tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/kim-jong-nam-36060/articlesKim Jong-nam – The Conversation2021-09-29T16:00:46Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1689062021-09-29T16:00:46Z2021-09-29T16:00:46ZNorth Korea: the rise and rise of ‘first sister’ Kim Yo-jong<p>When the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korean-leader-repeats-call-declaration-end-korean-war-2021-09-21/">called for</a> an end to the war on the Korea peninsula recently, the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2021/09/24/north-korea-rejects-south-koreas-call-to-officially-declare-end-to-70-year-war/?sh=8f307a959e1a">initial response</a> was a rebuff from North Korea’s vice foreign minister. This has been the standard response from Pyongyang whenever the idea has been raised of turning the 1953 armistice between the two warring Koreas into an actual peace treaty. </p>
<p>So it was something of a surprise when, the following day, a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58675703">rather warmer message</a> emerged from Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, who declared the idea “admirable”. She specified a number of pre-conditions which would need to be met, though: </p>
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<p>What needs to be dropped is the double-dealing attitudes, illogical prejudice, bad habits and hostile stand of justifying their own acts while faulting our just exercise of the right to self-defence.</p>
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<p>This is the sort of message one would usually expect to come from Kim Jong-un himself, so it prompted a round of discussion from the media’s Korea watchers as to how much weight the world can give a statement from his younger sister. </p>
<h2>Who is Kim Yo-jong?</h2>
<p>The supreme leader’s sister first came to international attention in 2018, when she became the first member of North Korea’s Kim dynasty to visit South Korea in an official capacity. She was part of the nation’s delegation to the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, at which the two countries competed as one team. She held a meeting with President Moon and appeared in photo opportunities alongside US Vice President Mike Pence and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe. Footage of her dominated coverage in North Korea.</p>
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<p>Following <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/11/kim-yo-jong-north-korea-south-media-regime-olympics">what was reported</a> as her diplomatic triumph at the Winter Olympics, her profile grew as she met with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and was present at all three face-to-face meetings between her brother and US President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Little is known about Kim Yo-jong’s childhood, though – even her date of birth is clouded in uncertainty. She is the youngest child of former supreme leader Kim Jong-il’s relationship with Ko Yong-hui, who was originally from Japan and thus would have been regarded as being from a lower caste in Korea’s <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/07/05/north-koreas-caste-system">complex “songbun” system</a> if Kim Jong-il had not removed the official record about her origin. Kim Yo-jong is understood to have attended the same private school with her elder brother in Bern, Switzerland, after which she attended Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang, where she studied computer science.</p>
<p>By 2009, Kim Jong-il’s ill-health made the succession a matter of urgent debate and it became increasingly clear that Kim Jong-un was being groomed to take over the leadership on his death. But at Kim Jong-il’s funeral, <a href="https://nkleadershipwatch.wordpress.com/kim-family/kim-yo-jong/">Kim Yo-jong was photographed</a> alongside senior family members.</p>
<p>She has twice been elevated to the politburo, in 2017 to 2019 and 2020 to 2021. In addition, she is also a leader of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, in which capacity she has boosted the cult of personality surrounding her brother as well as making regular statements about North Korean foreign relations.</p>
<p>She is believed to be married to Choe Song, the younger son of the Korean Workers’ Party secretary, Choe Ryong Hae, which gives her another source of political power.</p>
<h2>Heir apparent?</h2>
<p>How much power does Kim Yo-jong actually wield? One incident from June 2020 shows the extent to which she can exercise her will in North Korea. In retaliation for South Korean defectors’ use of balloons to drop propaganda leaflets into the North, she warned that she had ordered the department in charge of inter-Korean affairs to “decisively carry out the next action”, adding that: “Before long, a tragic scene of the useless north-south joint liaison office completely collapsed would be seen.”</p>
<p>The following day the building was blown up, suggesting that when Kim Yo-jong orders something, it happens.</p>
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<p>Another interesting episode can cast some light over power relations between herself and her brother. In March 2020, Kim Yo-jong issued her first official statement, lashing out at South Korea’s presidential office, the so-called Blue House, which had called on the North to halt its live fire exercises. She referred to the leadership as “a mere child” and “a burnt child dreading fire”. </p>
