North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Rob York: How the Global South views North Korean human rights

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

The Global South has continued to grow in political importance in recent years, as the U.S., China and Russia battle for influence among countries in the Southern Hemisphere. And that contest also has implications for addressing a range of North Korea issues. This week, Rob York of the Pacific Forum joins the NK News podcast […]

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. Hello, listeners, and welcome to the NK News podcast. I'm your host, Jack O's Whet-Sloot, and this episode was recorded via StreamYard on Thursday, the 8th of August, 2024.

And I'm joined from Hawaii by Dr. Rob York, who is the Director for Regional Affairs at Pacific Forum, where he focuses on counter disinformation, economic security, and extended deterrence. Rob was Chief Editor at NK News from 2013 to 2016, before I came aboard, and he earned his PhD in Korean history from the University of Hawaii in 2023. And you can find his work, some of his work online at packforum.org and we'll put a link to that in the show notes. And today we're gonna be talking about how North Korea funds its nuclear program, how the global South looks at North Korean human rights

and how North Korea was represented, if at all, in English language newspapers in South Korea after the Korean War. Rob York, welcome on the show. Thank you for having me. Let's talk first of all about how North Korea finances its nuclear program and avenues for how to track that money flow now that the panel of experts is defunct.

First of all, why do you see this as an important issue? Well, with the loss of the panel of experts, what we're losing really is a detailed sense of how North Korea is financing its activities. Of course, we could tell thanks to the panel of experts, the avenues, many of the avenues that were available to it, as well as what were the countries where a lot of it was taking place. If you looked at shipping, for instance, you could see specific locations. And also you could see the different means that it was using, whether it was on land or whether it was by sea or whether it was online. So it was a little bit harder.

It will be a little bit harder now to get that kind of detailed look at it's a weapons financing. And although we're certainly going to be aware that it is taking place and there is going to be probably different and possibly scatter shot efforts at trying to continue to track it. How much money does North Korea need for its nuclear weapons program? How expensive is such a program? The price of precise amounts is a little bit hard to figure per se, but we do know that it has been involved in several large incidences of cryptocurrency

theft. We're talking about in the hundreds of millions of dollars in each case. So we're talking about that much, certainly. We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that it is stealing in order to finance those weapons programs. We can be sure of that much at least. Would that also include the missile program, do you think, or would that just be for the nuclear part? Yes, it would be missile programs as well. Just for an example, Coin Check in 2018,

it stole $532 million, it's believed, and in 2020, $275 million from KuCoin, and in 2022, there are a pair of major heists totaling more than 700 million. Okay, all right, we'll turn back to cryptocurrency a bit later on, but first of all, back in history, how far back do you see North Korea's decision to make nuclear weapons? Some people have said in the 1950s, as early as that, in the years after the Korean War,

where some people dated to as recently as the 1990s. So where do you go back to the start point? Well, all the way back to the 1960s, there are records of North Korea asking for assistance in developing a nuclear weapons program. It asked both the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union for assistance in this regard, but they did not grant it. The Soviet Union did assist it in a civilian nuclear program, but both of them declined to help with its nuclear weapons program. Now, from the 1980s onward, there's some assistance by the Soviet Union and working on some LWR technology, for instance, but

it's a light water reactor for our listeners. Right, right, right. But it didn't really last very long because the Soviet Union's economy was already in decline by that point. And it was also using more and more of its own capabilities to acquire such funds illicitly. So this was coordinated through the notorious Office 39 and there were activities such as drug trafficking that was taking place, counterfeiting currencies,

the so-called super notes, the high quality counterfeit $100 bills, counterfeiting cigarettes and so on. From the early 80s onward, you see these kinds of efforts taking place in a variety of countries, particularly where the North had embassies. Okay. So back to the early 1980s is, if I understand rightly, when we have the earliest records of North Korea actually trying to get money for weapons funding, but because

