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      Your Monday Briefing: North Korea’s Growing Outbreak

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      Plus India bans most wheat exports and South Korea amends surgery laws.Good morning. North Korea’s outbreak grows, India bans most wheat exports and South Korea amends its surgery laws.Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, chided health officials for “incompetence” at a Saturday meeting, according to state media.Korean Central News Agency, via Associated PressNorth Korea’s outbreak growsState media reported 21 new deaths and a huge jump in suspected coronavirus cases on Saturday, as North Korea struggled to contain its first reported outbreak.State media said an additional 174,400 people had symptoms, like a fever, that could be caused by Covid-19 — a tenfold jump from the 18,000 such cases reported on Friday. North Korea has reported a total of 524,400 people with Covid-like symptoms since late last month.“North Korea is reporting only ‘people with fever’ because it does not have enough test kits,” an expert said. Covid may not be causing all those fevers, he said, but the number of asymptomatic cases is likely much higher than the official count.Vaccines: North Koreans are unvaccinated, though some elites may have received shots. International health organizations and the South Korean government have said that they were ready to ship vaccines, therapeutics and other aid.In other developments:The Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is nearing one million. The nation wants to move on, but many of the loved ones left behind are grieving alone.If the U.S. had the same Covid death rate as Australia, about 900,000 lives would have been saved, our Sydney bureau chief writes in an analysis.Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand tested positive and has moderate symptoms.Thanks to its focus on subsidizing its farmers, India has about 10 percent of the world’s grain reserves.Amit Dave/ReutersIndia bans most wheat exportsAdding to concerns of global food insecurity, the world’s second-largest wheat producer has banned most exports of the grain. India’s commerce ministry said that a sudden price spike had threatened the country’s food security.The move, an apparent about-face, could compound a worldwide shortfall and exacerbate a dire forecast for global hunger. In April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told President Biden that India was ready to supply the world with its reserves.Background: The war has interrupted wheat production in Ukraine and Russia, and blockades in the Black Sea have disrupted transport of the grain. And climate change poses a dire threat. Agricultural experts said that India’s ongoing heat wave could affect the harvest this year. Torrential rains brought on poor harvests in China, while drought in other countries further snarled supplies.Iran: Protests driven by rising food prices spread to at least six provinces on Friday. A hospital near Seoul voluntarily put cameras in its operating rooms in 2020.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesSouth Korea’s surgery surveillanceSouth Korea has become one of the first countries to require cameras in operating rooms that handle patients under general anesthesia, a measure meant to restore faith in the medical system.For years, hospitals have fielded complaints about doctors turning patients over to unsupervised assistants who perform “ghost surgeries.” About five patients have died from such surgeries in the past eight years, a patient advocate said.According to patient advocates, surgeons deputize nurses to perform operations, thereby packing in more procedures and maximizing profits. They argue that cameras will protect patients and offer medical malpractice victims evidence to use in court.But ethicists and medical officials across the world have cautioned that surveilling surgeons may hurt morale, violate patient privacy and make physicians less likely to take risks to save lives.Background: The surreptitious surgeries began occurring at plastic surgery clinics in the 2010s, after South Korea started promoting medical tourism, according to legal experts. They spread to spinal hospitals, experts said, which mostly perform relatively uncomplicated procedures in high demand among the country’s aging population. THE LATEST NEWSAsia and the PacificMost of the victims were assembly line workers, local officials said.Sajjad Hussain/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAt least 27 people were killed after a fire swept through a commercial building in New Delhi. The city’s chief fire officer said that the city was seeing more fires during India’s heat wave.Most members of the Rajapaksa political dynasty are hiding out at a military base in Sri Lanka as a protest movement grows. Only the president is still clinging to power.Gender transition surgery is a campaign flashpoint in Australia that looks like something from an overseas culture war.The WarHere are live updates.Finland’s government and Sweden’s governing party confirmed that they would seek NATO membership on Sunday, another strategic setback for Russia.Ukrainian forces drove Russian troops farther from Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, as thousands of residents return each day. Residents are also returning to Bucha, and Kyiv shortened its curfew.Russian bloggers are criticizing evidence of a military disaster on the Donets River, which is breaking through the Kremlin’s information bubble.Ukraine won the Eurovision Song Contest in a pop culture endorsement of solidarity.World NewsA memorial for the victims of the Buffalo shooting.Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York TimesA white gunman killed 10 people and injured three more — almost all Black — at a supermarket in upstate New York, one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent American history. Follow live updates here.Israeli police officers attacked mourners at the funeral procession of Shireen Abu Akleh, a slain Palestinian American journalist.The U.A.E. has a new leader, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. His half brother Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed died on Friday, after leading the Persian Gulf country for 18 years.Somalia elected a new president, but the government holds little sway: Al Shabab militants collect taxes, decide court cases and control the streets.Lebanese voters cast ballots for a new Parliament on Sunday, their first chance to pass judgment on lawmakers since the economy fell apart.A Morning ReadKim Do-yoon, an internationally known tattoo artist, at his studio in Seoul. Chang W. Lee/The New York Times Tattooing without a medical license is illegal in South Korea, where decorative body art has long been associated with organized crime. But the law is crashing into rising international demand for what are known as “k-tattoos,” and the country’s tattoo artists argue that it’s time to end the stigma against their business.Lives lived: Katsumoto Saotome compiled six books of survivors’ recollections of the 1945 Tokyo firebombing and founded (without government support) a memorial museum. Saotome died at 90.ARTS AND IDEASThe future of paralysis?Sixteen years ago, Dennis DeGray’s mind was nearly severed from his body. He ran to take out the trash in a rainstorm, slipped, landed hard on his chin, and snapped his neck, paralyzing him from the collarbones down.For several years, he “simply laid there, watching the History Channel,” he said. But then he met Jaimie Henderson, a neurosurgeon at Stanford, who had been developing a brain-computer interface. Henderson asked DeGray if he wanted to fly a drone. DeGray decided to participate.Now, implants in his brain allow DeGray some control, even though he cannot move his hands. Just by imagining a gesture, he can move a computer cursor, operate robotic limbs, buy from Amazon and fly a drone — albeit only in a simulator, for now.There are obvious therapeutic applications. Interest from an increasing number of high-profile start-ups also suggests the possibility of a future in which neural interfaces enhance people’s innate abilities and grant them new ones — in addition to restoring those that have been lost.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookRyan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Hadas Smirnoff.The secret to these chocolate chip cookies? Chill the dough for a day before you bake them.FitnessGetting back into running is easier than you think.What to WatchFour children develop unusual abilities in “The Innocents,” a wonderfully eerie Norwegian horror movie.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Clothing (four letters).Here are today’s Wordle and today’s Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Elisabeth Goodridge, The Times’s deputy travel editor, will study travel reporting in an era of climate change as a 2023 Nieman fellow at Harvard.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on America’s Covid death toll.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Kim Jong-un orders hotline with the South to reopen as he condemns ‘cunning’ US