<p>Two days later Kim Jong-un sent a <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/koreas-kim-expresses-condolences-virus-korea-69405503">message of condolence</a> over the outbreak of COVID-19 in the South. This “underlined his unwavering friendship and trust toward President Moon and said that he will continue to quietly send his best wishes for President Moon to overcome”. The message had Korea watchers confused as to whether the siblings were at loggerheads over North-South relations or whether this was a display of “good cop-bad cop” diplomacy.</p>
<p>This is a family where many of the possible male contenders for power have been executed or assassinated – including Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-un’s half brother who <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39048796">was murdered</a> with the nerve agent VX at Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia in 2017; and his uncle, Jang Song-thaek, who was reportedly executed by firing squad in 2013 after being accused of being a counter-revolutionary. So the status of Kim Yo-jong’s relationship with her brother is as scrutinised as Kim Jong-un’s physical health when it comes to if – and when – she might be in a position to challenge for ultimate power in North Korea. </p>
<p>In North Korea, it seems that to achieve the leadership it’s necessary to seize the grip of the trinity power of the military, party and people. Both Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un became leading figures of the National Defence Commission (NDC) – the military – as well as the party through the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP). They had both developed their cult of personality, giving them access to the people. </p>
<p>Kim Yo-jong may have achieved name recognition in her capacity as a spokesperson on foreign relations and has access to power in the KWP. But she has not yet been appointed to a position at the NDC. If that happens any time soon, it might be a sign that North Korea is preparing for its first woman leader.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168906/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sojin Lim does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The increasing prominence of Kim Jong-un’s younger sister has prompted speculation about whether she is positioning herself for ultimate power in North Korea.Sojin Lim, Reader in Asia Pacific Studies (with special reference to Korea), MA North Korean Studies Course Leader, Co-Director of the International Institute of Korean Studies, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/929572018-03-07T13:05:03Z2018-03-07T13:05:03ZNorth and South Korea could start negotiating again – here’s how they got there<p>As South Korea relays the news that North Korea <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/world/asia/north-korea-south-nuclear-weapons.html">may be ready</a> to open new negotiations over its nuclear weapons, it’s important to keep track of just how quickly this long-running crisis has changed.</p>
<p>Less than a year ago, the world seemed to be steeling for a full-on war with North Korea. Kim Jong-nam, half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-43312052">assassinated under mysterious circumstances</a> in Malaysia. As fingers pointed to Pyongyang as the likely culprit, the Kim regime’s ongoing nuclear weapons programme drew <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-threat-of-fire-and-fury-is-a-gift-to-north-koreas-propaganda-machine-82275">furious ire</a> from the newly-inaugurated US president, Donald Trump, with <a href="https://theconversation.com/north-korea-panics-the-world-but-h-bomb-test-changes-little-83413">tit-for-tat sanctions and weapons tests</a> alternating at breakneck speed.</p>
<p>But with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-informal-diplomacy-might-just-get-the-koreas-to-the-negotiating-table-92199">South Korean Winter Olympics</a>, a warm wind started to blow. The games could have been a political and security nightmare, but it turned into a stunning picture: Korean athletes walked under one flag, while Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-yong and Kim Yong-nam, the north’s head of state, watched the opening festivities next to South Korean president Moon Jae-In. (The American vice-president, Mike Pence, sat and ignored the northern delegation in stony silence.)</p>
<p>Once the remarkable Olympic moment had passed, the world waited to see if the north would simply collect its athletes and revel in the attention, or reciprocate an invitation from the south to launch a new dialogue. In the end, it chose the latter path. Now, not only is there new hope for the first full inter-Korean summit in 10 years, but the north might just might have hinted at the possibility of denuclearisation.</p>
<p>But the operative word here is “might”. When it comes to Korean affairs, semantics have always been crucial. </p>
<h2>Reading the runes</h2>
<p>For example, the September 19, 2005 deal negotiated within the Six-Party Talks collapsed partly because of the clause that stated so-called “light water reactors” would need to be discussed at an “appropriate” time. For the north, “appropriate time” meant September 20, while for the US, “appropriate time” meant as late as possible, and preferably never. </p>
<p>Similarly, for the north, the “denuclearisation” of the Korean peninsula has always meant the removal of all nuclear weapons from the entire peninsula, which would extend to any potential American nuclear weapons stationed in the south. The US, however, has usually understood it to apply solely to the north’s weapons, and not as a binding agreement on future American deployments.</p>
