Fluoroscopy | Military unrest in North Korea

Why are we talking about it?

Something new in North Korea. According to the state agency KCNA, Pyongyang this week appointed a new defense minister, No Kwang-chol. This four-star general, who already held the position in 2018 and 2019, is notably known for having accompanied leader Kim Jong-un to Singapore in 2018 and to Vietnam the following year, to meet former US President Donald Trump. His appointment comes in a context where tensions are increased in the region, and where the Kim Jong-un regime is monitored by the international community because of its military activities and its nuclear ambitions.

A definitive cut

Relations are at an all-time low between North and South Korea. In addition to this appointment to Defense, the North Korean army announced on Wednesday that it wanted to “permanently” cut the road and land routes between the two countries, in particular by dismantling the only existing railway line. The General Staff of the Korean People’s Army called the initiative a “self-defense measure.” According to him, this is a response to the military exercises of South Korea, which he described as the “first hostile state” to North Korea, as well as to the deployment of American nuclear installations in the region.

Belligerent ping-pong

This gesture is another chapter in the escalation of activities near the demarcation line separating the two Koreas. Earlier this year, North Korea planted land mines and barriers along the heavily militarized border, in addition to sending trash-filled balloons to South Korea all summer. In September, it also revealed the existence of uranium enrichment facilities, in order to demonstrate its nuclear capabilities. These provocations led Seoul to in turn suspend the military agreement signed by the two parties, which had established a form of rapprochement in 2018.

A strategy of… reciprocal tension

Associate researcher and director of the Indo-Pacific Geopolitical Observatory at IRIS (Institute of International and Strategic Relations), Marianne Péron-Doise believes that Pyongyang is following its usual line of “tension strategy”, having the feeling to have “a reinforced stature regionally, due to its recent rapprochement with Russia (mutual defense agreement signed on June 19), while having the support of China.” The expert notes, however, that South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol himself has a “very offensive posture” towards the Pyongyang regime, asking for additional guarantees from his American ally on the nuclear umbrella which he benefits (stops by American nuclear attack submarines resumed last year). She adds that South Korean services have just accused Pyongyang of sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine alongside the Russians. An indictment that did not please Pyongyang or the Kremlin, which on Thursday described this information emanating from Kyiv and Seoul as “false”.

What if Trump wins?

For M^me Péron-Doise, the other significant factor surrounding recent developments is the proximity of the presidential election in the United States. The vote, scheduled for November 5, could change the nature of American alliances in the region, both with South Korea and Japan, if Donald Trump ever returns to office. “ [Trump] still think that Tokyo and Seoul are free riders [resquilleurs] and are expensive for the American taxpayer, she emphasizes. Many things appear unresolved and the strategic balances around the Korean peninsula have always been volatile… with spectacular peaks of tension only to fall back into relative anomie. »

Go home

In practice, the border between the two Koreas has been closed since the end of the Korean War in 1953. Over the years, many North Koreans have defected to the South, to flee the communist dictatorship of the Kim clan. International mail reports, however, that last week, a certain “Mr. A.”, a North Korean defector who had fled his country in 2011 to take refuge in South Korea, finally chose to return home! Reason given for this “reverse defection”? “Life in South Korea was too difficult,” he replies (the average salary of North Korean defectors is said to be 70% lower than that of South Koreans). Absurdity of the story: “Mr. A.” risks up to ten years in prison for crossing the inter-Korean border without authorization, according to Article 6 of North Korea’s national security law.

With Agence France-Presse, International mail, The Japan Times