Transcript
Transcribed automatically: it certainly contains errors. It’s pretty good, just not perfect. We provide it here because, for accessibility, it’s better than nothing.
Hamish Macdonald
0:02
But yeah, the message was, yeah, more disappointment than bluster.
Andrea Berger
0:10
You're listening to the Arms Control Wong podcast, the leading podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. My name is Andrea Berger, and I'm a Senior Research Associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. And I'm joined today by Hamish Macdonald, who's the Chief Operating Officer of the Korea Risk Group and NK News.
Andrea
0:31
See all the stuff on a canis. Hamish and I are recording today in a giant thunderstorm. So if you hear ominous rolling thunder in the background, that's not something that Scott has edited in. But it is strangely appropriate because we're also going to be talking about the Max Thunder joint military exercise.
Hamish
0:54
Absolutely. A little ambience. There you go. You might hear it now. ...
Andrea
1:01
Cool. Ominous setting. But let's start before we get to Max Thunder and the little blips in diplomatic engagement that we saw in the middle of May. Let's first talk about something that Jeffrey and Aaron covered on the podcast in a separate episode, but we've now got some more information on, which was... The North Korean disablement is probably the right word of some of the test tunnels at Punggye-ri.
Hamish
1:33
Complete dismantlement to them in their state media articles. But obviously, that's not entirely accurate.
Andrea
1:40
Walk us through what happened.
Hamish
1:42
Well, obviously they invited a number of international journalists to the Punggye-ri site. They showed them the tunnels themselves, got some great images. No foreign media had ever stepped there before, likely no foreign person. And yeah, then they... Essentially blew up a number of the tunnels and the sites. However, they originally said they would invite experts along with the journalists, but that didn't happen.
So as the journalists themselves said, they couldn't 100% verify what they were seeing, whether it was permanent. So while it's a nice gesture, I think the impacts are slightly limited by that.
Hamish
2:24
So we got... CNN's Will Ripley was looking dashing then, as always. CBS.
Other voice
2:30
Sky News.
Hamish
2:32
Sky News was there. Russia Today. A couple of Chinese journalists. And then, of course, eventually the journalists from South Korea.
Andrea
2:42
Because the South Korean journalists got invited and then disinvited and then re-invited?
Hamish
2:49
Yeah, essentially. And even when they were uninvited, they still showed up to the North Korean embassy in Beijing and were actually waiting outside in a last-ditch hope to get in. They eventually got in. There are reports that the intelligence services had... Been able to sort it out, the inter-Korean agencies. And yeah, they flew in special to Wonsan.
Everybody else got held up, but they managed to get to where the show was. So all happy days in the end.
Andrea
3:22
So in your view, was the reason that experts were not invited precisely because this was a show and just that in your view?
Hamish
3:32
I think, yeah, that's definitely a possibility. To invite experts adds, obviously, a layer of scrutiny to what they wanted to be a smooth event, an event that's mainly about the visuals. Obviously, only broadcasters were primarily chosen. And as soon as you invite experts, I think you invite, yeah, that level of scrutiny that while we'll do that on the outside, on the You know, websites like Arms Control Wonk or NK News.
They didn't want that kind of spoiling the show on the day, I think.
Andrea
4:08
Also, I imagine there would have probably been a lot of political wrangling over who the experts would have been. And just given where we were in the diplomatic process, that may not have been possible. So would you have brought in national experts? Would that have been agreeable to the countries whose experts you would have brought in? Would you have brought in the International Atomic Energy Agency instead of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, who One might suggest should have been the people doing that inspection if you had experts brought in, if at all.
So, you know, maybe it was just politically easier and given that they were doing this very much for the spectacle, you know, may have just dispensed with the expert portion of the pledge.
Hamish
4:58
And yeah, then there would have been issues about what equipment they could bring, to what degree are they observers or inspectors.
Andrea
5:06
Didn't some journalists try to bring Geiger counters with them? Exactly.
Hamish
5:09
And they got told they had to ditch the Geiger counters. They all got taken from them at the airport. And then I believe either the Chinese or the South Korean journalists also had GPS devices taken off them as well. Of course, North Korea put all the journalists on a train and instructed them pretty... Forcefully that they weren't allowed to film outside outside the train as well. So with all these restrictions I'm sure there would have been more layers of complications when you know if experts had been taken as well in terms of what actually got blown up. From my understanding and looking at some of the photos, it seems like they blew up
Andrea
5:50
Entrances to three test tunnels including the two that had yet to be used. Yeah, they did not explode the entrance to the tunnel that was used for North Korea's first nuclear test that has since been disused, right? Yeah, so they, they've, they told the journalists the same line that they've kind of said publicly for, for quite a while that the, the 2006 test tunnel is just, it's out of use. Yes, it's Essentially non-existent so don't worry about that. That's, that's basically the line, right? and then the journalists got to kind of peek into the tunnel entrances, see that they were loaded up with explosives before they blew those up, and then they blew up some of the observation buildings and lodging buildings around. So it was collapsing the tunnel entrances and the surrounding support infrastructure and removing things like guard posts. Yeah so Back to the question that we discussed on the podcast previously, does this render this test site unusable?
It seems like probably not.
Hamish
6:56
Yeah, I think probably not. I mean, while some of the buildings would have had testing equipment, there were also other buildings that were blown to absolute smithereens that really didn't need to be, I think, for the purpose of testing. Rolling back a nuclear program or ending tests, but it looks great. Exploding splinters flying everywhere looks great. And so I think obviously there's everybody, I think most people agree there's a huge show element to it.