<p>The Olympics and their aftermath do not change the fundamental security dilemma on the Korean peninsula. The structure of the problem is the same: a combination of unfinished inter-Korean business (starting with the 1953 <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/10165796">armistice</a>), the US’s continued <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-korea/u-s-south-korea-plan-massive-joint-military-exercise-start-n854071">military presence</a> and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2017/04/10/forecasting-u-s-asia-relations-under-trump/">strategic role</a> in East Asia, and the north’s dramatic development of <a href="https://theconversation.com/north-korea-panics-the-world-but-h-bomb-test-changes-little-83413">nuclear weapons</a>. What has changed, however, are the diplomatic conditions. </p>
<p>The North Koreans are neither simplistic nor omniscient. Just like any other country, they rely on intelligence, diplomatic contacts, and general event analysis to make sense of the world around them, and especially their nemesis, the US. And the picture they currently see is very confused.</p>
<h2>Empty chairs</h2>
<p>There is currently no American ambassador to South Korea as the Trump administration has been unable to appoint one and the White House has ultimately decided that the one potential nominee, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/30/politics/victor-cha-ambassador-to-south-korea/index.html">Victor Cha</a>, a North Korea expert who served under the Bush administration, was not “hawk” enough. </p>
<p>There also isn’t a lead American negotiator. Until he resigned a few days ago, the principal figure was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/27/joseph-yun-us-north-korea-diplomat">Joseph Yun</a>, a longtime career diplomat and Asia specialist who served first under Barack Obama and then under Trump. </p>
<p>Yun was recently most influential in negotiating the release of American student <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/26/politics/fred-cindy-warmbier-parents-otto-north-korea-brooke-baldwin-cnn-newsroom-cnntv/index.html">Otto Warmbier</a>, who was returned to the US after a lengthy incarceration in the north and died shortly thereafter. Given the Trump administration’s high rate of personnel churn, it seems unlikely that many qualified diplomats and experts want to take on these extremely challenging jobs.</p>
<p>To cap it all, the north has started to answer Trump’s offhand comments and tweets <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-threat-of-fire-and-fury-is-a-gift-to-north-koreas-propaganda-machine-82275">via its official state media</a>, the Korean Central News Agency. With Pyongyang’s bellicose rhetoric now fully engaged with Trump’s embellishment and vagueness, this could be a recipe for disaster. </p>
<h2>Fingers crossed</h2>
<p>The promise of a north-south summit in April is an exciting event in itself, and might allow the two Koreas to resume an in-depth dialogue that has been chaotic for many years. But at the same time, we can expect the north to get up to some of its old tricks. </p>
<p>For starters, Pyongyang will probably fully exploit any wobbles in the south’s relationship with the US. It played a similar game in the 1950s and 1960s when it exploited the ideological schism between Russia and China, playing them off against one another to attract support and concessions. We can also expect a lot of frantic parsing of North Korea’s every statement, and plenty of misinterpretation and misapprehension. </p>
<p>This has already begun. A day after the official South Korean delegation left Pyongyang and returned to Seoul, the story was that the north had suddenly opened up to denuclearisation and direct talks with the US. But the north is always seeking engagement with the US one way or another, and has stated numerous times that, just as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/world/asia/north-korea-south-nuclear-weapons.html">South Korean statement</a> published in the New York Times said, “it would have no reason to keep nuclear weapons if the military threat to the north was eliminated and its security guaranteed”. </p>
<p>And there’s the rub. North Korea will not consider its security “guaranteed” until the US withdraws from the Korean peninsula and the armistice is transformed into a permanent settlement. The north will not entertain denuclearisation as a precondition for talks, since its very survival depends on its nuclear deterrent. It might not even freeze its programme while talks are underway: even as the 2003-7 Six-Party Talks were taking place, Pyongyang tested its first nuclear weapons in 2006. </p>
<p>But today, something crucial is different: the talks will not revolve around an overbearing, coherent and predictable US. Instead, the north and the south are centre stage – and they might finally have the breathing room they need.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92957/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Virginie Grzelczyk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A year ago, productive north-south talks seemed inconceivable – but with the US tripping over its own feet, things are changing.Virginie Grzelczyk, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/822572017-08-09T14:58:55Z2017-08-09T14:58:55ZChina is the key to avoiding nuclear ‘fire and fury’ in North Korea<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181557/original/file-20170809-26073-11t3vve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The news of an exchange of threats between the U.S. and North Korea is reported in Tokyo on Aug. 9, 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un are playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship.</p>
