North Korea News Podcast by NK News - North Korea’s warship troubles, Shangri-La and Lee Jae-myung on cusp of victory

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

North Korea’s new warship remains submerged on its side more than 10 days after the embarrassing failure to side-launch the vessel last month, despite DPRK experts’ confidence that they could right the ship. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made only a passing mention of North Korea at the Shangri-La Dialogue over the weekend, even as […]

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as well as much, much more. To find the best fit for you, just head to sign the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jack O's, what's the then this episode was recorded on the third Tuesday, the third of June, 2025 election It's election day here in Korea, voting for a new president, we'll be talking about that. I have here in the studio, Chatter, Carol, and Shreyas Reddy, welcome gentlemen, both on the podcast. Thank you, Jack. Hello.

Let's do a quick update on the warship, Fiesco. North Korea launched its largest ever warship recently, or tried to, but it all went a bit sideways, literally sideways into the water, and it's still in the water, is that right Shreyas? Yes, so new satellite imagery shows that it is still very much gap sized and in the water doesn't really seem to have moved which suggests that North Korea is a little behind on its

plans to restore it. Initially a day after the incident an investigative team went in and said, oh, it'll take us about two weeks to maybe drain the submerged parts of the, the flooded parts of the hull. And about 10 days to get it upright. But now it's been a week and a half. It still seems to be very much where it was. Okay. So the images that we have, which people will find on our website, they're from satellites,

is that right? Yes. Has North Korea published any visuals at all? No, no visuals. In fact, pretty much right from day one, it has just been text reports that highlight the failure, Kim Jong-un's anger, and the actions that they've been taking or pursuing against the officials that they're essentially scapegoating for this to deflect blame away from the leadership. But they did very promptly find a bunch of blue tarp to cover it so that satellite imagery

analysts would get less of a clear view as to what had actually happened. Oh. Which I was just curious how do they muster that level of square meterage of blue tarp. Because you need a lot of tarp to cover that thing, right? That was what impressed me. Hmm. I'm impressed by the fact that they reported it as a failure, but not with the images. I mean, in a sense, it's something that we've seen Kim Jong Un do from time to time. They've done it with satellite launch as well.

Certainly it's a bit of a departure from the way his father and grandfather handles things. But again, in some ways it allows the regime to get ahead of things and just say, oh, before the rest of the world catches on and sees this failure on satellite imagery, we're going to go out and place the blame on lower level officials just and make sure that Kim Jong-un is free from all the blame. Right. Now, having said that, I'm not a boatman, but I do come from a town where they make large luxury yachts. And I know that it's really hard to get a boat from land into water unless you're an expert. And if you've done it many times, it can be quite an easy process.

But if this is the first time you're putting a large warship of that size into water, easy for mistakes to be made. Yeah, I mean. Things to go wrong. Last month they had another warship of the same size that they were able to successfully launch at Nampo on the West Coast. But that was more traditional,

just head on into the water kind of launch, just roll it out gently. Roll down the ramp. For this one, they chose to go with a side launch, which they've done in previous decades. They've done for some commercial vessels, but they've certainly never done for a warship of this size. And it really calls into question why they thought we should do this beyond perhaps the sheer spectacle of the splash that comes when you launch that way. So, OK, that's an update on that one. Chad, you're normally we do these Tuesday short episodes just with one person, but you're here as a to give us some hot takes from the Shangri-La dialogue that you just came from in Singapore. Is that right? Yeah, I got back yesterday and it was my first time attending the Shangri-La dialogue.

So I didn't know what to baseline it against. Do media go there as observers or participants? How does that work? There are two classes of media. One is a delegate, which means you go into the conference room, you can raise your hand, you can ask a question. I was a mere mortal standard media, which just means you can access the press room. And actually, to be honest, that was, I actually think it would have just been as good to just rock up at the Shangri-La Hotel because most of the value I got was not by going into the press room, but by just lurking around the cafe and intercepting people and talking to them one-to-one. That was where the

value was for me. But some other media just sat in the press room watching it on TV, which you could do from your hotel room on YouTube if you were that ilk. Or from home. So what did you learn? What did you pick up? Well, first of all, Secretary of Defense Hegseth did a speech that was the sort of like main pinnacle of the event. Well, I guess Macron, the French president as well, but he just suffered a slap from his wife on the plane. So apparently it was a joke. Yeah. Well, he, he, he touched on North Korea. Macron touched on North Korea in a much more serious way than Hegseth. So Hegsif speech, North Korea and South Korea, I mean, barely got a mention.

