North Korea News Podcast by NK News - A North Korean defection, postponed US-ROK drills and dismantling loudspeakers

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

NK News Executive Director Jeongmin Kim joins the podcast to discuss the story of a North Korean defector in her 70s who is under investigation for allegedly leaking the locations of fellow escapees to Pyongyang’s secret police, as well as the daring maritime defection of a North Korean who swam across the Han River estuary. […]

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And today, it is August the 12th. It's a Tuesday, and I'm here in the studio with Jong Min Kim. John Min, welcome on the show. Thanks for having me. So let's start with some defection stories. Most listeners may not know this, but it was back in the 1990s that defection stories were really what got me interested in North Korea. That and propaganda.

How do you encourage someone to defect and then what motivates somebody and how do their lives go afterwards? Yeah, what's the trigger and how do their lives go? Now, we've got two different stories, but the theme is the same as defections. So first of all, we've got a betrayal story, a sad defection story. So tell us that one. Well, it's apparently, according to police, they won't give us much details about this because it's under investigation the case. But a female defector in her 70s apparently leaked or sold the information about other defectors

in South Korea to North Korean's secret police. So she's being investigated for that. Boyzong? Yes, Poizong. Right. Right, but it seems like the charges are related to the National Security Act of being tasked by the North Korean authority to play a certain role in South Korea. And in this case, it looks like the defector in her 70s leaked, the location of specific

defectors in South Korea. Oh, okay. Now, why would somebody do something like that? Well, in the paths, when there were similar cases... Right, because this is not, we should point out to listen, this is not the first time something like this has happened. Yeah, not the first time. It's sometimes either about instructing other defectors

or it's a complete opposite. It's often about attempting to threaten the families who are still in North Korea based on the location and other information of the defectors based in South Korea. So tell us about the first one. Did you say instructing other defectors? Right.

So there were, I think there were, cases in the past where they were trying to find the potential remaining comrades in South Korea so that they can make use of it. But this is more rare. More often, it's about threatening the families in North Korea so they can make use of and take advantage of them. Wow. Now, I'm a great fan of comic books, of course, and the South Korean comic book series, well, Rodong Shimon, not Shinun like the newspaper, but Shimon, they started off as a webtoon by North Korean defector cartoonist Chesongguk, and in his books, it's got a three-volume series. And one of the subplots there is indeed a defector who comes here and is then manipulated by the Boisong through his family

back home to basically try to sell out other defectors. Right, exactly something like that. And it's actually quite different from a similar case last year where South Korean authorities arrested a civilian employee of the Defense Intelligence Command for leaking ROK military secrets, for instance, including list of spies or alleged Chinese agent in exchange for money. So these sort of activity under the National Security Act would be considered espionage. But the act of just leaking information

of North Korean defectors, it would be serving the pursuit of anti-state organizations' objectives, which is Mokchuk-Suheng in National Security Act. So the intent is different. Intent is different. So the charges are different. Now, about 20 years ago, I knew an American man who had,

met a North Korean woman in China. They got married. They came to South Korea. She went through the normal processes, Hana won, et cetera. And he said that they would sometimes get threatening phone calls to their house, which was an unlisted number, and, you know, it was supposed to be a house that was given to them

or at least arranged for them by the National Intelligence Service. And they would get threatening phone calls to the house from people who knew who she was. And he always wondered, he suspected that it was people in the government who were selling the list of phone numbers. This is in the Sunshine Policy era, but yeah, maybe it was other defectors who were shopping this information around, right? Right, potentially under the instruction of the North Korean authorities.

But in cases like this, at the end of the day, it's very difficult to figure out what the actual intent was or what the actual instruction was until we see the criminal conviction from the court. So in this case, in the case of the woman in her 70s down in Ulsan, I believe. Yeah. Which is, I don't know how many defectors are down there, but anyway, so this is still. In the investigation stages, right? Under our early investigation. Right, so we may find out more if and when she goes to court. And we will let you know when that happens.