<p>North Korea got the world’s attention – and Trump’s – when it <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/north-korea-missile-icbm-pentagon-trump-not-seen-before-a7825541.html">successfully launched</a> an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time on July 4. In response, the United Nations <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/un-imposes-new-sanctions-on-north-korea-following-missile-tests/2017/08/05/dc382962-7a29-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html">approved new economic sanctions</a> against North Korea which, predictably, inspired a bellicose response from the rogue regime. </p>
<p>Trump <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/08/08/north-korea-trump-ratchet-up-tension-with-threats-fire-hours-apart.html">threatened</a> that further provocations will be met with “fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.” </p>
<p>In response, North Korea issued a threat of its own – <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/north-korea-says-seriously-considering-plan-strike-guam-222757124.html">missile strikes</a> on the U.S. territory of Guam.</p>
<p>With tensions escalating, it is important to be realistic about how we can get out of this mess. </p>
<p>In short, any nonmilitary solution will rely on China choosing to apply its massive economic leverage over the North Korean regime. This is a point that Trump clearly recognizes. In July, he tweeted that Chinese trade with North Korea “<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/882560030884716544">rose 40 percent in the first quarter</a>,” highlighting China’s reluctance to punish North Korea for its pursuit of nuclear weapons. </p>
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<p>While the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/07/05/the-messy-data-behind-chinas-growing-trade-with-north-korea/?utm_term=.41435ab3f758">poor quality of the data</a> hinders a detailed analysis, Trump’s overall sentiment is correct. China has increased its trade with North Korea in recent years and done little to forestall North Korea’s nuclear ambitions besides backing the most recent round of U.N. sanctions. China’s foremost objective seems to be promoting greater stability from its volatile neighbor. </p>
<p>Yet a quick look at the data, however murky, shows just how much leverage China has, if it wishes to use it. </p>
<h2>North Korea’s primary patron</h2>
<p>In general, exports from one country to another <a href="http://www.cepii.fr/pdf_pub/wp/2013/wp2013-27.pdf">can be mostly explained</a> by the distance between them and the sizes of their markets, a pattern that holds for China and North Korea.</p>
<p>Geographically, they share a long border, which makes China a natural, though not inevitable, partner for trade. As a case in point, North Korea also shares a long border with South Korea, but these countries have almost no trade between them. In addition, North Korea shares a small border with Russia, with whom it has little, though ever-increasing, trade, as I discuss below. </p>
<p>China’s large market, proximity and – most importantly – willingness to trade with North Korea has led to a situation in which North Korea has become highly dependent on trade with what has become its primary patron. <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/prk/">About half</a> of North Korean exports and imports go directly to and from China and most of the rest of its trade is handled indirectly by Chinese middlemen. </p>
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<p>North Korea’s dependence on its neighbor has grown hand-in-hand with China’s increasing economic dominance of East Asia, which gained momentum 15 years ago when China <a href="https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/countries_e/china_e.htm">joined the World Trade Organization</a>. Since then, both Chinese gross domestic product as well as its annual trade with North Korea have increased nearly tenfold, to around <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/country/china">US$11 trillion</a> and <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/prk/">$6 billion</a>, respectively. </p>
<p>North Korea <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/chn/prk/show/2015/">imports nearly everything</a> from China, from rubber tires to refined petroleum to pears, with no single category dominating. Meanwhile, <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/import/chn/prk/show/2015/">coal constitutes about 40 percent</a> of North Korean exports to China, followed by “non-knit men’s coats.” </p>
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<h2>Time to use that leverage?</h2>
<p>However, recent events – such as the use of front companies by Chinese firms to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-usa-idUSKCN11W1SL">evade sanctions</a> imposed on North Korea and China’s <a href="http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/01/05/2017010501412.html">reluctance to cut off</a> energy supplies to the country – have led to some uncertainty about the extent to which China is willing to use this economic leverage to rein in North Korea’s military ambitions. </p>
<p>On one hand, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/18/world/asia/north-korea-china-coal-imports-suspended.html">China claims</a> that coal imports from North Korea have recently been stopped as part of an effort to punish the regime for recent missile tests and the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/20/asia/kim-jong-nam-death-timeline/index.html">suspected assassination of Kim Jong-nam</a>, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-makes-kim-jong-un-tick-77143">Kim Jong Un</a>. If true, this would be an important signal of China’s willingness to support U.S. concerns about the missile program as it would represent a loss of <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/prk/">about a third</a> ($930 million) of North Korea’s import revenue. </p>
