Top NK Headlines - March 2023

SOUTH KOREA TO INCREASE SUPPORT FOR NORTH KOREAN DEFECTORS’ RESETTLEMENT

• South Korea’s Ministry of Unification announced its plan to improve the level of support for North Korean defectors by raising the resettlement basic subsidy from 1 million won ($760 USD) to 9 million won ($6,840 USD) per one-person household and the one-time living expenses-related emergency financial assistance from 1 million won to 1.5 million won ($1,140 USD) per case.

• Following the lonely death of a North Korean woman in Seoul, the ministry also plans to closely monitor some 1,200 defectors to proactively detect and address their difficulties and provide more psychological support.

• According to a survey by Korea Hana Foundation, 17.9 percent of North Korean defectors are self-employed due to discrimination in South Korean companies. The survey also shows that the longer they have lived in the South, the higher the self-employment rate.

• “People from North Korea find it difficult to adapt to the workplace culture in South Korea,” commented Seo Jae-pyong, president of the Association for North Korean Defectors.

Source:
https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20230316005100325
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2023/03/356_347048.html 

NORTH KOREA HELD MEETING ON FARMING AMID FOOD SHORTAGES

• North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, discussed issues on agricultural stability and urged officials to meet grain production targets amid reports suggesting that the country is facing a serious shortfall of food.

• South Korean lawmakers said that the North is facing an annual rice shortage of 800,000 tons, while a recent United Nations report estimated that 60 percent of the North Korean population suffered from food insecurity by the end of 2021 compared to 40 percent prior to the pandemic.

• Kim called to increase yields at all farms and eradicate “internal factors that have [a] negative effect on the development of agriculture,” while declaring that “nothing is impossible” under the leadership of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party.

• Since Pyongyang has opted for a strict pursuit of self-sufficiency, almost all of its grain is produced domestically and “Achieving adequate agricultural output in North Korea’s unfavorable soils has, ironically, generated heavy reliance on imported goods and left the country exposed to global shocks, diplomatic conflicts, and adverse weather,” explained 38 North, a U.S.-based monitoring project.

Source: 
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/3/2/north-koreas-kim-says-nothing-impossible-amid-grain-push 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/28/north-korea-food-shortages-kim-jong-un-agriculture-grain-targets-sanctions 
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-convenes-meeting-agricultural-stability-amid-food-shortage-woes-2023-03-15/ 

NORTH KOREA’S TREE PLANTING DAY ORDERS

• North Korea ordered citizens to plant trees to commemorate the annual Tree Planting Day, which first began when the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung, planted a tree at Munsu Peak in 1947.

• Ahead of Tree Planting Day, the authorities called on its people to mobilize workers, housewives and even students throughout North Pyongan province to ensure there is enough saplings for people to plant trees on that day.

• According to a North Korea official, the Union of Agricultural Workers planted about 4,000 trees of nine species this year around the Mangyongdae Revolutionary Site, which was also the birthplace of Kim Il-sung.

• The country used to celebrate Tree Planting Day on March 2 (North Korea’s equivalent of Arbor Day), but the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly issued an ordinance last year changing it to March 14. The ordinance explained that the historical date marks the day when Kim Il-sung called for a pan-national effort to restore forests destroyed by U.S. bombings during the Korean War.

Source:
https://www.dailynk.com/english/n-korea-calls-on-people-to-actively-engage-in-springtime-tree-planting/ 
https://www.scmp.com/video/asia/3213761/north-koreans-celebrate-annual-tree-planting-day-capital-pyongyang 

SOUTH KOREA AND JAPAN MENDS TIES AFTER NORTH KOREA FIRES LONG RANGE MISSILE

• South Korea’s Yoon Suk-yeol arrived in Tokyo to meet Japan’s Fumio Kishida hours after Pyongyang fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (“ICBM”) that flew about 1,000 kilometers landing in waters west of Japan.

• North Korea last fired an ICBM less than a month ago and experts commented that such missiles are particularly worrying due to their long range that could potentially reach mainland United States.

• Yoon’s trip marks the first visit by a South Korean leader to Japan in 12 years.

• The two countries pledged to set aside their long-term disputes and work together to counter urgent regional security challenges, namely the nuclear threats posed by North Korea.

Source:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64972944 
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/world/asia/south-korea-japan-relations.html 
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-15/north-korea-fires-ballistic-missile-ahead-of-yoon-s-japan-trip
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-koreas-yoon-seeks-friend-tokyo-amid-regional-tensions-2023-03-15/

A Tale of Two Famines

The Great Chinese Famine

Though the devastation of the Great North Korean Famine is still fresh in our minds, many experts report that the greatest and deadliest famine in human history took place in China during 1959-61.

