name. "This is the vivid reflection of their plight in the tight corner and only reveals its insufficient might and means in the strategic confrontation with Russia."
This undated image, captured from the U.N. website, shows North Korea's Ambassador to the United Nations Kim Song speaking during a U.N. session in New York. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
During the UNSC session on the maintenance of peace in Ukraine, Russian Ambassador to the U.N. Vasily Nebenzya rejected the revelation, saying the U.S. appears to be "spreading information that is wrong."
South Korea's unification ministry in charge of inter-Korean affairs denounced Kim's statement and reiterated that such arms transactions are illegal.
"Despite repeated denials by both countries, it is apparent that the arms transfers between Russia and North Korea are a fact," Kim In-ae, deputy ministry spokesperson, said in a press briefing.
"We again emphasize that the arms transfers between North Korea and Russia are a violation of UNSC sanctions as well as an illegal act that undermines the rules of the international community," Kim said.
Following the revelation earlier this week, the U.S. imposed sanctions on three Russian entities and one individual for their involvement in the transfer and testing of North Korean ballistic missiles for Russia's use against Ukraine.
mlee@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · January 12, 2024
5. Russia-North Korea Military Cooperation Under UN Spotlight
But what will the UN do? What can it do?
Should there be a process to suspend security council members when they violate UN sanctions? (even P5 members?)
Russia-North Korea Military Cooperation Under UN Spotlight
January 10, 2024 4:21 PM
voanews.com · January 10, 2024
United Nations —
Russia’s military cooperation with North Korea to further its war in Ukraine is drawing international condemnation, including at the U.N. Security Council, where Russia is a permanent member.
U.N. Security Council members Britain, France, Japan, Malta, South Korea, Slovenia, and the United States, plus Ukraine, on Wednesday condemned three waves of deadly airstrikes by Russia on December 30, January 2 and 6.
“These heinous attacks were conducted, in part, using ballistic missiles and ballistic missile launchers procured from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [DPRK],” the group said in a statement.
Last week, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters the attacks were a “significant and concerning escalation."
Investigators work next to damaged cars at a site of a Russian missile strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Jan. 8, 2024
Citing newly declassified intelligence, Kirby said Russian forces launched at least one of the North Korean-supplied missiles on December 30, which landed in an open field in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.
Both Moscow and Pyongyang have previously denied the weapons allegations.
At a Security Council meeting about the situation in Ukraine on Wednesday, Russia’s envoy cited an unnamed Ukrainian air force official as saying Kyiv had no evidence the Kremlin is using North Korean missiles in Ukraine.
“The U.S. seems to be spreading information that is wrong, without going to the trouble of checking this beforehand,” Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said of Kirby.
Washington’s alternate representative for Special Political Affairs noted that the United Nation’s confirmed death toll in the nearly two-year-old war has reached 10,000 Ukrainian civilians, including more than 560 children.
“This number continues to grow as Russia’s air attacks have intensified,” Ambassador Robert Wood said, adding that it is “abhorrent” that a permanent council member is “flagrantly violating” council resolutions to attack another U.N. member state.
SEE ALSO:
North Korean-Russian Military Cooperation Could Threaten Global Security
Several council resolutions prohibit North Korea from developing a ballistic missile program, as well as banning it from exporting arms or related material to other states.
“By exporting missiles to Russia, the DPRK used Ukraine as a test site of its nuclear-capable missiles, in wanton disregard of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and safety of the Ukrainian people,” South Korean Ambassador Hwang Joonkook said.
He said some weapons experts assess that the missiles used in Ukraine are KN-23, which North Korea claims can deliver nuclear warheads. He told the council that one such missile flew 460 kilometers – the same distance as between the North Korean city of Wonsan, a typical launch site, and South Korea’s largest port city, Busan.
“From the ROK [Republic of Korea] standpoint, it amounts to a simulated attack,” Hwang said. “And as these launches provide valuable technical and military insights to the DPRK, it can be further encouraged to export ballistic missiles to other countries and rake in new revenue to further finance its illegal nuclear and ballistic missile programs.”
He urged the council to respond.
Japan’s envoy said not only did North Korea and Russia’s actions violate council resolutions, but they also risk destabilizing the region.
“It is a totally outrageous situation that the international community is demanding the observance of Security Council resolutions by a permanent member of the Security Council,” said Ambassador Yamazaki Kazuyuki.
Ukraine’s envoy said an investigation is underway to verify the origins of the remnants of a missile that fell in the Kharkiv region on January 6.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, along with 48 other foreign ministers and the EU High Representative, condemned the DPRK’s export and Russia’s procurement of DPRK ballistic missiles, as well as Russia’s recent use of these missiles against Ukraine.
voanews.com · January 10, 2024
6. Russia is revealing North Korea's ballistic missile secrets
Can we exploit Russian operations in Ukraine using north Korean weapons? We must seek opportunities in everything north Korea and Russia does.
Russia is revealing North Korea's ballistic missile secrets
Newsweek · by Ellie Cook · January 11, 2024
Russia's use of North Korean-made ballistic missiles could reveal crucial new information about the secretive nation's missile programs in the face of increasingly aggressive rhetoric from Pyongyang.
