North Korea News Podcast by NK News - North Korea threatens US, a cruise missile test and Yoon’s final defense

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s younger sister warned the U.S. that Pyongyang is “seriously considering” measures to “escalate” nuclear weapons-related actions in response to Washington sending an aircraft carrier to South Korea this week. NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins the podcast to discuss the arrival of the USS Carl Vinson to the […]

Explore the unofficial world of DPRK-inspired apparel at NK News Shop. Dive into a captivating collection of North Korea-themed t-shirts, hoodies and more at the NK News Shop. From the popular Daedonggang beer t-shirts to the adventurous air-cordior designs, each and the world. Hello listeners and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jaco's Wedslute, and it's the 4th of March and it's snowing in Seoul today. So here we are. I'm in the NK News podcast studio together with Junha Park.

Welcome Junha. Thanks for having me back. You had a long weekend as did I. And now we've got to get into it. There's a lot of stuff to catch up on. First of all, our US aircraft carrier is in South Korean waters for the first time since last June. I understand. Indeed. So the US says Carl Vincent. It's a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. It arrived in Busan just on Sunday, I understand. Indeed. So the USS Carl Vinson, it's a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. It arrived in Busan just on Sunday, I believe, and it marks the first visit, as you mentioned, since Donald Trump returned to office. And it's seen sort of a direct show of deterrence against North Korea, kind of biting by the Biden administration's strategic deterrence policies.

Right. And it's here for what, trilateral naval exercises involving Japan and South Korea? Well, reportedly it is expected to participate in trilateral military drills with the ROK and Japan, you know, reinforcing the embedded security ties that were established during Camp David, but it's still undecided as South Korea hasn't yet to announce it. Ah, okay. So the aircraft carrier is here, but we're not 100% sure what it's going to be doing

or not doing and who with. Okay. All right. Now, North Korea did not wait long to issue a response. No, they did not. And it wasn't a welcome. They didn't hang out the welcome flag. No, they did not.

They surely didn't. And it was just a day after South Korea announced its arrival, actually two days after, and they just released a statement this morning from Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong-un's sister. Okay, now we always know that that has a potential for some hot language when Kim Yo-jong has a statement. Indeed, indeed. She is quite characteristically sassy and she issued quite the warning to the United

States stating that North Korea is seriously considering and I quote Escalating its nuclear weapons related activities in response to US military actions on the peninsula. Okay Well lots to unpack there, but the obvious question is what would an escalation of nuclear weapons activities look like? Well, you know, that's the question, you know, will they go ahead with a nuclear test? Will they give out an advanced ICBM capable of, you know, reaching the United States? And you know, these Pyongyang, they often frame these kind of tests that responses to US military actions. And, you know, we can see some sort of tests brewing in the foreseeable future, but, you know, North Korea has not conducted a nuclear test since,

I believe September 2017? Yeah, so it's done lots of rocket and missile and artillery tests, but this much vaunted, much speculated seventh nuclear test, we've been waiting for that one for seven and a half years now. Indeed, yeah. So if it did happen, and we're not saying it will,

but if it did happen, that would certainly set the cat amongst the pigeons, so to speak. Mm-hmm and you know the last time that there was a nuclear test it did strike quite the reaction from the Trump administration as well with the fire and fury. So you know we still have quite a lot to expect on that front but what we need to expect as of now with this statement is you you know, will North Korea take some concrete or undertake some concrete military tests in the future? That's still something that needs to be weighed and seen.

Right. So it's a few hints from Kim Yo-jong, but nothing really specific yet that we can point to. Yeah. All right. Okay. And then it did a bit of testing of some ballistic missiles, right? It did.

Or was it one? I'm not really sure. Yeah so it conducted a strategic cruise ballistic missile test, not ballistic missile test. So this is a cruise one, basically it flies like a plane. Indeed and it was on February 26th and well they announced that the test was successfully conducted destroying a building on Sanctuary Island off the west coast near Nampo. I've been to Nampo, they've got that impressive West Sea barrage there. Yeah, okay, so it struck a building, we've

got photographs of it in the article that people can find on the NK News website. And it flew a long flight, didn't it? The distance between launch and explosion wasn't that far, but it flew for quite a long time and it covered a lot of miles. Yeah, so what we can see is that, you know, The distance between launch and explosion wasn't that far, but it flew for quite a long time and it covered a lot of miles.

Yeah, so what we can see is that, you know, there are two long-range cruise missiles was fired and they flew in elliptical routes. Which basically, for our listeners, home means an egg-shaped flight path. So around and around and around and around. Indeed, and it covered 986 miles. So that's around 1,500 kilometers over 132 minutes.

