North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Jane Hardy: An Australian diplomat’s lessons from 30 years with North Korea

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

Former Australian diplomat Jane Hardy joins this episode to discuss how Australia has engaged with North Korea over the past few decades, and what that experience reveals about diplomacy, deterrence and nuclear risk today.  Hardy, who spent over 30 years in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, shares insights from her work on […]

You're listening to an exclusive episode of the NK News podcast available only to subscribers. You can listen to this and other episodes from your preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide on the NKNews website at nknews.org slash private-feed. Hello, listeners, and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jacko's wetsuit, and I'm recording this episode on Tuesday, the 11th of November, 2025. It's Remembrance Day, and I'm joined by a first-time guest, and that's Jane Hardy, who is a former senior Australian diplomat who has served in seven long-term overseas Australian missions

for at ambassador level. She's also held numerous senior executive positions in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade or DFAT in Canberra during a 33-year career. Jane is now a senior fellow at the US Study Centre at Sydney University advising the Women in the Alliance program. Welcome on the show, Jane Hardy. Thank you, Jacco. Great to be here. Jane, looking back over 33 years in diplomacy, what's the single most durable lesson that you think you've learned about dealing with North Korea, or more broadly, about statecraft, that you wish every new diplomat understood on day one? Well, that's a great question. I always say the most important thing to

understand about diplomacy is it's all about influence. Knowledge is one thing. Good intelligence is another, but the real art of diplomacy is influence and finding a way to shape your opponent or your friend, your other country that you are dealing with. It is at least two players in the room, and we might have our own thoughts, but nothing will be achieved if we can't cajole or influence another country into doing what we think they should do or we think is in our interests. That's what diplomacy is. It's friendships, of course, but most importantly, it's understanding our interests and making sure that we have the power to sway other countries. Right. Now, you worked on North Korea, firstly from Seoul in the late 1990s and then in Canberra and then later in arms control more broadly. What changed most in your assessment of Pyongyang across those chapters and what stayed constant?

Well, let's start with the constant. I'm pretty appalled at what I see is happening in North Korea now. I was in Seoul recently. I heard a lot about the information coming out of the north that Kim Jong-un is actually as draconian as his father and grandfather were, for example, imposing the death penalty on North Koreans who listen to outside broadcasts. This is apparently very well established that he is doing this.

I mean, it just is appalling. So the human rights situation in North Korea clearly has never been good and is certainly, I think, almost worse than it was. There was a brief period, I think, about 10 years ago when there were hopeful people who had visited, I suspect a few of them on these kind of media junkets. I apologize if that's you, Jacko, but there were a few influential journalists who spoke about the fact that Pyongyang looked more prosperous

and Kim Jong-un and his young wife were doing things which seemed to be reformist, but alas, it has not been the case. So it has been quite consistent, my view of North Korea and what I have learned about it these last 30 years throughout that time. What's the most important thing, Well, for me, it was that brief window of opportunity in the early 2000s under Kim DeJung. We all tried to move into the north, influence it away from its more bad human rights situation, but also try and get it to observe its giant neighbor China opening rapidly, becoming very prosperous. We talked to the north about the Vietnamese. We were very close to the Vietnamese economic development cycle then.

Anyway, I don't think that the North Korean economy did open as much as we tried to lever it open or induce Kim's father, Kim Jong-il, to put in place economic reforms. And we had a lot of activity in the North during those years. I don't know if you want me to go into any of that now, but it was a great story. I'm definitely going to ask you about that. Yeah, but first, you were here in Seoul in 2000 during that first inter-Korean leadership summit between President Kim De Jong of South Korea and Kim Jong-il of North Korea.

How did it look from where you were sitting in Seoul? It looked amazing. We had actually already decided to normalize relations with North Korea. There'd been overtures via our embassy in Beijing, and we were very excited by Kim De Jong's approach. Now, before he actually went up to North Korea, we advised quietly the Blue House that we were intending to support his rapprochement efforts with the North by reopening in North Korea, at least reopening the relationship with official visits. We'd already had aid going up and we'd supported the Lightwater Reactor program put in place by the US and other allies to provide the North with end. energy in exchange for the for swearing of nuclear weapons.

Now that didn't end well. But at that time, we were so hopeful. We were providing money for oil for the North, which was very dark. I remember the first time I went there, how dark it was. There was very little electricity being generated even in Pyongyang, which is, of course, as you know, the most prosperous part of North Korea. So, I mean, we tried hard to work with other allies, mainly Kim Dejong, but the Americans were trying as well.