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      North KoreaKim Jong-un orders hotline with the South to reopen as he condemns ‘cunning’ US North Korean leader said Biden offer of dialogue is ‘a facade’ and blamed the US for ‘hostile policy’ Justin McCurry in Tokyo and agenciesWed 29 Sep 2021 21.34 EDTLast modified on Wed 29 Sep 2021 21.55 EDTKim Jong-un has condemned a US offer of dialogue as a “facade”, state media reported, but said he had ordered officials to restore communication lines with South Korea to “promote peace”.Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, the North Korean leader accused the US of continuing a “hostile policy” against his nuclear-armed country, despite the Biden administration’s offers of negotiations without preconditions.Talks between Pyongyang and Washington have been at a standstill since the collapse of the February 2019 Hanoi summit between Kim and then-president Donald Trump over what the North would be willing to give up in return for sanctions relief.Under Joe Biden, the US has repeatedly offered to meet North Korean representatives anywhere, at any time, without preconditions, while saying it will pursue denuclearisation.But Kim condemned the declarations as “nothing more than a facade to mask their deception and hostile acts and an extension of hostile policy from past administrations”, the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported.Kim also said South Korea “still follows the US,” and that “mutual respect must be guaranteed and unfair views and double standards attitude dropped” before the countries could declare an official end to the 1950-53 Korean war, which ended with a truce but not a peace treaty.Nonetheless, he expressed a willingness to restore North-South telephone and fax lines in early October, while urging Seoul to abandon its “double-dealing attitude” and “hostile viewpoint”. Inter-Korean relations, he said, were at a “crossroads of serious choices” between reconciliation and a “vicious cycle of confrontation”.‘Pushing the nuclear envelope’: North Korea’s missile diplomacyRead moreKim’s comments are an apparent effort to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington as he wants South Korea to help him win relief from crippling US-led economic sanctions and other concessions.Under the Biden administration, “the US military threat and hostile policy against us have not changed at all but have become more cunning”, he said in a lengthy address to the Supreme People’s Assembly, the North’s one-party parliament.The United States said Wednesday it bears “no hostile intent” towards North Korea and remains open to the idea of negotiations. “We hope the DPRK will respond positively to our outreach,” a State Department spokesperson said, adding that Washington supports “inter-Korean cooperation” as aiding stability on the peninsula.North Korea has been largely biding its time in recent months as it assessed the Biden government and focused on domestic issues.Kim’s influential sister, Kim Yo-jong, was appointed to the country’s top government body, amid a raft of changes approved by the Supreme People’s Assembly. Her official rank has risen and fallen over time, but her new position on the State Affairs Commission is by far the most senior post she has held.Nine members of the commission were dismissed, including one of its vice-presidents, Pak Pong-ju, and diplomat Choe Son-hui, a rare senior woman in the North’s hierarchy who has played a key role in negotiations with the United States.North Korea has been behind a rigid self-imposed blockade since early last year to protect itself from the coronavirus pandemic, with the economy suffering as a result and trade with key partner China dwindling to a trickle.Kim’s speech was the latest in a series of actions with international ramifications this month.This week, it tested what it said was a hypersonic gliding missile, and earlier this month announced it had successfully fired a long-range cruise missile, after holding a scaled-down military parade.The North’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes are banned under UN Security Council resolutions, and it is subject to multiple international sanctions as a result.North Korea says it fired new hypersonic missile into seaRead moreThe UN security council will hold an emergency meeting Thursday on North Korea, at the request of the US, France and the United Kingdom, diplomatic sources told AFP Wednesday.North Korea has not shown any willingness to give up its arsenal, which it says it needs to defend itself against a US invasion.At the UN general assembly this month, the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, repeated his call for a formal declaration of the end of the Korean war.Seoul is also spending billions on military development as both Koreas build up their weapons capabilities in what could become an arms race on the peninsula, with ramifications for neighbouring Japan, China and the wider region.This month, the South successfully test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) for the first time, making it one of a handful of nations with the advanced technology, and this week, it held a ceremony to launch its third submarine capable of carrying SLBMs.TopicsNorth KoreaUS politicsSouth KoreaKim Jong-unnewsReuse this content More