Yeah, thank you. All right, now we have a second defection story. This is one, I mean, one of the hardest ways to, I mean, every way to defect out of North Korea to South Korea is really difficult. You can either go the very, very long way through China and Southeast Asia, or if you're really brave, you can try and go overland through the minefield, through the demilitarized zone. or if you're a really strong swimmer, and a lot of people aren't, I'm not, you can try and get across the Han River Estuary into South Korea. And we've got somebody who's done that just recently. Right.

It's a North Korean man who swam across the maritime border that you mentioned, and near South Korea's Kjolong Island, which is Incheon. I've been there. Yeah, me too, recently. There's a great lookouts point there right over into North Korea with a little, what do you call it, a coffee shop in a van or a bus. Right, you can look at it from, I think, Ganghua Observatory, you can see Kjodong Island and you can see North Korean land a little bit as well.

And this wasn't this month, it was late last month. So we are actually seeing a lot of uptick in either defection stories or inter-Korean stories, anything border-related. We were seeing an uptick of the stories recently. And this is the second apparent defection under I Jemang administration, which is quite new. So this is interesting. How did you get across the water? I mean, did he have a raft or some sort of a flotation device?

It looks like it was an individual that was found near the neutral zone of the Han River estuary and handed over to the relevant authorities. It's unclear if he or she had the device or anything that we saw before, but the defense ministry told on K News that this person likely simply drifted in through the water. Wow, that is, it's really, really, he's lucky, I guess. It's dangerous. It is retired Lieutenant Colonel Steve Tharp, whom you know, he's been in the podcast before, he talked about how in the 1980s he would regularly go to the Hunn River estuary

and they would find dead bodies of North Korean soldiers who were turned up. And it wasn't always clear whether they'd intentionally jumped into the water or if in floodwaters in the summertime they'd been swept away. Which also happened recently. Also, exactly. So there would constantly be these dead bodies that would turn up and they'd be sometimes in quite a state of decomposition. So this guy is really lucky to be alive.

Right. And also South Korean media, some of them reported. that the individual did wear some pieces of styrofoam strap to their body. So it could have been using the devices, which is pretty clear that the intent was to defect. Right. And the Navy, of course, normally in these situations, when they find someone, they asked them, do you intend to defect? Did he say that he did?

It seems so. And under the joint government investigation, and because of that, the authorities wouldn't tell us more about that. Right, because not every North Korean that ends up here stays here. Some of them say, no, no, I want to go back. I came here by accident, so they get handed back. Which also happened recently, Via Vote. Right, that's right, via Vote. And then there was also a dead body.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so that's two defection stories. Let's now talk about the summer Ulci Freedom Shield exercises. The successor of Ulci Freedom Guardian, which changed the name in 2022, I believe. And this year, this is interesting because the annual summertime drill, this is the biggest joint a drill between the allies. And under UN administration, Yun used UCHI Freedom Shield very, very much to show and demonstrate the South Korea-U.S.

Combined readiness on specific North Korean threats, they would use specific assets to demonstrate precision strikes and whatnot. But this time around, this is a first summertime drill since IJemang administration's inauguration. And also, if you remember, there was a Kim Jong statement that mentioned the drill specifically, And a couple of hours later, the unification minister said, oh, I will suggest to the president that we should scale down this year's summertime drill. It was very, very quick to actually respond to Kim Jong's statement like that. It doesn't, I mean, politically, that's sending all the wrong messages, right?

I mean, there are already people here in the PPP and other parties' right of center who believes that Chong Dong Yong is just simply taking his instructions straight from North Korea. I know. And, you know, this doesn't help. He could have said it quietly behind the closed doors. That's totally fine to make suggestions not to the public and in the press room to journalists, right? But he did that anyways. And then this happens.