money being a fungible thing and North Korea needing money for lots of programs because of its, you know, its juche economic idea. How do we know specifically that any of that money was earmarked for weapons programs? Well, we can tell just based on the reports that have been compiled. That's how we believe that a lot of these records were, a lot of these funds were being purposed at least. So for the early days of its nuclear program, as well as for its nuclear weapons, of course, that didn't really bear fruit for another decade or so when you start to see the North beginning to explicitly threaten to launch a nuclear

program in say the first nuclear crisis, 92-94, and continuing thereafter with the efforts it made, which would have eventually come to light in 2002 when Assistant Secretary Kelly revealed the accusations that the North was working on nuclear materials which would then launch. So we kind of put two and two together in that regard. There are these illicit activities that are taking place and the nuclear weapons program and missile program really start shortly thereafter. Okay. Now I imagine that since those early attempts in the 1980s to get the money that North Korea has tried various different ways to seek funding for its nuclear program. We've

already or you've already mentioned the cryptocurrency most recently. So what are the trend lines that exist and what kind of data are you looking at to spot them? So through the mid-2000s, mid-2010s, I should say, we see a variety of programs that are both legal, like the Kaesong Industrial Complex, like its regular trade with China and also tourism and the export of laborers, those are all things that are taking place at the time, along with, for example, CorioLink with Egypt, those are all means that we believe we're being used

to help finance these programs. But over time, as the efforts to curtail its activities have stiffened and as there has been more of a crackdown on tourism, for instance, then you've seen from about the mid 2010s, much more of an emphasis on the illicit parts. So drug trafficking still, that's something that's still taking place.

Although now there is less involvement from the diplomats and from officials who are abroad and much more involvement from defectors and regular citizens who are helping to facilitate that. But also thereafter, you're starting to see much more of that emphasis on cryptocurrency from around the 2010s, especially 2014 and thereafter. And what kind of data is available to sort of to look at the overall big picture?

So go to assorted reports that have been released, related to that. I can recommend one of our non-resident fellows. He's currently in the Foreign Service here in the US, but he was a resident fellow of ours in 2021. And he released a report at the end of 2021, which we published called North Korea's Imagined Currencies that tracks a lot of this activity that has taken place. And also the major incidences that have taken place, including in cryptocurrency theft, especially the cyber security. There's been regular releases of information by the US,

but also by South Korea in recent years about North Korea's cyber theft operations and the places that it has targeted, especially in South Korea. Right. Now about the crypto theft, you've already mentioned some of the sums that are involved. They're quite large numbers. It seems like they may even be larger than some of the legitimate trade that North Korea was doing in the past. I mean, has the amount that it's been able to harvest in the last few years ramped up in relation to previous years or decades? That certainly would seem to be the case based on the sheer volume of money it is able to

get in just individual incidences. That seems to be the case based on the information we have available. I mean, 2022, we're talking $620 million from one source. Now, what I understand about the problem with stealing cryptocurrency is that it's not always easy to use that money once it's stolen. But even though cryptocurrency is by nature anonymous, because of the open ledger, you can see where that money is coming from and where it's gone to. And so it's been possible for the crypto community to effectively freeze out some of the North

Korean funds that they've stolen the money, they're holding it in a wallet, but they can't do much with it. Does that drive with your understanding? Yeah, basically it does, but it's an ongoing problem and an evolving one, because the activity continues. There are regular reports being released about their continued role in this. And also, as we can tell, North Korea's efforts at diversifying its nuclear program and also as we can tell North Korea's efforts at diversifying its nuclear program and also its missile programs continue as well. So these efforts by those who are involved in the cryptocurrency trade are welcome, but there are also going to need to be continued efforts at the governmental level, and especially coordination among governments. What is it that makes curtailing North Korea's efforts to fund its nuclear program so complicated?