<p>However, there is evidence that coal shipments in fact <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/07/05/trump_tried_to_make_china_to_do_his_bidding_against_north_korea_and_is_shocked.html">never ceased</a>. And, in any case, China <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/07/05/the-messy-data-behind-chinas-growing-trade-with-north-korea/?utm_term=.41435ab3f758">may have dramatically increased</a> its imports of iron ore from North Korea to offset the lost coal revenues. </p>
<p>This is consistent with the idea that China carefully considers the resources and revenue that are available to the North Korean regime at any moment, and uses trade as a lever to control them. In this way, China walks a fine line between providing too many resources, and thus allowing the regime to prosper, and not enough resources, such that North Korea is in danger of collapsing. Ultimately, trade may be used as a lever to do some light scolding, but China’s overwhelming concern is preventing North Korea’s collapse.</p>
<p>Further evidence that China has tight control over the North Korean economy comes from <a href="https://c4ads.org/reports/">a recent report</a> from <a href="https://c4ads.org">C4ADS</a>. The research group found close, and often common, ownership ties between most of the major Chinese companies who do business with North Korea. This suggests that trade with North Korea is highly centralized and thus easily controlled.</p>
<h2>Russia: North Korea’s other ‘friend’</h2>
<p>China is not the only country that North Korea trades with, though the others currently pale in comparison. Other top export destinations include India ($97.8 million), Pakistan ($43.1 million) and Burkina Faso ($32.8 million). In terms of imports, India ($108 million), Russia ($78.3 million) and Thailand ($73.8 million) currently sell the most to North Korea. </p>
<p>Russia in particular may soon complicate <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/nikki-haley-says-u-s-will-propose-tougher-sanctions-against-north-korea/">U.S. efforts to isolate the regime</a>. While still small, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/06/05/russia-boosts-trade-north-korea-china-cuts/102389824/">Russian trade with North Korea increased</a> 73 percent over the first two months of 2017 compared with the same period of the previous year.</p>
<p>But whereas China is legitimately worried that an economic crisis in North Korea could lead to a flood of refugees or all-out war, Russia likely sees engagement with North Korea in much simpler terms, namely as an additional way to gain geopolitical advantage relative to the U.S.</p>
<h2>A way out?</h2>
<p>Nearly all experts agree that there is no easy way to “solve” the North Korea problem. However, one plausible approach is to encourage South Korea and Japan to begin to develop nuclear weapons programs of their own, and to only discontinue these programs if China takes meaningful steps to use its trade with North Korea to reign in the regime. </p>
<p>Threatening to introduce new nuclear powers to the world is clearly risky, however stable and peaceful South Korea and Japan currently are. But China is highly averse to having these economic and political rivals acquire nuclear capabilities, as it would threaten China’s ongoing pursuit of regional control. In short, this is a sensitive pressure point that could be used to sway the Chinese leadership.</p>
<p>One way or another, China must become convinced that the costs of propping up the North Korean regime through trade are higher than the costs of an increased probability that the regime will collapse.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-china-could-use-trade-to-force-north-korea-to-play-nice-with-the-west-80609">an article</a> originally published on July 6, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82257/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greg Wright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The most viable nonmilitary solution to the standoff with North Korea is to get China to apply pressure. But that’s not so easy.Greg Wright, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of California, MercedLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/774412017-05-15T00:59:25Z2017-05-15T00:59:25Z4 things to know about North and South Korea<p><em>Editor’s note:</em>
North Korea recently tested a <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-idUSKBN1890UO">ballistic missile</a> that landed in the sea between North Korea and Japan. North Korean leaders claim to hold nuclear weapons capabilities that could reach the U.S., although other <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/15/asia/north-korea-missile-test/">recent missile tests</a> have cast doubt on those assertions. </p>
<p>The U.S. is ramping up <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/21/us-south-korea-hold-joint-military-exercise/">joint military exercises</a> with South Korea, and President Donald <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39741671">Trump has stated</a> the threats may lead to a “major, major conflict.” South Koreans have elected <a href="https://theconversation.com/four-challenges-for-moon-jae-in-south-koreas-new-president-77422">a new president</a> who may be open to talks with North Korea.</p>
<p>We turned to one of our experts, Professor Ji-Young Lee, to help us understand that part of the world.</p>
<p>Here are four things to know.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Why is there a North and a South Korea?</strong></p>