And the way that the South Korea and the U.S. military authorities, the spokespersons of JCS and South Korea JCS and USFK, when they did a joint briefing, they said, oh, we will postpone, no, adjust 20 out of 40 field training exercises to September. of heat wave. But that's kind of awkward because this week, it's not that hot. No, no, it's actually nice walking around the outside. It was 27 or something degrees yesterday. Yeah, it's past Ipchu, which is the entrance of the fall sort of as seasonal changes. So it's not that hot. So I'm not sure what the government will say now, but then after the military authorities explain it's because of the heat wave, it's because of the because of maintaining highest quality

possible of the operations, blah, blah, blah. And then again, a couple hours later, later, the unification minister, ministry, high-level official spoke to journalists saying, oh, I believe this adjustment is for peace on the Korean Peninsula in line with what the minister asked Lee to consider. So the unification ministry and the defense ministry are not in lockstep right now. So we have some very, very mixed messaging coming out there. Is the combined forces command saying anything or UNC? There was a General Brunson statement related to other issues, not the UFS, just general alliance posture, but not specifically about the drills. And we should point out that North Korea has done its own military drills around this time.

So it's not like they're sitting on their heels doing nothing. You know, they're out there conducting military drills involving mortar firing and other such activities. Right. And so because of considering those threats that always exist, the exercise, it's 11-day, it will mostly proceed as scheduled, according to the JCS, in a scale similar to last years, involving approximately

18,000 South Korean troops and the U.S. forces as well. And any fuel training exercises, I believe, that involved the already scheduled U.S. assets and U.S. troops, they will go ahead without postponement, but the rest will be in September.

Okay. And then we've got also inter-Korean issues, loudspeakers. Now, what, around the time, I think that I went on vacation back in June. South Korea had turned off its loudspeakers. North Korea responded a day later by doing the same. And now both sides are taking apart. Yes, North Korea is doing a very passive tit-for-tat reciprocal actions

to what Ejameng administration is trying to do and frame as risk management. After the loudspeakers were turned off shortly after inauguration, the physical loudspeakers have been dismantling on the South Korean side. And this is for the first time in decades. So this is actually a big deal. And it appears that North Korean side is also removing their side of the loudspeakers as well. And for listeners who may not have seen this before, it's not like single loudspeakers sitting there.

I mean, these are banks or arrays of multiple speakers stacked up or next to each other in a large bank or array. So you can't just pick it up and move it. You need to dismantle it. And so they're being, hopefully they're being put in storage somewhere for when they're next needed. Potentially, because there are two types of loudspeakers. One is the type that you just explained how they have to actually actively dismantle. And there's another type, which is newer, which is a transportable one that kind of looks like a multiple rocket launcher, but it's a loudspeaker. Okay. Wow. Now, I think I saw something just a few days before that said that North Korea was actually expanding its loudspeaker arrays.

So what's going on there? Yes, you're right. There were increased setup of the loudspeaker along the inter-Korean border on the North Korean side, although no extra propaganda broadcasts have been aired through that. But the defense ministry did confirm to NK News at the time that there were increased number at the time. Wow.

Now, I mean, these things, they happen time and again, but they're really temporary fixes, aren't they? Yeah, so apparently the expansion was not exactly after I. administration inaugurated. So it was in May and June. So it kept, my guess is that it was part of the plan under the UN administration when the North Korean side was building everything alongside the land border, including the anti-tank wall. Maybe this was part of the scheduled plan. But then now that the administration changed and the posture change on the South Korean side, they are taking it down after expanding them. Now from the South Korean side, the kind of

propaganda that was being sent was, I mean, it wasn't always political messaging, right? I mean, of it was a bit of music, bit of news, bit of weather, that sort of thing. Yeah, I went down to the border with Chad, I think last year sometime, to check out what they actually would air. Some of them were framed as information, but with a slight rhetorical framing of how a soul is very, very great government to share this information to the people, you know, even when they're talking about weather, they would say, oh, if you're a worker, construction worker working outside, your employer should not be letting you working outside and you should be careful about the heat-related diseases.

So they would frame information like that. And North Korea, on the other hand, was doing mainly what, weird noises, weren't they? Right. South Korean media framed it as a ghost sound. So it was like it's unidentified type of sound that is just howling sound all right. So it's not really, it's not verbal, it's not, there's no message there. It's just to really get people, to rattle people to. Near the border.

Near the border, right. Mostly the local residents here. Okay, well, that's where we'll leave it for today. Thank you, Jong Wyn, for coming on the show and walking us through the latest news. And happy birthday, Jock. Thank you. Looking to stay informed about South Korea's fast-evolving political business

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