Bit of the Yongbyon cooling tower redux sort of vibes. But yeah, I mean, it's an interesting step. They weren't forced into it. They did it unilaterally. So that should count for a little bit of something. But not a whole lot, I don't think.
Andrea
7:49
I can't decide, actually, whether it's a good or a bad thing that North Korea has not framed this in relation to ongoing diplomatic efforts. On the one hand, it may give it more longevity. It depends which you decide has more longevity, right? The North Korean self-restraint for what is... Probably mostly about international optics and North Korea wanting to be seen to be the good guy, whether that has more staying power than the diplomacy at a high level that's ongoing.
Because if it were latched to diplomacy, then this commitment would probably have the same lifespan that that diplomacy does. On the other hand, if that collapses first, then maybe it's a good thing that North Korea wants to show that it's self-restrained, especially in the context of changing a strategic line that is a more overarching problem. Yeah, absolutely.
Hamish
8:50
And I mean, one of the things that comes up, you know, this kind of influences how you may see that is that we have to remember amongst all this that the DPRK has said, you know, hold up, we've finished our nuclear program.
Andrea
9:05
This is all possible because we're awesome and we ticked this box.
Hamish
9:09
And we did what we wanted to do and we don't really need to test anymore. So, yeah, I mean, with the flurry of things that are happening and the optics and the scrutiny over what they're doing, I think that quote that they've completed their nuclear force is one to always keep in the back of your mind when looking at the intention behind certain moves like this.
Andrea
9:32
But the big point here is that this is a political constraint now, not a technical constraint. True. And that... I think they're making very clear. So we talked about it on a previous podcast, the fact that when they initially announced that they were going to let people into Punggye-ri, they kept referring to it as the northern nuclear test ground, giving the impression that there was another nuclear test ground.
And they've kept doing that. The statements that they were releasing after the journalists were there are... In the title is Northern Nuclear Test Ground. So, you know, that's quite clear. As others have pointed out as well, this also does not stop them from doing, in technical terms, like what we affectionately refer to as a Juche bird. So an atmospheric detonation off a missile.
That does not need a Punggye-ri site in order to happen.
Andrea
10:30
And there's subcritical testing. They can continue to do that to, I assume, in other places in order to have confidence in their warheads. So not a technical constraint, but a political one.
Andrea
10:46
And we'll see how long that lasts.
Hamish
10:49
We will see, as Trump says.
Andrea
10:50
We'll see his favorite statement.
Andrea
10:54
There's one point I think that... Is maybe worth mentioning here, which is around how this relates to sanctions. And I know that might not sound super relevant, but probably is. The two things that North Korea said that it is going to refrain from doing are Critical nuclear tests and ICBM launches. And those are the only two forms of provocation as far as I can remember that have ever resulted in a UN Security Council resolution and have ever Open the door to Chinese acceptance of a UN Security Council resolution.
Maybe that's the better way to put it, because I'm sure if it was clear that China would agree to further action after other forms of provocation, then we might see that. In the record of UN Security Council resolutions, that's what's prompted the Chinese to agree. And that's what North Korea has now said it's not going to do.
I don't know if that's causation or correlation, but maybe part of the thinking.
Hamish
12:08
No, I think that's definitely something to consider as well. I mean, if the diplomacy fails... You know, those types of tests, the ICBM tests and the nuclear tests, they provided the momentum at the Security Council, especially in 2017. And with this diplomacy launched now, obviously people are wondering if it's undercutting Maximum pressure, if there is that momentum for further sanctions at a multilateral level, and if diplomacy fails but they don't continue to do those tests, it's hard to envision what would make China and Russia agree to any immediate sanctions measures.
Andrea
12:56
Josh Pollack actually did a really good article for you guys in which he questioned whether or not the North Korean commitment not to conduct ICBM launches and nuclear tests might also create greater toleration, if you will, by China, Russia of satellite launch activity. And I don't know whether that's the case, but I think it's a really interesting question.
Hamish
13:21
Yeah, that would be really interesting. I haven't seen now that you mention it too much mentioned about the space program on state media. Yeah, actually.
Andrea
13:31
They've been quiet about that.
Hamish
13:32
They've got a longstanding policy that they have the right to have a peaceful space program, that they have a right to launch satellites. But yeah, I haven't heard much from them on that front lately.
Andrea
13:47
And even in relation to the strategic line as well. Yeah.
Hamish
13:52
Maybe we'll hear something soon.
Andrea
13:56
Yeah, even with the strategic line, they didn't really mention space activity at all. And you're right, haven't seen much about that.
Hamish
14:07
And earlier this year, actually, at their satellite command center, we spotted some new construction happening. So they obviously haven't stopped thinking about it. Maybe they've just stopped talking about it.
Andrea
14:20
Yeah, could be. All right, so that was the easy part of this month's news. Then we get to... I don't even know what to call it. You guys and others have been calling it the on-again, off-again relationship. Tinder diplomacy.
Hamish
14:38
Diplomatic rollercoaster.
Andrea
14:40
Whatever it was that meant that mid-last week, I had...
Other voice
14:45
My head on my desk going, I don't know what's happening.