And in the end, that period, that brief period, it came to nothing. I mean, I think a lot of people misunderstand Sunshine Policy and what happened at that time. A lot of the negotiations were about, of course, money flowing almost endlessly from Seoul to Pyongyang, it seemed at the time. The provision of food aid, we'd also provided food aid in the wake of the floods and famines of the mid-90s. So we'd had people going up there, my colleague John Pilbim, who was also at the embassy before

I arrived, he had been up on a kind of quasi-official visit to observe the delivery of Australian food aid in Pyongyang. So we'd had contact, but it was very, very meager. I don't know how much you want to go into that, but I'd say that if you're looking at why Australia was particularly interested, well, we were very much a part of the Korean War. We provided about 18,000 troops during the course of that war 50 to 53. We were involved in peacekeeping operations on the Korean Peninsula up until 57 or thereabouts. And to this day, we remain a member of the Military Armistice Commission and our defence attache in Seoul joins those armistice meetings every now and then periodically it sort of circles through the, I believe there

are 14 members of that commission and we're one of them. So every 14th meeting we attend. And so we've had a deep interest in the history of the Korean Peninsula from all those years ago. And we've seen the devastation of the war. We've seen the terrible plight of human rights and famine in North Korea. So we, I guess, have a belief that as a middle-income country, we should be involved in these things, especially with our close allies in the region and the Americans, of course. And tell us about your own trips that you made for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to North Korea. What was your mission and who did you meet and what did you see?

Oh, that was great. I mean, so I think I got way laid on that long discussion just then because we started talking about Kim De Jong and his visit to North Korea. Now, we had known of, well, we didn't actually know of it in advance, but we were told just before he went. And the reason we were told was because the Blue House asked us to delay our own announcement about resuming a relationship with the North Korean officials. So we bided by that. And we had wind also, of course, of the Americans also wanting to shore up this influence in North Korea with Kim De Jong leading on this effort.

But then Madeline Albright went up. So my trip was actually delayed. I went up with our then-ambassad David Irvin. He was our ambassador in Beijing. And back in the 70s, we had also had a relationship for a short period, less than a year or thereabouts. And that's another story. But that's the way we did it and we continued that.

So our ambassador in Beijing, David Irvin, presented credentials. And then I went up with him. first of all we met in Beijing because we couldn't go through the DMZ and then we met Japanese and we first of all we met Korean and Japanese officials in the south then we went to Beijing met Chinese officials and some really terrific Chinese diplomats we'd known very well including one who had served as ambassador in Australia and she knew the north quite well then we went up to North Korea now we stayed we were treated very well. I sat in an air choreo airplane. It was beautifully painted, but extremely

old. We were served beautiful food on, you know, these crystal plates. But the plates were placed on a plank of wood on our laps. And it was quite funny. I mean, you get these anomalies, wonderful hospitality. And then something that indicates to you, well, this isn't quite normal. This is something special that's being done for us. And I remember sitting next to the Polish ambassador who was going up to assume his ambassadorship to North Korea, the DPRK. And he was a lovely fellow and he'd been in Canberra many years before. And when we landed, he said, oh my God, this looks sort of like Canberra.

And I said, it does. It's a beautiful city. And it's a small, beautiful city. Well, I think it's now about two million people, but it appears to be a small, beautifully laid out city. But the closer you get, the more disheveled it looks. And it is clear that many buildings are not quite complete or are not built properly, maybe.

And as I said earlier, very dark, very little by way of electricity. It was October. it was we had delayed from the year earlier in the year Kim Jong-un, Kim Dejong went up to the north earlier we delayed then. Madeline Albright went up, we delayed and eventually went up again in October 2001. It was one month after 9-1-1 you'll recall the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon.

South Korea was in high lockdown. We were all on edge you know 9-1-1 was still playing out you know what soul is like an amazing city with an amazing capacity for self-defense and all of the sort of the men in check shirts with their high vis vests came out of the woodwork and just everything snapped into action we had we had several embassies near where i lived and a lot of heavily armed young korean soldiers around the streets Curious to hear the rest? Become an NK News subscriber today for access to the full episode. Head to NKNews.org slash join for more information. If you're already a subscriber to NK News, you can listen to full episodes from your preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed.

For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide on the NK News website at NKNews.org slash private dash feed.