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      The Politics of American Protest: A North Korean Twist

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      Gwen Berry recently protested the playing of the US national anthem by turning away from the flag and holding up a shirt that read “activist athlete.” The protest took place at the Olympic trials in Oregon where Berry had placed third in the hammer throw competition. Her action immediately drew angry responses from the right-wing side of the political spectrum.

      A number of right-wing politicians and commentators called her unpatriotic and demanded that she be kicked off the Olympic team. As Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, put it: “If Gwen Berry is so embarrassed by America, then there’s no reason she needs to compete for our country at the Olympics.”

      Black Lives Matter Shines the Spotlight on the Shadow of Slavery

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      Conservative outrage at protests against the American flag and the national anthem is not unusual. When NFL player Colin Kaepernick knelt during the national anthem in the 2016 season to protest racial injustice in the United States, he was roundly criticized in conservative circles. When he became a free agent the next year, no football team would sign him, despite his obvious talents as a quarterback.

      Taking a Stand

      Gwen Berry and Colin Kaepernick are both African Americans. At one level, they are protesting the history of racial injustice in the United States, represented by the national anthem. “The Star-Spangled Banner” was written by Francis Scott Key, who once declared that black people were “a distinct and inferior race.” His composition includes a verse, rarely sung, that criticizes black Americans who fought on the British side in the War of 1812 in order to gain their freedom from slavery. “The Star-Spangled Banner” became the national anthem only through the efforts of groups that supported the losing Confederate side of the Civil War.

