Edward Howell

Crying in public is something we tend to associate with the North Korean people rather than their rulers ­– who are often described as having a near god-like status. Who can forget, following the death of Kim Jong-il in 2011, how the streets of Pyongyang were lined with weeping mourners? So perhaps it was surprising to see Kim Jong-un crying in public this week, in a televised announcement to the mothers of North Korea. But while this may seem perplexing, the Supreme Leader’s message was as clear as ever: that loyalty to the Kim regime is paramount. Kim was speaking at North Korea’s National Conference of Mothers.

North Korea is hardly the first country that comes to mind when you think of elections. Yet since the inception of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1948, parliamentary and local polls have, in fact, taken place. The former occur every four to five years and elect members of the Supreme People’s Assembly, the country’s rubber-stamp parliament and highest body of state authority. Since 1999, local elections have also been held, responsible for electing governors, mayors, and local assemblies at municipal, county, and provincial levels. Predictably for a totalitarian regime, local elections – much like the Supreme People’s Assembly – are little more than a mere formality, with voter turnout usually at or around 100 per cent.

First, it was Russia’s war with Ukraine. Then, it was Hamas’s terrorist attacks against Israel. Both of these events, in gross violation of international law, have certainly not escaped the watchful eyes of that infamous state sponsor of terrorism, North Korea. Earlier this week, a Hamas official said North Korea is ‘part of [Hamas's] alliance’, and he intimidated Israel and the United States with the words that: ‘the day may come when North Korea intervenes’ by unleashing a direct strike against the United States. Recent events have clearly demonstrated that Hamas does not just want to destroy the lives of Israeli civilians, but the very existence of the Israeli state. Similarly, Israel is a state that North Korea does not recognise.

Perhaps he was not so useful after all. Yesterday, North Korea’s decision to expel Private Travis King, just over two months after the US soldier bolted across the inter-Korean border, quashed speculation that he would be held captive for years. A month after admitting that King had been detained, Pyongyang decided to ‘expel’ the man who ‘illegally intruded’ into the country. Once again, he remains in custody, but this time in the hands of the United States, as they decide his fate following not only the border-crossing, but also charges of assault and destruction of public property while stationed in Seoul.  True to form, North Korean state media revealed little about why the government decided to free the US soldier.

On 27 July, while commemorating the 70th anniversary of what North Korea perversely terms its ‘victory’ in the Korean war, Kim Jong-un proudly gave a guided tour of his intercontinental ballistic missiles, drones and missile engines. The lucky visitor was none other than Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu. Later that day, Shoigu stood next to the Supreme Leader as they watched North Korea’s rockets paraded across Kim Il Sung square.   Now it seems that Shoigu’s visit – the first time a Russian defence minister had come to North Korea since the collapse of the Soviet Union – has paid off. Today, it has been reported that Kim Jong-un is preparing to travel to Russia to meet Vladimir Putin to discuss the sale of weapons.

After nearly a month of silence, North Korea has finally spoken out about Travis King – the US soldier who dashed across the border while on a guided tour from South Korea.  To the dismay of observers, however, the press release by the state-controlled media outlet, the Korean Central News Agency, offered no details as to his current condition or whereabouts.  North Korea’s own narrative portrays its people as the purer of the two Koreas, forced to live in an evil world led by its ultimate adversary, the United States The North Korean announcement did, however, state that King entered the country hoping to seek political asylum, because he was seeking to flee ‘inhumane maltreatment’ and ‘racial discrimination’ in the US army.

Silence is not a common feature in the North Korean regime’s playbook, and this year is no exception. Only this past week, North Korea’s flurry of ballistic missile launches has been complemented by a cornucopia of threats from senior officials – including Kim Yo-jong, the sharp-tongued sister of Kim Jong-un – who have upped the ante in their anti-US rhetoric. The ruling regime repeated that dialogue with the United States is off the table. Not only that, the North Korean defence minister also warned that the deployment of a US ballistic missile submarine – the USS Kentucky – to South Korea could ‘fall under the conditions’ for the isolated state to use its nuclear weapons.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Such is the axiom underpinning North Korea’s (DPRK) approach towards its nuclear and missile development. The hermit kingdom’s acceleration in its nuclear and missile capabilities demonstrates how Kim Jong-un is working down his wish list of expanding his country’s conventional and unconventional weapons, which he declared in January 2021. Since then, the world has witnessed launches of solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), combat drones, and, most recently, military reconnaissance satellites. Last Wednesday’s launch of a Chollima-1 rocket was nothing to celebrate. It failed to ignite before hurtling into the Yellow Sea, which separates the Korean Peninsula from mainland China.

North Korea’s spring has started with a bang. The United States and South Korea have staged their largest joint military exercises in five years, and Pyongyang’s rhetoric is becoming more aggressive. Kim Jong Un has warned that the US and South Korea would ‘plunge into despair’ for holding the drills, as he fired two missiles into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Kim’s regime has already fired more than 20 missiles this year, launching increasingly ambitious and sophisticated ballistic and cruise missiles. Earlier this week, North Korean state media proudly claimed that the regime had developed tactical nuclear weapons for the first time.

While some people start the day with a bowl of cereal, North Korea chose to greet Thursday with the launch of a ballistic missile. The missile, believed to have intercontinental capabilities, failed mid-flight, but it was nonetheless significant. North Korea fired it on the second consecutive day of weapons testing held by the country this week: on those two days it launched more missiles than it had done in the entirety of 2017, with over 23 missiles and over 100 artillery shells on Wednesday alone. North Korea’s missile test caused international havoc. South Korean news broadcasts were interrupted by air raid sirens urging the population to seek shelter; Japan issued evacuation alerts to residents on Honshū, the country’s largest island.

It was a new dawn, a new day, and a new North Korean missile test. The land of the morning calm – as South Korea is affectionately-nicknamed – awoke to the launch of the fifth North Korean ballistic missile in ten days. Over the past ten months, the international community has become accustomed to a growing number of North Korean missile launches, of an increasingly diverse range of missiles. Kim Jong-un’s determination for North Korea to become a nuclear state, and be recognised as such is only heightening. Russia and China are now more reticent than ever to side with the West and support sanctions on North Korea Last night’s launch was of a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile.

Kim Jong-un’s notorious sister is back in the limelight. Not only is Kim Yo Jong reiterating her hostile words against South Korea and the United States, but she is also seeking to reinforce the loyalty of the North Korean people to her brother. How better to combine the two than to infer that the Supreme Leader had, in fact, caught coronavirus. When North Korea first disclosed cases of a ‘fever’ in May this year, the world waited to see how the country’s rudimentary healthcare system and largely unvaccinated population would cope. Nearly three months after that revelation, Kim Jong-un has ‘declared victory’ over coronavirus.

Anniversaries are usually celebratory occasions, but not this one. It's now been two years since the infamous Hanoi summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, and there is precious little to show other than an important lesson in how negotiations with North Korea can sour.  Joe Biden is now nearing his first one-hundred days in office. Little has been said about dealing with the North Korea problem. But one thing is for sure: a US-North Korea summit is far from imminent. Following their first encounter in Singapore in June 2018, it suited Trump and Kim to meet again. For both leaders, the theatre and optics of their gathering was too good to resist a second outing. It is then that things appeared to go wrong.