Andrea
14:48
I don't know what's happening. I feel like I have been proven wrong so many times that eventually I'm starting to be right, but mostly by accident and process of elimination, which is not a good feeling as an analyst. I've got to be honest. So yeah, let me run through here the quick and oversimplified timeline of what's been occurring in high-level diplomacy with North Korea during the month of May.
Somewhere towards the beginning of the month, we had Kim Jong-un meeting with Xi Jinping in China again, taking lovely strolls along the waterfront and having their tete-a-tete. So there was that one. Then we got North Korea freaking out over the Max Thunder joint air drills between the U.S. and South Korea. Canceling high-level inter-Korean engagement. Then we got our dear friend, Mr. Bolton, coming out saying that North Korea should follow the Libya model for denuclearization, a subject of a previous podcast episode.
And Trump and Pence kind of backing him up. Trump going further than that, saying that...
Hamish
16:12
I think, well, Trump... Misunderstood or appears to misunderstand the Libya model which is never a good sign, but yeah, he, his was the, almost the strongest Pence backed him up and, you know, Trump had said essentially you know, we're not thinking of a Libya model. But, you know, maybe a Libya model would have to happen if dialogue doesn't go well.
But what he was referring to was what he called the decimation of Gaddafi, which is just the wrong parallels to draw. Don't do that.
Andrea
16:44
Yeah. Don't do that.
Hamish
16:46
Just couldn't, you know, end that sentence halfway through. It's not helping anybody. But yeah, he went there and then Pence got on TV and backed him up. So Libya, Libya, Libya.
Andrea
16:56
And then North Korea... Put out what might be called the parental disappointment statement. Because it was framed like, you know when you were a kid and you did something really bad and your parents were like, we're not angry with you, but we're so disappointed. That was kind of the tone of that statement from North Korea. It was like...
We're really disappointed that you let your friends make bad decisions.
Hamish
17:23
You should know better.
Andrea
17:25
You should know better.
Hamish
17:26
You should know better than this.
Andrea
17:27
Yeah. So criticizing Bolton in particular and kind of maybe it's the wrong way to put it, but kind of driving a wedge between parts of the U.S. administration in hopes that Bolton would be brought to heel. Yeah, I mean... And to some extent he was, right?
Hamish
17:44
They then had to... Well, initially there was a reaction from Kim Ki-gwon that was aimed at Bolton. And then there was the message from Ms. Cho, Cho Sun-hui, which targeted Pence. And yeah, Trump got away essentially scot-free on the Libya stuff, which is... Intentional you know, the North Koreans didn't want to lash out at Trump personally. They knew that would probably ramp things up a bit, a bit further and so the statement itself, for people looking on the outside that read state media and know some of the, the planning behind it, it was a relatively measured statement. Of course, I did say a nuclear to nuclear showdown. I got a flex at some point But yeah, the message was more disappointment than bluster.
Yeah.
Andrea
18:41
On the statement from Vice Foreign Minister Cho, you had some interesting observations there on who was doing the messaging about disagreements in various aspects of US rhetoric and what that might mean for the future of diplomacy with North Korea.
Hamish
19:01
Yeah, so, I mean, it was Miss Cho as a vessel for... To convey the DPRK's disappointment is interesting because she's pretty well respected with former officials from the US. She's taken part in Track 2 diplomacy. She knows her stuff. They know that she's respected by the DPRK. She was recently promoted to the vice ministerial role. So it was sort of...
I think they used her as a way to reach out to that crowd, to the crowd that knows what it takes to engage diplomatically with the DPRK, that know the nuances of conversations between the two and also the nuances of the past and where mistakes have been made and things like that. So I think it was very intentionally aimed at sort of that crowd, the in-the-know crowd, rather than a Casey Mays statement that was generally just...
A big scream like they do sometimes.
Andrea
20:05
Screaming into the winds. Yeah.
Hamish
20:07
Yeah. But at the same time, obviously balancing how much buster they were going to put in there. Avoiding Trump, as we mentioned, was obviously intentional.
Andrea
20:17
What about the threat to walk away from the summit?
Hamish
20:21
Yeah, so this was interesting because, you know, in the statement, Ms. Cho said, you know, she'll consider asking North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, to pull out of the discussions. She's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She doesn't get to propose that. You don't get to propose anything to the leader when you're in that position. But the fact that they put that in there is obviously just a...
It's a threat, but it's a very, very dull one. It's one that isn't, you know, she's not going to, she doesn't have the power to pull out. She doesn't have the power to propose that they pull out.
Andrea
21:00
And but Shirley was just intended at that stage to be just that. Exactly. Right. And probably there had, I imagine there would have been An eagerness from other parts of the system to be issuing that very threat at that time. That wouldn't have been something that the MFA would have done on its own initiative either given the level of sensitivity.
Right. So it kind of goes both ways.
Andrea
21:28
Yeah. Where do you, so in relation, this was middle of the month hiccups with diplomacy, right? This Bolton, Libya issue and, and the joint military exercises On the military exercises side, and they occurred, actually, these two occurred really closely in time, the same day, day after each other, in terms of the military exercises and the reaction to Bolton's statement.
I think they were like either the same day or the day, one day after each other. But on the military exercises front... Again, you saw North Korea referencing, as it often does in relation to military exercises, the specific systems being deployed. And they curiously put B-52s on that list, right? They said, we're upset that there are F-22s coming for joint drills in South Korea and B-52s.