      Embed from Getty Images

      At another level, Berry and Kaepernick are protesting the current racial injustices in the United States, particularly the police violence against African Americans. The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020 is only the most famous example of the brutality that African Americans have experienced at the hands of police forces throughout the country.

      Berry and Kaepernick are not alone in their outrage. The demonstrations in the wake of Floyd’s murder, which involved between 15 and 26 million people, were the largest in American history. Protests also spread to over 60 countries around the world. So right-wing critics are not just responding to the symbolism of these athletes taking a stand. They are deeply uncomfortable with the popularity of those sentiments. Most of these critics are the white men and women who dominate the Republican Party and the right-wing media. But one voice raised against Gwen Berry’s action was truly unexpected. It came from a North Korean defector.

      Yeonmi Park is a human rights activist who was born in North Korea and left the country as a teenager with her mother. She has acquired an international reputation on the basis of several speeches and a book that details her harrowing experiences leaving North Korea and making her way, eventually, to the United States. Her story has also generated considerable controversy for its numerous inconsistencies.

      Park has become something of a celebrity in right-wing circles in America. After Berry’s protest, Park appeared on the Fox News show “Fox & Friends” to denounce the American athlete. “If she did the exact same thing at this very moment, if she was North Korean, not only herself will be executed, [also] eight generations of her family can be sent to political prison camp and execution,” Park declared. “And the fact that she’s complaining about this country, the most tolerant country, she doesn’t really understand history.”

      Park’s comments are exceptionally strange. By her reasoning, no one should protest anything in the United States because the conditions here are better than in North Korea. And American protesters shouldn’t exercise their freedom to protest … because no such freedom exists in North Korea.

      A Better Place

      Of course, the opposite is true. The ability to protest peacefully is what makes the United States a great country, and Gwen Berry and fellow protestors are proving that point, over and over again. Indeed, the country has made great strides because of peaceful protests, not despite them. The civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the peace movement, the LGBTQ movement: All of these protests have made America an infinitely better place. America is not a particularly tolerant country, as the response to Gwen Berry’s protest demonstrates. But it has become a more tolerant country over time because of this history of protest. That is the history that Yeonmi Park so obviously doesn’t understand.

      There is another implication in Park’s words: that the suffering of African Americans is somehow less painful or legitimate than the suffering of North Koreans. “I was a slave,” Park told the Fox program. “I was sold in China in 2007 as a child at 13 years old … There is actual injustice.”

      Suffering is not a competitive sport. What many North Koreans experience in their country and North Korean defectors suffer in China is truly awful. And what many African Americans experience in the United States is also truly awful. They are not comparable, however. They have to be understood in their own contexts. And activists must fight against these injustices here, there and everywhere — preferably together rather than at cross-purposes.

      The sad truth is that Yeonmi Park has become a mouthpiece for the American right wing. Fox News delights in showcasing her views. On one program, for instance, she compares her studies at Columbia University to the brainwashing that she experienced in North Korea, leading her to conclude that the US future “is as bleak as North Korea.”

      On another occasion, she combined both her own knowledge of North Korean rhetoric with the similar-sounding nationalist slogans of Trump supporters when she told Fox Business that the American ”education system is brainwashing our children to make them think that this country is racist and make them believe that they are victims. It’s time for us to fight back. Otherwise, it might be too late for us to bring the glory of this country back.”

      Since she knows a thing or two about brainwashing, Yeonmi Park might want to take a more critical look at the propaganda of the American right wing. If she does, she might just see that Gwen Berry’s protest is what makes America great. And she might understand how the nationalism and intolerance of Fox News and the Republican Party are pushing the United States ever closer to the North Korean reality that she so despises.

