Ask me about North Korea

All things have to come to an end, and it applies to this podcast in its current format too. Thank you for staying tuned for more than 50 episodes! In this last episode I talk about why it has to end and what my future plans are. Spoiler: Once I have more time, I will do my best to rebrand, reformat, and continue this podcast in mid-2022. To use a famous platitude - I am not saying “goodbye”, I am just saying “see you later!”

In this episode, I would like to talk about the Korean People’s Army or KPA – the military of North Korea, which is also the armed wing of the ruling party. Specifically, today we will look at the current structure, role, and significance of the North Korean army.

Today’s episode talks about the complicated historical framework of the North Korean-Japanese relations – including the two biggest conflict points that both countries have had. In that light, I also discuss their contemporary problems including history interpretation and mutual negative perception.

Today’s episode is unusually musical. Our guest today is Justin Martell, an American producer, and a co-founder of Ship to Shore PhonoCo record label. Justin Martell in 2017 also founded YPT’s partner, Pioneer Media, offering production services across a wide variety of unique locations from Asia to Eastern Europe. He has worked extensively in the horror movie genre and has written the foremost authoritative book Tiny Tim. Today's interview with him will focus on an album, which has been recently released by Ship to Shore PhonoCo. The album is called "Take On Us! Pyongyang Gold Stars" and was a product of intense international and intercultural cooperation between Justin, Morten Traavik, and many North Korean artists.

This episode will not be very analytical, but the topic that I will cover provides some important context for the previous episodes and your understanding of the North Korean socio-economic system and its place in the global trade streams. Today I will talk a bit more about North Korean exports – what the country focuses on in its production and external trade.

The notorious leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, has disappeared several times from the public eye in the course of 2020 and 2021, with both experts and media watchers wondering whether the North Korean leader is suffering from some sort of systemic health issue that could potentially be fatal. But what actually happens if Kim Jong-un dies? What will the immediate political ramifications look like? Let’s think about it together.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, North Korea had a reputation as one of the most if not the most isolated societies on Earth. It was as if North Korea was already living under the conditions of a permanent COVID-19 lockdown. Indeed, it was hard to imagine that the hermit nation could get any more reclusive than it had already been. Yet with COVID-19 raging all over the world, North Korea seems to be rolling down the path of new unprecedented levels of isolationism. So, in this episode, I’ll answer the question: Why will North Korea remain under quarantine for much longer than initially expected?

Quite some time ago I’ve received a couple of suggestions to cover the question of how North Korea earns money illicitly. Since this is a massive topic, it took me a while to figure out what kind of episode I want to make while answering the question. Hence, today, I will try to respond to this question by focusing on the main areas of North Korean criminal activities that earn cash for the regime – ranging from drug trade to counterfeiting. Apart from that, I’ll touch upon the organizational structure of that system and mention other types of illegal activities that might not be bringing as much cash but are still sometimes brought up in the context of discussions about the DPRK.

Today’s podcast episode is an interview with an organizer of North Korea tours. Nicolas Platt is a travel guide, who works with the Young Pioneers’ Tours, one of the most renown DPRK tour organizers internationally. The YPT website describes Nic as a “North Korea wunderkind and tour guide par extraordinaire. Whilst he’s not touring you may usually find him at a North Korean restaurant in China, studying Korean or travelling unique parts of the
world”.

Back in the Cold War days, North Korea was one of the key players in the non-aligned movement or the so-called Third World. Pyongyang used to position itself as a leader of the opposition to international imperialism and even tried to project its juche ideology on other countries. However, now the country is largely seen as an international pariah sponging off the remaining economic and political ties it has with the developing nations. Why did the situation change so dramatically? I am going to talk about that in today’s episode.

North Korean animation is not really renowned world-wide, but you might have seen some of its products without even realizing it. Indeed, its quality can be surprisingly good! For example, North Korean animators drew some of the scenes in “The Lion King”, one of Disney’s biggest bestsellers. On the other hand, it is also responsible for producing extremely funny, cringy or violent series too. If you are curious about North Korea’s cultural exploits in this area, make sure to check out this episode.

It was quite a sudden bit of news when Kim Jong-un, speaking at a high-level Party meeting at the end of June of 2021, warned of “grave consequences” as a result of senior officials neglecting the country’s COVID-19 prevention measures. This statement caused a lot of interest and controversy in the international mass-media with North Korea experts divided on what sort of event could have happened. Was it really that North Korea detected its first COVID-19 case? Was there a breach of quarantine measures? Or was it something completely different?

Today I am discussing one of the most important recent political developments in North Korea. Specifically, I will talk about the revisions to the rules of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK). They were made public and resurfaced on the professional DPRK watchdog websites only a couple of weeks ago, despite the fact that officially the WPK Congress, which is the highest decision-making body in North Korea, revised those rules in January. So, what do these revisions mean for North Korea?

Today I am coming to you with some updates on the podcast, several messages, and a book lottery announcement. Want to get a copy of Kim Jong-un’s biography? Just spread the word about the podcast.