And it's unclear why they lumped B-52s into the Reaction to the Max Thunder exercises, because as far as I can tell, the B-52s were not actually meant to be part of that exercise specifically, but rather were aligned in time because the B-52s were coming through the region on rotational bomber schedules and doing some joint exercising with South Korea and Japan while they were around, but not part of Max Thunder.
I think.
Hamish
23:04
Yeah, there were mixed reports about this, actually. So this adds to the kind of fog of what actually occurred and brings up the question of whether or not any concession was made. Was actually made. Yeah, by the US and ROK. There were reports that the ROK requested not to participate.
Andrea
23:26
Yeah, the Wall Street Journal carried that story, right, from citing US officials saying that South Korea had... Then said we don't want to be a part of any activity with the bombers rotating through because of concerns that it will upset the North Koreans.
Hamish
23:42
Yeah, exactly. So that's an interesting, that's another interesting layer. I mean, the North Koreans, you know, have been consistent in opposing the presence of B-52 bombers. In fact, in January, when they were referencing B-52 bombers in Guam, they called Trump a lunatic for doing it. This is all pre- To Tom, but yeah, they reacted just the same, if not a little worse in January.
Andrea
24:06
So why? Because you had, when we first had high-level engagement earlier this year between the Koreas, Moon claims that he said to the North Koreans, here's our military exercise schedule, this is what they're going to look like, don't worry about it. And the North Koreans went, yeah, okay, we got that. That's the South Korean version of events, right?
Hamish
24:28
Yeah, essentially the South Koreans had basically said that Kim himself Was like, you know, I totally understand that these military exercises have to continue. And he was going to push ahead with diplomacy. So then you get the shock factor of, well, wait a minute. Well, is that, do they really not oppose them? Because they seem to oppose them quite strongly again.
Andrea
24:51
Yeah, but they said pretty much nothing about the big, big military exercises, right? The key resolve and full eagle exercises, which took place immediately following the Paralympics.
Hamish
25:04
Perhaps because they gave them a little bit of lee room that, you know, they were meant to do them during the Olympics and the US and ROK agreed to shift them so that the Olympics could be held. So there was a sort of... That's true.
Andrea
25:18
And, you know, you can say what you like if you're the Americans and the South Koreans about Key Resolve and Full Eagle not having been changed at all in relation to the... Ongoing diplomatic effort, but they were. And especially the comms around them were very different than in previous years. But still, it's interesting that the North Koreans are reacting to this much more limited exercise, a set of air drills, rather than the big stuff.
And I think the question is, Are they doing that because it was something that they wanted to throw into the mix to show everyone that North Korea's involvement in this engagement program shouldn't be taken for granted and to keep themselves in some control over the situation? Or was it because Max Thunder came after the inter-Korean agreement between Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, and therefore was seen by the North Koreans to be a violation, at least of the spirit of that declaration?
Andrea
26:34
I don't know. But I think it's pretty interesting and has some implications for this engagement process when the engagement process comes up towards the next set of military exercises, which is probably going to be August at the latest, the big ones. Yeah.
Hamish
26:52
Yeah, it will be interesting come that time, especially because actually even today, the North Korean Workers' Party newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, actually released a statement or kind of an op-ed basically saying that joint military drills have to end if the US sincerely wants talks. So there's another warning regarding the joint military exercises that was just issued. So It probably definitely will come up as it continues to come up now.
But quite interestingly, in the article from the Rodong Shinbun, there's a statement that's a little bit softer and it's almost an explainer to why they react. And it explains that the reason why they've strongly urged the US to stop these exercises is because it will only cause tension and harm the atmosphere. And, you know, they do say that in previous statements, but this one was a little more soft, you know, a
Andrea
27:46
We're getting into a period in which concessions in the form of restraint on certain types of activities are being put forth purely to continue the engagement process. So the North Koreans shuttering the Punggye-ri facility, suspending ICBM tests, one, because they say they're completely Completed their nuclear force, but to, as a demonstration of goodwill and their sincerity to contribute to global disarmament efforts.
Yep. And are saying, you know, if the U S is going to have good faith efforts to improve the security situation on the Korean peninsula, then it should refrain from carrying out joint military exercises as well. And kind of throwing the ball back there again, a great, North Korean initiated discussion over responsible behavior and who is behaving like the good guy as these talks go forward.
Andrea
28:43
Classic. Great. Right. So that gets us up to mid-May, as if enough hadn't already happened there. We then, of course, last week saw Trump's Weird and wonderful letter to his excellency, Kim Jong-un, if we call him his excellency. And in that letter, he suggests that he is postponing canceling Essentially cancelling, yeah. Essentially cancelling, maybe?
Hamish
29:19
Cancelling and leaving the door open a crack, as we've seen, which has been open more widely since.
Andrea
29:26
So give us the backstory to that letter. Why do we think Trump all of a sudden did a turnaround? Was it because of the North Korean threats to withdrawal over Bolton military exercises, whatever? We had some suggestion that maybe... There had been an effort to have coordination between the U.S. and North Korea in advance of the summit in Singapore, so to get some working-level discussions over that meeting happening, and the North Koreans had stood the Americans up?
Andrea
29:58
What do you think it was?
Hamish
29:59
Well, I mean, Trump referenced in that letter, he referenced the Cho statement, Ms. Cho's statement from China, Sort of mid to late May, May 24, May 23 around then. And he cited tremendous anger and open hostility. So he wasn't happy with the messaging that was coming from North Korea at the time. But yeah, also behind that, as we found out subsequently, as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told House and Senate committees in the aftermath of Trump or the White House publishing that letter, the North Koreans had stopped responding to the US in their efforts to have those working level talks to prepare for the summit.