There was one single mention of North Korea in the context of Asian allies should do more to increase defense spending because you're in a much more worrisome neighborhood than our European friends who have also just increased their defense spending. So he actually used Europe as an example, despite all of the US's complaints about

European defense spending to tell Asian allies, pull your socks up. But really the main story for me was there was a lot of discussion with those attending from various walks of life about a new role for US forces Korea. And I did a story on this on the Friday, sorry on the Saturday, which pegged off Hegseth's remarks and basically the US force dark commander, he actually had gone on record a day or two before Shangri-La, not in as clear terms as some of the media reporting we've seen since, but spelling out how USFK's assets here are geographically positioned to provide the US with an advantageous response mechanism, something along those lines in the event of conflict within the

region. I've included his on-record comments in full in the piece, so you can refer to them. But basically, reading between the lines, what it looks like here is Elbridge Colby, he's written a book on... A bit of a real China hawk. A real China hawk. Sees China as the main strategic threat for the United States. And to me, it looks like he is calling on US forces Korea, maybe US forces Japan, I don't know the details with them, to be ready to fight or to deter China on the topic of Taiwan. And I think we're going to see this crystallizing in clearer talking points.

Thus far, besides the commander's slightly more vague remarks on this issue, there has been unnamed military sources who have spelled this new rollout for USFK. I think we're probably going to see those crystallize. The thing is, how is South Korea going to respond to this? Because we all remember what happened when the US introduced that missile batteries back in 2016, unofficial sanctions from China. And this arguably is a much more significant issue if there is some formalization of USFK having a role in a potential future Taiwan contingency, because that's akin to China having a base, let's say in New Mexico,

which could be used in a contingency against the United States. We all remember what happened in the Cuban Missile Crisis. So yeah, that for me was the real takeaway, a lot of discussion behind the scenes on that topic and I think we're going to hear about it a lot more. Yes, and the South Korean response will be very, very instructive on that one. And that brings us to South Korea. Today being election day, Shreyas. It still

looks likely that barring an act of God that Lee Jae Myung will win the presidency, right? Yeah, so definitely that seems to be the case as of now. And what's, has he said anything about the status of USFK or about China relations that would give us an indication of how he might react to a to a re a repivoting of US forces towards a Taiwan contingency? Well I think Yijia Mung has mostly tended to approach and I mean we've kind of overused the word pragmatic for him but it's certainly what tends to be his approach he does not really give away much in terms of specifics mostly tries to say we're going to try and balance

relations with everyone and that includes countries that are currently seen as rivals or threats so particularly in the region he wants to balance relations with China, Russia, Japan, North Korea and yes keep strong relations strong with the US. He perhaps hasn't really placed as much emphasis on the whole USFK team on US relations as some others, but it is on everyone's agenda. Make nice with Donald Trump. Keep the troops in place for now. Right.

Yeah. No, but it's hard to imagine a scenario in which if there is a Taiwan contingency and US forces, Korea get involved in that, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which Korea does not become a direct target for China. Yeah, though for now he seems to think of it as a very, very remote possibility. I forgot what the expression was, but I think essentially it was basically

a picks-me-fly situation. He doesn't really see it as something that will happen anytime soon that China will invade Taiwan, or at least that's how he seems to be framing it. Well, as someone who lives in South Korea, I hope the same, you know, speaking for myself. Yeah, and I think in some ways, to be honest, his focus at the moment is very much on domestic matters, whether it's the economy or the domestic politics in the wake of the martial law crisis, which also reflected really in his priorities. He just clubbed all the foreign policy and security elements under one theme in his agenda ahead

of the election, but didn't really go and drill down into them. Now, once in a while in debates or on the campaign trail, someone would ask him about something specific, but right now, it really does not seem to be his priority and perhaps we'll also see that reflected assuming he gets elected. I think some of the early appointments will probably be, there will certainly be a few that might affect

the situation in the Korean Peninsula peninsula like for example national security advisor Yes, that is something that would be directly linked to his own office as president Yeah, foreign minister farmers who who has close good working relations with the United States good track record. Yes and The definitely they'll want someone who can balance different Interests, but at the same time And definitely they'll want someone who can balance different interests. But at the same time, some of them, they'll probably take a little time to just get people into place. For example, at the moment, it seems like the foreign minister from the current government

will stay in place at least temporarily because in this case, it's not like there'll be a transition period. Lee Jae Myung will take up the presidency as soon as he is confirmed as the winner. Which could be tomorrow. Yes. And so fundamentally, that means for the foreseeable future, until they can confirm new ministers, some of the older ones will remain in post, the ones where at least it's more about maintaining that continuity. And perhaps in the coming weeks with Democratic Party-controlled Parliament and Democratic

Party president potentially returning, I think we can see appointments being fast-tracked perhaps. But some might come in a little later, for example, unification minister for anything North Korea related. Let me break in there. Chad, during the presidency of Moon Jae-in, that was really an interesting one for you and the team here at NK News because there was so much going on, right? Right. The couple of years, not much at all really, more antagonism but no engagement.

