North Korea News Podcast by NK News - More North Korean balloons and border incursions after Kim-Putin summit

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

North Korea launched a sixth round of trash balloons toward the South on Tuesday night, according to Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the latest in a wave of inter-Korean incidents that have included border incursions by DPRK soldiers.  NK News Correspondent Shreyas Reddy (@shreyas_k_reddy) joins the podcast to discuss new details about what the DPRK’s […]

Hi everyone, Chado Carroll here, the founder of NK News. I'm excited to personally invite you to join me and my colleagues on what's going to be an extraordinary journey later this year. It's called the North Korea From A Near Distance Tour taking place between September 21st to 30th 2024 along the inter-Korean border here in South Korea. This intimate tour which is going to be just 20 guests maximum is really a once in a lifetime opportunity to explore the Korean border with leading specialists in North Korea affairs such as Dr Andrei Lankov, myself, Jong-Min Kim and a number of other experts who are going to be joining us including our very own podcast

host Jacoes Wetzlu for multi-day segments along the itinerary. Together we'll be visiting key inter-Korean sites, engaging in daily meetings with experts and gaining what are going to be unparalleled insights into the DPRK. From the stunning Kumgang Mountains on the East Coast to the tensely fortified islands of the West, you will be seeing North Korea from a truly unique perspective. So, don't miss out on this exclusive chance to cultivate new connections within the North Korea watching community, sharpen your understanding of this fascinating country and get a great chance to meet some new people who could become lifelong friends as some of the previous tour

participants have done for me. If you want to book, please just simply search on Google North Korea from a near distance tour. That's North Korea from a near distance tour. We should come up as the first result and you can book from there. Hello listeners and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jack O's Wetsuit and this interview is recorded on June 25th, 2024. And I'm joined by a stream yard by my colleague, Shreyas Reddy. Shreyas, welcome back on the show. Thank you very much. It's the 74th anniversary of the breakout of the full scale Korean war.

I'm on vacation outside Korea, but I understand there's been plenty of things going on. What's the latest, Treas? Definitely. Well, thankfully, no war at the moment. But we're certainly seeing a continuation of a lot of other inter-Korean activity that we've seen a little bit of over the last month or so. Most notably, we've seen a fresh wave of trash balloons last night, so Monday evening, North Korea floated about 350 more balloons filled with rubbish across the border. 350.

Wow. Now that's not the largest payload, is it? They've done larger groups before, I think. Yes. So essentially, this is the fifth wave of balloons so far. And so far, so the first two waves combined accounted for about a thousand balloons. Goodness. The next two were around 300, 350 as well each. And so I think in total we're now at about 2,000 balloons across five years. So yeah, it seems to be at this point, it's a recurring theme.

Of course, not all of them make it across the border from what South Korean military has indicated. It seems about a hundred from 350 made it in the latest batch. So quite a few of them usually tend to just blow away toward the ocean or blow back north. And yeah, it seems that but I think from North Korea's perspective, it's about creating an annoyance. They don't care if many of them don't land in South Korea as long as enough to. Okay and what's the payload of this particular group of balloons? Is it bits of cardboard, packing material, bits of material and feces or extramet again? Well at the time of recording I

think the details are still coming through so we can can't be certain by the time this goes out, we might have more up to date details. Yeah. However, what we can say is the last couple of waves, North Korea just stuck to trash paper and general waste, which is quite a step down in some ways from the first two batches of balloons, which contained, in addition to the general waste, they also contain what at the time people were trying to debate whether it was human feces or animal feces used for fertilizer. And as of this week, South Korean authorities say that essentially they were able to find traces of human feces in those materials.

So where it does seem that those initial headlines about essentially poop balloons as seem to have been quite accurate. Oh dear. I also saw a story that suggested that there were parasites found on the material in these balloons. Yes. So essentially that was a part of what they were looking at. So this analysis, they did find the parasites, they found roundworms, whipworms, threadworms in the soil that came through in the trash balloons. And in the soil, they also found human DNA, which is why, what led them to believe

that the parasites themselves originated from human feces. So it's more like fecal matter, human fecal matter contained in the soil than anything else. And that is what led to the parasites. Yeah. Interesting that we're talking about this on the anniversary of the start of the Korean War.