And I think that obviously played a huge role. Part in, in Trump's thinking. Well, they're not talking to me he's sort of being mugged off. The chances of the summit being held look less likely to him, and he thought, you know what, I'll pull the plug before they do, and wrote the letter. But yeah, as we said, left the door open, said that Kim could call him at any time, and he hopes to meet him in the future because it would be better for both countries in the world.
Andrea
31:17
Yeah, it was a really interesting statement. The description of the release of US hostages as a beautiful gesture was unusual. The sentence, quote unquote, you talk about nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used, end quote, was another interesting one. But it was very confused because it was both On the, on the one hand, you know, very much creating this this atmosphere of regret that, you know, this was a decision that was taken really hard.
And actually he felt that there was some personal connection growing with Kim Jong-un that, you know he then wouldn't be able to bring together in this beautiful meeting in Singapore. While also, you know, then you get those quite flowery statements around the U.S. nuclear arsenal. So it was a very odd statement to put it mildly.
Hamish
32:26
And he followed up in an interesting way as well by saying that the military stands ready. The South Koreans and the Japanese also stand ready to react in the face of a North Korean provocation. So you've got both ends of the spectrum here. You've got the, I really wish we could meet, and we're ready to fight. And he typically operates hyperbolically on those ends of the spectrum.
So it was emblematic of how he's conducted diplomacy so far, but nonetheless a shock when it was published.
Andrea
32:54
Yeah, that's right.
Hamish
32:55
Especially because it was a couple of hours after Pungaree, after the tunnels were detonated.
Andrea
33:00
Oh, that made me so angry. When I saw this statement, because... I went I went for lunch had a meeting came back was prepared to like check out Will Ripley's Instagram feed for some maybe some photos from the Pongyari detonations and instead I found this letter there while the journalists are still still in town in North Korea just wait for them
Hamish
33:29
Yeah. In fact, there's a great little anecdote from Will, who basically was the first to tell a lot of the officials that were on the train. They hadn't known and they all... He said, look, shocked, got up and got on their phones. You know, it stunned them, so it stunned us too.
Andrea
33:49
That's like what happened when I was with a group of North Koreans when I heard that Jung Sung-taek had been hauled out of that big meeting and sentenced. And that was, I can imagine Will had a similar experience to that one. But anyways, so I read this statement and some of the events that happened after as actually suggesting that the North Korean lack of interaction with the Americans in order to plan for the summit was pretty influential in pushing Trump to write this letter.
Andrea
34:32
Not least because what's happened afterwards has involved Moon Jae-in. Yep. Going over to meet with Kim Jong-un again, and really taking control of a deteriorating situation to try to get the US and North Korea to come to the table again. So if you had any questions about the central role that the South Koreans are playing in all of this, you know, those should now be answered because Moon Jae-in has made it very clear that he is the one who is trying to get two other countries to come back to the table to have talks about You know, the nuclear issue.
So, so he's done that. And in the immediate aftermath of his meeting, there has been working level contact between North Korea and the United States. So it sounds like what was discussed at that inter-Korean meeting is probably how do you get preparatory discussions done? For the U.S. meeting to occur and get that process back on track. Because you've now had North Korean officials showing up in New York, probably as we speak.
Hamish
35:40
Yep, Kim Yong-chol.
Andrea
35:41
Meetings in Singapore, which were the ones that apparently didn't happen previously.
Hamish
35:48
And then US officials visiting the DPRK over Panmunjom.
Andrea
35:54
That's right.
Hamish
35:54
It's all moving full steam ahead again, it seems.
Andrea
35:56
Yeah, and potentially with a view to meeting on the 12th of June.
Hamish
36:01
As previously scheduled. As previously scheduled. So we've come full circle.
Andrea
36:04
We have absolutely come full circle. If you had just fallen asleep and taken a very long nap for two weeks, you would wake up and be in mostly the same diplomatic position as we were.
Hamish
36:17
Which is frustrating because as a journalist covering this, I've had no sleep over the last two weeks. So knowing that I could have just napped the entire time, we'd be back where we started. That would have been nice to know beforehand.
Andrea
36:29
Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's probably not in small part because of the lack of coordination.
Andrea
36:38
And maybe that's a good sign because it would suggest if if that's right, it would suggest that Trump was uncomfortable with the idea of totally winging a high level summit meeting, which he should be uncomfortable with it.
Andrea
36:52
So he should be comfortable with him. Yeah. Yeah. So he should be too. So please postpone it if you feel like you're not prepared again. We would rather that you postpone that summit meeting rather than sit in a room and quickly negotiate away our alliance relations and all that.
Hamish
37:12
Pompeo thinks they're ready. He said we're rocking, I think was the quote.
Andrea
37:17
It's because he's got his swagger back.
Hamish
37:19
Yeah, he does. So we'll see.
Andrea
37:21
The State Department has its swagger back.
Hamish
37:22
That's true.
Andrea
37:25
Yes, we have... Probably a, a crazy roller coaster, continuing roller coaster ride yet for the next few weeks until the 12th of June, and who knows, we could just as quickly be back to postponement or cancellation. Yeah, as, as we were a few days ago. So where do you think this is gonna head?
Andrea
37:48
And actually, does this have anything to do, in your view, with China? Because that was something that Trump mentioned in his tweets as well, laid some blame at the feet of the Chinese, who thought maybe we're getting a little relaxed about the maximum pressure side of this equation.