Today I would like to do some news coverage from the past week. If some of you have been following the news on North Korea, South Korea, or the United States, you most likely know that a major meeting between the US President Joe Biden and South Korean President Moon Jae-in took place on May 21. Why did they meet in the first place, why does it matter, and will it change anything in the relations of both countries with North Korea?

After having produced quite a number of podcast episodes, I wanted to reflect a little bit exactly on the subject of my exploits – North Korean studies. Thus, in this episode, I will be doing what I do best – complaining. Specifically, I would like to tell you about all the issues that North Korea watchers like me have to face in their research. Perhaps if any of you ever get interested in this field or choose to conduct their own projects, you might find my ramblings somewhat useful.

There are not that many things that both North and South Korea have in common. Yet football is one of them. Given the love of the game in both countries, football can also be a powerful diplomatic tool in inter-Korean relations as well as a gate for North Koreans to the outside world. In today’s episode, I will talk about the history and peculiarities of contemporary North Korean football at the request of one of my listeners, Carl Stewart from Northumberland.

While the human rights problem in North Korea is rather well-documented and well-studied, in this episode I wanted to provide you with a quick introduction on the topic; suggest some follow-up readings; and, most importantly, reflect on how the situation became so bad in the first place. After all, the human rights situation in that country is a good reminder for all of us about why North Korea is not something funny.

Moscow is often seen, similar to Beijing, as one of the key allies of the North Korean regime. Yet politics and history of the Russia-North Korea relations have vacillated from strategic importance to complete indifference – and the pendulum would swing back and forth every other decade. The Korean Peninsula, which lies as the Eastern-most border with Russia, has remained in the focus of Russia's and USSR’s geopolitical attention throughout the twentieth century. Korea, on the other hand, even before its division, saw Russia as an important counterbalance to other geopolitical giants such as Japan or China.
Today I will elaborate on the historic context of the Russian-North Korean relations and try to explain why their importance has dwindled with time.

Today we continue with discussing the impressions of the people, who travelled to North Korea back in the pre-COVID era. In this episode, Mr. Vitaly Konovalov, who went to the DPRK in 2009 for professional purposes, shares his experiences of staying in that reclusive authoritarian state and draws parallels between the North Korea of 2009 and Brezhnev’s Soviet Union.

People fleeing from North Korea are not a new phenomenon. Since the division of Korea after the end of the Korean War, citizens of the DPRK have fled from their country for not only political or ideological, but also economic and personal reasons. So, the area from which my question stems is quite well-studied – there have been hundreds of interviews, media reports, memoirs, and research articles written in this area. However, in this episode I would like to give you a quick introduction on the topic and, more importantly, explain why the numbers of people fleeing from North Korea has been dwindling even before the COVID-19 outbreak.

For quite some time I have been meaning to talk about how people travel to North Korea – not for diplomatic or political purposes, but just as ordinary tourists or business people. Even though I could have recorded a more or less standard episode in my attempt to answer that questions, I thought that perhaps there could be a more interesting way of telling you about this. So, after some pondering, I came to the conclusion that there is no better way of doing that than asking someone, who had actually visited the country. Hence, in this and in the next episodes two different people will be talking about their stories and impressions of traveling to the DRPK.

Kim Yo-jong is another member of the Kim dynasty, who has recently been attracting a lot of attention on international social media platforms. Being Kim Jong-un’s sister, she is seen as one of the key members of the narrowest circle of top North Korean elites with many media speculating about her being Kim Jong-un’s potential successor. But how did she get to that position and what is her role in the North Korean authoritarian system?
You will find out in this episode!

When browsing some Western media outlets, you might encounter a misplaced stereotype about North Korea being a Chinese puppet. Others argue that these two countries are very close allies, recalling how Mao Zedong called the relationship as close as ‘lips and teeth’. However, the reality is that Sino-North Korean relations have never been particularly easy or straightforward. They have been marred by complex twists and turns of history and even today the national interests of both nations remain at odds. Today we will together explore the history and current political intricacies of the Sino-North Korean relations.

In North Korea, your wedding is not just your moment – but also a ritual demonstrating your filial piety both to your family and to the state. So how do North Korean weddings look like? How do families prepare for them? What are the main wedding traditions? Are they similar to the South Korean ones? I talk about these questions in today’s episode.

Living in a lockdown is never easy, but it is especially hard when you are stuck as a foreign citizen in North Korea. The numbers of international expats, who live and work in North Korea usually as a part of some foreign missions or international humanitarian organizations, have never been high to begin with. With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, their numbers have fallen drastically. In this episode, I am explaining how the situation looks for them right now and why this decrease in foreign residents living in the DPRK might have negative humanitarian consequences for the country’s general populace of North Korea.

Palace or military coups is something that you often witness in a variety of different autocracies – ranging from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe; from one-party authoritarian regimes to personalistic dictatorships. However, you probably have never heard about one happening in North Korea. Have there been any coup attempts in the DPRK? Were they successful? What does it mean in political terms? Today I will be talking about these questions at the request of one of the listeners!