For many years, of course, it was because of the non-cooperation between the non-cooperation of the PRC and also Russia. They were happy to give lip service toward denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, of course. And they said on repeated occasions that they wanted to see North Korea not proceed with nuclearization. But there was a hesitance on their part to actually take punitive measures. And that is something we have continuously seen through not only their public statements, but also in dialogues. I've heard diplomats say that, for instance, China and Russia have been, well, China in particular, has been happy to organize meetings, to chair meetings on the North Korean nuclear program, but not

really go much further than that. And when asked point blank if they are willing to take punitive measures to enforce the sanctions that are already in place, they have a tendency to not be committal. Let's put it that way. So their idea is generally to create bigger and bigger mechanisms, international mechanisms for curtailing it, but not really explain how they would enforce them. But the major problem in recent years has been the difficulty in curtailing cyber activities. Of course, North Korea has its capacity to infiltrate the cyber systems of other countries, but it has very little of its own to counterattack, for instance. That certainly curtailes the ability of countries to halt it or to deter it from carrying out these kinds of activities. So there's going to be much more of a whole

of government effort and also more coordination between I'd say, like-minded partners in order to counter this activity. But that is something coordination at the US government level is hard enough, but getting countries to actually come together on this issue has been an especially difficult problem. Now, it seems perhaps an unexpected stance of China not to want to curtail North Korea's nuclear program, given that initially, as you pointed out, China was not interested in helping North Korea despite North Korea's request. And I think China probably still has technically a policy of not wanting any nuclear

weapons on the Korean peninsula. Is it caught between two competing desires here? Yes, technically, I'm sure that the PRC would prefer that North Korea not draw undue attention to itself, especially in this regard, because that reinforces the US's resolve to be part of the security dynamics in Northeast Asia. It continues to justify the US's military presence there, and it pushes South Korea further and further in the direction of the United States. There was a time 10, 15 years ago, I guess you could even say a couple of years ago under the Moon Jae-in administration where the United States was definitely having to compete with China for influence.

But the actions that the PRC has taken at the governmental level have pushed the South Koreans toward the US. And I mean specifically the FAD missile defense controversy where South Korea accepted batteries from the US missile defense. And the PRC reacted to this with a series of punitive measures against South Korea. And this really pushed the South Koreans much further into the US's orbit. So these are all developments that the PRC does not welcome. But at the same time, the PRC, well, on the global stage,

the PRC will say that it does not interfere in the affairs of other countries. It will frequently say that it values sovereignty above all else, and therefore it does not tell other countries what to do in terms of their internal governance decisions. So that is one of the reasons why China is probably reluctant to interfere in North Korea's affairs. But there's also much more practical and much more self-interested reasons, which is if they were to take punitive measures on North Korea and this led to destabilization of the country, then China would have another set of problems, namely that of North Korean refugees in its Northeastern provinces, for instance, and

quite possibly a unified Korea with a U.S. alliance right at its doorstep. Those are all impulses that the PRC has to weigh when it's setting North Korea policy strategy. And is the intensified rivalry between China and the United States also factoring into that? Oh, yes, certainly. Just in the last couple of years, there have been efforts by the US to pass resolutions on condemning and also taking punitive measures against North Korea over the proliferation activities that it has been carrying out, whether it's carrying out tests of hypersonics, whether it's a firing short, medium, or even long-range missiles in

the area, whether it's conducting tests of so-called tactical nuclear weapons, tests for tactical or nuclear weapon uses, I should say, not actual tactical nuclear weapons. All of these efforts, all these rather provocative measures that they have taken, the US has attempted to pass resolutions at the UN on these activities. And they have really gone nowhere basically, because of Chinese and Russian opposition to them. Plus, with Russia's own actions in the past couple of years and the stances that it has taken towards Europe, towards Ukraine, it has much, much further aligned itself with not only China, but also North Korea.

We're seeing much more cooperation between Russia and North Korea. What North Korea gets out of it is space technology. What Russia appears to get out of it is weapons that are being used in Ukraine. And so for the time being, it appears that Russia and North Korea are much more closely aligned than China and North Korea are. Now, Russia recently helped to disband the UN panel of experts at the United Nations Security Council. So there's no internationally recognized body overseeing means for tracking funding and sanctions evasion.