Hamish
38:05
Yeah. So there's some questions about China's enforcement of sanctions, or at least If they're enforcing sanctions to the level they were before the dialogue started happening. Trump obviously raised the fact that he thought Kim and the North Koreans had a bit of a turnaround on actively engaging with the U S as, as rapidly As they previously promised to after meeting Xi.
He's mentioned that a couple of times, he said something happened in China. I'll tell you later, you, you'll be able to write a book about it, you know, and his typical typical freestyle kind of form of of speaking. So China has been brought up as playing a negative role now in, in the In the dialogue and the detente that's occurred so far.
And it's hard to figure out what to make of that, really. There's not been huge signs that China has stopped implementing sanctions. There are tidbits.
Andrea
39:16
We'll talk about that in a second.
Hamish
39:17
Which we'll talk about in a sec. But, of course, China want to be able to influence the negotiations. They want to be able to influence the outcome. They're looking out for their own national interests.
Andrea
39:29
Yeah, you don't have two meetings with Kim Jong-un unless you want to have a say in what's going on.
Hamish
39:35
Of course. And so perhaps some of that influence on Kim has had altered things a little bit. But at the end of the day, I think everybody's all parties are keen to sit down. So if there was any negative influencing from China, I don't expect them to continue to forcefully in the lead up to June 12th.
Andrea
39:55
Well, it's also interesting that if Trump feels some of the degradation in the diplomatic situation between the US and North Korea, the degradation in prospects for a summit have something to do with China, that would mean logically that there's been a change in that point in the last 48 hours, right? Because to allow for all of this progress back towards a summit meeting to happen again, Whatever was going badly with China must now not be going badly.
So it's unclear to me what he is referencing that is concerning and whether that's actually influencing The prospects for a summit in the way that he thinks it might be.
Hamish
40:44
Yeah. It's also hard to know what information he does have. Is he just drawing a very simple A to B line? Kim goes to meet Ji for the second time. Things start to slow down. Or is there other information there? He's not been forthcoming about that. He just says, you know, it's his theory. And he's got information, but he's not letting it go.
So it's really hard to judge Kim. What the nuance is there.
Andrea
41:10
So because we like data, let's discuss what we actually know and don't know about the state of Chinese implementation of sanctions. Because that's probably one of the things that Trump is watching, given his previous tweet activity on the China TBRK issue. Data points. Okay, so what have we got in the... The question is... Is China relaxing its implementation and enforcement of UN sanctions because diplomacy and engagement efforts are progressing?
Andrea
41:48
And I see a mixed picture, but I think there's a few points we need to talk through to get a sense of what might be happening in this space. You've got questions around Chinese sanctions Markets for North Korean migrant laborers, questions about Chinese operation of North Korean restaurants, joint ventures between China and North Korea and what they're doing on that front.
And then the shipping front, I think, is also interesting. And we've had some news on that today.
Andrea
42:23
So let's start with migrant laborers, because that was the first data point really that has happened since engagement with Activities picked up. You had these reports and multiple reports of busloads of North Korean migrant laborers who are no longer meant to have visas under UN Security Council resolutions coming back into China.
Hamish
42:45
Right. And video footage of groups of laborers as well.
Andrea
42:49
And we don't know if those are new groups of laborers, if those are the same people who were returning on Visas that they already had or what the situation was. But that does seem to be an area, I don't know if you agree, where there hasn't been full implementation of resolutions.
Hamish
43:09
I would say so.
Andrea
43:10
Okay. So data point one. Data point two is that it seems there's definitely still some North Korean restaurants running in China and that ones that were briefly closed have potentially reopened.
Hamish
43:27
Yeah. There's also some that have shut down and we were able to publish it was earlier this month, I think photographs of, of some of the restaurants or a couple at least yeah, that had been completely gutted. So again, another mixed, mixed picture. But certainly some are thriving. It appears.
Andrea
43:46
Did you get a sense from your investigations about why those restaurants had shut down?
Hamish
43:53
No, one thing that does constantly get brought up is the shift in ownership, right? So from a North Korean or a joint venture rather to just pure Chinese ownership, but the restaurant continues operating outwardly as a North Korean entity. Like an ocreo restaurant, you know, it sells North Korean cuisine or the culture, the laborers dancing and the karaoke, but the owner is now Chinese.
So that's coming up more and more.
Andrea
44:23
So that's interesting because if that's one of the considerations that is resulting in some restaurants staying open, others being closed, it suggests that the Chinese would be implementing from the direction of the ban on joint ventures rather than the ban on migrant laborers, right? If you've got a Chinese run North Korean restaurant with North Korean workers, then the North Korean workers constitute potentially the violation depending on the visa situation.
But if it's not a joint venture, then it's not a violation of The joint venture man.
Hamish
44:58
Right. Yeah. So the interesting thing with the migrant labor at the restaurants is they essentially don't have to leave until 2019 either if their work visas were established prior to the passing of the resolution, essentially calling back all laborers over the course of the two-year period. So they could have switched ownership and kept operating and the migrants labor would be fine.
It wouldn't be a sanctions breach.
Andrea
45:27
Yeah, so, you know, again, mixed picture on whether or not this is China relaxing implementation of UN Security Council resolutions or just Interpreting it in a specific way and allowing entities to reform themselves to be in conformity with that interpretation. On joint ventures though, which is kind of our third data point, my colleague Catherine Dill and I were looking at a joint venture in particular that was of interest because of its activity in the IT sector.
