American's espionage confession: A North Korean ploy?
A Korean-American detained in North Korea confessed to spying for South Korea, according to official news sources in Pyongyang Friday.
Kim Dong Chul was arrested in October and claimed to be a naturalized American born in South Korea. He is the latest American to be paraded in front of media in North Korea, apparently confessing and apologizing for his transgressions.
Observers explain this pattern as a part of the regime鈥檚 strategy in combating its international isolation and seeking to gain tactical advantage.
鈥淣orth Korea guards its sovereignty jealously, and its system of political control means that many areas of personal behavior that we regard as freedoms are regulated in North Korea,鈥� explains Scott Snyder, director of the Council on Foreign Relations US-Korea Policy program, in an email interview with 海角大神.
鈥淎mericans held in North Korea have also risked becoming political pawns in a hostile US-DPRK [Democratic People鈥檚 Republic of Korea] relationship as North Korea seeks high-level envoys in return for American prisoner releases.鈥�
Indeed, this comes little over a week after another American, Otto Warmbier, was sentenced to 15 years hard labor for 鈥渢he serious offense against the DPRK he had committed, pursuant to the US government's hostile policy toward it, in a bid to after entering it as a tourist,鈥� as North Korea鈥檚 state news agency described it.
Mr. Kim, for his part, told those assembled at a media presentation in Pyongyang that he had been working with South Korean intelligence to bring about the downfall of the regime in North Korea, as well as trying to spread religious ideas.
He described his acts as 鈥�,"聽apologized and appealed for mercy, following in the footsteps of those Americans before him who have been detained by the regime, confessed to similar crimes 鈥� and then have often claimed, following their release, that they were coerced into making such statements.
But Kim鈥檚 media performance represents just one facet of Pyongyang鈥檚 tangled relationship with the outside world.
In response to North Korea鈥檚 fourth nuclear test, in January, followed by a long-range rocket launch in February, the United Nations imposed further sanctions on the regime, which even China, Pyongyang鈥檚 key ally, supported.
In reaction partly to the sanctions, partly to the annual US-South Korean military exercises taking place beyond its southern border, the North announced Friday that it had carried out its own live-fire artillery drill,聽practicing聽the destruction of South Korea鈥檚聽presidential residence.
鈥淭he largest-ever exercise was aimed to demonstrate once again the might of the Paektusan army to bring the most miserable doom to the US imperialists and the South Korean puppet group of traitors through the above-said striking action for 厂别辞耻濒.鈥�
And while North Korea is generally regarded as a rogue regime in the West, a dangerous and unpredictable nuclear-armed state, which has already demonstrated its , agreement on its pariah status is not universal.
鈥淭here is no real democracy in the international system, but there is a feudal order where the big powers decide the fate of the smaller nations,鈥� writes Ranjit Kumar Dhawan in The Korea Times, a South Korean paper. " have the right to develop and have monopoly over the nuclear weapons and also use them, as it happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945."
Moreover, while many do subscribe to the opinion that North Korea鈥檚 nuclear capabilities and ambitions should be curtailed, the question of whether sanctions represent the optimal path to progress is a complex one.
鈥淭he act of imposing a trade boycott or similar sanctions on a country for its misbehavior has long been used as a substitute for war,鈥� writes the Monitor鈥檚 Editorial Board. 鈥淪anctions, while hostile, can be a tool for peace. Yet they come with an article of faith: that the people in a targeted country also want better behavior from their leaders and will accept the hardship of sanctions as both necessary and an opportunity.鈥�
