North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Kap Seol: How North Korea’s troop dispatch to Russia has exacerbated proxy war

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Researcher Kap Seol, a frequent contributor to the leftist magazine Jacobin, joins the podcast to discuss his recent article about how the deployment of DPRK troops to fight in Ukraine could lead South Korea to respond by escalating its own involvement.  The self-described former socialist also talks about the similarities between Kim Il Sung and […]

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 NK News website at nknews.org slash private-feed. Hello listeners and welcome to the NK News Podcast. I'm your host, Jaco Zwetsluyt, and today's guest is Solgab Su, who goes by Capsol in English. He's a Korean writer and researcher based in New York. His writings have appeared in Jacobin, in Labor Notes, In These Times, Business Insider, and other publications.

Today we're going to talk about the North Korean troops in the Russia-Ukraine war, socialist views of North Korea, the story of a socialist Korean in China in the 1930s, and if we have time, allegations of North Korean agents in Gwangju in 1980. Lots of interesting topics. Welcome on the show, Kapsu. Hi, thank you for having me today. So last month you wrote a long story for Jacobin on North Korean soldiers in the Russian-Ukraine War called North Korea Has Embarked on a Risky Adventure, published on November the 16th. And we'll put a link in the show notes so our listeners can go and have a look at that. What is the framework through which you view this deployment of North Korean soldiers to Russia?

Is it simply one country helping its ally or is it in a way a reversal of the Korean War when the Soviet Union sent aid to North Korea or is it a proxy war between the Korean states? How do you frame this deployment of North Korean soldiers? I think our articles already appear to be out of outdated a little bit after Yoon's failure to cope. Jacobin originally wanted me to write something about a labor movement in South Korea, KCETU, but I decided to write this article out of a sense of crisis. I thought North Korea's intervention in the war in Ukraine would raise military tension on the peninsula, just as the South Korea intervention in Vietnam 50 years ago in 1960. At that time, Kim Il-sung clearly took advantage of the situation. He sent his commander

to raid the presidential palace in Seoul to assassinate Park Jung-hee. He seized the U.S. spy ship, Favreau. I believe you know something like that, Apex, and he eventually will send troops to Ukraine to counter North Korean troops there. Ukraine war is a sad affair to me. Long before Kim Jong-un sent his young soldier to Russia as basically a cannon for Putin, though when Ukraine was a proxy war between two Koreas, North and South Korea have been arming the Russian and Ukrainian army with their one artillery shell and the ammo. To the Koreans, this war has become racist too. It's an Asian weapon they are using in battlefield. Now it's an Asian young soldier, not NATO or American troops, maiming that get killed in Europe.

Okay, so you look at it as in a way, it's the two Koreas involved in a kind of a proxy war, but there's also some racist elements in there as well. Now, as you said, when you wrote the article in November, you had the expectation that this would raise tensions here on the Korean Peninsula. Now, until the recent martial law and impeachment crisis, it looked like the UN administration was moving closer to directly providing lethal weaponry to Ukraine,

but that doesn't look like it's going to happen anymore. So how do you think this might affect the decision-making process of Russia or North Korea? That's the only silver lining to the failed coup. Nobody can talk about sending troops or weapons to Ukraine because of what's going on in South Korea politically and economically. But at the same time, it's stupid a C9 Yoon should be. since 1953, how has the deployment of North Korean troops changed things here on the Korean Peninsula? Does it directly matter or is it a little bit indirect? I think what's so significant about this military intervention by North Korea is that North

Korea began to reign with Russia and maintain a certain distance from China. Traditionally, they use rivalry between two countries to get what they want. But clearly now, they clearly are not in a relationship until for a while, until the international landscape turn around in their favor. Again, this is very interesting situation because China always considers itself as a North Korea sponsor and we believe that we can use China to press North Korea to go

binuclear way and so on and so forth. But that mechanism is now no more in place. And it's very dangerous that North Korea put every bag in the basket in Russia now. So this is quite a new situation we have. We've never seen this situation since the end of the Korean War. Yet at the same time, along the demilitarized zone, we haven't seen any large-scale troop movements or provocative acts or shooting across the demilitarized zone. So it's still been pretty stable here on the Korean Peninsula until now. I think at this point, North Korea doesn't want to play into UNICEF's hand and they try to stay calm and stay out of a situation. They did in 1980s, I already answered your question, because they did not want to exploit

South Korean political situation unless they are in full control. There was a case for 1961, when 6, 1961, first military coup, 1960, when Stone Throne rose up, overthrow Lee regime, they stayed quiet. Actually, once you get, I think US Senator Soros, who died many years ago, was the first US Senator to visit Pyongyang.