But we noticed that in the period between January and I guess earlier this month, there had been a notice from the Chinese authorities attached to the company's corporate registry file to say that they were being deregistered pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 2375 and the joint venture ban. That got appended to the file for a while, and then the entire file was removed, which I think is really interesting for two reasons.
One, because the notice of deregistration outlined an interpretation of the joint venture ban that actually seems to go beyond the strict letter of what's in the Security Council resolutions to include all North Korean-owned Entities. So not just a joint venture where Hamish Macdonald owns 50% and Andrea Berger owns 50% and therefore it's a joint venture. And one of us is Chinese and one of us is North Korean.
But also if Hamish Macdonald, the North Korean, owned 100% of the entity, then your entity would be closed. And I think that's really interesting because that's not actually, as far as I can tell, a joint venture. That's just a North Korean-owned entity in China, but might suggest as well that Restaurants or other representations that are 100% North Korean owned and controlled might also be subject to Chinese enforcement action.
Hamish
47:39
Yeah, that's a good point.
Andrea
47:40
But is it a good news story? Because if they're wiping all the information... Yeah, that's the kicker.
Hamish
47:48
Whitewashing anything these days is one of my biggest fears. It's very hard to track down some of the actions, especially with regards to the Chinese.
Andrea
47:57
And we have seen this before, right? When was it? Last year? March last year? When China withdrew... Customs data, shipment level customs data for China DPRK trade from publicly accessible sources, except going directly to China's Ministry of Commerce and paying out the nose for that customs data. So similar trend there that I think is concerning. Fourth data point on shipping.
And here you guys have had some really interesting stuff from Leo as well today on this. So walk me through it.
Hamish
48:33
So a little plug for Leo Byrne, who's our shipping...
Andrea
48:37
I plug Leo Byrne all the time.
Hamish
48:39
Oh, good. I should have claimed it then. Yeah, he's our director of data and analytics, and he does all our kind of ship tracking. And he has spotted three North Korean cargo ships that were visiting a Chinese bulk port that handles coal. So another data point that North Korean ships are returning to ports where commodities that are subject to UN sanctions are basically...
Andrea
49:10
Exported and imported, so, and not just that, because some of these ports are fairly big, right? So it's not just that they're showing up at the port, somewhere in the port, they're showing up specifically at the terminals for offloading and loading the commodities that we're talking about. Are being prohibited.
Hamish
49:27
Right, so they're getting nice and close, which is another interesting data point. And then a second one to do with shipping is today the Japanese government released images of what it said was, yeah, another ship-to-ship transfer. So ship-to-ship transfers are prohibited under UN security resolutions and they typically involve oil products, which are also capped under... The UN Security Council resolutions as well.
And they spotted it in the East China Sea. It's a ship that is already sanctioned.
Andrea
50:04
The North Korean one has already been sanctioned.
Hamish
50:06
The North Korean ship, the Jisung-6. It's already been sanctioned both at the unilateral level by the US and the multilateral level with the UN, as well as it's operating an ownership company. And it was spotted alongside a ship that appeared to be flying a Chinese flag. A very small flag.
Andrea
50:27
And a very small ship.
Hamish
50:28
And a very small ship. And a very small ship. But the photos that they do have are pretty compelling. They're side by side in the middle of the night with lights on, which is what the Japanese have spotted in the past. And they've got the hoses and pipes connecting the two. So there's obviously the transfer of something.
Probably oil products between the two. So it's pretty compelling evidence. Japan published a few of these at the beginning of the year, but had gone relatively quiet. And they've decided to drop this on us now. It actually took place on May 19, the ship-to-ship transfer. So it's interesting timing. For Japan to drop it now as well but yeah another data point that implicates to a certain degree Chinese involvement not the government of course but you know Maybe Chinese networks.
Andrea
51:25
That's the thing there. I think people need to be careful not to take that one specifically as a sign that China is not implementing sanctions.
Hamish
51:33
I think that's important as well.
Andrea
51:35
It will be a great test to see whether they enforce sanctions. Actions against whichever company was involved, and they follow up and they investigate now that the Japanese have told them about it, right? And if they don't, then that's a data point. Yeah, and I would think, I would think that the Chinese would be very keen to, to crack down on this practice as well. I mean, you've got
Hamish
51:56
The Australians, the Canadians, and the UK all deploying surveillance assets, whether naval or or the aircraft as well to monitor these things. I think the Chinese would be pretty keen with that coverage to make sure, to make sure that you know if, if one did slip through the cracks, that they'd be able to, be able to crack down, so
Andrea
52:21
Do you think the mention of how far out the vessel was from Shanghai was meant to provide absolute certainty to everyone that Japanese maritime surveillance aircraft were not going into Chinese territory? Very possibly.
Hamish
52:42
350 kilometers, you know, is the big mention. So, yeah, I mean, I think they'd be pretty keen to...
Other voice
52:49
Make sure.
Hamish
52:50
Stepping on any toes, especially when those toes are Chinese. But yeah, an interesting case that's popped up.
Andrea
53:00
The ports, I think, is more interesting from an implementation perspective because... You know, there's been enough cases of North Korean prohibited commodities coming to those ports and being unloaded. The Chinese have been red faced about that in the past. They've had to keep stuff on the docks at those ports just to show that they were being unloaded.