Okay, so it's two hours of flying in an X-shaped path around and around, making circles or ellipses, and then eventually striking this small building. Do we know anything about this building? Was it a beach hut? I mean, what, changing facilities? We know where it was launched from. The know, the missiles were launched from a beach just outside the West Sea Barrage

that you were talking about. And it's just 3.9 miles, around six kilometers away from the target building on the island. And it sort of doubles as a tourist attraction. And it's sometimes visited by some foreign tourists in the summer. The island, you mean?

Mm-hmm. Not the building, okay. Do mean, not the building. Okay. Do we know if the building was purpose-built to be destroyed by the crew's missiles? Yeah. So some satellite imagery shows that some infrastructure development on the island was perpetrated over the past year, and it was likely for some continued missile testing like the one we saw last week. Okay.

All right. So you build a building and then you bomb it. All right. Interesting. Now, did North Korea release a statement about these two missiles? I mean, we know they said it was successful, but did they say anything, what it was all about? Well, there was Kim Jong-un's message.

Rodong Shinmun did carry Kim Jong-un's message and it said, well, Kim stated that the launch was meant to signal North Korea's nuclear retaliatory capability to its adversaries and demonstrate the combat readiness of North Korea's nuclear forces. Right, readiness. Okay, that's a word that armies love. So basically, North Korea is ready for all contingencies with these cruise missiles. Any condemnation from South Korea, the United Nations, the United States? Well, that's the interesting thing.

So South Korea's response measures, so the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they did not announce the test in real time, but later claimed to have detected signs of the launch in advance. You know, South Korean U.S. intelligence are now analyzing, or have analyzed, detailed specifications of the missiles. And it was just the usual that the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they're emphasizing that the ROK-US military alliance remains ever ironclad and remains on high alert to counter any North Korean provocation. How do you launch a cruise missile? Is this one of those things that has to be vertically erected and then it goes from a standing position like a rocket or does it

take off like a plane? Do you know anything about that? I'm not quite 100% sure. But at the same time, I think that North Korea has used quite a diverse range of methods to go ahead with its missile launches, not just cruise missiles. So you do need to understand the variety of their methods. Sometimes mounted on the back of a truck. Yeah. Okay. All right. I think we've covered that story.

What should we talk about next? Yeah, so North Korea opened its first modern general hospital and it was after a five-year delay That's a long time coming. We remember in the first year of kovat 2020 that uh, kim jong-un What I think he attended the groundbreaking ceremony or something I mean, it was a lot of hoo-ha a lot of uh hoopla I should say in the north korean media about building this general hospital in Pyongyang. It's supposed to be a large state-of-the-art facility, and now, finally, after five years, it's open. Yeah, so it's set to open in October 2025.

Oh gosh, so we're still a bit ahead of time, okay. Yeah, so Kim Jong-un, he toured the facility just last week. He called the buildings flawless, and the hospital still lacks considerable medical equipment. So the original timeline, so Kim, he launched the project around March 2020. He demanded completion by October of the same year, but five years later, we're still right here with the general hospital set to open this October.

And the construction issues that were, were satellite imagery that suggested some of the construction issues by late 2020, it suggested that the building structure was largely complete, but state media stopped mentioning the hospital's progress. And the government or the North Korean government has not provided clear reasons for the delay, though we suspect that sanctions, financial priorities, and equipment shortages are pretty likely factors. Yeah, although at the same time, it's interesting that North Korea is able to build these apartment blocks in a very, very short time, right? Part of the city redevelopment, what's that number again, 20 and 20 or 2010? 2010. The 2010 project there, which is building up 20

cities in 10 years, something like that. Yeah. So it's able to do some impressive building feats in a short order. But for some reason, this hospital was just kind of languishing for a long time. Indeed. And, you know, just as you just mentioned it, under the 2010 project, it sort of aligns with Kim Jong-un's sort of healthcare plans and bolstering North Korea's sort of lax healthcare system. And he's vowed to build one general hospital per city and country within county within a decade. And a pilot project in 2025 will construct three hospitals in Gangdong County, which is near Pyongyang, Ryonggang County and Kusong, key weapons production hub.

Right. So the opening of this, this general hospital in Pyongyang is, I mean, it's presumably great news for people who live in or near Pyongyang, but yeah, if you're around the country, you'll be waiting a little bit longer for those new hospitals to open up. And at, and state media, it does promote, well, it does seek to promote North Korea's free healthcare system and how it's modernizing its healthcare.