At the start of the year, the White House said Russia had used North Korean-supplied ballistic missiles and launchers against Ukrainian forces in Ukraine.
"Our information indicates that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea recently provided Russia with ballistic missile launchers and several ballistic missiles," National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said, referring to North Korea by its official name.
In a later statement, the U.S. and a slew of its allies said Russia had used Pyongyang-supplied ballistic missiles against Ukraine on December 30, 2023, and on January 2. From December 29, Moscow launched a series of massive air campaigns on Ukraine in the most intensified period of missile strikes of the war.
"Russia's use of DPRK ballistic missiles in Ukraine also provides valuable technical and military insights to the DPRK," the statement read.
This undated picture released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency in 2017 shows the launch of four ballistic missiles during a military drill at an undisclosed location in North Korea. Russia's use of North Korean-made ballistic missiles could reveal crucial new information about the secretive nation's programs. STR/KCNA VIA KNS/AFP via Getty Images
There is a wealth of information and intelligence to be gained from Moscow's deployment of North Korean missiles in Ukraine, said Fabian Hinz, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank.
North Korea's missile program is shrouded in secrecy, and Western intelligence likely knows far less about Pyongyang's missile development compared to that of countries like Iran, he told Newsweek.
Even without examining the missile wreckage, there is a lot to learn about the missiles' operational flight profile, including their range, how they fly and how well Western air defenses perform against them, he said. From this, it's then possible to work out how to improve Western-made systems like the Patriot to combat this threat.
Their use in Ukraine could also be helpful in discerning the quality of North Korean missile manufacturing, how accurate the missiles are under combat conditions, he added. Pulling apart the wreckage of the missiles would also reveal details about how the guidance system works, how advanced it is, information about the propellent, Hinz argued.
It could also pull back the curtain on the quality of North Korean electronics, their origins and supply chains, including whether Pyongyang is sourcing components through intermediaries, he said.
North Korea has previously exported some of its older missiles, but very little is known about its newer generation weapons, Hinz added.
"Having a chance to look at them up close would be really valuable," helping to work out just how much foreign input Pyongyang is receiving for its missiles, he said.
The South Korean representative to the United Nations, Hwang Joon-kook, told a U.N. Security Council session on Wednesday that Pyongyang has used Ukraine as a "test site of its nuclear-capable missiles."
"The introduction of North Korean missiles into the war in Ukraine has a significant implication on global nuclear non-proliferation," he added.
Russia is believed to have used KN-23 solid-fuel rockets, which are North Korean short-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
North Korea has recently conducted a spate of missile tests that the U.S. has condemned as a violation of U.N. resolutions.
In mid-December, North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, which a Japanese official described as putting the "whole of the U.S. territory" in range. Just hours earlier, North Korea had fired a short-range ballistic missile.
A spokesperson for North Korea's Defense Ministry said on December 17 that the U.S. and South Korea would "finish the end of the year with a preview of a nuclear war."
A U.S. State Department spokesperson told Newsweek in December that North Korea has "engaged in threatening and irresponsible rhetoric regarding its weapons programs, including by characterizing some of its missile launches and other military activities as trial runs for the use of tactical nuclear weapons."
Russia has been upping its missile strikes on Ukraine in recent weeks, targeting key Ukrainian energy infrastructure and defense facilities across the country. Western experts have suggested Russia has burned through a significant number of missiles of various types, but that Moscow is unlikely to entirely drain its stockpiles with these barrages.
Newsweek · by Ellie Cook · January 11, 2024
7. North Korea is using Ukraine as a test site for its nuclear-capable missiles, South Korea says
There are no more realistic conditions to test something in actual combat. :-)
North Korea is using Ukraine as a test site for its nuclear-capable missiles, South Korea says
Business Insider · by Thibault Spirlet
Military & Defense
Thibault Spirlet
2024-01-11T12:40:47Z
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A TV showing North Korea's firing of a Hwasong-18 solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on December 19, 2023.SOPA Images/Getty Images
- North Korea is using Ukraine as a "test site" for nuclear-capable missiles, according to South Korea.
- South Korea's UN ambassador said that Russia used these missiles on December 30, and January 2 and 4.
- It has a "significant implication on global nuclear non-proliferation," Joonkook Hwang said.
North Korea is using Ukraine as a test site for its nuclear-capable missiles, South Korea's ambassador to the UN said in a statement on Thursday.
Joonkook Hwang "strongly" condemned North Korea's exports of such missiles and Russia's use of them in attacks on December 30, January 2, and January 4, he said.
He pointed to Russia's use of KN-23 short-range ballistic missiles, which North Korea tested in 2018 and 2019. These missiles can strike targets as far away as 690 kilometers, or about 428 miles, according to the nonprofit Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.
Hwang also warned that North Korea's exports of these missiles pose an "existential threat" to South Korea, and that the UN Council's silence up to this point has only served to embolden North Korea's leadership.