So, you know, they've had fair warning on those ones. And so have the port authorities for those places. In this case, I think it was Dalian, right? That was, yeah. So that's, I think, a better case to look at for what the Chinese may or may not be doing at a more central level or whether or not there's been relaxation.
It might be just that there's been relaxation of the monitoring and therefore the local level implementers have, Have gotten slack with what they're doing.
Hamish
53:55
Yeah. This one was actually, this was in Long Koo rather. So all, all three of the vessels visited Long Koo. And that's, that's a port that was frequent stop prior to the sanctions. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Andrea
54:10
Great. We normally end our KCNA episodes with stories that listeners might have missed. Any to throw into the mix?
Hamish
54:21
We could plug your lovely IT article, I think.
Andrea
54:27
There's a fantastic CNS report on North Korean IT companies operating overseas and all the fun stuff they're getting into. Facial recognition software, fingerprint scanners, VPN and encryption technology, all of the good stuff. And that was a really, really fun piece of investigative work to do. So yeah, if you've got some spare time, give it a read.
Hamish
54:54
Absolutely. It's also so fascinating because it's just another industry that's obviously, it's not sanctioned, but there are security implications from it. They're making a fair bit of money, it seems, off it as well. And yeah, there's very little known about it generally out there. You know, when you look at North Korea and IT subject matter, it's just hacking.
Andrea
55:18
That's right.
Hamish
55:19
So this was, yeah.
Andrea
55:21
And it's actually unclear. One of the things that we didn't get a good handle on was the extent to which North Korea's ability to access this market and perform IT-related services... Software development, et cetera, for probably quite reputable companies, individuals around the world who won't know that this stuff is coming from North Korea. Do they use that as a way to build in back doors into the systems of those that they're doing work for?
Did they even need that, given the sophistication of their hacking?
Hamish
55:59
That's a good point.
Andrea
56:00
So yeah, that's something we didn't really get a handle on. I think it's a risk and fair to assume so, but wasn't one that we were able to prove conclusively. So question there. I also note that In some of the discussion over what new inter-Korean projects might look like, IT is actually one of the sectors that probably because it's not sanctioned has been flagged as being one that might be a source of opportunity for collaboration.
So we'll see what happens there. This could go the direction of expanding sanctions at either the unilateral or multilateral level or precisely the opposite of that, a source of New cooperation is engagement.
Hamish
56:46
Continues to yield fruit. Watch that space. Watch that space. What about the stuff from Road on Monday? Maybe we should flag that for people. Yeah, so just the, the publication of on just on today, actually, on Tuesday just regarding North Korea's attitude towards joint military exercises. I would suggest reading that in full. It's interesting. It's temporally significant as well.
Hamish
57:17
So check that out. And then maybe some stuff about Wonsan Kalma and the big resort that you're going to have to explain that for listeners. So the background North Korea is embarking on a huge tourist project in Wonsan right on the coast where they're aiming to build essentially an international standard resort for tourists. Wonsan is typically seen as sort of a holiday destination, particularly for the elites as well.
Kim's got a nice villa there. I believe Dennis Rodman was able to jet ski off the coast with Kim and party it up a bit. But yeah, it's very much a continuation of the other side of the Byung-jin policy, which is to push forward the economy. And they're making pretty rapid progress. As another indication of how important it is to them, Kim Jong-un visited there the other day, which also unveiled a little mystery when the journalists, Will Ripley and co, were in town.
And after they'd visited the Punggye-ri sites, when they were back in Wonsan, they were told not to go outside. The internet went off and this happened for several hours while they heard a plane landing and taking off. Turns out that it was Kim Jong-un visiting and that security protocol is pretty consistent with Kim arriving. I remember when we were at the military parade and a couple of other events, they shut down the network when he was showing up.
So when he appears at one of these things, especially a construction project like that, it's significant, also of significance. I believe they said they wanted to finish it on April 15th in 2019. So significant April date, the day of the sun. Which is when they held the military parade last year. So, yeah, they're putting a lot of import on it.
Andrea
59:17
Maybe we won't have a military parade next April. Maybe it will be a parade of a different sort through Wonsan.
Hamish
59:26
Maybe they're skipping on the beach or something. Skipping on the beach. That'd be nice. But we'll see. Things happen so fast, as we've seen in May, so plenty of time for them to go right or go wrong.
Andrea
59:39
I don't know that's a happy note. We should find another happy note.
Hamish
59:41
Go wrong or go right. Finish on a positive.
Andrea
59:43
Yeah, there we go. Good enough. Hamish, thank you so much for joining me. It's been a great pleasure to have you on the podcast. I'm going to be returning the favor and on the MK News podcast next month. So tune in there as well. That'll be good fun. We'll have, you know, Time for two more giant naps to have everything come full circle again.
So, yeah, we'll see what things look like at the end of June.
Hamish
1:00:10
Thanks for having me.
Andrea
1:00:13
Great. Scott can tell us a little bit more about what's happening over on the Slack channel and how you can get involved in the Arms Control Wong podcast by donating to us at Patreon.
Other voice
1:00:23
That's right. If you would like to support the podcast and the research that we do, you can head over to patreon.com slash ACW podcast. Again, that's patreon.com slash ACW podcast and kick us $5 a month or $3 a month if you're a student. And you'll also get access to our awesome Slack channel, which is full of awesome people like you.
Andrea
1:00:44
And thank you for listening.
