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Economically isolated, North Korea now turns to Cyberspace

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un surrounded by military personnel. Photo Source: Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons.

For years, the international community has slapped North Korea with painful economic sanctions aimed at constraining its nuclear ambitions. Trade of arms and military equipment has been prohibited, exports of coals and minerals have been banned, and the assets of North Korean officials have been frozen. To make matters worse, the ongoing Covid19 pandemic has hit Pyongyang harder than any previous sanction. After closing its border with China, trade with Beijing has been reduced by 95%, leading to a scarcity of food and basic necessities such as soybean oil, sugar, and flour. Trains and flights in and out of the country have been stopped since March 2020, thus freezing tourism and labor exports, two major sources of foreign currency. It would therefore be easy to conclude that North Korea has recently been living in total economic isolation, that is, were it not for cyberspace.

In the physical world, a country like North Korea can be forced into isolation. Yet, in cyberspace, Pyongyang is everybody’s neighbor. Often described as the fifth domain of warfare, cyberspace has a low cost of entry while offering a high degree of anonymity. Pyongyang has seemingly exploited this domain to circumvent economic sanctions, raising millions of dollars through ransomware attacks. North Korean hackers have in fact been accused of hacking international financial institutions to steal foreign currency, which is in turn used to finance Pyongyang’s nuclear program. For this reason, they have recently been branded as “the world’s leading bank robbers”. But North Korean hackers might also have been the architects behind a cyber-attack directed against Sony Pictures Entertainment back in 2014. The entertainment company was about to release “The Interview”, a comedy that portrayed two journalists assassinating Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang. North Korea’s requests to cease the production of the movie had largely been ignored, then, in November, Sony’s employees entered their office and found images of red skeletons on their computers. “We’ve obtained all your internal data, including your secrets and top secrets”, said a message on the screens, “if you don’t obey us, we’ll release the data shown below to the world.” This makes North Korea a rare cyber-creature: a country which is using cyberattacks not only for espionage, but also to fund its own operations, and – even more strangely – to punish comedic depictions of its leader.

In 2017, the Trump administration accused North Korea of being responsible for the WannaCry malicious software, which blocked computers in more than 150 countries. In response, Pyongyang denied any responsibility and declared “we have nothing to do with cyberattacks.” Following the malware intrusion, victims were asked for a ransom payment in exchange for unlocking their systems and data. In two hospitals in Jakarta, the malware blocked patient files, including medication records. In the UK, hospitals had to cancel thousands of medical appointments after losing access to computers. In China, some gas stations had to ask their customers to pay by cash only, after their digital payment system stopped working. In France, the carmaker Renault had to suspend its production in order to stop the spread of the worm. In different ways, the WannaCry computer worm caused unexpected levels of disruption all around the world.

Bitcoin as a new source of income for the Kim regime. Photo Credit: Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons.

Constrained by a set of international sanctions and by the destructive force of the ongoing pandemic, Pyongyang is now searching for new means to ensure its survival in a hostile environment. And cyberspace offers plenty of opportunities. Following the public’s growing interest in digital currencies, North Korean hackers have currently turned their attention to the world of cryptocurrencies. Allegedly, they have built at least nine cryptocurrency apps to trade cryptocurrencies and create digital wallets, such as Ants2Whale, CoinGo, and iCryptoFX, designed with a back door that can provide North Korean hackers with access into computer systems. In August 2020 one of these Apps was used to break into a financial institution in New York to steal $11.8 millions in cryptocurrency. In addition, exchanges that trade Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have fallen victims to North Korean cyberattacks, as these exchanges offer easy access to storage facilities known as “hot wallets”: hot, because they are connected to the Internet, as opposed to the storage method known as offline “cold wallets”. In total, according to a UN report, North Korea might have stolen more than $300 million in cryptocurrencies over recent months, partly in order to support its nuclear program.

In the past, most of North Korea’s criminal operations involved the smuggling of cigarettes, counterfeit money, trading of endangered species, and illegal drugs such as methamphetamine. Today, cyberspace allows conventionally weaker actors to challenge their stronger competitors more easily. North Korea can thus pursue an asymmetric strategy to put pressure on the international community: through cyberattacks, Pyongyang is not only countering its economic isolation, but it is also funding its nuclear program.