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North Korea has been testing a wide range of ballistic and cruise missiles since 2017, ramping up launches to 68 missiles in 2022, according to the North Korea Missile Test Tracker of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
Russia is now benefiting from North Korea's missile expertise and is using it in its war of aggression against Ukraine, Hwang said.
He also said that "the introduction of North Korean missiles into the war in Ukraine has a significant implication on global nuclear non-proliferation."
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby commented on the missiles' use last Thursday, saying that Russia had acquired "several dozen" ballistic missiles from North Korea and used them in two separate attacks on December 30 and January 2.
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Experts from the Institute for the Study of War think tank said that Russia is likely looking to North Korea because it has a type of missile that Ukraine struggles to intercept.
The ISW cited an attack on December 29, where Ukraine said it intercepted 149 of the 166 cruise missiles Russia fired — about 90% — but only a "handful" of the ballistic missiles.
Ballistic missiles "appear to be more effective at penetrating or avoiding Ukrainian air defenses" than the cruise missiles Russia has used so far, the ISW concluded.
The Washington DC-based think tank added that Russia is also likely looking to Iran when it comes to buying ballistic missiles.
Business Insider · by Thibault Spirlet
8. Facebook post raises alarm about safety of water on Army base in South Korea
The perils of social media. But the good news is based on this reporting it seems the command acted as (taylor) swiftly as possible to ensure safety.
Despite the challenges of being in Korea, my experience is that commanders and staff over the years (decades) have taken safety and force protection very seriously. Of course there are problems and breakdowns but Korea has always been a place where the commands have done their best to ensure as best conditions as possible (that said I did live in a quonset hut for three years). I also recall a Brigade commander who turned down housing on the Air Force base to live on Camp Humphreys in the 1990s in a quonset hut with his wife because his troops were crammed into barracks there. It turned out that his example helped CODELs to understand why they needed approve MILCON proposals.
Excerpts:
Four hours after the Facebook post, the 2nd ID, also headquartered at Humphreys, replied to the original post to say the garrison’s Directorate of Public Works and the 65th Medical Brigade tested the base’s water on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Leadership responded immediately” to the concerns and multiple water tests revealed that “the water was safe to drink,” the command replied.
Facebook post raises alarm about safety of water on Army base in South Korea
Stars and Stripes · by David Choi · January 11, 2024
Water flows from a bathroom sink inside an office building at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, on Jan. 11, 2024. (David Choi/Stars and Stripes)
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — The 2nd Infantry Division said Thursday that multiple tests found the water on this Army base is safe to drink despite a report on Facebook that it was not.
U.S. Army W.T.F! moments, a Facebook page with 1.4 million followers that posts about life in the U.S. military, uploaded a screenshot Wednesday of a message from an unidentified source alleging that water in an unspecified barracks was “not safe to drink.”
“Using the water to shower is ok, but please do not drink it,” the message said. “Get bottled water.”
“We don’t know the cause or severity but it includes Hovey and Casey,” the message said, referring to a pair of camps north of Seoul.
The post tagged Eighth Army, headquartered at Humphreys, about 40 miles south of the capital. Neither the author of the uploaded post nor its intended recipients were identified in the image.
Four hours after the Facebook post, the 2nd ID, also headquartered at Humphreys, replied to the original post to say the garrison’s Directorate of Public Works and the 65th Medical Brigade tested the base’s water on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Leadership responded immediately” to the concerns and multiple water tests revealed that “the water was safe to drink,” the command replied.
“We are working closely with garrison and leaders at every echelon to ensure our soldiers and families have clean potable water,” it added.
The division started an investigation after a soldier living in a Humphreys barracks expressed concerns Tuesday about their room’s tap water, 2nd ID spokesman Maj. Taylor Criswell told Stars and Stripes by email Thursday.
The soldier’s leaders, “out of precaution,” advised their soldiers not to drink the barracks’ tap water until a safety test was complete, he said.
The soldier’s concern was isolated to one building; water quality issues on base are “not a regular occurrence,” Criswell said.
“Drinking water on the installation is tested monthly to ensure it remains safe and clean,” he said. The garrison will administer more tests this week out of “an abundance of caution.”
Humphreys is the largest U.S. military base overseas. It has roughly 35,500 personnel and is home to several military commands in South Korea, including Combined Forces Command, U.S. Forces Korea and the U.N. Command.
David Choi
David Choi
David Choi is based in South Korea and reports on the U.S. military and foreign policy. He served in the U.S. Army and California Army National Guard. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Stars and Stripes · by David Choi · January 11, 2024
9. N. Korea’s elite defectors working at NIS increases during Yoon administration
They are an important source of information, obviously. They are the ones who can really help understand and interpret the actions of the regime.
N. Korea’s elite defectors working at NIS increases during Yoon administration
donga.com
Posted January. 12, 2024 07:37,
Updated January. 12, 2024 07:37
N. Korea’s elite defectors working at NIS increases during Yoon administration. January. 12, 2024 07:37. by Kyu-Jin Shin newjin@donga.com.
