The Korean Conflict in Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic

For the past few weeks, North Korea has been setting up the tone for a dispute with its neighbor South Korea. From missile tests to blowing up the liaison office in Kaesong, the tensions between North and South Korea have escalated to this extent for the first time in years. And yet, only two years ago, Kim Jong-Un engaged in an unprecedented peace process that started with the thaw at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, with the two Koreas famously marching as one. In 2018, Donald Trump's notorious handshake with North Korea's ruler Kim Jong-Un signalled hope for improving relations between the two countries. Kim Jong-Un’s economic and political motivations form the basis of his unpredictable and contradicting actions. But how did the situation deteriorate so rapidly, and what other challenges should North Korea confront in light of the current pandemic?

Kim Jong-Un is in charge of a country with a weak and rural economy, suffering from international sanctions, with a precarious healthcare system. It is clear that the North Korean economy is severely impacted as a result of the trade war between China and the United States. Since the beginning of the trade war in 2018, China has ignored the international sanctions imposed on North Korea, leading to an increased volume of North Korean exports to China, while also diversifying the techniques to smuggle goods into the country.  However, the recent data from China’s Ministry of Commerce suggests that North Korean exports declined by 72% in the first two months of 2020 in comparison to 2019. In March 2020, the Royal United Services Institute, a British Security think-tank, released statistics on the state of the port of Nampo, North Korea’s most important port. The analysis counted 139 idled ships compared to 50 in February, indicating less trade activity, and The Economist reviewed down their estimate for GDP growth in the country, now at -4.3%. Furthermore, funding received by North Korea has been decreasing for a few years now. It is clearly evident that North Korea is facing deep financial troubles, and the current pandemic might make the situation even worse for the country as the borders remain shut. 

The North Korean regime has not been hesitant to give a notable show of force to the world through its nuclear missiles. This nuclear coercion strategy could force other countries to provide financial aid to North Korea in exchange for de-escalation in the region, helping the Pyongyang government weather away a period of economic hardship. In a way, North Korea’s ballistic missiles are like a hen with golden eggs, being the most efficient way to prevent the regime from collapsing. This nuclear blackmail strategy proved to be quite effective for the regime as a means of as since the US provided North Korea a whopping $1.3 billion in assistance between 1995 and 2008.  In exchange for abandoning the usage of nuclear weapons by 2021, Kim Jong-Un hoped to alleviate some of the sanctions during the peace process engaged by President Trump in 2018. The thaw at the Olympic games, the three inter-Korean summits in April, May, and September 2018, and the summit with Donald Trump in Singapore all served for this purpose. However, with the failure of the negotiations after the short Hanoi Summit in 2019, hopes of economic rebound faded in North Korea along with the denuclearization efforts of other world powers. During the same year, the US and South Korea completed joint military exercises, while North Korea resumed missile testing. 

To understand Kim Jong-Un’s current policies, it is necessary to examine the effects of the pandemic in the country. When the COVID-19 outbreak started in China in early January, taking precautionary measures, North Korea closed its borders on January 21st. Following the closure of its borders, the government shut down all activities, including parades, while also closing schools country-wide. Interestingly, the regime insists that no cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the country from the start of the outbreak up until today. However, South Korean newspaper Daily NK reported in March that 180 North Korean soldiers died from COVID-19. Due to the void of free press, the world has yet to discover the extent to which COVID-19 impacted North Korea and how the pandemic shapes the country’s current policies. The current economic upheaval brought the Coronavirus might lead to a famine outbreak in the country, similar to what it endured last year. In 2019, North Korea faced a major humanitarian crisis, with the United Nations estimating that over 40% of the population faced severe food shortages as the average North Korean only got a mere 300 grams of food per day.

Bearing in mind the current state of the country, North Korea seems unprepared to face the sanitary and economic consequences of COVID-19. By reporting zero positive cases and resuming missile tests, North Korea seeks to portray the image that the virus has not affected the regime and its affairs. North Korea engages in this strategy in hopes of getting an advantage in any type of negotiation that could possibly resume in 2020. The establishment of such a negotiation would turn out to be essential to the regime’s survival. However, many think that North Korea went too far this time, by halting all communication with South Korea on June 9th and by blowing up the liaison office near the border on June 16th. Although the United States and other foreign powers such as Japan, South Korea, and Russia realize the difficulties faced by the North Korean regime, these actors fail to address North Korea’s aggressive policies due to their own domestic problems, namely confronting the sanitary consequences of the pandemic and the economic recession that follows. With the situation being currently frozen, the world expects that North Korea will continue its aggressive policies, essential for its survival, which may turn out to be geopolitically dangerous.