In 1958 Mao Zedong launched the Great Leap Forward, an effort to mobilize China's massive population to fast track in just a few years economic advances that took other nations many decades to accomplish. The movement focused China’s peasant population on steel mining and manufacturing, forcing them to split time between farming and smelting steel in makeshift backyard furnaces. As a result of this shift, grain harvest plummeted during this period.

Earlier in the 1950s, unable to provide for its impoverished communities, the Chinese government had formed communes to teach its people how to work collectively towards self-reliance. With the Great Leap Forward, Mao increased the size of these communes twentyfold to over 5,000 families per commune. The utopian fantasy was to push these communes to be self-sufficient in agriculture, industry, governance, education and health care.

In the face of declining crop production, but to demonstrate the perceived superiority of communal farming, provinces grossly exaggerated their grain haul figures. These inflated counts were then used to justify sending a greater share of grain to cities, leaving nothing for peasants to eat. Millions were forced to starve. It is estimated that a third of China's provinces were in a famine by the spring of 1959. The estimated death toll from this great famine ranges from 36-45 million lives.

Fleeing from China to North Korea

As China suffered famine and financial turmoil, neighboring North Korea was undergoing economic growth. Ethnic Koreans of Chinese nationality, known as “Joseon-jok”, saw this as an opportunity to go to a place with familiar language, family ties and most importantly, where they would not die of starvation. With the upside of escaping the persecution they often faced in China, it was also not too difficult to swap one authoritarian regime for another in North Korea.

The Great North Korean Famine

Fast forward three decades to 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed and with it dissolved one of North Korea’s few trade relationships. Trade from the Soviet Union dissipated from about 60 percent of North Korea’s economy in 1988 to virtually nothing.

Between 1990 to 1995, North Korea was struck by a series of natural disasters ranging from cold fronts to multiple years of flooding that decimated grain production. Even with outside food aid, a broken distribution system controlled by a corrupt government led to the death of upwards of 3.5 million citizens during the North Korean famine which spanned from 1995 to 1998. As the infrastructure of the country unraveled into chaos, between 100,000 to 300,000 North Korean defectors made their way out of the country seeking refuge and resources.

Flight from North Korea to China?

The world is closely monitoring North Korea for signs of another famine, which is primarily a result of halted trade and commerce with the outside world in reaction to COVID-19. If North Korea does face another major famine, it could lead to another mass exodus similar to what the world witnessed during the great North Korean famine of the 1990s.

A Different China Today

Much has changed in China over the past 30 years. President Xi Jinping said recently during the 100 year celebration of the Chinese Communist Party that they "will never allow anyone to bully, oppress or subjugate China". The irony is that China is perceived to be bullying others as China’s communist regime continues to grow in power and cunning. A new Pew poll from June 30, 2021 found that a majority of people surveyed in 15 out of 17 nations around the world view China negatively. The primary reasons being: ground zero for COVID-19, aggression against self-ruled Taiwan and in the South China Sea, not to mention dwindling freedoms in Hong Kong and human rights violations in Tibet and Xinjiang province.

China also actively captures and returns defectors back to North Korea. The North Korean refugees in our network who live in China constantly live under this very real threat. We have witnessed the Church in China under attack and most missionaries we know have left. If another mass migration from North Korea takes place, we fear for the safety of the refugees as surveillance and monitoring continues to increase. China’s leaders conveniently make little mention of its speckled history. We hope the people of China remember the devastation of their own famine if North Korean refugees start to cross over the Tumen and Yalu river again.

Is North Korea Panicked About Another Famine?

Food Insecurity Definition

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines “food insecurity” as “a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.”

According to the USDA’s 2020-2030 International Food Security Assessment, “an estimated 59.2 percent of North Korea’s population is food-insecure in 2020, rising slightly to 59.8 percent when the effects of the COVID-19 macro shock are taken into account.” That is approximately 15.3 million people or three in five North Koreans.

Worst Decline in Recent History

We shared our concerns in January about North Korea potentially entering into yet another famine.

The Financial Times reported in February that North Korea was facing the worst economic decline since the infamous North Korean famine of the 90’s. “Following a triple hit from the strict border closures, economic sanctions and devastating flooding last year, the economy is suffering its worst decline since famine killed millions of people in the mid-1990s”

In March, Geneva-based Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) rated the severity of North Korea’s Humanitarian Conditions 4.5 out of 5, which is a “measure of conditions and status of the people affected, including info about the distribution of severity”. “The ACAPS report estimated “chronic food insecurity and limited access to basic services, such as healthcare and clean water, have left more than 10 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.”