      *[This article was originally published by Hankyoreh.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Kim Jong-un’s sister dismisses hopes of US-North Korea nuclear talks

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      Kim Jong-un’s influential sister appears to have dismissed hopes for a breakthrough on nuclear talks with the US, warning Washington that it faced “disappointment” if it believed engagement with North Korea was a possibility.Kim Yo-jong, a senior figure in the ruling party who is considered one of the North Korean leader’s closest confidantes, said any US expectations for a resumption of talks were “wrong”, according to the state-run KCNA news agency.“A Korean proverb says that in a dream, what counts most is to read it, not to have it. It seems that the US may interpret the situation in such a way as to seek a comfort for itself,” Kim said.“The expectation, which they chose to harbour the wrong way, would plunge them into a greater disappointment.”She made the remark a day after the US’s North Korea special envoy, Sung Kim, said Washington had offered talks with the North “anywhere, anytime and without preconditions”.Sung Kim, who is on a five-day visit to Seoul, said on Monday he hoped to see a positive reaction from Pyongyang soon, but added that US-led sanctions on North Korea would stay in place.After a recent review of its approach towards the North, the US said it would seek “calibrated and practical” ways of persuading the regime to give up its nuclear weapons.Joe Biden’s stance has been described as a combination of Donald Trump’s direct engagement with Kim Jong-un and Barack Obama’s policy of “strategic patience”. But some experts do not believe Biden would ease sanctions until the North has taken demonstrable steps towards dismantling its nuclear arsenal.Other US officials have voiced cautious optimism about a breakthrough on negotiations.The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Kim Jong-un had sent an “interesting signal” last week when he ordered ruling party officials to prepare for “dialogue and confrontation” with the Biden administration, although he placed an emphasis on the latter.Sullivan told ABC News the US would wait and see if the North Korean leader’s response was “followed up with any kind of more direct communication to us about a potential path forward”.Kim Yo-jong’s intervention appears to have thwarted any prospects of an early resumption of nuclear talks, which have been deadlocked since Kim Jong-un met Trump in Hanoi in February 2019.Their summit ended in disagreement after the US rejected North Korean demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for partial moves towards disarmament. More

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      South Korea’s balancing act will test Biden’s plan to get tough with China

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      When the South Korean president goes to Washington DC on Friday, his discussions with Joe Biden about China will test the limits of the US president’s rhetoric to “work with [its] allies to hold China accountable”. It will also exhibit the dilemma faced by middle-sized powers such as South Korea.The White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, said last month that Moon Jae-in’s visit “will highlight the ironclad alliance between the United States and [South Korea], and the broad and deep ties between our governments, people and economies”.But observers of the relationship think that, despite the talk of a strong alliance, it is unlikely South Korea will even go as far as its neighbouring Japan in showing a united front with Washington on the approach to China.Shortly after the Japanese prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, visited Biden in the US capital last month, a joint statement issued by the two leaders underscored “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan strait” and encouraged “the peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues”.It was the first time since 1969 that Washington and Tokyo had referred to Taiwan in a written statement, a move that some saw as a manifestation of the US’s unity with one of its most significant allies in the region.Analysts said such a public position on an extremely sensitive subject was unlikely to be found in Moon’s discussion with Biden this week, even though a recent Pew poll showed that 75% of South Koreans feel “somewhat” or “very unfavourable” towards China.Japan and South Korea confront a common dilemma when it comes to China. They are both key US allies, but both trade heavily with China, said Haruko Satoh of the Osaka School of International Public Policy in Japan, who studies Korea and Japan in the evolving China-US relations.“[But] if the US-China competition is a given, Japan is more of a balancing power in these new dynamics because of its size of population and economy. By contrast, Korea is a much more vulnerable player, especially considering how dependent South Korea is on China’s vast market,” she said.For South Korea and Japan, China and then the US are the top two export markets. But Seoul’s economy is even more heavily dependent on Beijing, accounting for nearly 26% of South Korea’s exports last year, followed by the US at 14.5%. Japan exported 22% of its goods to China last year, with 18.5% to the US.“When it comes to China, South Korea takes a two-pronged approach that pleases both Beijing and Washington,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, the KF-VUB Korea chair at the Brussels School of Governance.“But the bottom line of Moon’s approach is that he is not going to criticise China so publicly as other US allies have done,” said Pacheco Pardo. “In some ways it shows Biden the limits to how much his allies are willing to be openly critical of China on things such as human rights.”Ahead of Moon’s visit, his government announced that South Korea would “partially” join the US-led quadrilateral security dialogue (Quad) by cooperating with the forum on coronavirus vaccines, climate change and new technologies. It is noticeable that the security aspect of this involvement is missing.Beijing has repeatedly accused Quad of a US-led clique that reflects Washington’s “cold war mentality”. It has also urged Seoul to clarify its position on it. A ruling party official told Korean press that the US had been asking Seoul to join, “but we think we can cooperate with the Quad countries on a case-by-case basis in fields where we have a contribution to make”.This half-in, half-out approach has so far proved less direct and confrontational to China – and to some extent more effective, according to Pacheco Pardo. It also reflects old lessons from the past that still cast a shadow over South Korea’s China policy.Five years ago, when Seoul agreed to host the US anti-missile system Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad), China came up with a host of measures in what analysts believed was economic retaliation. Beijing saw the ultimate target of Thaad as China itself.One of South Korea’s biggest companies, Lotte, had several of its stores in China shut down overnight for agreeing a land swap deal with the South Korean government for the deployment of Thaad. Online and offline boycotts ensued by Chinese consumers. Chinese tourists – who once flooded the streets of Seoul and Jeju Island – disappeared.Tellingly, Washington provided little support to Seoul on this matter. “South Korean policymakers felt abandoned at the time. They will now think that if previous US administrations didn’t support South Korea under such circumstances, why would the current Biden administration do so when it happens again?” said Pacheco Pardo.John Nilsson-Wright, a Korea Foundation Korea fellow at the London-based thinktank Chatham House, said: “That is precisely why it’s harder for Seoul to push a security line against China if Beijing holds the bigger sway in market access.”Shortly after the Thaad saga, South Korea’s then foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, laid out three “noes” in parliament. Two of them were no additional deployment of Thaad, and no forming a military alliance with the US and Japan.Of course, the issue of North Korea and China’s role in it also sways Moon’s thinking. But there is another reason that could explain his approach to the US and China, according to Nilsson-Wright.“Like many countries, South Korea has also been asking itself: what if a ‘Trump 2.0’ turns up in the next few years? This would then put South Korea in an even more awkward position having been caught in the middle.” More