It was reported that the number of elite North Korean defectors hired by the Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS), a national research organization under the National Intelligence Service, has increased more than four times since the Yoon Suk Yeol administration began compared to the number of those employed under the previous administration. Likewise, at least 18 North Korean defectors have been hired by advisory and affiliated organizations under the Ministry of Unification since the inauguration of the incumbent administration. Around 10 North Korean defectors who had been the elite came to the South last year, considerably up from a couple of such high-class defectors who fled the regime amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Yoon administration attributes such an uptick in the number of North Korea’s elite defectors to the fact that there have been great improvements in how they are treated since it was inaugurated.
Since President Yoon took office in May 2022, the INSS has hired more than 20 North Korean defectors who belonged to the elite class or are specialized in expert fields as full-time and part-time researchers and other posts, according to the agency. “Only five elite North Korean defectors worked at the institution under the Moon administration. There has been more than a four-time increase since then,” said an insider. Reportedly, the defectors working at the INSS include diplomats and high-ranking officials who had worked at North Korean agencies handling issues with South Korea. They help look into the realities of North Korean society and analyze the state of affairs. With the current administration raising awareness of improving North Korean human rights, the research institute created the Center for North Korean Human Rights under the Office of Korean Unification Studies this year.
“We found that the Moon administration failed to capitalize on the experience and expertise of high-class North Korean defectors,” said a government official. “Some of them financially struggled since they couldn’t get a job in South Korea.” For example, the INSS under the previous administration dismissed Kim Deok-hong from an advisor post. He served as deputy director of North Korean Workers’ Party archives before defecting to the South in 1997 along with the late Hwang Jang-yop, former chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly.
This year, the South Korean Ministry of Unification employed six North Korean defectors as part of its policy advisory committee, which consists of 97 members. Around the late period of the former Moon administration, the committee had only two members who defected from the North. Two of the ministry’s advisory agencies, which were launched last year – a committee for unified future planning and one for North Korean human rights – have six and three North Korean defectors, respectively. Under the unification ministry, the National Institute for Unification Education, where only one North Korean defector worked in the Moon administration, has added two more hires to its workforce to work with three professors who defected from the North. Ko Young-hwan, former INSS vice president who became the first North Korean diplomat to defect to the South, was assigned as a special advisor for the unification minister in August last year.
“A growing number of elite North Koreans are becoming aware that the current South Korean administration gives better treatments for North Korean defectors,” said a senior government official. “We are told that even North Korean diplomats and trade representatives working overseas have heard about the changes from high-class North Korean defectors residing in the South.”
한국어
donga.com
10. Foreign Minister emphasizes North Korea coordination in China relationship
I believe it is in US interests for Korea to maintain effective communication with CHina.
Friday
January 12, 2024
dictionary + A - A
Published: 12 Jan. 2024, 19:04
Foreign Minister emphasizes North Korea coordination in China relationship
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-01-12/national/diplomacy/Foreign-Minister-emphasizes-North-Korea-coordination-in-China-relationship/1957442
Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul at his inaguration at the government complex in Seoul on Friday. [YONHAP]
The new South Korean Foreign Minister, Cho Tae-yul, emphasized the importance of taking small steps to improve the estranged relationship with China.
Cho specifically highlighted the need for coordination with China on North Korea-related issues to move forward.
“We have our own standards that we maintain on various issues, including the North Korean nuclear problem,” Cho said on Friday at a press conference held after his inauguration. “If our positions are not coordinated [with China] on those issues, it is difficult to resolve conflicts.”
Concerns have recently been raised by both the South Korean and U.S. governments about China and Russia, which are both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, potentially enabling North Korea to evade the U.N. sanctions in developing nuclear arsenals and missiles.
U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel while criticizing Russia on Thursday for “flagrantly violating multiple UN Security Council resolutions” in its arms exchange with North Korea, called on China to take greater responsibility.
“We’ve long said that countries that have a relationship with the DPRK, or including even Russia in that matter, have a responsibility to help curtail this kind of provocative, harmful activity,” Patel said referring North Korea by its official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The South Korean foreign minister acknowledged that the relationship between South Korea and China may have become “uncomfortable” due to the intensified alliance solidarity with the U.S. and Japan.
Cho said that South Korea’s survival strategy, in the changing geopolitical landscape, involves the enhancement of the country’s own strength and forming an international solidarity based on alliance.
“In the past several years, the mutual sentiment and perception between the two countries [South Korea and China] have significantly deteriorated,” Cho said. “The bigger problem is, it seems there’s little room for improvement.”
However, the South Korean foreign minister said that there is still room for cooperation between the two countries, emphasizing the need to lower expectations and start with small steps.
The South Korean foreign minister said that it seems North Korea is attempting to undermine trust between South Korea, the U.S., and Japan by raising its rhetoric.
He noted that North Korea appears anxious about the expanding deterrence between the three nations.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who labeled South Korea as a hostile country late last year, escalated his rhetoric on Thursday by designating South Korea as its main enemy for the first time.