And when he met Kim Il-sung in 1981, Kim Il-sung proudly say, we didn't do anything during the Gwangju uprising and we stayed that way because we don't want to play by Jeon Do-won's hand. For the time being, North Korea wouldn't do anything. They want to just be elected barricaded and stay calm. I think North Korea doesn't have any ability to wage war against Korea anymore.

Now, we'll definitely return to Gwangwanjoo a little bit later on, but it's obvious that both Koreas have benefited economically from Russia's war on Ukraine. I mean, North Korea is getting paid directly for sending its troops and also it's selling military hardware to Russia. And of course, South Korea is now one of the world's top 10 military exporters. But you argue in your article in Jacobin that economic motives alone do not explain the decision of Kim Jong-un to send personnel from his elite light infantry brigades to Vladimir Putin. So how do you understand Kim's decision? What factors led to it besides economic profit? I think economy motive is primary for Kim Jong-un because basically China work with the UN

to comply with UN sanctions against US, I mean North Korea. At the same time, it somehow show how frustrated the North Korea with China. I mean, they look to China for economic aid and the political backup, but China basically washed out their hand out of North Korea for a while. I believe that somehow related to China's economic standing globally because they want to protect Alibaba or other business interests instead of North Korea's political or interest protection.

Okay, so definitely there is a large economic motive for Kim Jong-un. Is there also an alignment of political or ideological motives here for North Korea and Russia? I think it's a long term what North Korea wants is like a restore world mechanism to pit China and Russia against each other to get whatever they want from both countries. At the same time they pit South Korea and America against each other to get what they want. To me,Bongnam, Black South communicate with America. That's the basic their lines. They want to replicate all the lines to China and Russia in the long term.

Right. So in a way, Kim Jong-un wants to repeat the technique that his grandfather used so successfully. For Kim Jong-il's view, I guess, finally their day has come because old order brings now emerging again the so-called new cold war. They can restore their old method to maximize their benefit. Yeah. Now, just a small aside here, in your article on November 15th in Jacobin, there is a sentence that you included in your story, November 15th in Jacobin, there is a sentence that you included in your story, but you didn't expand on. So I'm going to ask you about that. This is the sentence that you wrote.

During the Korean War, the South Korean military hired a Japanese scientist who later turned out to be a con artist with knowledge of electrolysis to test a nuclear bomb on a remote island. Now, I've never heard this before so can you tell us a little bit more about that story and where you got it from? Actually the nuclear ambitions is not limited to North Korea. South Korea always wants to have a nuclear weapon because it represents all powerful nations they want to build. And during the Korean War, Shingman Lee wanted to have a nuclear weapon and he ordered one general to develop nuclear weapon.

And that general went to Japan, hired this con man who he thought was a nuclear scientist but actually electrician. And they built a small tiny base in a remote island and test nuclear weapon actually was like now battery, kind of battery they explored. Yeah it's not a well-known story but many years ago Chung-Ang Able run an exposure about this I think in 90s and after that many others caught them, which is I think it's hard to believe, but which is true. They show how much they desire to be a nuclear power, not in North Korea, in both Korea. Because it's sad to see that many people believe that North Korea developed nuclear weapon in response to South Korea's ambition.

That's absolutely true. At the same time, both countries always want a nuclear weapon. I mean, some declassified documents show that even in the early 50s when Kim Il Sung met Mao, and Mao Kim Il Sung wanted China to China co jointly develop nuclear weapon with the North Korea, but because according in their memory, it was a nuclear weapon that won second World War Two and defeat Japanese imperialism, which is so powerful, that colonized South Korea. So there is some nationalist illusion embedded with nuclear ambition. I think that's important to understand. And in the near future, if things are going like this, they will rekindle South Korean nuclear ambition too. 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.

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