North Korean leader Kim jong-un has
unexpectedly replaced both the head of
that state spy agency and his bodyguard
and another apparent purge that's
according to South Korean media reports
as Seoul's Unification Ministry
published its annual information book on
Pyongyang the changes in the secretive
regimes power structure provides the
world a glimpse of its policy changes
may that be in state affairs domestic or
foreign-policy a deeper look into North
Korea it's a topic of our news in depth
with Andre Abraham Ian researcher at
George Mason University Korea oh good to
have you back thanks for having me now
let's talk about the latest power shift
in the north so Changi son at the head
of a reconnaissance general Bureau which
is North Korea's military intelligence
agency was replaced by room wangle an
Army General last December and then this
week North Korea is believed to have
replaced the chief of this primary
Intelligence Agency accused of a string
of secret operations against South Korea
now first of all what is this
reconnaissance general Bureau I mean
what is it significance its North
Korea's main spy agency some main
intelligence institution so be
equivalent to the CIA in the United
States and possibly the the NIS here but
responsible for operations and
intelligence abroad not domestically so
its outward facing obviously the most
important countries for it to focus on
will be South Korea Japan China and the
United States okay so I'm what's the
what would you what are you reading into
this this personnel change here
well it's extremely difficult to to make
sense of personnel changes in North
Korea generally when it comes to their
intelligence there's less information
about these gentlemen than say your
average politician somebody that's on
the Politburo or in the cabinet so the
the new guy mr. rim gong he'll there's
not much background on him and there
wasn't that much on his predecessor
jung-gil song we do know quite a bit
about the guy who
the RGB before because he went on to to
be the main point man for relations for
diplomacy with the United States and
South Korea kim yeongcheol he came here
for the Olympics he went to New York so
a lot more was learned about him in
recent years but these these newer
directors there's not that much
information out there about them do you
think this is more of a generational
shift are these guys younger do you
think a Kim jong-un has has made really
a younger generation of a power
structure there maybe I think this is
perhaps less generational and more about
policy changes and shifts that have
taken place in the past year in in North
Korea so we're always left kind of
double guessing right so even when it's
a politician who we know relatively more
about say the premier of the cabinet kim
jae-joong we have to guess a lot about
his background
so that particular politician he made
his reputation in Jang Hong province as
the secretary up there very isolated a
lot of military industry up there so
does that mean he is someone who is
focused on military industries and then
we have to guess again now that he's
being made head of the cabinet is there
going to be an economic shift towards
those industries and those state-owned
enterprises so we're often left double
guessing when these kinds of shifts are
made now while we have very limited
information as to what exactly goes
behind closed doors of the North Korean
administration do we know why there have
been made there happen these changes and
personal I mean what usually causes
these personnel reshuffles in North
Korea that's another area of guesswork
it's sometimes very top-down Kim jong-un
picking somebody really of his own
accord and other times the result of
negotiations between Kim jong-un himself
and say factions who are trying to
position themselves to promote certain
policies or again
I think one thing we can say about the
past year since the collapse of the
Hanoi summit is there's been a
tightening up of the of the system
generally so there's been more focused
on powering through sanctions suffering
through sanctions really no prospect of
dialogue or increased economic
opportunities the way there was earlier
in Kim jong-un's era right right
absolutely no on why is that we
generally hear quote news of changes
followed by it not being official or not
being reported by their state media I
mean what was the process there well it
depends these these people are in the
intelligence field so it's not
considered really public knowledge so
yeah it's it's interesting that it took
almost a year to find out about the the
change in the unit that guards kim jong
and personally and several months to
find out about this shift at the top of
RGB the reconnaissance general Bureau
when it's somebody like the head of the
cabinet or people in the Politburo
that's published in their newspapers you
know the leaders want the public of
North Korea to know what's going on in
those fields when it comes to
intelligence and military matters it's
it's much more hidden now Kim jong-un
North Korean leader Kim jong-un had
recently had disappeared from the public
eye and then he he just you know
reappeared on May 1st attending a
ceremony for marking the completion of a
fertilizer plant I believe the state
media over there touted that their
fertilizer factories first key outcome
of the frontal breakthrough Drive which
was in line with the north building an
economy independent of external help Kim
Jimin said that he has no expectation of
the u.s. lifting sanctions anytime soon
how feasible is this with the current
kovin 19 pandemic well they still need
inputs into the fertilizer factory so
petrochemicals and other things that
will mostly have to be imported so even
if they can do a lot of that final stage
of production
there in North Korea and better now
they are still in many ways tied into
international trade the way other
countries are slightly differently North
Korea's economy has become globalized
but via China and so the fact that China
has something of a blockade for foreign
arrivals on right now
the fact that China has seen its first
recession in 40 years this past quarter
that is going to have a huge impact on
North Korea so ko vyd will have an
impact there not dissimilar to
everywhere else do we have an assessment
or a rough idea of how much of an impact
Kobe 19 has had on the North Korean
economy as yet well North Korea doesn't
publish economic statistics and their
statistics on kovat say that there have