Kim further said that he has no intention of avoiding a war and that he will use all means to annihilate South Korea if the South threatens its sovereignty and security.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken and the new South Korean Foreign Minister, Cho, have agreed to continue working together on the “complex and evolving” security challenges in the region, including not only North Korea but also the Taiwanese Strait and the South China Sea.
BY LEE HO-JEONG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]
11. North Korea: Covid-19 Still Used to Justify Repression
The COVID paradox. Kim needs to exploit COVID to help oppress the people and justify denying their humans to remain in power.
north Korea’s COVID Paradox
•No reported cases for 2 years – Outbreak (May 2022) and then Over (July 2022!)
•Assessment: highly unlikely
•Myriad reports from inside about quarantine camps and outbreaks among military
•Kim exploiting COVID to oppress, repress, and suppress
•Close borders, hinder markets, seize foreign currency, stop movement, information crackdown
•“Arduous March” – Great Famine of 1994-1996
•Estimated possibly 3 million perished
•“Saved” by ROK Sunshine policy (and $billions in aid from 1997-2007)
•Development of 400+ markets resilient women taking care of families
•Comparison –a COVID outbreak could be far worse
•Made worse by Kim’s policy decisions to exploit the situation to keep a stranglehold on the people and sustain power
•Regime Collapse: loss of central governing effectiveness by the party combined with loss of coherency and support of the military
North Korea: Covid-19 Still Used to Justify Repression
hrw.org · January 11, 2024
Click to expand Image
Photo taken on Dec. 22, 2022, from China's Dandong shows North Korean soldiers patrolling on a riverside in the border county of Uiju. © Kyodo via AP Images
(Bangkok) – The North Korean government in 2023 continued to use the Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to maintain “shoot on sight” orders on its northern border to restrict movement, maintain restrictions on trade, and strengthen ideological control, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2024. The government’s repressive policies deepened North Korea’s isolation while worsening the country’s humanitarian crisis.
“The North Korean government still uses Covid-19 as an excuse to instil fear and further oppress the North Korean people by sealing the country’s borders, and restricting trade and access to food and other necessities,” said Lina Yoon, senior Korea researcher at Human Rights Watch. “North Korea should reopen its borders, allow aid organizations into the country, and accept monitored international assistance.”
In the 740-page World Report 2024, its 34th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In her introductory essay, Executive Director Tirana Hassan says that 2023 was a consequential year not only for human rights suppression and wartime atrocities but also for selective government outrage and transactional diplomacy that carried profound costs for the rights of those not in on the deal. But she says there were also signs of hope, showing the possibility of a different path, and calls on governments to consistently uphold their human rights obligations.
The excessive and disproportionate restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic have compounded the effects of decades of the North Korean government’s violations of the rights to food, health, and to an adequate standard of living; and to freedom of expression and movement. The restrictions have severely impaired market activities that people need for their livelihood, and to obtain food and essential goods.
As North Korea’s economic and humanitarian situation worsened, the government continued to spend vital resources to prioritize its weapons development program, conducting over 30 missile tests between January and September.
The government also continued to ramp up ideological control during 2023, banning the use of language that has South Korean or foreign influence. Foreign media outlets reported public trials in the border region targeting youth watching unsanctioned videos and using South Korean language.
The authorities maintained its 2020 shoot-on-sight orders for any person or animal trying to cross its northern border without authorization. While the government announced the reopening of its borders in August, most diplomats and international aid workers are still unable to return to the country. Although official trade increased, it remained lower than before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The authorities also increased controls on domestic distribution of products and unsanctioned market activity. Major droughts in March and April, and flooding in August, exacerbated the effects of these actions.
12. Expect North Korean Provocations in Low Earth Orbit
Can the regime be effective in exploiting space for its political warfare and blackmail diplomacy strategies?
The Space Force is going to earn its pay.
Excerpts:
Once demonstrated, covert action in Low Earth Orbit will inevitably tempt other counties. Credible scenarios include conflict dyads such as Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Iran, and China and the Philippines, targeting one another’s satellites.
The solution to the problem may be found in the technological change giving rise to the problem. The United States has already shown the way forward with smaller, less expensive, and more numerous civilian communication satellites. Similarly transforming its fleets of military reconnaissance and global positioning satellites would enhance national security through redundancy.
Expect North Korean Provocations in Low Earth Orbit
thediplomat.com
Space is a new realm for Pyongyang to engage in its strategy of extracting diplomatic or economic concessions from the United States and South Korea.
By John Hickman
January 12, 2024
Credit: Depositphotos
There is good news and bad news in North Korea’s successful November 21, 2023 launch of Malligyong-1, a military optical reconnaissance satellite. The good news is that this technological success gave North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un the opportunity to abandon reunification of the Korean peninsula as a regime goal, a concession made in a typically bellicose speech on December 31, 2023. The bad news is that space offers North Korea new opportunities to engage in more diplomacy provocation cycle gaming.
Giving up on the reunification fantasy matters because Pyongyang’s nationalist project has been the central theme of the regime’s legitimacy since it was founded. Successes in space will be substituted for national territory unlikely ever to be gained; an act of ideological sublimation comparable to that of Nikita Khrushchev bragging that the Soviet Union’s Sputnik-1 satellite was both first and larger than the United States’s Explorer 1. So pleased was Kim with the Malligyong-1 that three more spy satellites were promised, together with more nuclear weapons and drones.