But of course, as we know, it was already a troublesome mechanism because often China and Russia weren't fully supportive of it. So is the situation much worse now than it was a few months ago? It's definitely not helpful. UN sanctions now, now it's even harder to enforce UN sanctions because of the loss of the panel of experts. Up till now, we've at least had a reasonable idea of where violations of existing sanctions were taking place, whether they were in the waters of the PRC or other parts of Southeast Asia, or the waters of the PRC or other parts of Southeast Asia or through transfers that were taking place on land, but it's going to be quite a bit harder to do that now.

So there are a handful of suggestions that have taken place as to how the panel of experts might be replaced. I would direct readers to Jorge Lopez and his analysis that was published at the UN Institute of Peace. He discusses a number of prospects, including mechanisms that have been used, independent and impartial mechanisms

that have been used for other situations that have taken place, such as in Syria. These sorts of mechanisms could lead to testimony at the UN on this matter, but not necessarily to written reports. And there are others that have been suggested. Do you believe, Rob, that we're at a point now where it no longer makes sense to try to convince North Korea to stop or give up or trade away its nuclear weapons program? That is definitely the argument that one hears. And it's even an argument that Russia has seemingly deployed when it was vetoing the

mandate of the panel of experts, which is essentially sanctions do not work. And therefore we need to try another model. Those of us who are more supportive of what sanctions we're trying to accomplish and more supportive of that effort would say that if the sanctions did not work, then what were all the complaints coming out of North Korea about when it came to sanctioning their activities? This matters not only in terms of efforts to limit North Korea's ability to acquire such technologies, it also has an impact on what North Korea is able to do in terms of selling to third parties, cooperating with other countries that might share similar ambitions. the entire nonproliferation regime, the purpose of that was to create a world that was less on the edge of a knife, you might say,

so that there would be fewer possibilities for that kind of escalation. And abandoning efforts to keep countries from acquiring those technologies, obviously North Korea succeeded, India succeeded, Pakistan succeeded, et cetera. But overall, three countries out of what, 200, that's not the worst record. And there's giving up on it now at a time when there's going to be an intensifying confrontation and intensifying rivalry between great powers is sending the wrong signals.

More and more countries are going to probably want to continue or are going to want to have that option. Okay. Let's pivot now, Rob, to talk about something that I don't usually handle in the same episode as nuclear weapons, and that is North Korean human rights. Specifically, we're going to talk about how global South countries view North Korean human rights and how they typically vote on UN resolutions. So first of all, how do you define the global South? What is it? Who are they? It's called global South because it refers to southern hemispheric countries and where concentrations of wealth are lesser. I hesitate

to say that these are poor countries versus rich because countries are generally richer than they used to be. But generally speaking, if you look at Latin America, Africa, and southern Southeast Asia, those are the countries where you generally find global South countries. Okay, now why have discussions about the importance of the global south have been increasing in recent years? Because China and Russia have been telegraphing for some time now that these countries are considered key in their efforts to remake the global order. China has defined the global south as part of their strategy for bolstering sovereignty, essentially, of countries, and also basically championing the discussions of national sovereignty, but also state-to-state

development. Russia has used these countries in order to circumvent the sanctions that it has faced since the Ukraine War, and also to promote the de-Westernization of the global order. These are both developments that benefit North Korea. Now, when, for example, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea, or other countries have submitted resolutions condemning the human rights situation in North Korea at the United Nations General Assembly, or calling for an investigation or other action, how have these global South countries typically voted on these resolutions?

Is there a trend? Is there a pattern? If you go back as far as 2007, when the UN adopted resolution 62167, or a situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, you can see that 101 nations voted in favor of the resolution, whereas 20 voted no, and there

was 59 that abstained from voting. And of those countries that voted no, more than 20 of them were African, and then there were a number of additional countries, approximately 10, basically in the neighborhood of 10 that were from what we consider Latin America. And then you get a number of other countries that are from the Caribbean. A few years later, 2014, after the release of the UN Commission of Inquiry and its report on human rights, there's another vote that this time calls not only for basically accountability from North Korea, but even potentially addressing it at the Hague at the UN Human Rights Tribunal. You see similar numbers, slightly more countries vote no, slightly more countries vote yes,