It is hard for the international community to find an effective response: retaliation seems highly ineffective, because North Korea has a primitive infrastructure that is less vulnerable to cyberattacks. Imposing further sanctions also appears a non-viable option: many sanctions have already been imposed, and North Korea is becoming increasingly adept at finding workarounds to its economic isolation.

For decades, North Korea has searched for solutions to the same old questions: how to mitigate and instrumentalize its weaknesses to stay relevant in a hostile international system. Now, it seems that cyberspace offers the answers.

Korean Reunification (II): what does Pyongyang really think?

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By Carlotta Rinaudo

The Joint Security Area, a section of the DMZ destined to diplomatic relations. It’s also the only place where North and South Korean soldiers are standing face-to-face. (Image credit: Flickr)

When asked her opinion about Korean reunification, North Korean waitress Song Jin A replied that the North and South are one blood, and that Korean compatriots should all live together, ‘cuddled in Kim Jong-un’s arms.’

Such proclamations are regular fixtures of comments made to foreign journalists on the streets of Pyongyang, where citizens repeatedly emphasize their longing for reunification, often referring to Koreans south of the 38th parallel as “brothers and sisters.” Similarly, the political elites of both countries continue to publicly advocate for the integration of the two Koreas.

Despite these declared desires, reunification nonetheless remains seemingly impossible. On each side, a plethora of factors seem to complicate reconciliation, and currently both parties face domestic contexts that render ambitions of reunification untenable. As I have argued previously, the South Korean elite is preoccupied with the hypothetical unions’ economic costs, the issue of demilitarizing and denuclearizing the North, and what place the Kim family and its officials should have in a unified Korea. Face-to-face with these obstacles, elite actors within North Korea also have their own concerns about unification. And it is to these which I will now turn.

It should first be noted that North Korea would enter the union as a weaker partner, which would reduce its ability to influence the decision-making process. For this reason, North Korean elite officials fear that reunification will be to their social, economic, and political disadvantage: they fear the intrusion of the United States in Korean affairs, the suppression of the North Korean ideology, and of losing their personal authority.

North Korean leaders depict Japan and the US as the imperialist forces responsible for the division of the Korean Peninsula. Their rhetoric maintains, not entirely without basis, that the US transformed South Korea into a colony governed by a puppet regime. Indeed, since the Cold War era South Korea has undergone an Americanization process that saw the country adopting an American style democracy while embracing many of the American ways of living, and allowing a strong American military presence on its soil.

Although over recent years the Kim regime has displayed some tolerance towards the American presence in the South, Kim Jong-un has continued to request these troops be significantly reduced. As a precondition of reunification, North Korean officials may demand US forces be expelled from the Korean Peninsula, or request their re-organization and reduction. The US is unlikely to support such deal, as its South Korean bases offer a key strategic point in countering perceived Chinese threats in the South China Sea.
Consequently, South Korea’s government, for whom the US is a main military ally, may also oppose the proposals.

As discussed in my previous article, in 2017 South Korea’s per capita GDP was twenty-five times larger than that of North Korea. This prompts North Korean leaders to fear that, should reunification occur, the South may economically overshadow the North, threatening the survival of the North Korean ideology. To avoid this scenario, in 1980 former North Korean leader Kim Il Sung said that the North and the South should instead unify under a form of confederation, branded the Democratic Federal Republic of Koryo – where the word Koryo recalls the ancient Koryo Kingdom under which the whole Korea was unified until 1392. The Democratic Federal Republic of Koryo is a “one country, two systems” model, much like what China and Hong Kong used to be. It consists of a unified nation that maintains two separate systems of government, allowing the coexistence of different ideologies: the Juche Socialism of the North, and the Capitalist system of the South. To ensure such coexistence, there would be a supreme national assembly with the same number of representatives from both sides. An equal share of representation would avoid a “big fish eats small fish” scenario, reducing the risk of the North Korean ideology being swallowed by a stronger South Korean counterpart.

The North Korean elite benefits from a hereditary class system known as Songbun, which divides people into three main social classes: the core, the wavering, and the hostile. The families that have been loyal to the Kim dynasty represent the core class, a ruling cadre that includes high-ranking military officials, senior bureaucrats, businessmen and diplomats. They enjoy material affluence and enjoy a system where they regularly accept bribes from the rest of the population in exchange of favors. This elite is afraid that, should reunification occur, their privileges might be taken away or, even worse, that they might be punished for their complicity in the Kim regime.