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      It’s Time to Act, Not React, on North Korea

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      Although things have been quiet in recent months and there has been no active dialogue between North Korea and the United States, developments in recent days suggest that Pyongyang is back on the agenda of the international community.

      First, it became known that the US has been reaching out to North Korea through several channels, starting in mid-February, but it has not heard back. North Korea then published two statements within as many days by two high-ranking officials. On March 16, Kim Yo-Jong — the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un — criticized the joint US-South Korea military exercise, warning that if Seoul dares “more provocative acts,” North Korea may abrogate the Inter-Korean Comprehensive Military Agreement of 2018. She also cautioned the US that if it “wants to sleep in peace for [the] coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink at its first step.” Two days later, First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-Hui was quoted saying that North Korea sees no reason to return to nuclear talks with Washington, calling its outreach a “cheap trick.”

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      These statements coincided with a warning issued by the head of the US military’s Northern Command that North Korea might begin flight testing an improved design of its intercontinental ballistic missiles “in the near future.” On March 23, Pyongyang tested two cruise missiles before qualitatively upping the ante with a short-range ballistic missile test on March 25, constituting a breach of UN Security Council resolutions.

      Although these developments may suggest that a further escalation on the Korean Peninsula is inevitable, North Korea has thus far been following its traditional playbook by signaling a message that leaves all options on the table, ensures maximum room for maneuver and, at least from Pyongyang’s view, places the ball in Washington’s court. North Korea is raising the stakes ahead of the conclusions of the policy review process in the US, while simultaneously conveying the message that the door is open for reengagement at some point. “In order for a dialogue to be made,” Choe said, “an atmosphere for both parties to exchange words on an equal basis must be created.”

      Biden’s North Korea Policy Review

      Further developments in US-North Korea relations will, to a significant extent, depend on the outcomes of the policy review process. Although this process is not yet complete, it is apparent that the policies of the Biden administration will differ significantly from those of the previous administration under Donald Trump.

