North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Lee Jae-myung’s ‘E.N.D.’ game, two states debate and North Korea-China talks

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins the podcast to discuss President Lee Jae-myung’s first speech to the U.N. General Assembly and his debut of a new acronym for his peace road map — “E.N.D.,” short for exchange, normalization and denuclearization. He also talks about Seoul’s unification minister’s controversial “two states” remarks, Lee’s calls for […]

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I'm your host, Jack O'Swetsuit, and today it is the 30th of September, last day of September, 2025. I'm joined here in the studio by Junha Park. Junha, welcome back. Thank you for having me back. We've got a bunch of stories to talk about. Let's start with South Korea's President E. J. Myeong at the Anga, the UN General Assembly. He gave a speech there in which he talked about an end to confrontation with North Korea. Right. So South Korean President Yijemong, he was speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. I think it was September 23rd last week and it was the opening day

of the general debate. What he was basically saying was that he was introducing this end initiative and it's an acronym which is for exchange, normalization, and denuclearization of North Korea.

Okay, so it's an English acronym. Did he give his speech in English? No. Okay. Yeah. So he gave his speech in Korean, but of course he used the end acronym in English. So Lee's pitch was basically a phased, sort of

comprehensive dialogue framework to and the sort of hostility and confrontation between the two Koreas and also open a new era of peaceful coexistence and shared growth between the two countries. Okay, all themes that we've heard before, exchange, normalization, and demuclearization. Peaceful coexistence and the like. It seems to me, though, that given North Korea's current attitude towards South Korea, this plan might fall at the first hurdle, which is exchange. Right, so the DPRK has rejected unification goals ever since.

since December 2023, and leader Kim Jong-un, he re-in, he re-sort of iterated that in his September 21st SPA appearance, and he ruled out denuclearization talks unless the United States abandons this absurd obsession, and he also just completely rejected talks with South Korea flat out. So the sort of contradiction still stands, where Isamong still pushes for the phased approach of freezing, reducing, and dismantling North Korea's nuclear program, but of course North Korea, there's little potential for reciprocity there. Did the DPRK permanent mission to the United Nations hear President Lee's speech? No, so the DPRK delegation, they sort of skipped the UNGA session, the opening session entirely. So Lee's message went unheard by North Korea's

representatives. I believe the Chinese official was present or was reported to be present, but there was no significant North Korean presence. Wow. Okay. Any reaction post the anger from North Korea in North Korean media, perhaps? No. So there was nothing that came after the UNGA speech from North Korea just indefinitely. Of course, we have, we can expect that North Korea will sort of slide this under the rug and say that, okay, this is completely unfeasible on our part. But of course, they haven't yet made a statement towards I. Jemong in their state media. So, I mean, if you'll forgive me for being a little bit pessimistic, it does look like it's falling at the first hurdle. There is no exchange, and you can't go from the E, you can't go to the end of the D without having

the E first. Exactly, yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Now, how about South Korea's unification minister, John Dong Yong? He is a second time unification minister. He's a former news reader for NBC, I believe.

So he's a former presidential candidate. And a former presidential candidate. He failed against Tim Yong back in 2007. He's very much a man who speaks his own mind. Yep. So what's he been saying? Right. So the Unification Minister, Chong Dongyong, as you said, he acknowledged the sort of practical reality

of North and South Korea as separate states, so two states, but I'm stressed that it was not a temporary recognition, or it is a temporary recognition, and not an abandonment of a unification or the goal of unification, as instated in the South Korean Constitution. So he was basically decaring,

North and South are in fact two states, already two states, even in international legal terms. and he made this at a press conference following a ministry forum on the two-state theory. Now, I find him a fascinating fellow, John Dong Yong. I actually saw him last week at the Day of German National Unity down there in Kangnam, and he gave a speech there in English. And he presented this idea, which I'm not sure if it fits exactly into what you've just said,

that it's already two states. He introduced this Saja Song-Songo, this Korean phrase made of four Chinese characters, which is a bull i which means not two not one so in other words there are not two north koreas but there's also not one north korea so we're kind of in this vague indeterminate intermediate state a bit like schrodinger's cat is it dead is it alive how do you know you open the box to look inside so that's that was the new sort of i don't know if you could call it a vision but certainly an understanding of how north and kore north and south kore relate to each other They're not two. They're not one. I was fascinated by this. I went immediately after he speaks up to him and introduce myself.