As such, these elites may attempt to sabotage any unification process that threatens their power. Northern military generals might mount an insurgency against a unification government before the military units are disarmed and disbanded, or else they could organize clandestinely using underground stores of weapons.

This scenario has happened before. When American forces invaded Iraq, many members of the Ba’ath party lost their privileges. They therefore organized an insurgency of former regime allies, which would eventually pave the way for the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq. Consequently, North Korean elites are unlikely to collaborate in the reunification process unless they are assured that their advantageous social position won’t be undermined.

Nonetheless, a significant part of the elite is increasingly unhappy with Kim Jong-un. North Korea’s state-controlled economy has proved largely unable to raise the living standards of its population, and the country is currently crippled by countless economic sanctions which banned the export of North Korean coal, iron ore and textiles, a major source of revenue for Pyongyang. In a speech to the Workers Party Congress in January 2021, Kim Jong-un surprisingly admitted that his efforts to rebuild the economy have failed. Should a new North Korean leader take over, he or she could be one of those entrepreneurs who operate outside of the inefficient North Korean economy. In this scenario, such leadership could push North Korea towards a China-like reformation period, as happened under Deng Xiaoping’s leadership. This would partially open North Korea to a market-based economy, thus beginning to bridge the ideological gap between North and South and perhaps facilitating a reunification process.

In sum, many factors stand in the way of a Korean reconciliation. On one side, the elites of Pyongyang are unlikely to support the reunification process unless certain conditions are met: American forces are expelled or reduced from the Peninsula, the North Korean ideology is preserved, and they can maintain their socioeconomic privileges. On the other side, South Korean leaders are unlikely to accept a US withdrawal from the Peninsula, while also questioning the role of the North Korean elites under a unified Korea.

However, it should be noted that predicting the conditions of a national unification is no easy task, especially when it involves tracing social forces within a state system as opaque as North Korea.

 

Carlotta is a MA candidate in International Affairs at the Defence Studies Department, King’s College London. After completing her BA in Interpreting and Translation, she moved to the Middle East and developed a strong interest in the MENA region, North Korea, Cybersecurity, and the implications of the rise of China. Carlotta has written on a number of Italian publications on the Hong Kong protests and other forms of political unrest.

South Korea’s Dangerous Silence on Human Rights Abuses in North Korea

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by Yeseul Woo

Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in shake hands at the Panmunjom Peace Village in 2018 (Image credit: AFP)

On 3 January 2020, the first North Korean defector reality show “Go to End” began to air on the South Korean television channel Chosun TV. The series follows the journey of a 12-year-old North Korean boy who is defecting to South Korea to meet his parents, who had already defected across the border six years earlier. The documentary provides twenty-two hours of live coverage of the twelve-year-old’s risky journey from North Korea into China, and from there on to Southeast Asian countries. Dangerous escape scenes are captured vividly. It is the first time that the South Korean media televised a depiction of a defection method. South Korean TV stations have of course shown programmes about defectors from time to time, but they had hitherto been mainly talk shows on which defectors shared stories about their defection and their new lives in the capitalist South.

Currently there are over 40,000 North Korean defectors living in South Korea. In addition, in the United States, 219 North Koreans have settled as refugees since the North Korean Human Rights Act was enacted in 2004, which aims to help defectors fleeing the regime by making them eligible for political asylum in the United States. Southeast Asia, especially Thailand, along with countries south of the Chinese border also hosts a considerable number of defectors. When defectors flee North Korea, families get separated. Those left behind will face interrogation by state security officials and, more likely, imprisonment in labour camps or execution. Those defected will need to live a new life in an alien society without their loved ones.

The Korean Peninsula faces a major security challenge – that of a nuclear-armed North Korea. The denuclearisation negotiations between the North and the United States have lost momentum at the time of writing, and it is unclear how quickly talks can resume given impending presidential elections in South Korea and the United States. Human rights issues are often neglected or forgotten in the face of urgent security challenges.