But the reality is that free healthcare no longer exists in practice in North Korea. And patients, or reports have come out that patients must pay bribes to receive that treatment. And even in the capitals, hospitals often, they lack running water, medicine, reliable electricity. So there's still a long way to go. There's a long way to go.

And there are, we even have heard of doctors having to grow their own cotton to make bandages and reusing beer bottles for IVs, drips and things like that. So that's, yeah, it needs, that medical system needs a lot of work. All right, and what have we got left? Oh yes, we're onto the final defense that Yoon Sung-yeol gave in his impeachment trial. Indeed. So the impeachment trial has been going on for the past, uh, past few months and the

South Korean president or the suspended South Korean president Yoon Sung-yeol, he made this final defense before the constitutional court last week. He justified his decision to impose martial law on December 3rd, where we were all back online. Yeah. And Yoon claimed his actions were necessary to counter North Korean espionage and accused the opposition Democratic Party of following Pyongyang's directives. Okay.

And this is an oft-repeated claim, not only by suspended PresidentSol Gyeol, but also by the right wing YouTubers in Korea. Did he give any evidence to suggest that there are, in fact, North Korean elements here? Well, he did make quite a new claim. He alleged that North Korea directed the DP to the Democratic Party to politicize the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush disaster, which claimed 159 lives, young lives. And he claimed Pyongyang orchestrated rallies calling for his resignation and used affiliated groups like the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which was in some of its members were

prosecuted for allegedly going into a North Korean spy ring to undermine his government. Okay. What do you think? Do you buy this? No, I don't. And I think his statements appear aimed at sort of shoring up his hardline conservative support ahead of the court's final ruling of his impeachment in March. But is he really trying to convince the judges so that they might overturn the impeachment and send him back to the presidency? Well, there's still a chance. We can't rule out the possibility of him going back and being reinstated as president.

But the chances are quite lax. I know. But it would be interesting to see if the judges are actually persuaded by this argument, because I don't see any evidence yet either. Yeah. I mean, you know, Yoon's persistence in linking these opposition forces to North Korea, as I mentioned before, you know, he was appearing to have sort of a political strategy.

So he's trying to solidify his base among hardline conservatives, sort of shift the opinion towards him. But whether that will resonate with the judges and the legal ruling is still yet to be decided. Now listeners might be thinking this is such domestic news, it's South Korea relevant only. Why talk about this in the NK News podcast? Well you know, this, Yun's imposition of martial law is quite a major political event, regardless of whether it is domestic or international.

Martial law in 2024, especially in an established democracy like South Korea's, is not something that you really expect to see in your newsfeed in the morning. And when you see Yoon's persistence in sort of linking the opposition to North Korea and explaining North Korea as a key issue and a reasoning behind his imposition of martial law. That's still something that remains to be debated as a sort of a legitimate argument. Right. And we can put that in the list of, you know, the long list of actions committed by both governments of North and South Korea in which they politicize, you know, and point to an

outside threat. Say, you know, it's the other side that's trying to ruin our country and this is why we have to take these steps. Indeed. Yeah. And I think that, you know, when Yoon talks about these opposition-backed budget cuts, which were a major part of his martial law decree, and he said that they directly weaken

national security against North Korea by targeting South Korea's reconnaissance capabilities, missile development, and the drone defense. But the budget records from his government, they contradict his argument. The Yudan administration, they itself pushed for a 485.2 billion won cut to reconnaissance funding for 2025 in their proposal submitted in 2024. Wait, wait, wait, wait. So, so Yun himself or his ministers recommended a cut to the reconnaissance budget.

Yes. And are now pointing to the Democratic Party and blaming them for the cuts. Yeah, and the other military budget reductions that Yun argued were from the opposition. They were approved with bipartisan support, including Yun's people power party lawmakers within the National Assembly's defense committee.

Well, that doesn't sound right. Okay. You got some explaining to do. Last question, would you care to speculate when might the Constitutional Court issue a finding on this on the impeachment? Well, the last the final you and final defense was last week, which gives a two-week period for the constitutional court to decide on a decision. So we're expecting something to come out in between March 10th and March 13th. There you go. Okay. All right. Well,

standby listeners. Thanks for coming on the show again, Junhoe. We'll see you again soon. Thanks for having me. Looking to stay informed about South Korea's fast evolving political business and cultural Thanks for having me. suits your needs, thanks to our new subscription packages. Starting at just $199 annually, you can access daily analysis and our weekly podcast. Or try our Premium Membership Package, which offers additional perks such as executive briefings, monthly reports and forecasts, networking receptions and event opportunities, as well as much, much more. To find the best fit for you, just head to signup.careerpro.org and become a member 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.