Why North Korea is currently attacking its neighbor to the south

Exchanges of fire at the border, breakdown of inter-Korean communications, threats of military action: will the noise of boots resonate again on the Korean peninsula? Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, contributed to the building of escalating tensions in a very threatening statement released on Saturday June 13 by the official KCNA news agency .

She announced that she had asked the "enemy relations department" to decide on the "next action to be taken" and assured that "the army staff will be determined to do something to allay the resentment of the population [with regard to South Korea, editor's note] ".

Twenty years to the day, after the first inter-Korean summit, supposed to pave the way for a more peaceful era in the region, relations seem at best between the two enemy brothers. Especially since the previous week, Pyongyang had already struck a blow by cutting short all official communications with its neighbor to the south. 

Pyongyang facing two crises

Seoul took note of Kim Yo Jong's provocative statements by convening his defense cabinet on Sunday. In the process, Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president, urged Pyongyang "to stop aggravating the tensions" between the two countries.

Officially, North Korea blames the deterioration of the situation on South Korean activists who send leaflets hostile to the Kim Jong-un regime across the border. But do a few pieces of paper justify that North Korea unearths the hatchet? 

In reality, "there are many threats, but we have to put them in the more general context of the North Korean situation to understand their scope," says Antoine Bondaz, specialist on the Korean peninsula at the Foundation for Strategic Research. (FRS), contacted by France 24.

The North Korean regime is facing two crises, says this expert. The first is political: "The Hanoi summit in February 2019 between North Korea and the United States is perceived as a personal failure for Kim Jong-un who considers that he did not obtain enough concessions from Donald Trump ", notes Antoine Bondaz. In addition, the Covid-19 epidemic has plunged the North Korean economy further into the doldrums. Despite the lack of data on this subject, restrictions on movement, especially between China and North Korea, and the difficulties of sending medical equipment to this country isolated on the international scene, suggest that the price to pay for the coronavirus was heavy for Pyongyang.

Ideal scapegoat

Faced with this situation, Pyongyang has adapted its traditional "dialectic of the enemy" which consists in blaming the fault of its problems on another country, assures this specialist. The role of scapegoat generally falls to the big bad Uncle Sam. But, in this case, "Donald Trump is the least worst of American presidents that Kim Jong-un could have in front of him," notes Antoine Bondaz. 

Indeed, since the Hanoi summit, North Korea has more or less disappeared from Trump's radars. Consequence: "the security situation is much more dangerous than two years ago because Pyongyang was able to continue its nuclear program, while increasing its military capacities without undergoing too much pressure from the Americans", analyzes Antoine Bondaz.

To avoid offending Washington, Kim Jong-un therefore turned to his other best enemy: South Korea. The country appears to be the ideal scapegoat. It is no longer of much use to Pyongyang, since its main role - playing the intermediaries between North Korea and the United States - has lost importance since Kim Jong-un established a direct diplomatic relationship with Donald Trump. There is therefore little risk of hitting its neighbor to the south.

Especially since the North Korean leader is convinced that his counterpart in the South has exhausted his game. "Moon Jae-in has already played all his cards - initiative for tourism between the two Koreas, initiative for cultural exchanges, gestures diplomatic - and we realize that because of the international sanctions targeting North Korea, it can not do much economically, "summarizes Antoine Bondaz.

A sister who makes "sound box"

But it is still necessary to measure its provocations. Kim Jong-un does not want to be too belligerent for fear of inciting the United States to fly to the aid of its Asian ally. This is why Antoine Bondaz judges that, initially, one should not expect a demonstration of military force. "The reprisals will first strike symbols of inter-Korean cooperation such as North Korean tourist sites or the diplomatic liaison office between the two countries. Referring to the army, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of the North Korean leader , simply indicates that the option is on the table, "notes the FRS expert. 

Still, the message must be loud and clear enough to be understood. This is where Kim Yo Jong comes in. The fact that it is she who speaks on this issue, and not the official officials of the department of inter-Korean relations, may be surprising. Several media have seen this as a sign that the little sister was becoming the strong woman of the regime, perhaps even the runner-up of Kim Jong-un.  

It would be going a little too quickly for Antoine Bondaz. Kim Yo Jong only deals with propaganda issues, has no institutional post in connection with inter-Korean affairs, nor does she have a place on the influential State Affairs Committee , which brings together the regime's elite. She is only a substitute. In a regime also straddling the hierarchy, if Kim Jong-un had wanted to make his sister his runner-up, he would have already placed him in a prominent position.

The most likely explanation is that the North Korean leader uses Kim Yo Jong as a "sounding board". "Abroad, because it is the sister who speaks, the announcements will have a much greater media impact," confirms Antoine Bondaz. Another advantage is that if the situation were to worsen too much, Pyongyang could "always bring in an official responsible to contradict what Kim Yo Jong said", concludes the French expert. 

Even though the bellicose statements against South Korea do not indicate that Kim Jong-un is ready to take the path of war shortly, they are to be taken seriously. They are, in fact, the reflection of an increasingly frustrated leader not to see his strategy of diplomatic opening bring him a lifting of economic sanctions. And if his attacks against his neighbor to the south do not change the situation, he may be tempted to switch to higher military speed. After Covid-19, the looming recession, the mounting protests against police violence around the world, the world could do without a new North Korean crisis.

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