One such example is President Trump’s disinterest in discussing human rights in North Korea in the framework of the United Nations. In December last year, the United States blocked a United Nations Security Council discussion on human rights abuses in North Korea. The Moon Jae-in administration has been complicit, preferring to remain silent on human rights issues so as to not upset relations with Pyongyang.

However, why should we shy away from discussing human rights within the security framework? We need to change the narrative that human rights issues pose as obstacles to security negotiations with North Korea. For example, the Moon Jae-in administration fears that openly addressing North Korea’s human right abuses would impede progress in the denuclearisation negotiations. That is a mistake.

We need to stop framing the human rights discussion as a de-coupled, secondary moral issue. Instead, we should tie human rights to the security narrative. What does genuine peace on the Korean Peninsula mean? Surely it should not merely refer to state survival in an anarchical international system? Rather, genuine peace in the Korean Peninsula could only be achieved if all its citizens, in North and South, are safe from human rights abuses. Only then can our societies prosper and find peace internally but also externally. However, the reality is far from it. According to the North Korean Human Rights Investigation Committee (COI), North Korea’s human rights violations are so ubiquitous that there is no point in measuring them anymore. According to the 2019 World Freedom Report, the current situation of human rights in North Korea over the past 47 years ranks as the worst across the world.

Last December, ten public figures from twenty-two nations and 67 NGOs from around the world sent a letter to President Moon Jae-in urging him not to ignore human rights abuses in North Korea. Signatories included international human rights organisations like the International Federation for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch; and individuals such as Thomas Quintana, the UN Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights. The letter unequivocally states that US and South Korean silence on human rights abuses has further encouraged the repression of human rights by the North Korean regime and is inconducive to ongoing efforts to conclude a genuine peace settlement. In the letter, the signatories criticise the Moon Jae-in administration’s refusal to co-sponsor a United Nations General Assembly Resolution on the human rights situation in North Korea on 14th November 2019. Since 2005, similar resolutions on human rights issues pertaining to North Korea were adopted by the UN General Assembly; South Korea had co-sponsored these resolutions for 11 years before Moon Jae-in’s refusal to support similar efforts in 2019.

The Moon Jae-in government prefers to postpone discussing human rights in North Korea until the North Korean nuclear issue is resolved, setting out five visions and national goals for peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula. The government made 100 pledges to this effect. Although one of them is to improve human rights in North Korea and resolve humanitarian issues such as separated families, it is a pity that Moon Jae-in now prefers to be silent on the human rights situation in North Korea. This silence is indeed dangerous as it will not signal respect to North Korea, but it will inevitably be seen by those in Pyongyang as South Korean and US weakness. If we cannot even defend our values against North Korea, how can we ensure the security of our free societies?

Yeseul Woo is a PhD candidate at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London and a Developing Scholar at the Hudson Institute, Washington, D.C. She has previously served as a journalist for South Korean and U.S. media outlets and as a fellow at the East West Center, at the Pacific Forum and at the Harry S. Truman Institute.

Strife Interview – Antonio Moscatello on “Megumi”

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Antonio Moscatello is an Italian journalist who graduated in Japanese language and translated many texts from Japanese. He became a professional journalist in 2001 and worked as foreign correspondent in Tokyo, Iraq, and Budapest. In 2012 he investigated North-Korean kidnappings, which is also the theme of “Megumi”, his latest book. Strife’s Editor Andrea Fischetti met with Mr Moscatello to discuss the issues raised in “Megumi”.

All Enquiries as to this article’s content should be sent to Strife Blog.

AF: Let’s start with “Megumi”, who inspired the title of your book. Who is Megumi? What does her case tell us about North-Korean kidnappings?

AM: Megumi Yokota was kidnapped when she was 13 years old, in November 1977, on her way home after school. Everything happened within around 500 meters. For about 20 years her disappearance remained a mystery, until, almost by chance, the truth came up: she was kidnapped and taken to North Korea by agents working for Pyongyang.

Her story became the most emblematic case among the many North Korean kidnappings in Japan, South Korea, and further afield. Moreover, the story of Megumi has yet to come to an end, after more than 40 years.