It was, of course, during the Korean War that North Korea accused the United States of dropping parasites and diseased insects on to add over North Korean territory in probably the modern world's first case of industrialized German warfare. Yeah, I mean, we've certainly come a long way since then, and North Korea at this point, well, at this point, there's still launches going across on both sides of the border, but the focus seems to have shifted. While South Korea-based defector activists send across balloons

containing leaflets, USB drives loaded with K-pop cash, rice aimed at essentially North Korean residents in the border areas. And then as of the past month, North Korea decided that the best way to respond to those is with balloons. So even in this case, prominent defective activist Park Sang-ha sent across more balloons last week. And then a few another defective group led by his brother sent rice across a couple of days later. And sure enough, North Korea returned to launching his balloons in response. Now, a couple of weeks ago, before I went away, South Korea had set up loudspeakers to send audio propaganda into North Korea

in response to the balloon launches. Is there any more on that? Have they started that in earnest in response? So as of the time of recording, they haven't yet resumed it. So on June 8th, which is a Sunday, they set up the reinstall the loudspeakers, carried out some basic testing. So essentially, they did send out a broadcast on the day. But after that, they're by all accounts, they haven't yet resumed regular broadcasts, they haven't gone back to it. But now that North Korea has launched balloons again, it's something that we're keeping

an eye out for to see will they go back to it, will it become regular. And also let's bear in mind after South Korea reinstalled its loudspeakers, pretty much a day or so later North Korea was spotted deploying its own propaganda loudspeakers at the border. Goodness me. Okay, so we have that to potentially look forward to in the coming day or two. All right. What else has been taking your attention there? I need to be honest, lots more happening on the inter-Korean front. I think one thing that seems to be another recurring theme is North Korean soldiers crossing the border, the inter-Korean border. So late last week, they crossed the border for the third time in the space of a few weeks.

We've seen that North Korea has a recent in the past, a recent past has cleared land in the demilitarized zone, planted mines, built an anti-tank wall effectively near border areas. built an anti-tank wall effectively near border areas and with all this construction taking place North Korean soldiers seem to be stepping across the border more often fairly often at the moment. Just to clarify for our listeners there when you say stepping across the border do you mean that they're crossing within the demilitarized zone over the military demarcation line or they're actually going south of the southern boundary line? No, so they're crossing the military demarcation line or they're actually going south of the southern boundary line? No, so they're crossing the military demarcation line, not crossing over into actual South Korean territory south of the southern line. I see and are they being sent back across the military

demarcation line with warning shots and warning messages? Well, yeah, so last week the military announced when the South Korean military spotted this, they sent a warning broadcast and warning shots. Not really, they don't really have further details, but essentially enough to send the message to North Koreans that you've crossed the border, time to step back across. Right, okay, now if it's happened several times over the last couple of weeks, then we have to start wondering whether this is all just accidental workmen just happening to cross over a line or if this is more of an intentional

probing of South Korean defense and monitoring capabilities or even a provocation. I mean, I guess we'll have to probably see how it goes. For now, it seems like the big focus is on a lot of the North Korea's construction work in that area. So which may be part of the efforts to effectively redefine North Korea's borders with South Korea, as Kim Jong-un earlier this year indicated, when they're looking to firmly separate themselves from South Korea. So perhaps there could be a bigger intent

to actually cross the border. Perhaps it's more about saying this is the border that we will firmly establish between us. In the meantime, there may be some accidental crossovers. I think we'll have to wait and watch and see how frequently this happens, how clearly and how deliberately it happens. Okay, now last week we did a quick mini roundtable with Anton and Colin to talk about Vladimir Putin's visit, very short 22-hour

visit to Pyongyang. Have there been any more details or analysis that have come out since then? Well, at the moment, we are certainly trying to dig deeper into the agreement that they came up with last week. Obviously, at the time, the big focus from all quarters was about the promise of mutual assistance in the event of an enemy attack, which is the closest that they've come to an actual mutual defense alliance since the Soviet Union collapsed. But there were a lot of other elements on the side where there's certainly things that could hint at cooperation in other fields and potential cooperation on sanctions evasion. A lot of the wording is vague, but there's a lot to imply that North Korea and that Russia could potentially take a more clear stance in facilitating