been zero cases again we're left
guessing and we're in that unfortunate
position again we do know from Chinese
trade a trade data that exports to China
have basically collapsed so if you
compare March this year with March last
year it's down 96 some percent well
under a million dollars of North Korean
goods exported to China so that will
will be a huge burden that said prices
for things like fuel and food have
basically stayed relatively stable so at
the consumer level there doesn't seem to
be any real instability yet
Seoul announced earlier this week that
some nonprofit organization had managed
to deliver hand sanitizers and of that
sort to North Korea as part of efforts
to provide assistance for North Korea's
fight against Cova 19 us you know while
North Korea said that they have zero
cases of COBIT in that cunt
in that state what are we making out of
this well I think kovat 19 as in other
places provides for some opportunities
as well as you know
huge challenges one opportunity might be
greater cooperation with North Korea
especially between South and North Korea
so this could be the beginning of a
process where on this one issue broader
range of cooperation is possible
if things are going relatively well in
North Korea that is they I mean the
North Koreans don't want to approach
relations with South Korea or the United
States from a position of weakness so as
long as they feel like they're
relatively on top of this crisis this
public health crisis I think you could
see them approach Seoul and say hey
you're doing okay we're doing okay
let's produce masks together or let's
work on vaccine research together that
those kind of opportunities may arise in
the coming weeks that said they're being
quite careful you see signs of both
confidence and caution so like you said
Kim jong-un showed up March 1st after
that absence and the world's media
makers oh yes my first after a couple
weeks of us all going crazy trying to
figure out what was happening and now
he's kind of gone back into a reclusive
mode we haven't seen him since that day
that's probably out of caution keeping
him relatively isolated but they have
started to send University students back
to school so higher education is
restarting I don't think normal schools
are so in a way like other countries
that feel they've survived this first
wave there's a bit of experimentation on
how how much to reopen mm-hmm oh we are
approaching the 20th anniversary of the
first-ever inter-korean summit in June
you know North Korea hasn't been
responding to South Korea's any of South
Korea's proposals for any kind of
cooperation or projects between the two
Koreas do you see what do you see in
terms of improved inter-korean
relationship or do you see anything
happening nothing yet I think like I
said you can conceive of a way that
kovat 19 could open the door for
cooperation but other than these South
Korea
NGOs that have received permission from
the Ministry of unification here in
Seoul and have begun sending material to
the north there isn't really anything
else happening yeah
South Korean president moon jae-in and
the presidential office has even
proposed floated the idea of a another
inter-korean summit happening in the
near future do you think that's also a
possibility it is not likely I think
that's fair to say from the North Korean
perspective I think Kim had several
summits with moon jae-in and Donald
Trump but they didn't really see any
anything out of it a lot of people
talked about how this is legitimized Kim
on the world stage and that has been a
giveaway but when it comes to his
domestic audience Kim's really failed to
bring anything home there's been no real
sanctions relief and no economic
cooperation and I think in Pyongyang
they're upset that moon Jain failed to
break away from the United States really
stayed kind of cleaved to the the u.s.
position so unless there is really a
major proposal coming from Seoul about
inter-korean cooperation
I don't think Pyongyang will want to
organize another Sun that the North
Korea early on into the pandemic they
had brought lee closed the border with
China those borders have recently opened
up a little bit back for trade with
China
knowing that China is the epicenter of
the disease North Korea seems to be
willing to take a risk for the sake of
their economy how big of a role is
trying to play in North Korean economy I
think it's impossible to overstate
really if you look at a graph the line
that is China is up here and all the
other lines are way down here it's by
far the most important factor in
in north korea's economic success so you
know they can't remain closed forever
they are suffering kind of this double
whammy their own closure and then the
closure of the chinese border itself
there's been reports just the last
couple days of another outbreak or
cluster in Jilin which isn't exactly a
hub for activity with North Korea that
is the next City down Shenyang but it's
close enough that I think they will need
to worry about it it's in the region
right it's in the northeast provinces so
you know that the desire to open up I
think is there but fundamentally North
Korea is pretty good at running a closed
system and if they have to endure a few
more months where trade is really very
very low I'm sure they'll find a way to
manage and lost my lease how do you
expect North Korea to go about dealing
with this economic difficulties from
here on out yeah I think one of the
really unfortunate things about the way
the past couple years has gone is that
when you look at early in Kim Jong Un's
era he really was
compared to his father and grandfather
the economy first leader yeah and people
responded to that there was a lot of
excitement on the ground in in Pyongyang
and in other cities about new economic
prospects over the last couple years
they've tightened that up there they
seem to be making it more difficult to
conduct business in a relatively free
manner and I think kovat 19 will just
add another layer of barriers and
inhibitions to to people trying to run
the economy and run businesses for
either themselves or for other
organizations so they are very good at
suffering if I can put it that way and
it is really a control first political
culture and I think that even if things
are really really hard there for several
months or even years they will will
suffer through endurance I suppose yeah
all right Andrae Brahimi researcher
George Mason University
Kariya thank you for speaking with us
tonight we appreciate it Thanks
