7/26/2020 News & Commentary – Korea
News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Duncan Moore.
1. N.K. leader adopts ‘maximum emergency system’ after defector returns with coronavirus symptoms
2. S. Korea, U.S. to stage scaled-down summertime combined exercise next month: sources
3. NIS director-nominee says another Trump-Kim summit possible before Nov. election
4. Gov’t to mark UN Forces Participation Day
5. North Korea declares emergency in border town over first suspected COVID-19 case
6. North Korea reports its first apparent covid-19 case
7. S. Korea sees ‘high chances’ of defector’s border crossing into N. Korea
8. New virus cases tumble on sharp fall in imported cases
9. A porous border
10. World War 3: how ‘monumental’ CIA blunder ‘handed N. Korea and Iran nuclear bomb secret’
11. Hanwha ships prototype fighting vehicles to Australia in W5tr Redback deal
12. North Korea’s convenient but remarkable admission of likely Covid-19 case
13. Kim Jong Un cracks down on outside cultural influences
1. N.K. leader adopts ‘maximum emergency system’ after defector returns with coronavirus symptoms
Yonhap News Agency · by Yi Wongju · July 26, 2020
This is interesting. I wonder if they are using this to try to scare people from defecting. Blaming the defectors can have multiple uses with the most obvious still being able to keep a lid on the information about the outbreak. What I really wonder about is if there is an outbreak they can no longer hide so this is designed to cover it.
2. S. Korea, U.S. to stage scaled-down summertime combined exercise next month: sources
Yonhap News Agency · by Oh Seok-min · July 26, 2020
Again, readiness of the combined command and combined components must take precedence of the full operational capability assessment for the OPCON transition.
3. NIS director-nominee says another Trump-Kim summit possible before Nov. election
Yonhap News Agency · by [email protected] · July 25, 2020
I wonder where he gets his information to make this kind of assessment. I would not bet money on this.
4. Gov’t to mark UN Forces Participation Day
Korea Times · by Jung Da-min · July 24, 2020
It is nice of the ROK government to “honor the heroic efforts of the UN Command.”
5. North Korea declares emergency in border town over first suspected COVID-19 case
Reuters by Sangmi Cha & Josh Smith3 Min Read · July 25, 2020
A slight admission to attempt to perpetuate a continued cover-up. Blame a returning defector and imply that he or she carried it from South Korea. This provides multiple propaganda lines of narrative to include blaming South Korea for an outbreak.
6. North Korea reports its first apparent covid-19 case
Wall Street Journal · by Timothy W. Martin · July 26, 2020
Again, per my previous comments, this is interesting. The regime probably can no longer hide the fact that it has had an outbreak. This will be their attempt to continue to relatively cover it up by admitting it but also minimizing it and blaming the outside world, namely South Korea and defectors. Note the lockdown of Keasong, where there likely is some residual South Korean personnel presence even after the destruction of the liaison building and, if not, it is likely a measure to prevent the remaining Koreans from the North from transmitting the infection after assumed or alleged infection from the South. They can develop a lot of propaganda out of those two themes against multiple target audiences internally and externally.
But the real worry is that, if it is getting bad, what will be the effects on the people, the military, and ultimately the regime. Could an outbreak significantly destabilize the regime?
7. S. Korea sees ‘high chances’ of defector’s border crossing into N. Korea
Yonhap News Agency · by Choi Soo-hyang · July 26, 2020
Whoa! This is problematic. First, for a defector to cross the DMZ is still difficult – it must be very hard to penetrate the South Barrier fence line as I would assume that is still heavily guarded and patrolled by the ROK military even if guard posts within the DMZ have been reduced. Of course, if he swam across the Han River estuary (twice – once in 2017 to the South and once again in 2020 by swimming North), we have to ask about the status of the anti-infiltration capabilities such as the anti-swimmer nets that used to be in place. If someone like Defector Kim can do it twice, what would we think North Korean SOF can do?
The second problem is the ROKG seems to be confirming what I think is most likely a propaganda story from the North. And even if a defector did cross the DMZ and was carrying the coronavirus, the ROK should not be giving them additional “ammunition” for the propaganda story. The next we will see is that this was a deliberate biological warfare event by the ROK military to transmit the infection to the North. (NO, I do not believe the South did that, but I expect North Korean propaganda could spin it that way).
8. New virus cases tumble on sharp fall in imported cases
Yonhap News Agency · by [email protected] · July 26, 2020
But the numbers could go right back up with the next international flight arriving at Incheon airport.
9. A porous border
Korea JoongAng Daily · by Editorial Board · July 26, 2020
I am dumbfounded as well. This short op-ed addresses a number of problems with escapee (defector) management and not just security at the DMZ.
The editorial board should know the DMZ is 4KM wide: it is 2KM on the South side and 2 KM on the North side of the Military Demarcation Line.
10. World War 3: how ‘monumental’ CIA blunder ‘handed N. Korea and Iran nuclear bomb secret’
Express · by Callum Hoare · July 25, 2020
11. Hanwha ships prototype fighting vehicles to Australia in W5tr Redback deal
Korea Herald · by Choi Si-young · July 26, 2020
12. North Korea’s convenient but remarkable admission of likely Covid-19 case
North Korea Economy Watch · by Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein · July 26, 2020
I think there is an outbreak and I think this is one attempt to shift the blame to the South. I worry about how bad the spread will affect the population, the military, and the regime. As I have written previously, this could cause suffering on a scale greater than the Arduous March or famine of 1994-1996.
13. Kim Jong Un cracks down on outside cultural influences
New York Post · by Melissa Klein · July 25, 2020
One of the biggest threats to the regime is the existence and example of the South as a free and prosperous nation.
“Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose – a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.”
– Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, in Frankenstein (1818)
“The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost;
to be everywhere is nowhere.”
– Michel de Montaigne
“To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