I believe a remarking characteristic of Megumi’s case is the reason behind her disappearance. This wasn’t a planned operation, like many others conducted by Pyongyang in those years. In fact, Megumi was kidnapped due to her physical appearance, since she looked older than her actual age. This is also an emblematic case of Kim Jong Il’s strategy. At that time, for the North Korean regime there was no difference between normal people and those who held official roles in government and parties: everyone was believed to be an “agent” of a government, be it ally or enemy. For example, when 30 years later five Japanese citizens were returned to Japan after being kidnapped, they were presented as part of an official delegation.

The lack of a difference between normal citizens and government officials in the eyes of North Korea explains a lot about the North-Korean view of power; it also highlights the cohesiveness of the regime and, possibly, of the whole North-Korean society.

 

AF: Megumi is not the only case you analyse in your book. Is there another one you want to tell us about?

AM: There are many stories, and each one could make for a great espionage movie. However, there is one specific case that I wish to mention; one that took place in the United Kingdom, and more precisely in London. In 1983, a young exchange student from Japan, Keiko Arimoto, disappeared. Similarly to Megumi’s case, Keiko’s whereabouts remained unknown for many years, until another Japanese citizen, who was also detained in North Korea following his kidnapping, managed to send a letter saying that Keiko was in that country. This was the starting point of a series of investigations.

The last time she had been seen, Arimoto was at Copenhagen airport. She appeared in pictures together with a man believed to be a North Korean diplomat or spy. Keiko Arimoto has been approached by another young Japanese woman, who appeared to be the wife of a member of the Yodo-go group. This group was made of far left political activists who hijacked a Japanese plane in 1970, taking it to Pyongyang. The group, which was initially headed towards Cuba, remained in North Korea and played a role in at least three kidnappings of young Japanese in Europe (although they deny these accusations). Among these three kidnappings, there was Keiko, brought to North Korea with false promises regarding a job in the import-export field.

 

AF: You have been investigating North Korean kidnappings for years. What have you learned about their modus operandi? What is their purpose, and how do the victims live afterwards, once they are in North Korea?

AM: Each kidnapping was unique and there are many differences among them. I could divide them, focusing on those I have the best knowledge of, in sub-categories with opposing themes: casual targets / specific targets, violence / lies and tricks, couples / singles. The kidnappings that took place in Japan provide good examples of all categories. Spies would intercept people in isolated seaside places, ideally beaches. They would capture the targets, putting them inside of sacks, then running away with rubber boats. From there, they would reach the motherships, which were used to go back to North Korea.

The purposes of these kidnappings are various. Some of them are random, such as Megumi’s, while others had specific targets in mind. This is the case, for example, of a famous film director and an actress, both from South Korea, which were both kidnapped to develop the North-Korean cinema scene. Another instance of kidnappings of specific targets is the case of four young Lebanese women and a Romanian girl. They were kidnapped to become wives of American deserters who were used in national cinematic propaganda.

When it comes to Japanese victims, they were used in a number of different ways. Megumi, for example, was employed as teacher of Japanese language and culture to prepare North-Korean agents, and subsequently was married to a South-Korean who was also possibly a victim of kidnapping. Other Japanese were forced to marry among them, but no clear explanation emerged about this.

Generally, those who were kidnapped enjoyed higher living standards than the average North-Korean when it comes to food and nutrition. Even in the 1990s, when the country experienced a severe shortage of food, the victims of kidnappings that were living in North Korea were given proper food rations, at least compared to those of the North-Korean population. They did not have any external contacts with North-Korean citizens, and only met with those who took care of them, their guards, and government spies.

 

AF: You met with family members of the victims. How do they make sense of these events and what do they think about the Japanese government’s take on the kidnappings?

AM: Their families have been wishing for decades to meet again their dearest ones, and for them it is very hard to make sense of these events. Some of the families developed a radicalised political stance on this theme, which is often part of the rhetoric of right-wing politicians in Japan. Understandably, they have an extremely negative vision of Pyongyang, as they believe it has been hiding the truth for decades.

It is Pyongyang’s silence and lies that make North-Korean kidnappings even more worrying. In fact, there is no clear figure about the number of kidnapped Japanese citizens, which could amount to several hundreds. However, only 17 have been proved by the Japanese government.