Leisure is an essential part of humans’ daily lives – wherever we are, we try to carve out some free time for our hobbies ranging from watching TV-series to going on mountain climbing expeditions. After all, working all the time is physically and mentally impossible. Thus, even in the most authoritarian of countries, both the state and the people have to think about the questions of leisure. So today, I will be talking in broad terms about how the leisure and entertainment industry in the DPRK looks like today.

Kim Jong-un is one of the most well-known leaders in contemporary world politics, who gets a lot of press – and a lot of very bad press. Despite that fact, very little is actually known about him as a person and, especially, about his early years of political career before becoming the leader of North Korea. While he is often seen by many Westerners as a rather comical figure due to his cartoonish appearance and body constitution, Kim Jong-un is actually one of the most cunning and Machiavellian politicians in East Asia. Kim Jong-un’s rule was transformative for North Korean society as it began to improve economically but became even more oppressive politically. This episode focuses on Kim Jong-un as a political personality.

Kim Jong-il, the second ruler of the DPRK, transformed North Korea in many ways – willingly or not. During the years of his rule, North Korea became a semi-capitalist isolated society in possession of nuclear weapons, a country that would not leave the front pages of international mass-media outlets. An incompetent leader but a talented diplomat, Kim Jong-il managed to pull his authoritarian regime through the period of economic crisis – all that despite the ominous predictions of imminent collapse coming from American and European political scientists. In today’s episode we look at the political biography of Kim Jong-il and at the legacy he left behind.

Kim Il-sung is, perhaps, a name that you do not hear all that much these days, if you are not a North Korea watcher. What you might hear way more often is the name of his grandson, Kim Jong-un, who is the current head of the North Korean state. However, it was Kim Il-sung, who shaped North Korea as we know it today – as the most controlled society in the world. It was Kim Il-sung, who plunged the Korean Peninsula into the bloodbath of the Korean War and cemented the division of Korea. It was Kim Il-sung, who created a personality cult that remains unparalleled in humanity’s modern history. The founder of North Korea maintained his grip on power for almost half a century until he passed away in 1994. In today’s episode I try to take a broad look at how Kim Il-sung’s life as a political leader shaped North Korea as a country and society we know today.

As season one is approaching an end, in this brief announcement I outline what episodes will be coming next after a break of two weeks. I also ask for your help with promoting the podcast online - do not worry, it won’t take too much effort :)

One of the most commonly used cliches about North Korea is that it is a destitute, starving country, where people are literally dropping dead from hunger in the streets. In the late 1990s, the DPRK experienced a major economic shock, which brought about one of the worst famines in modern human history. But are North Koreans still starving today? Throughout the 2000s and 2010s the economic situation has steadily improved there, but the country is still facing challenges in this area. Today, I will talk about the lessons of the 1990s famine and the current food security situation in the wake of the coronavirus recession. For more details visit —www.askmeaboutdprk.wordpress.com

North Koreans have pop-culture? You can’t be serious! Many Westerners see culture of the DPRK as a kitschy throwback to the Stalinist era and a mere tool of Pyongyang’s crazy propaganda. Is there more to North Korean culture than that? In today’s episode I will be talking about how culture and art are used in North Korea; what cultural developments has the country undergone in that last thirty years and what it looks like today. So if you are curious how Harry Potter and Mickey Mouse are spending their time in Pyongyang, tune in.

While internationally corruption is always seen as a major problem that most governments and societies are desperately trying to combat, in North Korea it has become somewhat of a blessing in disguise. Why is that so? How has it become the foundation of North Korean capitalism and state-society interactions? What will its consequences be for the country in the long run? If you are curious, tune in!

Korean reunification is officially proclaimed to be a major policy goal both in the North and the South. However, the country has remained divided for more than 70 years. Why? Do both parties really want to reunify? What do their neighbors think? In this episode I will be talking about Korean reunification and why it is going to be almost impossible to achieve.

Today we will be looking into a question that is not so often raised in discussions about North Korea – but it is, nonetheless, extremely important and interesting. What is it like – being gay in North Korea? While there is not much that we hear about the LGBTQ community in the DPRK, it does not mean that these people do not exist. In fact, their life can be very-very miserable, which is why discussing this question in the public field is so important. In this episode, I will briefly explain why being queer in North Korea is very hard (you can probably imagine why) and outline the key characteristics of systemic queerphobia in the DPRK. After that, I will provide you with some excerpts from the interviews with the only openly gay defector as well as a brief analysis of the DPRK’s statements about LGBTQ.

In this episode Prof. Dmitry Ivanovich Pobedash and I are talking about how the U.S. domestic politics can have a broader impact on not only all things North Korean, but the international security system and broad issues of denuclearization around the world. Prof. Dmitry Pobedash is an Associate Professor at the Ural Federal University in Yekaterinburg, Russia, where he teaches English and History of Russian-American Relations. Prof. Pobedash authored over 50 articles and monograph chapters on international relations that were published in Russian, English, and Ukrainian. He taught at universities in Serbia, Thailand, the Czech Republic, and in the USA.