I should say. But there's similar numbers in terms of the yeas, nays, and absentations. And why is that? Are they expressing some sort of a principled stance against human rights? Or what's the thinking behind that? Well, gradually, more information has come out over time about North Korea's previous activities in these parts of the world. Of course, Benjamin Young wrote about how North Korea was involved in really exporting its ideology, its anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist ideology abroad in previous years. So North Korea, there might be residual effects of North Korea being involved in Africa and

these anti-colonialist struggles and the aid that it provided to countries like these in the past. But generally speaking, I would say that it's by and large probably a lack of attention from the West and also greater attention from China and Russia, I would say. These countries have been influenced in this regard. The difference of opinion is not based on wealth, for instance. Singapore is one of the countries that has abstained

from these resolutions in the past. And it's definitely not based on democratic values per se. Saudi Arabia has voted for the 2007 resolution, for instance. So yeah, I would say that the main thing is just greater attention from the West would be required. Could we see this as a kind of a united push against imperialism? Is this an anti-imperialist stance? That is definitely how the North Koreans promoted themselves amongst these sort of countries back when we would have

referred to them as the non-aligned movement. That largely overlaps with the countries that we call the global south today. So that probably has something to do with it. I don't know if they would call it anti-imperialism today, but maybe more Western hegemony, maybe something like that. Maybe that's more the term that they would use. And well, just generally speaking, these countries view the United States and its partners as practicing a double standard when it comes to human rights,

whether it's in North Korea, whether it's in the Korean peninsula, whether it's in Ukraine versus how it's practiced in Gaza. I'm not promoting that worldview, but that is in Ukraine versus how it's practiced in Gaza. I'm not promoting that worldview, but that is definitely how they see it. So these countries that are voting no or abstaining from resolutions about North Korean human rights at the UN General Assembly, do they still fall basically into the basket of non-aligned movement countries or are there some interesting examples or exceptions? Well, yeah, by and large, I would say that they overlap a great deal.

So Eastern European countries are more likely to abstain or vote no, of course. There's been some changes in that regard, I'd say in the last 15 years in terms of their alignment, but also, well, for instance, Pacific countries, Pacific Islands countries, for instance, in the 2007 resolution and thereafter were largely supportive of these efforts by the United States and its partners in order to establish accountability. But yeah, Latin America is definitely an area

where that has not been the case. And also Africa, South Asia, South Asia, the results are mixed, Southeast Asia as well. But Africa, that's where the majority of these countries are coming from. And I would say that the stance, the position of the United States and its partners have probably gotten worse in that time period because countries that voted yay in 2007 and subsequent years include countries such as Hungary.

Obviously, that's not a global South country, but it's definitely taken a very sharp stance or change in stance in the years that followed. Kiribati is another that is a country that now has a security pact with the PRC. There's just a there's a few places where you can see that. It may not be a huge difference, but I would say that the US's position has eroded thanks to the PRC's efforts like the Belt and Road Initiative and other measures that it has taken in order to expand its overseas. Okay, so that's involved too. Now, what about North Korea? Is North Korea still making efforts and investing time and money and expertise to build up its reputation among these countries,

the Global South, for example, by giving medical and military assistance like it used to do see the the North Korea of Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un is is not really the Diplomatic maneuver that it was under their father and grandfather Kim Il-sung was very much an international player in these regards and had good relations with a lot of these countries. And a lot of these movements, whether it's the PLO, the IRA, or the Black Panthers, for instance, and it really pushing North Korea as an anti-imperialist power. So yeah, the Kim, the second and third generation of North Korean leadership has not been as proactive in this regard. It still likes to cite other countries as supporters of its foreign policy and its worldview, but it's probably less proactive.