Many families who experienced a kidnapping have been criticising the Japanese government. Until 2001, despite the public had been aware of this phenomenon for several years, Japanese governments appeared to negate the existence or understate the gravity of this issue and even preferred realpolitik to a tough line in their talks with Pyongyang. During the second half of the 1990s, Tokyo was supporting the Clinton administration with their efforts to resolve the North-Korean nuclear crisis through dialogue and a normalisation of diplomatic relations. This stance was also due to the economic interests in reaching a dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington and, through that, between Pyongyang and Tokyo.

It was under Junichiro Koizumi’s administration that the Japanese approach to the problem of North-Korean kidnappings began to change. Nowadays, especially thanks to Shinzo Abe, the issue became a priority for Japan. The current Prime Minister has been very concerned with the issue of North-Korean kidnappings, and even wears the blue-ribbon [which is a symbol of support for those who were kidnapped and their families – AF] in many occasions.

However, families, and especially the elderly, remain skeptic about the government: they fear that the destiny of their sons could be subject to realpolitik, and that ultimately they could be exchanged for a solution to the North-Korean crisis.

 

AF: America, Europe, Asia: to different extents and in different contexts, kidnappings have been a reality to deal with in many countries. However, in these cases a sovereign state such as North Korea recognised its involvement in kidnappings operations: should we treat these cases differently from other kidnappings?

AM: These kidnappings are definitely different from those carried by organisations such as Al Qaeda or the Islamic State. In this case, we are looking at a series of kidnappings that are part of a detailed program planned by a sovereign state. Although we should take into account that, as Kim Jong Il stated when he was still the leader of the country, there had been an excess of zeal among North-Korean officials, there is no doubt that official branches of the North-Korean government planned, and carried out, the kidnappings, organised the imprisonment of those who were kidnapped, and produced false documents regarding the victims.

Terroristic groups usually tend to make their kidnappings public in order to have an economic or ideological return. North-Korean kidnappings have been kept secret and the victims were ultimately used for the regime’s benefit. These kidnappings are more similar to the forced labour that Korea experienced during the colonial period. Pyongyang itself used this example in an attempt to legitimise their kidnappings.

 

AF: Despite the recent North Korean tensions resulted in ballistic missiles flying over Japan, also triggering missile alerts in the country, I argued that Japan’s involvement in the North Korean tensions will remain marginal due to legal, military, and political reasons. So far this has been the case, but many kidnappings are currently unresolved, and cannot be officially attributed to North Korea. What are their implications for Japan-DPRK relations and East Asian Security?

AM: It is hard to say. Japan tried to keep the North-Korean kidnappings issue on the agenda using Abe’s relation with U.S. President Donald Trump as leverage. There were positive results, and Trump cited Megumi in his first speech at the UN, and even met with families of the kidnapped Japanese during his first visit to Japan.

However, Trump’s behaviour is hard to predict and this is especially annoying for Japanese politicians. Trump’s will to meet Kim Jong Un, for example, seemed to worry Abe, who is still determined to keep a tough line on North Korea.

The issue of North-Korean kidnappings may once again be overshadowed by the international need to overcome the North-Korean crisis and denuclearise the Korean peninsula. Nonetheless, this is far from certain: in the past, Pyongyang often simulated an openness to dialogue just to earn precious time and soften international pressure. Trump’s will is also still to be clearly verified, even in the context of South-Korean openness to cooperation.

Furthermore, despite Abe appeared to be determined to achieve a resolution to this issue, it is possible that the kidnappings will eventually end up being bargaining chips in international talks. This would not necessarily be a negative change for the victims’ families, but it could make the situation even more complex or deprioritise its resolution. What happened in the past, unfortunately, doesn’t suggest that the victims of kidnappings will have priority.

 

AF: “Megumi” is currently available in Italian, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who has an interest in this specific topic, but also International Relations and East Asia in general. At this point I am sure many of our readers would ask the same question: will an English version be available in the future?

AM: The book has been published by Rogiosi in Italy, a small publishing house based in Naples. They recently notified me of their willingness to discuss an English edition, and I am awaiting to see whether this could actually happen. I really wish it could, because the literature on this topic is currently very scarce in the West, and surprisingly in Japan too, where despite the many books published by victims, families, and North-Korean defectors, nothing has been written by an external observer.