North Korean sanctions evasion if they choose to. They're talking about essentially blocking more for the multilateral measures against not that could harm North Korea sovereignty and economy and that essentially would appear to relate to UN sanctions, which they've been voting against anyway, but now they effectively have a basis for it in writing. They've also pledged not to have unilateral sanctions and to step up cooperation in a number of fields, which could have big sanctions implications, including peaceful nuclear energy, science and technology, all kinds of areas where there is, you've got to look at and say, would they violate existing sanctions? Almost certainly. And other than that, also looking at

other ways to strengthen trade and finance. And certainly with that comes the additional scope for money laundering, like other forms of technical cooperation. So that's something that everyone's still keeping an eye out for. But at the other end of spectrum is all there's also questions, say about how concrete this cooperation will be, particularly in the more sensitive military areas. We've heard a few experts say that essentially, yes, Russia is strengthening ties with North Korea here. It's mutually convenient for both in some ways. But Russia will also be keeping an eye on South Korea's reaction. And South Korea has already said it is not like this agreement. It could consider the possibility of sending lethal arms to Ukraine. It hasn't yet said it will.

But I think from Russia's point of view, they don't want to damage ties with South Korea either. It's economically much more significant as a partner than the North at the moment. And certainly both Russia and Russia has had military cooperation, some or at least weapons trade with South Korea for the last few decades as well. Now I've heard one sort of hot take analysis on the the treaty between Russia and North Korea as this might be North Korea's way or Kim Jong-un's way of signaling to China that you may think that you can control us, but you cannot. We are, look, here we are doing this. I mean, I think the argument could be made both ways. I think in all likelihood for China, from China's perspective, I think they perhaps may not be as bothered as some folks would think. They're still North Korea's biggest economic partner. North Korea still relies on them for so much more than they can get from Russia. And I think from China's perspective,

yes, perhaps there might be some concern that these two essentially, essentially pariah states on his border are now looking to up the ante while China attempts to present the image of a responsible superpower. But in some ways, that means China perhaps may not want to wade directly into this, but it is simultaneously keeping bilateral relations going with both sides. It still has influence with both Russia and North Korea. I, for one, don't think that China would be too concerned about its influence over North Korea going away. But the big question is, when will China look to step back in and say, we are still the big brother here, we are still the one whom you rely on more? So I think at some point,

perhaps we may see China try to reassert its influence. But for now, it doesn't seem to be stepping in directly more letting the usual back channel stuff, the behind the scenes trade and everything continue as before. Okay. And what about a final story or issue to leave us with? Well, to be honest, I think it's very much been put in and North Korea the last week or so. I think essentially, we're kind of at this point, just trying to see what comes next from there. There are certainly other things going on. And at the moment, it's more what to look out for, at the moment, it's more what to look out for is, we are expecting joint exercises between the US, South Korea and Japan this week. So the freedom edge. Yes, the first trilateral freedom edge

exercise is something that they discussed in recent meetings, we've seen a US aircraft carrier arrive in on the Korean Peninsula, as part of efforts to signal that joint deterrence against North Korea. So we don't know when those trilateral drills will happen, but they're expected sometime this week. And I think usually when that happens, North Korea responds sometimes with a statement, sometimes with missile, who knows. It's already made its objections to the aircraft carrier quite clear, released a statement yesterday, but once the actual drills begin, there might be more to come. Wow, okay, so that's another thing to look forward to. They have been a little bit quiet on the missile front lately though, haven't

they? Well, I would say let's not jinx it, but yeah, it's been a while. Indeed, let's not jinx it. All right. Thank you very much for joining me on the podcast this week, Shreyans Ready, and I'll see you back in Seoul next week. See you. Navigating the dynamics of the Korean Peninsula requires more than just information, it demands insight. Korea Risk Group offers strategic consulting that cuts through the noise. Our experts provide in-depth analysis, risk assessments and bespoke reports, all tailored

to your specific needs. Whether you're exploring new opportunities or managing existing challenges, our insights can be your compass. To learn more about how we can help you make informed strategic decisions, visit careerrisk.com slash solutions today. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of our podcast episode for today. Our thanks go to Brian Betts and Alana Hill for facilitating this episode and to our post-recording producer genius, Gabby Magnuson, who cuts out all the extraneous noises, awkward silences,

bodily functions and fixes the audio levels. Thank you and listen again next time. Thanks for watching!