I said, Minister Jong, I got to get you on the podcast to talk about this. So hopefully, and then I've seen him. Hopefully he shows up. I've followed that up with an email and I'll be starting to call every day after Chusok. So hopefully he does show up. I'm very keen to have him on the show. If anyone here is listening from the Ministry of Unification, please get your minister on the show here. All right. Fascinating. Okay. So where would you like to take us next, Junha? Right. So I think the next biggest story from last week was Lee's social media post on Jaju Qukbang, the sort of self-reliant defense. And what he was saying was that he said that the belief that South Korea needs foreign troops to deter North Korea, it reflects a submissive mindset. So he was pledging these military reforms to ensure the country can defend itself without depending on outside forces. And he was sort of referring to this sort of manpower shortage article, the sort of manpower decline that quoted the Ministry of Defense data,

which suggested that active duty rock troops were projected to shrink from 450,000 in 2030 to 270,000 by 2040. So they did a comparison with the DPRK, 1.13 million troops projected for 2040. So it does put sort of manpower concerns on the forefront. And Lee was sort of framing it as he was sort of dismissing this manpower concern. And he was emphasizing the whole nature of tech-enabled warfare, you know, smart defense, you know, building and bridging AI with sort of manpower shortages and the like. So what he was saying was that there's 22.6 million reservists within the South Korean military. Are you one? Yes.

Okay. And the annual defense spending is higher. The North Korea's total GDP. And he was ranking, or he was referring to the Global Firepower Index, saying that South Korea is the fifth strongest military in the world. Right. So it's not about how many soldiers you've got. It's about how much firepower they have and what other ancillary forces around them.

Now, he also invoked the late former President Norm Mujon, who was also known as being a bit of a, Well, he spoke his mind about military issues, particularly about op-con. Tell us a bit about that. Right. So, No. Mujan, I believe it was 2006 during the latter stages of his presidency, where he was talking about where the whole idea of an op-con transfer or the expected off-con transfer.

That's the wartime operational control transfer from Washington back to Seoul. Right. So it's been in place since the Korean War, where an American general will typically take charge of the wartime operations during a contingency, as the name suggests. And what the late President No Mujan was saying was that he did a sort of rebuke of the generals who were opposing op-con. Op-con transfer at the time saying that South Korea still needs to rely on foreign troops,

foreign troops meaning the United Nations Command and also U.S. Forces Korea. And he made this sort of infamous remark calling them fecal stars, Dongbyel, saying that they were basically something, a derogatory term, referring to sort of incompetent generals in that sense. And basically, Lee's administration has been on the forefront of trying to bring back op-con or returning op-con or transferring op-con from Washington.

They've determined and made the pledge to bring it back within his five-year term. But of course, it still remains under the 2014 conditions where it's three conditions the South Korea needs to meet before the transition is made complete. Right. And I know one of those sort of longstanding issues there. It's not about political will, but it's about the interoperability between the two militaries isn't quite there yet, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So that is President Lee talking about not having a submissive attitude. Let's go on to another issue related to President Lee and military. Right. So Lee was speaking at Wall Street, especially the new

York Stock Exchange. And he was speaking at the Korea Investment Summit and what he was saying, and this is during his trip to New York for the UNGA. And what he was saying was, he was essentially sort of echoing his sort of speech in August 15th, his Liberation Day speech, where he was calling for dialogue with Pyongyang under the framework of denuclearization. And he was also, of course, echoing his UNGA speech too. And what he was saying was that he was saying that the DPRK has secured minimum nuclear deterrent for regime survival. Of course, there's still military inferior to South Korea that he was saying, and there was a focus on sort of these asymmetric capabilities.