 

Image Credit: Antonio Moscatello

Sino-North Korean relationship: a rivalry in brewing?

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By Yiming Yu

 

The Sino-DPRK relationship has arguably gradually declined (Credit Image: 38north.org)

Interactions between China and North Korea always attract attention, particularly in the time of crisis. When Song Tao, a senior Chinese diplomat, visited the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in November 2017, to inform the outcome of Communist Party’s 19th Congress, the reports on this visit raised many observers’ eyebrows because these reports remained silent on whether the envoy had met with Kim Jong-Un, the leader of DPRK. Following the visit were the reports that China has been constructing a refugee camp next to the Sino-DPRK border. These are the latest controversial developments on the Sino-DPRK relationship amid increasing possibility of military confrontation between the US and North Korea over the latter’s nuclear programme. These tensions further fuel the speculation that the Sino-DPRK relationship, after decades of close connection, has been gradually in decline.

It is widely perceived that the friendship between China and DPRK, is ironclad, and that China is the latter’s closest ally. However, there have always existed tensions during the history of this bilateral relationship. According to Shen Zhihua, one of the most prominent Chinese Cold war historians, the Chinese military’s participation in the Korean War brought frustration instead of gratitude to Kim Il-sung’s, as he has hoped to achieve greater independence, in the fear of China’s influence. Despite a warmer relationship between 1958 and 1976, China’s efforts to forge a closer relationship with the US to both promote domestic reforms and counter the USSR resulted in isolating North Korea. After the end of the Cold War, China broke the promise of not establishing formal diplomatic relationship with South Korea and this symbolized betrayal in the eyes of DRPK. These events, as believed by Shen, while accommodating China’s needs to pursue its own strategic interests – normalisation of diplomatic relations and economic reforms – also contributed to shape North Korea’s determination to develop nuclear weapons, with the goal of being capable to defend itself.

China’s attitudes towards North Korea’s behaviours violating its interests have been extraordinarily moderate in comparison with the responses to other states’ similar acts. China has shown a relatively gentle tone when some violent incidents involving hostile behaviours by North Korean troops against Chinese civilians took place. For instance, a North Korean deserter committed, such as a robbery in 2014. The year before, the DPRK authorities had captured capture a Chinese fishing boat in 2013. China’s efforts in organizing the Six-Party meeting, which enlisted participation of the US, Russia, Japan, South Korea and DPRK, to find a peaceful solution to the nuclear crisis indeed showed China’s commitment to a denuclearized Peninsula though the most recent meeting was held in 2009 before DPRK withdrew. However, in the arena of the UN Security Council, China tried hard to ease punitive sanctions on DRPK. Beijing conditioned their support to UN resolutions imposing sanctions on North Korea to the removal of the toughest proposed measures, such as a full oil embargo, from the resolution’s draft. Also, while claiming to effortlessly push for denuclearisation, China’s economic ties with the DPRK – which have accounted for 90% of the latter’s foreign trade –had been closer before 2017 with the establishments of the Guomenwan border trade zone and of new trade routes. Only in the wake of the recent sanctions in 2017 did Sino-DPRK economic relationship start to decline. The latest figures from Chinese authorities showed that as of January 2018, China’s overall trade with DPRK has fallen to the lowest level since June 2014. After the Security Council passed the latest resolution imposing oil sanctions on North Korea in last December, an oil tanker linked with China was caught smuggling oil to a North Korean ship. The PRC was subsequently accused by US President Donald Trump of being involved in illicit oil trade. It is such self-contradictory attitude that leads to doubts regarding China’s commitments to addressing North Korea’s condemned behaviours. This also indicates the dilemma between regime stability and denuclearization now faced by China, which is shaped by a long history of relationship, geopolitics and even ideology.

It is fair to suggest that, the experiences of fighting together in the Korean War and providing countless aids to North Korea amid efforts against the “US imperialism” have laid historical and ideological foundation for the Sino-North Korean relationship. Among the Chinese population, it can be observed that pro-DPRK opinions still enjoy popularity among those who endorse socialism and those who hold anti-Western beliefs. The idea of abandoning North Korea will certainly spark resistance and criticism, not only because this may symbolize renouncing a long history of friendship and self-sacrifice, but it would also indicate subordination to the US’ request.