Admitted Failings of Kim Jong Un

Kim Jong Un addressed party members in a political conference this past April and stated that the nation was facing its “worst-ever situation.” The North Korean dictator was likely making reference to the catastrophic failure of his five-year plan introduced in May 2016 that promised to bring North Korea to economic independence.

Experts are referring to North Korea’s current economic crisis in the pandemic as “the Great Leap Backwards” as the nation is struggling to respond to fears of economic collapse, complete loss of food security, and inability to vaccinate its 25 million citizens.

Urgent Party Central Committee Meeting

North Korea’s state-run news outlet Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) recently announced the call for another, larger political meeting called a plenum in early June. Kim Jong Un reportedly stressed the necessity to call a plenary meeting to “solve pending problems urgent for the economic work and people’s living.” All these items could point to a country in distress and panic.

Tighter Control with Closed Borders

North Korea was quick to respond to COVID-19 by completely sealing its borders to all foreigners, including trade, tourism and international relations. According to Daminov Ildar of The Diplomat, this also meant “no defections, no migration, no dangerous external information coming from abroad.” This enabled the North Korean government to enforce a greater measure of censorship as “every single product that entered North Korea in 2020 was thoroughly checked and paranoidally disinfected, while most goods were not even allowed to come in.”

This also shrank the number of North Korean defectors entering into South Korea, which dropped nearly 80% year-over year from 1,047 (2019) to 229 (2020). This is easily the fewest North Korean defectors since The Ministry of Unification began publishing this metric in 1998.

Another Famine?

The world does not have an accurate count of how many North Koreans died between 1994 and 1998 during the great North Korean famine. Higher estimates speculate that two to three million North Koreans perished during this period. The famine also exposed cracks in North Korean ideologies and its system of misinformation. Disenfranchised with the government and out of the need to survive, an informal free market system emerged and continues to be used as farmers markets and black markets throughout North Korea.

Survivors of the North Korean famine may be able to help their fellow North Koreans endure another season of scarcity with past learnings. But with heightened government security brought on by COVID-19 resulting in even less access to the outside world, Kim Jong Un and his regime may also be opportunistically purging liberties that have seeped in since the last famine. Another famine could be an excuse for the government to further constrict North Korean people and inflict more suffering.

Could North Korea be Headed Towards Another Famine?

North Korea is in trouble again. And though this is not news to most people who follow the reclusive country, there are a few factors that make this situation uniquely alarming. Some believe North Korea is headed into another great famine.

Failed Five Year Plan

Five years since taking power, in May 2016, Kim Jong Un laid out a five year plan to create economic independence for North Korea. This plan came on the heels of the UN tightening sanctions in March following the North’s recent nuclear tests and focused largely on energy including the need to improve their electricity supply with higher coal output and develop domestic sources of energy, including nuclear power.

Kim Jong Un charged that the country must “solve the energy problem and place the basic industry section on the right track, and increase agricultural and light industry production to definitely improve the lives of the people.”

At a Worker’s Party meeting this January, Kim confessed that the five year plan “immensely underachieved in almost all sectors.” He laid out yet another plan to grow every industry, but like the former failed plan, it probably has no teeth.

www.kremlin.ru

Impact of COVID-19

Though Kim Jong Un’s claims of the entire nation being free of COVID-19 can’t be confirmed, the global pandemic has not left North Korea’s already fragile economy unscathed. Border closures have plummeted trade to an estimated 80-percent drop in the first 11 months of 2020 compared with the same period in 2019, according to Song Jaeguk, an analyst at the IBK Economic Research Institute in Seoul. And the suspension of international flights due to COVID-19 have completely erased the contribution of tourism revenue to the North Korean economy.

Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported in December 2020 that “the entire public transportation system across the country has been suspended since the beginning of this month under the instruction of the central government to prevent COVID-19 infections.” This was a surprising move by a country claiming to be free of the Coronavirus.

Typhoon & Flood Damage

Three powerful typhoons, Maysak and Haishen made landfall on the Korean peninsula within two weeks last September, delivering heavy rain and widespread flooding to parts of both North and South Korea. 

38 North’s damage assessment from 2020’s typhoon season is that “while weather conditions were particularly dire this year, there is currently no evidence, based on currently available information, that the overall damage was unprecedented”.

Collective impact

On their own, the challenges confronting North Korea listed above may seem unfortunately normal for the hermit kingdom. However, with the confluence of tightened UN sanctions, COVID-19 and flood damage, many estimate that North Korea is facing the most challenging situation since the great famine of the 1990s.

Kim Jong Un’s recent pledge to enhance North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and missile program will continue to increase UN scrutiny and consequences. His rejection of South Korea’s olive branch in the form of pandemic relief will likely bring the country further down their economic spiral as the spread of COVID-19 worsens this winter.

