Consider This from NPR - What Putin And Kim Jong Un Stand To Gain By Meeting

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2019, both countries were in a different position. Russia had yet to invade Ukraine.Four years later, Russia is trying to secure weapons from North Korea. The two leaders are expected to meet this month to discuss a deal. NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Jean Lee, the former Pyongyang bureau chief for the Associated Press, and Georgetown University's Angela Stent, about the upcoming meeting between Kim Jong Un and Putin — and what North Korea might get out of it.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu. The last time Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin met, it was a very different world. April 2019, in Vladivostok, Russia, just over the border from North Korea. Over champagne at a reception, Putin said, I propose a toast to further strengthening our friendship. The meeting was about strengthening that alliance.

The two leaders discussed denuclearization and potential arms deals. No specific agreements were made. But at the time, Russia was not at war. Now, North Korea is one of the few countries to openly support Russia since its invasion of Ukraine last year. This week, Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin are expected to meet for the first time since 2019. And the White House is concerned. And we will continue to call on North Korea to abide by its public commitments not to supply weapons to Russia that will end up killing Ukrainians. That's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaking at a press conference this week. The U.S. has placed

targeted sanctions to prevent North Korea from supplying weapons to Russia. Last year, the White House said the Wagner Group, a private Russian military force, took a delivery of arms from North Korea. North Korea denied this and said they have no plans to supply Russia with weapons. As National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan put it, What has changed in their calculus is not something that I can speak to. That's in the mind of Kim Jong-un, and he obviously will be the ultimate decision maker. Consider this. Russia needs weapons. North Korea has them. So what do the North Koreans want in return?

From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Monday, September 11th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today, or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University drives discovery, innovation, and creative endeavors to solve some of society's greatest challenges. Groundbreaking investments in neuroscience, climate change, Alzheimer's research, and cybersecurity mean IU sets new standards to move the world forward, unlocking cures and solutions that lead to a better future for all. More at iu.edu forward.

This message comes from Pushkin. In Revenge of the Tipping Point, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell returns to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points and the dark side of contagious phenomena. Available wherever books are sold and wherever you get your audiobooks. It's Consider This from NPR. This week, a dark green train with yellow trim rolled slowly down a track at the border where Russia, China, and North Korea meet. Inside, one of its 90 or so cars was believed to be the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. This is his first known trip outside North Korea in more than four years, and he's traveling in his preferred mode of transportation, a custom-built armored train, just as his father and grandfather before

him traveled. This week, the destination for that locomotive entourage is believed to be the Russian city of Vladivostok, where Kim and Putin are expected to meet. So when that train pulls into the station, what is each side hoping to get from the other? To help us answer that question, we are joined by Gene Lee, the former Pyongyang Bureau Chief for the Associated Press, and Angela Stent, Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies at Georgetown University. Welcome to you both. Good to be on the show. Hi.

This meeting comes with President Putin in a tight spot. The war in Ukraine is grinding on, and it's unclear who has the upper hand right now. So, Angela, let's begin with you. What does Putin want from Kim in this meeting? Well, this is quite a reversal of fortune for Russia. You know, the great superpower is now more or less the supplicant to one of the most isolated countries in the world. I think what Putin needs immediately from Kim Jong-un is weapons. It's ammunition. The Russians are running out of artillery. They're running out of other things that they need to continue prosecuting this war. But I think Putin is also elevating North Korea's position and really changing, Russia's changing its policy toward North Korea

because of the Ukraine war. And I think Kim is the beneficiary of this. Jean, can you speak to that power shift, that reversal, and the opportunity that it presents for Kim and for North Korea? There isn't often a time when North Korea has something to offer anyone, to be honest. So this is a perfect moment for Kim Jong-un to step in and say, look, I have something you need for a change. North Korea was a country that did invest in its confessional wampumry with Soviet support for decades.

