'Communication war' with North Korea

By JeongWon Bourdais Park

Recent aggression from North Korea, the June 2020 demolition of the joint liaison office, has largely evoked public bewilderment rather than fear. This is due to Pyongyang's somewhat deviated communication style, the so-called "good cop, bad cop strategy" towards the South. Prominent commentators, experts and policy makers worldwide have sufficiently exchanged their insights and analyses regarding what North Korea really wants and what reactions to such an act of renewed threat should look like. Here, I instead turn my attention to one micro-aspect of recent events ― "North Korea's prima facie changing communication tactics."

The demolition of the Gaeseong joint liaison office ― a symbol of renewed inter-Korean collaboration ― was a provocative and fiendish incident. There are multitudinous complications underneath it: prolonged punitive sanctions, a fatal drop in trade with China due to COVID-19 and its consequent economic hardship, and the tottering Trump administration resulting in the loss of a negotiation partner.

Above all, what could fundamentally and briskly convulse the fragile regime is a large-scale social disturbance due to accumulated discontent from the grassroots. Then the influx of unfiltered information through the balloon campaign (scattering propaganda leaflets) from South to North could be "crucial" (in conveying the organization's view) but "fatal" for regime stability.

Moreover, North Korea has faced another disturbing situation: influential North Korean defectors have been elected as lawmakers in the South. In response, the North's regime began indirectly harassing the North Korean diaspora community. Allegedly, one of the purposes of Kim Jong-un's surprise disappearance from the public eye for 20 days in April was to crack down on the inter-Korean informant network by leaking some misinformation to diverse suspects.

Intentionally or unintentionally, this could also preview the world's reaction to the post-Kim Jong-un era. Kim Yo-jong, deputy director of the Workers' Party, was brought up in discussions of successors, providing North Korea with detailed evaluations on her qualification as a leader. Prior to the demolition event, Kim Yo-jong bombarded Seoul with threats to nullify the 4.27 Panmunjeom Declaration along with the 9.19 Military Agreement and implement a series of planned military aggressions unless the leaflet scattering was stopped. Afterwards, tensions escalated to the point of blowing up the liaison office, warning that this was only the first step of the planned military actions to come.

Interestingly, a few days later, on June 23, Kim Jong-un appeared in public rather abruptly. At the preliminary meeting for the Fifth Meeting of the Seventh Central Military Commission (CMC), he "gratefully" announced that all escalatory plans would be temporarily deferred. In this scene, he strategically portrayed himself as the capable leader who reigns peace or conflict on the peninsula.

The North's dual strategy resembles Kim Jong-un's remarks earlier this year, addressing President Trump's dual play tactic to "keep expressing friendship between leaders while dubiously holding back any negotiations and keeping hostile policy toward North Korea." In a similar vein, in her rude message to Cheong Wa Dae, Kim Yo-jong asserted that "the real bad guys are those who overlook and encourage bad things." It is apparent that North Korea does not understand the enormous structural constraints on leaders in a liberal democracy and simply considers it as an excuse to avoid dealing with imminent foreign affairs.

In international affairs, the border between diplomacy and deception can sometimes blur. Even in a liberal democracy, the connotation of "being diplomatic" may imply a strategic, rhetoric, evasive, and devious disposition, which could be associated with words like "dishonest" and even "deceptive." To the public, the gap in the dual strategy is often unacceptable.

This is one reason why whistle-blowers' disclosures in politics are easily scandalised. Bolton's "The Room Where It Happened" is only one such illustration. But in a totalitarian setting, what a dictator suggests in their speech in a coarse manner vis-a-vis the liberal world may not be the real message. The constraints as to what liberal democracies need to consider ― such as domestic foes, national solidarity, social stability or more gains in inter-state relations ― can be similar in any society.

One good reference in the Russian context, "Putin's Propaganda Machine" (2016) demonstrates the distinguishable components of non-liberal adaptation of soft power tools as mimesis (mimicking Western public diplomacy), rollback (attacking Western public diplomacy) and invention (new methods of information warfare). Such features help to explain North Korea's tactical alteration. The "good cop, bad cop" tactic is highly risky for those on the bad-cop side in any society, especially in a totalitarian regime, but not in a nepotism-based society resting on strict blood ties, such as North Korea. Therefore, the altered tactic is likely fake power-sharing, confirming that North Korea's strategy and attitudes toward inter-Korean relations have not changed.

Whatever psychological changes occur in the Supreme Leader's mind, if North Korea expands more non-military options in inter-state communication, it will be a positive sign.

JeongWon Bourdais Park is currently serving as associate professor at the department of international relations and regional studies at KIMEP University in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

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