So ICBMs, nuclear warheads, and he was suggesting that the ICBM program was there was only re-entry technology that was missing for full operability on North Korea's part. And his basic projection was that North Korea could add 15 to 20 nuclear warheads annually, if unchecked by the international community, including South Korea. And he said that the biggest danger was the export of these weapons or technology abroad to different countries. Right. So he's pointing to North Korea's growing nuclear threat, but at the same time he's saying that its military is inferior to that of South Korea,

which dovetails a little bit with these messages that we talked about just before, that South Korea, you know, we might have fewer soldiers, but we have a stronger military overall. But he's also trying to create a positive environment for investment in South Korea, by addressing this long-standing issue called the Korea discount, which is why are stocks in Korea valued lower than they would be for comparative stocks in another country? Right.

So he was making the comparison interesting at the end of his sort of remarks. At Wall Street, he was saying that, okay, Taiwan still has tensions with China. However, their market is not undervalued like Koreas. So he was suggesting that Korea's also does not need to be undervalued. valued in that manner. But of course, there is this sort of investor reassurance that's happening, but also there's this sort of risk where if the North Koreans, as we sort of discussed beforehand, if they don't reciprocate or engage with the South Korean rhetoric or South Korean engagement reconciliation

policy, then it could undermine his sort of investor reach out, saying that, okay, South Korea doesn't actually have this sort of engagement stability that Lee wants to suggest. Right. Okay. Now, for our last story today, North Korea's foreign minister, Cheson He, went to Beijing for the second time in recent months. Why? Right. So it does follow Kim Jong-un's attendance at the China's Victory Day over Japan military parade.

It's the first... She was there with him. Yeah. And it was the first, I believe, at the time, it was the first DPRK-China summit between Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un in over six years on September 4th. So the main outcomes from the Chesanhee and Wang Yi meeting. Wangi is the Chinese foreign minister. So the both sides reached a complete consensus on international and regional issues.

They committed to strengthen DPRK-China ties, implement the Kim-M-Shee summit outcomes, and there was a lot of praise and reaffirmation of decades-long friendship between the two countries. I quote, linked by mountains and river, as they said. Okay, well, they sound like standard bromides of words in a post meeting, but break it down for us. What does it actually mean? Right. So what Chesoni was saying was that she was praising China's national strength, but also reiterating Kim Jong-un's stance. So DPRK-China friendship is unchanging despite these global shifts.

So it looks like there's no concrete sort of policy measures or follow-up actions announced. Or at least nothing they're going to share with us now. No. So from the two foreign ministers since the Shi Kim summit in September and early September. So the statements are pretty heavy on, as you sort of pointed out, symbolism and rhetoric rather than the substance that's coming out from this sort of diplomatic exchange. And it's just this focus on shared history, friendship, and solidarity. So there is some speculation that there could be a possible invitation for Xi Jinping to attend the DPRK's. October 10th military parade coming up real soon yeah but of course there's no mention so far within

the press releases and also no mention of you know we're going to increase trade by X percent or we're finally going to finish and open up that bridge the road bridge from you know to Dandong to Shinigu none of that no so there was nothing nothing within the readouts that came out just over the weekend goodness me I mean it's a long way to go for a pretty ho-hum speech you could do that over a zoom call right so as you mentioned you know there could be something behind scenes with the diplomats, you know, there's always, within every diplomat conversation, there's always heated and also light conversations. So we could see something come out within the coming days of she's a potential attendance, but nothing yet. And we know that by all

accounts, Madam Chair is a capable negotiator. She's been a forceful negotiator with the Americans before. Sure. She's been in the room with Kim Jong and Donald Trump. So let's see what comes out of this one. I guess we'll certainly have some idea by October 10. hands right? Absolutely, yeah. Before that, probably. Yeah. Exactly. All right. Well, thank you very much, Juneha, for walking us through these stories and we'll see you again soon. Thank you. to your unique challenges and goals. From policy analysis to market entry strategies, we bring clarity to complexity.

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