Beyond reaching orbit, two previous launch attempts having failed earlier in the year, North Korea’s satellite is nothing special. Russian technical assistance was probably necessary, and the spacecraft has generated no images that were not already supplied by Russia or China. Still, bragging rights are what matters most for public consumption inside North Korea.
Outside North Korea, what matters is threat performance. As in the early days of the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union, satellite launches were inextricably linked with or ballistic nuclear missiles. Which explains the triumphalism in a sarcastic, ad hominem laden foreign policy speech by Kim Yo Jong, the supreme leader’s only trusted sibling and chief lieutenant, on January 1. North Korea’s leaders are clearly very excited about space.
Given that North Korea is unlikely to be planning a suicidal nuclear attack on South Korea, Japan and the United States, what more do satellites offer the regime? The answer is that space is a new realm to engage in its strategy of extracting diplomatic or economic concessions from the United States and South Korea in what observers term a provocation-diplomacy cycle. Like an aggressive panhandler, North Korea uses physical intimidation and menacing language to win payoffs from wealthier democratic countries that prefer peace to perpetual crisis.
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) will tempt North Korea because it is becoming congested, as the number and sophistication of small satellites increases and as their individual expense and size shrinks. Once the domain of only a handful of countries, 70 countries now operate satellites. Estonia, Sri Lanka, and Sudan have small satellites. The constellations of hundreds of small communications satellites in the range of 150 kg to 300 kg, like those of StarLink and OpenWeb, are just the beginning. Rwanda has filed an application with the International Telecommunications Union to operate 130,000 small satellites. Microsatellites of less than 100 kg down to nanosatellites of 1-10 kg are already a reality. Yoctosatellies of less than 100 mg are conceivable.
Orbital crowding in LEO will invite covert action in the form of “soft” attacks by small satellites that appear to perform legitimate functions, but actually obstructing optical reconnaissance, jamming signals collection, conducting cyberattacks hijacking spacecraft telemetry and tracking, and spoofing global positioning. Spoofing substitutes inaccurate or accurate data, compromising the air navigation and precision-guided weapons targeting that global positioning satellites perform.
Old fashioned sabotage by collision is also an option. The thousands of functioning satellites travelling at more than 27,000 kilometers per hour now in LEO will be joined by tens of thousands more in coming years. All will be subject to extremes of temperature and radiation, and at risk of strikes by micrometeorites or the estimated 130 million pieces of space trash larger than 1 millimeter that humans have left behind. Violence made to appear as accidents is part of the skill set for creative practitioners of covert action. The realm between the Earth’s atmosphere and the next 2,000 kilometers of space is an ideal environment for these dark arts.
Once demonstrated, covert action in Low Earth Orbit will inevitably tempt other counties. Credible scenarios include conflict dyads such as Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Iran, and China and the Philippines, targeting one another’s satellites.
The solution to the problem may be found in the technological change giving rise to the problem. The United States has already shown the way forward with smaller, less expensive, and more numerous civilian communication satellites. Similarly transforming its fleets of military reconnaissance and global positioning satellites would enhance national security through redundancy.
Authors
Guest Author
John Hickman
John Hickman is professor of Political Science at Berry College, where he teaches international relations and comparative politics. Hickman has published extensively on space policy and geopolitics. He is the author of “Space is Power: The Seven Rules of Territory.”
thediplomat.com
13. Over 17 North Koreans prosecuted for using S. Korean slang: Human Rights Watch
north Korea must have a saying: "words matter."
Over 17 North Koreans prosecuted for using S. Korean slang: Human Rights Watch
The Korea Times · January 12, 2024
This Dec. 9 photo released by North Korea's state media shows its leader Kim Jong-un raising his hand on Mother's Day in Pyongyang, North Korea. More than 17 young North Koreans were prosecuted for watching unsanctioned videos and using South Korean slang in 2023 as the regime strengthened its control over almost every aspect of people's lives, according to a report published, Friday (KST). Yonhap
Regime uses public trials, executions to ‘awaken the masses’
By Jung Min-ho
More than 17 young North Koreans were prosecuted for watching unsanctioned videos and using South Korean slang in 2023 as the regime strengthened its control over almost every aspect of people’s lives, according to a report published Thursday (U.S. time).
In its annual World Report, Human Rights Watch (HWR), a New York-based NGO, said North Korea “remains one of the most repressive countries in the world” as totalitarian leader Kim Jong-un continues to use torture, executions and other barbaric means to tighten his grip on power.
Citing North Korean escapees who spoke to their relatives there, Elaine Pearson, HRW’s Asia director, said 17 young North Koreans were prosecuted last year for watching unauthorized videos ― likely originating from South Korea ― and using South Korean-style language.
“The group’s leader was sentenced to 10 years forced labor,” Pearson said in response to The Korea Times’ email inquiries. “In another case, youth athletes were sentenced to 3-5 years for using South Korean vocabulary.”