The means, the countries that are really doing the most abroad in order to shape their perceptions would still probably be the PRC in Russia, although those benefits. So in what other ways then does North Korea try to build up its reputation or get some political capital from these members of the global South? Well, just being a figure that has of resistance, a figure of resistance has benefited the North's reputation in these countries, I would say, countries that have had a strained relationship with the US, that has definitely been something that has been beneficial to them. And the reason that I would emphasize these countries and the way that they vote at the UN is that as long as they continue to be resistant

to efforts to establish accountability for North Korea's human rights situation, then that is going to continue to make it possible for the North to paint the human rights racket as this Western plot in order to undermine its sovereignty and social stability. And to connect this to our first topic, it makes it more difficult to enforce sanctions. It makes it more difficult to build an international consensus on non-proliferation, not just human rights. Now, even if all of these countries of the global south would have switched their position tomorrow and start voting in favor of resolutions at the United Nations General Assembly, some would point out that these resolutions are largely symbolic and have no teeth, they don't have any any

way of enforcement, what point are they missing? I would say that Russia and China that would represent a serious blow to their efforts if If the US and its partners are succeeding in changing opinions in third world countries, I shouldn't say third world, I should say global south countries, if they're succeeding in changing opinions in global south countries regarding this, then that means that their efforts at reshaping the global order are not working. And it could even potentially lead to them not being able to fight public opinion,

international public opinion. Those are countries, they do things their way, they're proud of doing things their own way, but they are very mindful of international public opinion in this regard. So for instance, if you go back to say Libya, the resolution on intervention in Libya in 2011, Russia and China both abstained from that resolution, that may not be considered necessarily an

international success story in terms of how Libya turned out, but it does suggest that there is a path toward modifying their behavior and their international approach. So they might have their own views on what North Korea would look like after it was more compliant with human rights norms, international human rights norms, and also nonproliferation norms, but a big part of the reason for the commission of inquiry and a big part of the reason for the resolutions that we've already seen at the UN level is because North Korea is already a signatory to a lot of UN conventions on human rights. It's just not really following through with them, fomenting them. This is the 25th year of the 25th anniversary

of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has led to a lot of questions about what happens to the children of, for instance, the women who defect to China and have children and what happens when they are sent back? What happens to the children when they are sent back, born or unborn? Right. Oh, okay. Well, it's a dark topic indeed. But let's turn now to our third topic today, which is the emergence of English language newspapers in South Korea after the Korean

War. This is what you did your PhD research on. So what was the period of time that you were looking at? Well, the actual dissertation covers the months leading up to the April Revolution of 1960 and also the months that followed it, basically up until the formation of the subsequent government. So that's the period of time that the dissertation covers, but that was after a considerable amount of research that I had conducted. So basically I looked at how these

two newspapers, The Korea Times and The Korean Republic, covered the entirety of the 1950s and the first year or two of 1960s. Okay. And so you focused, as you said, on these two papers, The Korea Times, which still exists today, and the Korean Republic. Why those two in particular? Is it because they covered that period you're looking at? Yes, it's because of those two newspapers lasting throughout the 1960s and beyond. The Korean Republic became the Korea Herald in 1965. So they are both still printing today. So they are the first two English newspapers to really sustain themselves throughout that time period. But also because of the very different approaches that they had to covering South Korean news, the Korea Times was an independent paper throughout the 1950s and 60s and beyond.

The Korean Republic was founded in 1953, pretty specifically to promote the worldview of Singmenri. That was why I was interested in focusing on the April Revolution, which is basically how did they respond to the same set of really dramatic events and also how did they redefine themselves following Siemenri's overthrow? There was a paper that was set up as early as I think August or September 1945, very, very shortly after the Japanese surrender, which was a single sheet, a little bit bigger I think than A3 size called the Sol Times. I'm not sure how long that lasted, but I've seen some examples of it.