The geopolitical value of North Korea to China has always been cited among China’s domestic audience and even policymakers as the reason to stand behind its rogue neighbour. One of the reason why Mao Zedong was willing to concede disputed border territory to DPRK, as suggested by Shen, was that he hoped the latter would become a loyal ally to China in the Cold War. A similar trend of strategic thought has prevailed afterwards. With America’s presence in South Korea and Japan, there remains in China a prominent strand of vision that should the US successfully unifies the Peninsula into a pro-US liberal democracy, American forces would subsequently be deployed at the Sino-Korean border. Furthermore, it is believed that in the potential circumstance of a collapse of Kim’s regime, the flow of refugees, armed North Korean soldiers and fissile materials may wreak havoc at the Sino-DPRK border, threatening China’s own stability.

All these factors determine China’s preference towards the stability of Kim Jong-Un’s regime. While prioritising stability of Kim’s regime, it seems China is willing to achieve this goal at the expense of denuclearization in the short term. However, China is dealing with two other actors who do not share similar visions. China understands DPRK’s security concerns and thus points finger at the US in its official stance, blaming the US for escalating tensions. According to Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the essence of tension lies in the US-DPRK relationship and Fu Ying, former Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs and currently chairing National People’s Congress Foreign Affairs Committee, claims that Washington refuses to address DPRK’s security concerns to solve the root cause of the crisis. Meanwhile, China is facing North Korea, which believes the development of nuclear weapons will independently ensure survival of the regime; and the USA which prioritises ending DPRK’s nuclear programme and which views regards DPRK’s efforts as a mean to develop offensive weapons. In other words, China, DPRK and the US fail to reach a consensus regarding the balance between regime stability and denuclearisation. With such a fundamental disagreement, it is impossible for China to achieve both a stability as well as an acceptance of DPRK as a nuclear state at the same time. If North Korea carries on developing nuclear weapons and conducting missile tests, with greater expectation from the international community and increasing possibility of US military strikes on DPRK, China will be facing greater pressure to influence Pyongyang. Even though, in reality China may not be as influential as expected. This will certainly challenge the likelihood of the Sino-DPRK relationship to remain on friendly terms. China’s strict implementation of sanctions as well as a growing displeasure over DPRK’s continuous defiance will inevitably result in deepening the latter’s resentment and insecurity.

Traditionally-prevailing opinions about the relationship with North Korea are now increasingly challenged in China. In addition to Shen, Jia Qingguo, a professor at Peking University, also surprisingly raises the point that China should prepare for the potential collapse of Kim’s regime and hence needs to cooperate with the US on a contingency plan. His opinion was harshly criticized by another Chinese scholar, Zhu Zhihua, who believes Jia’s proposals will in fact play into America and South Korea’s hands. This debate is actually a periscope of a larger argument among Chinese scholars on who should be held responsible for the current crisis and what China should do in the future, which is labelled as a left-right battle. Zhu’s opinions represent those leftists who, while supporting denuclearization, believe the US have sole responsibility in the crisis and are therefore suspicious about the US’ real intentions in solving it. In contrast, rightists in the likes of Jia believe China should reconsider or even abandon its close partnership with DPRK. While the debate does not signify any shifts in China’s policy towards DPRK, the widening room for different voices on this once-taboo subject actually echoes the ambivalence and dilemma of China’s policy towards North Korea.

The participation of North Korea in Winter Olympics held in PyeongChang, South Korea, in February and the prospect of US-DPRK talks seem to have appeased the recent tensions. However, it is too early to label these developments as a turning point. While it is certain that China and North Korea will maintain their relationship on surface, it is hard to expect whether China will continue to tolerate an increasingly out-of-control North Korea whilst the USA is still likely to maintain military pressure in the Korean Peninsula as response. With China increasingly facing the dilemmas between DPRK’s regime stability and denuclearisation process in the Peninsula, and the fact that its influence over DPRK is declining, amid outside pressure, it runs a greater risk of alienating DRPK to brew a potential rivalry.

 

Yiming Yu is currently a MA student from Conflict, Security and Development programme at King’s. His main academic interests are insurgency/counterinsurgency and peacekeeping but he has always been keeping an eye on East Asian security and China.

Image Source: https://www.38north.org/2017/09/jperson092617/