      First, we should not expect Trump’s personalized diplomacy to continue under President Joe Biden. Rather, the US is trying to restore a consultative process by involving the regional actors in Northeast Asia more directly in the North Korea question — and possibly trying to (once again) multilateralize the nuclear issue in the longer run.

      Embed from Getty Images

      During the visits of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Japan and South Korea earlier this month, Blinken stated that the Biden administration was consulting closely with the governments of South Korea, Japan and other allied nations. He also acknowledged that Beijing “has a critical role to play” in any diplomatic effort with Pyongyang. Whether more consultation leads to actual consensus remains to be seen.

      Second, the US will most likely propose a processual solution to the nuclear issue. In an op-ed for The New York Times in 2018, Blinken himself argued that the best deal the US could reach with North Korea “more than likely will look like what Barack Obama achieved with Iran.” He wrote that an interim agreement “would buy time to negotiate a more comprehensive deal, including a minutely sequenced road map that will require sustained diplomacy.”

      Third, the new administration seems to place a greater focus on the human rights issue in its policies on North Korea. During his visit to Seoul, Blinken made clear that the US would not only address security concerns, but also the North Korean government’s “widespread, systematic abuses” of its people.

      Three Lessons From the Past

      Act, not react: As past experiences with North Korea have shown, it is now critical for the United States to act quickly and clearly communicate its new North Korea strategy to both its allies and Pyongyang. If official communication channels are blocked, the facilitation activities of individual European Union member states and/or Track 1.5 intermediaries could be helpful. Until then, it is crucial not to get sucked into rhetorical tugs-of-war with North Korea.

      If the international community fails to act quickly on North Korea, Pyongyang will likely once again resort to a crisis-inducing policy, thus forcing the international community to react to its expected provocations, rather than preventing further escalation in the first place.

      Separate the issues: The North Korean nuclear issue is complex. Solving the military and security components of this issue will inevitably require addressing a range of related political, diplomatic, economic and even historical issues. As the case of the Six-Party Talks has shown, however, one individual negotiation process can quickly become overwhelmed by the multitude of challenges and issues associated with the nuclear issue. As such, it is essential to establish adequate formats with the right participants to address the respective issues and challenges.

      There is a role for Europe: Although there is no doubt that the EU is only a peripheral player in Korean Peninsula security issues, the current debate on a new Indo-Pacific strategy provides an important opportunity for Brussels to critically reflect on its own approach to North Korea, as it has failed to achieve its stated goals — i.e., denuclearizing the peninsula, strengthening the nonproliferation regime and improving the human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

      Although the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will not be front and center of this new strategy, the EU needs to show greater political will to contribute toward solving the pending security issues in the region if it wants to strengthen its profile as a security actor in the region.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions related to foreign and security policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Blinken criticizes Russia's 'violent crackdown' on protesters and weighs North Korea sanctions

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      The Biden administration will consider new sanctions against North Korea as well as other possible actions against Russia said Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, in a television interview on Monday, as the administration continued its foreign policy review.Blinken told NBC News tools aimed at denuclearizing the Korean peninsula include additional sanctions in coordination with US allies, as well as diplomatic incentives he did not specify.Blinken said he was “deeply disturbed by the violent crackdown” on Russian protesters and arrests of people across the country demanding the release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny.“The Russian government makes a big mistake if it believes that this is about us,” he said. “It’s about them. It’s about the government. It’s about the frustration that the Russian people have with corruption, with autocracy, and I think they need to look inward, not outward.”In the interview, taped on Sunday, Blinken did not commit to specific sanctions against Moscow. He said he was reviewing a response to the actions against Navalny, as well as Russian election interference in 2020, the Solar Wind Hack and alleged bounties for US soldiers in Afghanistan.“The president could not have been clearer in his conversation with President [Vladimir] Putin,” Blinken said of Joe Biden’s call last week with the Russian leader. More

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      Mike Pompeo’s Dismal Legacy

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      As the transition from Donald Trump to Joe Biden takes place, pundits have begun offering political obituaries of prominent personalities associated with the outgoing administration. Mike Pompeo, for example. At 57, his career may not be over, but there is a sense in which, were it to be revived on the national stage, the nation …
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