And it was interesting to see that it was already publishing before the US occupation forces arrived, and it had a cartoon strip on the bottom of it. Did you see any of those in the archives that you're looking at? I mean, if you go back far enough, there's English language media in the late 19th century, and thereafter, people who are publishing, trying to promote these ideas of reform and enlightenment in the latter days of the Joseon dynasty. So those those continued and yeah, there's there's the Seoul Times. I mean, there are multiple papers called the Korea Times before the one that we're all

familiar with that all emerged. But due to problems with distribution, staffing, and so on, it was very difficult for them to sustain operations more than a few months. And many contemporary accounts noted how newspapers would publish just enough to maintain their licenses. You could be considered a weekly if you published not even weekly, but just a specific number of times per month. And you could be considered a daily if you did so a specific number of times per week. And so they were, it was a very difficult model to sustain for a variety of reasons, but the Korean times was successful. And a lot of that had to do with the name recognition of some individuals who were involved,

such as the founder of Ewha Womans University. And the Korean Republic was successful because I would say the Rhee government support and because Syngman Rhee had a lot of high profile friends in the United States, including at journalism schools. Right. So in this period that we're looking at there from 53 up until 1960, this is right after the Korean War when both Koreas were still rebuilding and tension was high with many foreign troops manning the demilitarized zone on both sides.

Did you find references to North Korea and Kim Il-sung in these English papers? Yeah, there were references to North Korea and there were repeated calls, especially in the pro-Re Korean Republic, for instance, an abrogation of the treaty that ended the Korean War in 1953, largely because they said they had repeatedly violated the terms of the armistice and therefore it was no longer worthwhile upholding it. But curiously, if you look at the tenor of the discussion of communism, the targets of these papers are almost always the PRC and the Soviet Union, because it was believed that they were the reasons for the division. They regularly called for withdrawals of support by the PRC and the Soviet Union for North Korea because they believed it would collapse

on its own. Somewhat interestingly, you and many of our other listeners are probably familiar with Kim Il-sung and the record of his discussion with Eastern European diplomat about the peace overtures that were taking place between the two Koreas in the early 1970s and how Kim Il-sung said that if South Korea were to go along with that, then they would collapse basically.

Yeah. Well, South Korea's view of North Korea was pretty much the same. If Russia and China can be convinced to back off, then North Korea will collapse on its own. And headlines in both papers referred to the North Koreans as the puppets regularly. So yeah, they weren't dramatically different in terms of how they viewed communism in North Korea. It was mostly how they viewed the South Korean government. What about stories about spies active in South Korea or an underground Korean workers party or

partisans in the mountains? Was that a major theme? Partisans in the mountains, not so much. There were definitely stories about espionage taking place, firings being broken up, for instance. A lot of the information about, for instance, the Jeju uprising that took place, a lot of that didn't really start coming to light until after Sigmund Ries' ouster in the 60s. That's when a lot of people started coming forward and talking about things that had been done during that time period. But that was very quickly suppressed when the military coup happened in May 1961. So efforts at establishing accountability for those things really went away, I

would say, after the military coup. those things really went away, I would say, after the military coup. What does this tell us overall about how South Koreans viewed communism at the time? The thing about these newspapers is that opposed to say Korean language papers of the same period, these were largely directed at foreign audiences. So the missionaries, the military, other individuals who had come really to help out in terms of South Korea's reconstruction following the Korean War. That was the target audience for these publications and so there was more of an effort to convince them to keep up the fight against communism and to see South Korea as a critical juncture in that contest.

So for the Korean Republic, it was largely, Syngman Rhee understands communism better than others do. And therefore people should listen to him when he says unification of the peninsula must happen on our time frame, on our timetable. For the Korean Republic, it was actually, there was much more effort to establish accountability with the regovornment and also they would say that the quest to foster liberal democracy in the country and repel communism was being undermined by Ri and Ri's consolidation of power and corruption. And that the United States needed to be aware of this rather than supporting Ri unequivocally.

Basically, trying to convince foreign audiences to continue to keep up their support for South Korea, but do so judiciously. Judiciously, okay. Which was not, I mean, singmenry was with a man given to hyperbole and dramatics at times. So that's not a word I would often associate with him. Well, thank you very much for coming on the NK News podcast today, Robert, and sharing with us your thoughts on these three themes. OK, thank you for entertaining all these three things. 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 Koryo designs, each

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post-recording producer genius, Gabby Magnuson, who cuts out all the extraneous noises, awkward silences, bodily functions, and fixes the audio levels. Thank you.