What are you expecting from an Lee Jae-myung presidencyung president once again assuming that he does win today and tomorrow well power I actually Think there was more to expect from even Yoon on on North Korea because we saw so many near misses when it came to potential conflict and quite bold and assertive moves it came to potential conflict and quite bold and assertive moves, unpredictable moves by South Korea in the military domain and things were quite tense. I've gone on record as forecasting for NK Pro a probable very quiet period of potential tension.

I think things are going to be very stable actually for the short to medium term. I think North Korea just wants to be left alone. I think Lee Jae Myung knows that he doesn't really have much to offer. And basically, I think once the Russia-Ukraine thing wraps up, if it wraps up, given what's just happened, then we may see some movement on USDPRK. Until then, I think everything is just in wait and see mode. But I would add what we've seen over the weekend with Ukraine able to strike targets up to almost 5,000 kilometers away. I wrote yesterday, GreenK Pro, if North Korea ups the ante with its participation in support of Russia in this war in Ukraine, I think you can't

rule out now that Ukraine may bring the war to North Korea at some point. They've demonstrated a capability. If they brought drones into the West Sea on maritime assets, they could easily pull something like this off and it would be very very embarrassing for Kim Jong-un. Worse than embarrassing. Yeah, so I think what we've seen is Ukraine demonstrate a very long range, serious credibility and doing it into North Korea would probably be a lot easier than near those Russian military air bases.

So I think- Is that a prediction you're making, Chad? Or is that a- I think it is. Yeah, it is a bit of a prediction, but I think it's contingent on North Korea increasing its deployment somehow, increasing its munitions deliveries, that kind of thing. If I was Zelensky, I'd say why not?

Okay. Shreyas, any prediction to leave us with? Well, yeah, I think one thing just to add to what Chad was saying about inter-Korean relations for the foreseeable future. Certainly, as you mentioned, North Korea does not seem interested and they've made this clear since Kim Jong-un essentially rejected decades old inter-Korean policies, walked away from the idea of unification in December 2023. They've very much stuck to that. Sure, they occasionally pile in with criticism of South Korea, but

by and large, they've kind of very much taken a hands-off approach to the South and they also shut down a lot of propaganda outlets that used to target the South. So we're seeing that ahead of the election, they've been quite silent, just as they were from much of the impeachment martial law proceedings, they would usually take some time and report after a while. It's quite possible that now they are still keeping an eye on the election, but they're not really saying what they're thinking.

They're probably just looking into the different candidates' positions and just trying to figure out what really works for them. At the moment, I think it's quite likely that we'll see after the president has confirmed a statement or some sort of report just talking, just briefly reporting on the election, maybe inserting some criticism from their side, irrespective of who wins, while generally standing off. And I think we're going to see that for the next few months at the very least, perhaps even longer, that they're

not really going to jump in, engage with the South. And I think they don't really have any interest in that. They don't really have anything to gain for that at the moment. And they really will need some sort of shift in the calculus. And that's where the US perhaps would have more influence than South Korea. Chet, final thought? Yeah, just to say, I was at the border about a week ago and no loudspeakers.

From the South Korean side? Neither side. I couldn't hear anything. That was just at Ordu San. Ordu San, which is the far west. Yeah, closest to Seoul. So I haven't seen what it's like in Kanghwa for a while. But whatever happens, I think it would be really interesting

for us to get back out to the border after the election and see if it's CJ Myung, do all these loudspeakers get withdrawn? Does the TV, the radio that they're doing, does that all get dialed down? My prediction would be yes. And that will again facilitate warmer relations or less confrontational. Also, a road trip coming, I call shotgun. Yeah, also, Yoon Seok-yeol did under him, they rolled back the comprehensive military agreement between the two Koreas. They made a lot of other changes.

He unveiled his unification doctrine that perhaps while talking about human rights took a more antagonistic view of North Korea. I think with Lee Jae-myeong, even if he can't actuallyistic view of North Korea. I think with Lee Jae Myung, even if he can't actually resume anything with North Korea, perhaps from his side we might see in the, over the course of the year, attempts to at least walk back some of those policies, even if it fundamentally makes a little difference in terms of the actual inter-Korean dynamic. Less human rights conferences. Quite possibly.

We will see. Okay, that's where we're going to have to end it today. Thank you very much, Shreyas and Chad, for coming on the show. Thank you. the capturing the essence of North Korea's renowned brew. Each design is a conversation starter. Find yours at shop.nknews.org. Again, that's shop.nknews.org. 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.