God have mercy

North Korean winters are already long and brutally cold. Food shortages are imminent given decimated trade volume and recent typhoons and flood damage. While Kim Jong Un celebrates his new promotion, we can’t help but to worry about the potential of another North Korean famine this winter.

In what is one of the bleakest periods of recent North Korean history, we seek out God’s mercy for Kim Jong Un. Lord, please open his eyes and humble him before your glory, that he may turn from his ways. Please hear the prayers of the saints in North Korea and have mercy on them. Oh Lord, would you relent from disaster so that the world may know of who you are. Amen.

Prayer for North Korean Orphans: Two New Children

Pictured: The front yard at the home of one of our North Korean orphans. Recently we have moved forward in our plans to expand our care for North Korean orphans in Northeast China. This is due to the overwhelming success of our Child Sponsorship Program. We can help more children because more of them are sponsored by our faithful supporters.

The children in this program have North Korean mothers who have either been captured by the Chinese police and sent back to North Korea or have fled for freedom in South Korea. We have several orphanages spread out throughout Northeast China and we also partner with schools to pay for their education and some of their living expenses.

We want you to meet a two of our North Korean orphans so you can pray for them with us:

"Juhee" is 11 years old. Her mother was arrested in China four years ago and sent back to a North Korean prison camp. Her father is in his 50s and is unable to work because he is partially paralyzed. He purchased Juhee’s mother, a North Korean refugee, in the illegal sex trade that exploded in China following the North Korean famine of the 90s. She and her father live in extreme poverty. Please pray for her as she will continue to live with her father and go to a local private school.

"Sunhee" is a teenager and her mother escaped from China to South Korea in the early 2000s. It was unclear if her mother made the dangerous journey from China to South Korea via the Underground Railroad. They hadn’t heard from Sunhee’s mother for years. If a refugee is caught fleeing to South Korea, they are treated harshly in the North Korean prison camp system. Last year Sunhee and her father received a call from Sunhee’s mother for the very first time. Her mother had indeed made it to South Korea but there was no invitation to bring Sunhee or her father to South Korea. There was no money sent. It was a call to simply say hello with no promises of another call. Please pray for Sunhee as she continues with her schooling and attempts to move forward with her life.

Crossing Borders is committed to helping as many of North Korean orphans as we possibly can. We are looking for opportunities to help more families. Please pray for these children as we try to give them hope through education and the gospel.

Prayers for North Korean Refugees: A Look Inside

Despite the tens of thousands of North Korean refugees that have crossed illegally into China, there are a few ways for a North Korean to visit China legally: 1. by visiting a relative, 2. by obtaining an official work visa and 3. by visiting on official state business. Recently Crossing Borders had contact with a North Korean woman who was visiting her relatives in China. We will call her “Lee-hae.”

We interviewed her at a house of one of our local field workers. She was skinny. She rarely looked up at the interviewer. She cried when speaking about her children. It was striking that, despite her legal status in China, her situation was no less desperate than the hundreds of North Korean refugees we’ve met with “illegal” status.

She was able to give insight into the current situation in North Korea and why things are still miserable there, despite recent attempts at reform.

Lee-hae said that the food situation in North Korea is still desperate. Many aid organizations that have access to the country say that the situation is as bad, if not worse than the famine of the 1990s.

“In the city people can eat once or twice a day but on the farm there is nothing to eat because the government takes all of the harvest for the military,” Lee-hae told us.

She lives in a small town near the border and often sees balloons flying in from South Korea with pamphlets and sometimes small morsels of food. The government orders the pamphlets and food to be thrown away. They say that the food is poisonous. But Lee-hae was so hungry that she ate it anyway.

Despite her troubles in North Korea, Lee-hae said that she would continue to go back and forth to China because she doesn’t want to abandon her husband.

If given a chance, this is what most North Koreans would do. They would go back and forth from China to North Korea to eat and then return to their homes to be with their friends and family. This is precisely what is happening today, except the overwhelming majority of the estimated 100,000 North Korean refugees do so illegally and are at risk of being captured, tortured and even executed because they are hungry and have the wherewithal to do something about it.

But despite the dire situation there are glimmers of hope. On one of Lee-hae’s legal trips to China, she became a Christian.

“When I heard the Gospel first time I could not believe it because I was very afraid of the North Korean government,” she said, sobbing.

Crossing Borders will continue to be a contact point for North Koreans and North Korean refugees in Northeast China. We will share our faith with them and hope that some, like Lee-hae will bring the gospel home.

We believe that we have both sowed and reaped seeds of the underground church inside North Korea over the past 10 years. Please pray that we would be able to effectively minister to North Korean refugees and the North Korean people and that someday our work will create true, lasting change inside the country.