North Korean authorities also approved the use of public trials and executions to “awaken the masses,” she added. Consuming any media content created outside the country is illegal. But defectors say the penalties are particularly severe for those possessing or distributing content from the South.
“This past year, we’ve seen the North Korean regime strengthen its control, the country has become even more repressive and even more isolated since the pandemic,” Pearson said.
North Korea is infamous for its extreme isolation ― an environment established under the regime to brainwash its people. But the stakes for crossing the border are now higher than ever before.
“The government has a shoot-on-sight policy in place for anyone reaching the Northern border ― that has been in place since August 2020. Other violations of quarantine laws carry severe penalties, even death,” Pearson said.
This finding is consistent with a white paper released earlier this week by the Korea Institute for National Unification, a state-funded think tank. Citing an eyewitness who escaped North Korea last year, scholars said in that paper that a person was publicly executed for violating pandemic rules.
A combination of the global health crisis and the expansion of state intervention aggravated North Korea’s already dire shortages of food and other daily necessities, the World Report shows.
“They adversely impacted the ability of ordinary North Koreans to conduct basic economic activities, generally worsening their rights to food, health, and an adequate standard of living,” the report says. “There were reports of a mass vaccination campaign and a second round of vaccinations for COVID-19 in North Pyongan Province, Nampo port, and Pyongyang in September 2022. However, there are no official numbers of vaccinated people available.”
The report also points out that China’s mass surveillance and its practice of deporting North Korean refugees are among the major obstacles that impede human rights activists’ efforts.
“The Chinese government continued to seek to detain North Korean asylum seekers and return them to North Korea, violating China’s obligations as a state party to the UN Refugee Convention. Many North Koreans detained in China were forcibly returned to North Korea ― 80 in August, 40 in September, and at least 500 in October ― where they almost certainly faced grave abuses for their attempted escape,” it says.
The Korea Times · January 12, 2024
14. ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Government implements wage hike of more than 10 times (2) What are the intentions and goals of the KJU regime? People’s incomes have risen, but discontent is still deep…Wage hike part of the regime’s “rule over calories”
Excerpt:
The "wage hike" is linked to the "food monopoly system" that Kim Jong-un's regime has been pushing for the past three years. To understand how this works, ASIAPRESS has continued to survey the situation in North Hamgyong province, Yanggang province, and North Pyongan province. This article will interpret the results of the survey.
＜Inside N. Korea＞ Government implements wage hike of more than 10 times (2) What are the intentions and goals of the KJU regime? People’s incomes have risen, but discontent is still deep…Wage hike part of the regime’s “rule over calories”
asiapress.org
(File photo) A female vendor in an open-air market, confidently trading in Chinese yuan. In her hand is 1 Chinese yuan in change. Photographed in Yanggang Province in October 2013 (ASIAPRESS)
＜Inside N. Korea＞ Government implements wage by more than 10 times (1) Wages increase for employees of state-run enterprises and government agencies
◆ Wage hike leads to more discontent among N. Koreans
From November to December 2023, the North Korean government raised the wages of workers and government employees by more than 10 times compared to the beginning of 2023. "The government is saying that the money should be used for living expenses apart from rations," a reporting partner told ASIAPRESS. However, many people are uneasy. What is Kim Jong-un's goal in raising wages? This is the second article in a three-part series on this issue. (KANG Ji-won / ISHIMARU Jiro)
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the lives of North Korean urban residents have deteriorated significantly. This is because their cash income has plummeted after authorities closed the borders and severely restricted private economic activities, including crackdowns on commerce and day labor. This explains the high number of deaths from malnutrition and disease among vulnerable groups such as families made up of just mothers and children, and elderly households.
A significant increase in wages (monthly salaries) should be good news. But North Koreans aren't reacting well to the wage hike. As a source in North Hamgyong province told ASIAPRESS:
"They're trying to make it so that if you don't go to work, you can't buy food. The people are becoming slaves to the state."
The "wage hike" is linked to the "food monopoly system" that Kim Jong-un's regime has been pushing for the past three years. To understand how this works, ASIAPRESS has continued to survey the situation in North Hamgyong province, Yanggang province, and North Pyongan province. This article will interpret the results of the survey.
(File photo) Kim Jong-un's regime unsuccessfully tried to monopolize food sales in 2014. Photo taken in November 2012 in Hyesan, Yanggang Province.
◆ Ban on food sales in markets one step toward state monopoly over food
Since the late 1990s, markets have been the center of food distribution in North Korea. After the pandemic, the government gradually increased its involvement in the buying and selling of food in the markets, reviving state-run grain shops to sell rice and corn at 10 to 20% below market prices.
At the same time, the regime has been aggressively enforcing workplace attendance. Those who went AWOL, those who left their jobs, and those who earned income through other means were punished and criticized. On the other hand, those who went to work were given food rations. It was a classic use of carrots and sticks. Depending on the workplace, the amount of rations distributed to employees ranged from 3 to 10 days' worth of food per month. In addition, teachers, civil servants, police officers, and members of the secret police, were given 70 to 100% of their needs, including rations for their families.