So they've got what Russia needs. And what North Korea needs, what Kim Jong-un needs, is a platform, a stage. He is coming out of four years of isolation and he wants to make another big debut. And so with this visit, there are of course those promises that he and Putin may make about their partnership. But he also gets this chance to send a message to his foes about the role that he can still play as a disruptor. And he'll have this

incredibly valuable propaganda that he'll be able to take back home to the North Korean people about his influence with a powerful neighbor. Well, he will say that they are powerful at a time when the people may be questioning the decisions that he's made to keep the country under such isolation over the past four years. So it has the potential to change the narrative of North Korea as a purely isolated rogue state. And this is not the first time the two men have met. In 2019, Kim took a train to Vladivostok, and the two countries didn't reach any major agreements then. But what do we know about their ongoing relationship since then?

So from the Russian point of view, you know, the relationship with North Korea really deteriorated after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But under Putin, gradually, the relationship with North Korea has improved. Very recently, you had the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu going to North Korea, the first time a Russian Defense Minister had been there since the collapse of the Soviet Union, touring factories, admiring the munitions, the things that Russia needs to buy, participating in celebrations of the anniversaries in North Korea. So that was already a signal that things were really going to change. I would say from the

Russian point of view, there's also a South Korean angle here. South Korea did join with the United States and Japan and all the European countries in imposing sanctions on Russia. It's condemned the war in Ukraine in 2014 when Russia occupied Crimea. South Korea did not take a position like that. And I think Putin is trying to use this as leverage to try and kind of warn the South Koreans, this is what we can do. And in supporting North Korea, we could make it an even more dangerous adversary. And the South Koreans have already been seeing many provocations from North Korea just in those past few months. Jean, how far-fetched is it to imagine that this meeting could open the door to North Korea becoming part of an alliance that stands counter to NATO? I mean, whether you include Iran,

whether you include China, is there a scenario in which North Korea starts to become, if not a full-fledged, at least sort of, you know, a corollary to that alternative grouping of countries? I think one thing that we have to confront is that even though North Korea has been in isolation over the past four years, they've been quiet. And so in some ways, they've dropped off our radar, especially the first few years of isolation. They have been continuing to expand and build their nuclear program. The advancements that North Korea has made over the last several years are undeniable. And that does mean that they're going to play a bigger role, despite the fact that it's a bigger role, despite the fact

that it's a poor country, despite that it has very few friends. It has the potential and the power to play a role in changing the global order in terms of proliferation. Paradoxically, the Russia-Ukraine war has given a number of, I would say, middle-level countries, but also including even a country like North Korea, the opportunity to say, hey, we don't, you know, here you have the great powers that raid against each other, all this competition. We want to use this to kind of assert our importance regionally and to have more say in the global order and to have more agency. And, you know, we think about countries like Brazil or India, but even a country like North Korea now can be a more important regional player because of this war. And I think

this is one of the unintended consequences of this that, you know, we didn't foresee. And that's why I say Kim Jong-un also wants to insert himself as a disruptor. I mean, the Koreans have always seen themselves as what they say, a shrimp among whales, a tiny country that has always had to fend off these larger neighbors. And North Korea has really embraced this idea that in order to stay relevant, in order to survive, you have to be someone of a disruptor. They really embrace that. Unfortunately, we're starting to see how they've managed to use that to their advantage. Do either of you think that a stronger Russia-North Korea relationship

should be a cause of great concern for NATO in the West? I mean, I think it should be a cause of concern, maybe not great concern yet. But I think, you know, if you just look at what's happening in Northeast Asia and in these kind of shifting relationships, Russia, China, now North Korea, and then again, the joint Russian-Chinese harassment of the South Koreans and the Japanese, I think that the stronger North Korea-Russia relationship should be a cause for concern. I don't think it endangers anything at the moment, but I think if Russia keeps getting more of the ammunition and what it needs to continue prosecuting the war in

Ukraine from North Korea, then that will have an impact on the course of the ammunition and what it needs to continue prosecuting the war in Ukraine from North Korea, then that will have an impact on the course of the war. Angela Stent is director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University. And Jean Lee, a former Pyongyang bureau chief at the Associated Press, she hosts a podcast called The Lazarus Heist about North Korea's cyber theft. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Thank you.