<p>Before there was a South and North Korea, the peninsula was ruled as a dynasty known as Chosŏn, which existed for more than five centuries, until 1910. This period, during which an independent Korea had diplomatic <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/chinas-hegemony/9780231179744">relations with China and Japan</a>, ended with imperial Japan’s annexation of the peninsula. Japan’s colonial rule lasted 35 years.</p>
<p>When Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945, the Korean peninsula was split into two zones of occupation – the U.S.-controlled South Korea and the Soviet-controlled North Korea. Amid the growing Cold War tensions between Moscow and Washington, in 1948, two separate governments were established in Pyongyang and Seoul. Kim Il-Sung, leader of North Korea, was a former guerrilla <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-real-north-korea-9780199390038?cc=us&lang=en&">who fought under Chinese and Russian command</a>. <a href="http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-8995-9780824831684.aspx">Syngman Rhee</a>, a Princeton University-educated staunch anti-communist, became the first leader of South Korea.</p>
<p>In an attempt to unify the Korean peninsula under his communist regime, <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/5740.html">Kim Il-Sung invaded the South</a> in June 1950 with Soviet aid. This brought South Korea and the United States, backed by United Nations, to fight against the newly founded People’s Republic of China and North Korea. An armistice agreement ended hostilities in the Korean War in 1953. Technically speaking, however, the two Koreas are still at war.</p>
<p><strong>Beyond the political divide, are Koreans in the North and South all that culturally different? If so, how?</strong></p>
<p>Koreans in the South and North have led separate lives for almost 70 years. Korean history and a collective memory of having been a unified, independent state for over a millennium, however, are a powerful reminder to Koreans that they have shared identity, culture and language. </p>
<p>For example, in both Koreas the history of having resisted Japanese colonialism is an important source of nationalism. Both North and South Korean students learn about the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-real-north-korea-9780199390038?cc=us&lang=en&">1919 March 1 Independence Movement</a> in school.</p>
<p>Consider, too, the Korean language. About 54 percent of North Korean defectors in South Korea say that they have <a href="http://www.nkrf.re.kr/nkrf/archive/archive_01/kolas/kolasView.do?key=70048046&kind=DAS&q2=">no major difficulty understanding</a> Korean used in South Korea. Only 1 percent responded that they cannot understand it at all. </p>
<p>However, the divergent politics of North and South Korea have shaped differences in Koreans’ outlook on life and the world since the split. South Korea’s vibrant democracy is a result of the mass movement of students, intellectuals and middle-class citizens. In <a href="http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756223/obo-9780199756223-0109.xml">North Korea</a>, the state propaganda and ideology of Juche, or “self-reliance,” were used to consolidate the Kim family’s one-man rule, while reproducing a certain mode of thinking designed to help the regime survive.</p>
<p><strong>What have we learned from North Korean defectors who settled in South Korea?</strong></p>
<p>As of September 2016, an estimated 29,830 North Korean defectors are <a href="http://eng.unikorea.go.kr/content.do?cmsid=3892">living in South Korea.</a> From them, we’ve learned the details of people’s everyday life in one of the world’s most closed societies. For example, despite crackdowns, more North Koreans are now watching South Korean TV dramas. </p>
<p>In North Korea, repression, surveillance and punishment are pervasive features of social life. The state relies heavily on coercion and terror as a means of sustaining the regime.</p>
<p>Still, not all North Koreans are interested in defecting. According to <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/marching-through-suffering/9780231171342">anthropologist Sandra Fahy</a>, interviewees said they left the North reluctantly driven primarily by famine and economic reasons, rather than political reasons. A majority of them missed home in the North. </p>
<p>However, Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who defected to the South in 2016, believes that Kim Jong-un’s North Korea could face a popular uprising or elite defection as North Koreans have increasingly become <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTvNBfdjuJI">disillusioned with the regime.</a></p>
<p><strong>What is the history of U.S. relations with South Korea, and where do they stand now?</strong></p>
<p>The purpose of the U.S.-South Korea alliance has changed little since its formation in 1953. This has much to do with continuing threats from North Korea. </p>
<p>However, despite differences in their approach to North Korea, President George W. Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun took a major step toward transforming the Cold War alliance into a “<a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/07/joint-declaration-commemoration-60th-anniversary-alliance-between-republ">comprehensive strategic alliance</a>.” Under President Barack Obama and South Korean Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, many believed the U.S.-South Korea alliance was at its best. Under their leadership, Washington and Seoul agreed to expand the alliance’s scope to cover nontraditional threats, like terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and other global challenges like piracy and epidemic disease, while coordinating and standing firm against North Korea’s provocations. </p>