Market food sales increasingly faced restrictions, and were finally banned in January 2023. Sales of food now occur mainly in state-run grain shops. Recently, 5-10 days' worth of food has been sold twice a month, depending on the number of households or families (the market also sells grains other than rice and corn, such as barley, beans, multigrain, and potatoes, as well as processed foods such as cornmeal, noodles, bread, and rice cakes).
In addition, in the first half of December last year, the sales volume at state-run food shop in Hyesan, Yanggang Province, was 4,700 KPW per kilogram and limited to just 4 kilograms of white rice per household, while corn was 2,100 KPW per kilogram and limited to 3 kilograms of corn per household (prices are per kilogram).
To buy all of this would cost 25,100 won, or about 50,000 won per month. Before the pandemic, the wives of laborers who went to work would earn hundreds of thousands to even millions of won a month by doing business activities, but this is now impossible due to restrictions on market activity.
※ 1,000 North Korean won is equal to about 0.1183 US dollars
A map of North Korea (ASIAPRESS)
◆ Tying people to their workplaces may be the aim of the regime’s “rule over calories”
As detailed in the first part of this series, at the beginning of last year, the average monthly wage for companies and government employees was generally 1,500-2,500 won for ordinary workers and 4,000-8,000 won for cadres. At the end of last year, wages for the following groups were revised to:
35,000 to 50,000 won for government employees
38,000 to 50,000 won for teachers
35,000 won for ordinary workers in state-owned enterprises
As for the Kim regime's intentions with this wage increase, reporting partners offered the following perspectives:
"A cadre explained that the increased wages are to be used for living expenses other than the rations received at work, which are about the same as the amount of money a family can buy at the 'grain market'. To put it simply, 10 kilograms of food from the worker's rations and 10 kilograms of food from the grain shops are enough to provide people with about 20 kilograms of food per month."
"The point of raising labor wages is to encourage people to work for the state, get paid, and use that money to buy food from the state, rather than buy food at markets or with their own money. But it's not going to work out that well."
"They're trying to change it to a system that prioritizes going to work. The idea is that if you don't go to work, you don't get to eat, because everyone’s earning less and less."
"They rarely let us do business. They also crack down on day labor. People who don't have money think that this wage increase will make it mandatory for them to go to work."
"In reality, there are many people who believe that the wage increase will not help them because their wages will be siphoned off to prepare supplies for support for the army and other projects.”
“Organizational life” is fundamental to North Korea’s control over its people. Through organizations such as schools, workplaces, and social organizations, North Koreans receive ideological and political learning and are mobilized for rallies and volunteer labor. The intensification of “rule over calories,” in which food is used as a tool to get people to work at state-determined locations, is the purpose of this "massive wage increase.” (to be continued in the third installment)
※ ASIAPRESS communicates with its reporting partners through Chinese cell phones smuggled into North Korea.
＜Inside N. Korea＞ Government implements wage by more than 10 times (1) Wages increase for employees of state-run enterprises and government agencies
＜Inside N. Korea＞ Government implements wage by more than 10 times (2) What are the intentions and goals of the KJU regime? People’s incomes have risen, but discontent is still deep…Wage hike part of the regime’s “rule over calories”
asiapress.org
15. South Korea’s over 70 population overtakes 20-somethings
South Korea’s over 70 population overtakes 20-somethings
Declining birth rates and aging population drives demographic shift
https://www.chosun.com/english/national-en/2024/01/11/YFDGDA36ZNHO5IUYXESQANJPOM/
By Choi Jong Seok,
An Jun-hyen,
Lee Jae-eun
Pubilshed 2024.01.11. 09:04
Updated 2024.01.11. 09:19
Senior citizens line up for lunch at a restaurant near Tapgol Park in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on Jan. 10. / Yonhap News
South Korea’s elderly population aged 70 and older surpassed those in their 20s for the first time last year, a demographic shift driven by record-low birth rates and a rapidly aging population.
The number of people aged 70 and older stood at 6.31 million in 2023, outnumbering the 6.19 million people in their 20s, according to the Ministry of Interior and Safety on Jan. 10.
In a notable reversal of demographic trends, Korea’s elderly population aged 70 and older increased by 237,614 (3.9 percent) compared to the previous year, while the number of people in their 20s decreased by 219,695 (3.4 percent) during the same period. A decade earlier, in 2014, the 70 and older age group stood at 4.44 million, significantly lower than the 6.64 million people in their 20s.
“The long-standing perception in Korean society of having more young people in their 20s than in their 70s has now been overturned,” said Cho Young-tae, a professor at Seoul National University’s Graduate School of Public Health. He anticipates that this gap will widen in the future.
Korea’s population continued its downward trend for the fourth consecutive year after first declining in 2020. The total number of registered residents in South Korea was 51.352 million last year, down 0.2 percent from 2022. “The decline in births significantly outweighs the decrease in deaths,” said a Ministry of Interior and Safety official.
The country’s total fertility rate, which estimates the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime, plummeted to a record low of 0.7 in 2022.
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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