Sino-NK

Yesterday, North Korea’s top propagandists orchestrated and participated in a gunpowder-tinged burst of oath-taking and ideological consolidation at Kim Jong-Il’s mythical birthplace near Mount Paektu.  As Kim Jong-il’s 70th birthday approaches, men like Kim Ki-Nam will continue a stream of predictable communications regarding the departed Dear Leader’s perspisacity. But can North Korea’s propaganda and news as regards China be similarly predicted? Does it have discernable patterns? What can the KCNA dispatches tell us about Sino-North Korean relations and the direction of the North Korean state?  And how did the North Koreans respond to the scuttlebutt about Chinese contingency plans for a DPRK collapse?  Evan Koepfler, SinoNK’s KCNA Analyst based at Pacific Lutheran University, provides answers in his seventh and eighth digests:

Click here for the full text of KCNA File No 7 – Jan 22-28.

Analysis: More silence from the DPRK on China this week, with a total output of only four stories compared to last week’s five. Two of the stories this week were just extensions from stories of weeks past, with no real news reported. These articles were: China Opposes U.S. Sanctions on Iran: FM Spokesman, and China Plans to Launch 30 Satellites This Year. China is sticking with its firm stance that sanctions are not the answer to the Iranian nuclear issue, and would “render the situation tense” in the words of Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Liu Weimin. In terms of the satellite story, the last two satellites that China has launched seem to be part of their new 30-satellite goal, an ambitious political and technological project taken on by China and discussed in its North Korean context last week by Scott Bruce.

KCNA also published a story about Koreans in China calling for the punishment of Lee Myung Bak, president of the Republic of Korea. In the last few weeks, KCNA has published a myriad of stories about Koreans calling for the president’s punishment, but only this week have we seen the shift to Koreans in China specifically. The significance of this shift probably has less to do with North Korea’s attitude toward China than it functions as a means of showing KCNA readers just how far the unrest has spread, and that Koreans have united themselves against this perceived traitor.

Finally this week, KCNA published a story about the Lunar New Year being celebrated in China. The most significant part of this story was the detailing of Wen Jiabao’s speech in which he called for “need to enhance sustainable economic and social development as well as place more importance on people’s livelihoods, letting the people share the achievements of reform.” This nod to Wen Jiabao, who has had harsh words in the past for North Korean leaders about the need to about the people sharing in the achievements of reform were particularly interesting.  Although it was far from representing a wholesale embrace of China and is far short of the commitment even of, say, inviting Ambassador Liu to an opera in Pyongyang, external observers of the DPRK scene for reform should probably not ignore this particular reference.

Click here for the full text KCNA File No 8 – Jan 29-Feb 4

Analysis:

Although this marked the third consecutive week of a reduced China output, KCNA did report on a few very important stories in reference to China. The first and most important being China’s dismissal of media in countries such as Japan, South Korea, and the West as a general term, who claimed China was going to move troops into Korea. According to KCNA, the Chinese government took a strong stance, calling the accusation “absolutely impossible,” even going on to say that the rumors were completely baseless: “As China does not keep step with the U.S., Japan and south Korea in concrete actions and measures, some foreign media talked a lot about this with their own calculations whenever an opportunity presented itself and even falsified and groundlessly slang mud at the former.” KCNA’s conveying of this fierce denial is intended to show that China is committed to its relationship with the DPRK, and that it will not allow outsiders to disrupt that in anyway.

Another story published this week reported on a delegation from the DPRK leaving for China, further illustrating that the relationship between the two countries is in no way unstable as reports like the previous story might suggest. On the contrary, it shows that the now Kim Jong Un-led DPRK has continued its positive stance towards China and that cooperation is as good as ever.

Amid the growing concerns in Iran, outsiders’ claims of China stationing troops in the DPRK, and other stories, KCNA reported that China is urging along the development of military culture. While its nature and ideology is to remain the same, an urgent need was expressed to increase military advancement in China, another example of China’s increased modernization.

An interesting theme that has showed up over the past few weeks is the mission for reunification of the Korean peninsula by the North Koreans, this week specifically North Koreans in China. Amid the accusations against China, the ill will towards Lee Myung Bak, and several other reasons, reunification seems out of place. However, the regime change in the DPRK may be seen as a new beginning by North Koreans who continue to strive for reunification.

Finally, KCNA published a story detailing China’s reaction to the Human Rights Watch. China has taken the stance that the Watch has published fierce accusations against some countries and has “turned a blind eye” to others. The article goes on to give examples of what China sees as human rights violations such as Mark Galasco’s involvement in the death of civilians in Iraq as well as his apparent affinity for WWII Germany. This story comes as a defense about China’s own practices (tacitly, in Tibetan cultural areas during another crackdown), and an attack on those who have continued to dogmatize China as an offender.

— Evan Koepfler