<p>Now, with Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump as new presidents of South Korea and the United States, there is a greater degree of uncertainty. Among other things, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-we-may-terminate-us-south-korea-trade-agreement/2017/04/27/75ad1218-2bad-11e7-a616-d7c8a68c1a66_story.html?utm_term=.7220866a5910">Trump criticized</a> the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, while insisting Seoul pay for THAAD, a U.S. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/world/asia/trump-south-korea-thaad-missile-defense-north-korea.html?_r=0">missile defense system deployed in South Korea</a>. Moon, whose parents fled the North during the Korean War, is likely to put inter-Korean reconciliation as one of his top priorities. This may collide with the current U.S. approach of imposing sanctions against North Korea.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77441/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ji-Young Lee received funding from the Academy of Korean Studies (Competitive Research Grant, 2013), for a book project on historical international order in Asia.</span></em></p>North and South Korea explained in four questions and answers.Ji-Young Lee, Assistant Professor, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/736022017-02-24T07:40:18Z2017-02-24T07:40:18ZMalaysia says Kim Jong-nam was killed with a chemical weapon – here’s what you need to know<p>A preliminary report from Malaysian authorities has found that Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/world/asia/kim-jong-nam-vx-nerve-agent-.html?emc=edit_na_20170223&nl=breaking-news&nlid=64524812&ref=cta">killed by the banned nerve agent VX</a>. </p>
<p>He died on his way to hospital from Kuala Lumpur airport on February 13 2017. It’s claimed that two women, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kim-jong-nam-murder-second-woman-arrested/">who have now been detained</a>, rubbed the chemical <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/world/asia/kim-jong-nam-vx-nerve-agent-.html?emc=edit_na_20170223&nl=breaking-news&nlid=64524812&ref=cta">on his face</a>.</p>
<p>We asked a pharmacologist to explain what the nerve agent involved is and how it works; and an expert in international law to examine the implications of an assassination using a banned chemical weapon on foreign soil.</p>
<h2>What is VX nerve agent?</h2>
<p>Chemical warfare weapons act on the nervous system (hence the name <a href="https://www.opcw.org/about-chemical-weapons/types-of-chemical-agent/nerve-agents/">nerve agents</a>), typically the nerves that control breathing. They act on the cholinergic nerves generally, which control the diaphragm. </p>
<p>The VX nerve agent <a href="http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/vx/vxc/modeof.htm">inhibits the enzyme acetylcholinesterase</a>, which breaks down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine secreted by the cholinergic nerves. <a href="http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/vx/vxc/modeof.htm">This results in more acetylcholine</a>, which overstimulates the tissues, resulting in respiratory paralysis and death.</p>
<p>It is similar to but more powerful than sarin gas, which was used in the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/tokyo-sarin-gas-anniversary-victims-families-gather-20-years-after-deathcults-attack-10124217.html">Tokyo subway attacks in 1995</a>.</p>
<p>Only very little of a nerve agent is needed to kill someone, and it works very fast. The <a href="https://www.opcw.org/about-chemical-weapons/types-of-chemical-agent/nerve-agents/#c4118">speed of death depends on mode of delivery</a>. A nerve agent works faster if it goes directly to the respiratory system, but 10 milligrams on the skin will kill you.</p>
<p>Originally developed from a class of organophosphate pesticides that were abandoned as too toxic, the by British and US military agencies <a href="http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2006/Macgee/Web%20Project/nerve_gas.htm">subsequently developed the VX nerve agent</a> as a chemical warfare weapon.</p>
<p>Various governments stockpiled it as a chemical weapon, but stocks are being destroyed worldwide as <a href="https://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons-convention/">part of the Chemical Weapons Convention</a>. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/24/kim-jong-nam-north-korea-killed-chemical-weapon-nerve-agent-mass-destruction-malaysian-police?CMP=soc_568">Saddam Hussein was thought to have used the toxin and it’s suspected Syria may have stockpiles</a>, but the former USSR and the US are the only countries that have admitted to having VX or similar nerve agents. American stores were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/world/asia/kim-jong-nam-vx-nerve-agent-.html?emc=edit_na_20170223&nl=breaking-news&nlid=64524812&ref=cta">all destroyed by 2012</a>.</p>
<p>There’s no clear evidence of it being used militarily, but Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo used it to <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/03/14/national/history/cult-attraction-aum-shinrikyos-power-persuasion/">attack people in Osaka in December 1994</a> (as opposed to their sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway).</p>
<h2>What does international law say?</h2>
<p>The VX nerve agent is banned under international law because it’s a chemical weapon as <a href="https://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons-convention/">defined in the Chemical Weapons Conventions</a>. Such weapons were banned under international law for a number of reasons. </p>
<p>Chemical weapons are, by nature, indiscriminate – it’s very hard to use them in a way that targets only combatants (people directly participating in hostilities) and spares civilians, which is a <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/470-750065">fundamental rule of the law of armed conflict</a>. </p>
<p>Even if you could use chemical weapons in a discriminate manner, they would still be illegal under the international law principle that prohibits means and methods of warfare that <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/470-750065">cause unnecessary suffering and superfluous injury</a>, that is, when the injury or suffering caused is out of proportion to the military advantage sought. </p>
<p>While a number of countries are known or suspected to have VX in their possession, there’s no evidence that a state has employed it in armed conflict, or in any other context. <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/cwcsig">North Korea is not a party</a> to the Chemical Weapons Conventions.</p>
<p>Malaysia and the international community as a whole are somewhat constrained to act against North Korea for its use of VX nerve agent to kill Kim Jong-nam. The Malaysian authorities are, of course, perfectly entitled to prosecute the perpetrators. But whether the international community could do anything to North Korea itself is a bit more problematic. </p>
<p>First, it would have to be proved that the perpetrators were acting on instructions from North Korean authorities, or that their acts were somehow attributable to the North Korean government. Only then would the acts of the individual perpetrators be considered acts of the state. </p>
<p>The use of this chemical weapon is internationally prohibited, but the chances of being able to bring North Korean authorities before an international criminal tribunal, or to bring a suit against North Korea in the International Court of Justice, are essentially non-existent. </p>
<p>The only option would be for a resolution to be passed in the UN General Assembly or the Security Council, or both, condemning the use of chemical weapons in violation of the treaty. Another option is imposing sanctions against North Korea in addition to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-01/un-imposes-new-sanctions-on-north-korea/8081704">the ones that already exist</a>. </p>
<p>Any country that maintains diplomatic relations with North Korea, such as Malaysia, or treaty arrangements could potentially be entitled to take action. It could expel North Korean diplomats, or withdraw its own ambassador from North Korea.</p>
<p>Whether it’s legal for a country to have someone killed on foreign soil as appears to have happened in this case is very complicated under international law. Broadly, it can be legal in a couple of very limited circumstances. </p>
<p>It’s allowed if the targeting state is at war with the targeted state (and the person who is killed is a citizen of the targeted state), and the person being targeted is a lawful target under the international law of armed conflict because that person is a member of the armed forces or is otherwise directly participating in the armed conflict.</p>
<p>Second, if the targeted person is about to carry out an armed attack on the targeting state, international law on the use of force says it’s lawful to target that person to stop them carrying out an imminent attack. </p>
<p>Having said that, neither of those scenarios seems to be at play here – <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kim-jong-nam-murder-second-woman-arrested/">the two women arrested for carrying out the attack</a> are an Indonesian national and one carrying a Vietnamese passport. </p>
<p>Neither of those countries is at war with North Korea, so the first scenario is out. </p>
<p>The second scenario also doesn’t seem relevant as there’s no evidence to suggest that Kim Jong-nam was about to launch an armed attack against Malaysia, Indonesia or Vietnam necessitating the use of lethal force to prevent it. This appears to be a political assassination, not a legally justifiable act of self-defence or use of lethal force in a situation of armed conflict.</p>
<p>The only similar recent example that comes to mind is the <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/an-eye-for-an-eye-the-anatomy-of-mossad-s-dubai-operation-a-739908.html">assassination of a Hamas agent in Dubai in 2010</a>, allegedly by the Israeli Mossad agency. That was a case of a person being killed on foreign soil, seemingly by a state government agency. </p>
<p>The international response ranged from condemnation of the act and expulsion of Israeli diplomatic agents from countries that had been subject to passport fraud in the process, including Australia, as those responsible for that attack were carrying fake documents from various states.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73602/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Crawford is a member of the Australian Red Cross International Humanitarian Law Advisory Committee (NSW)</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Musgrave receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council to study adverse reactions to herbal medicines, and has previously been funded by the Australian Research Council to study potential natural product treatments for Alzheimer's disease. He also is receiving funding from APL to study food safety. He has lead a study into the developmental toxicity of cyanobacterial toxins.</span></em></p>Using nerve agents is banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention, but North Korea is not a party to it.Emily Crawford, Lecturer and Co-Director, Sydney Centre for International Law, University of SydneyIan Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.