Global Research

The DPRK on March 5 declared the 1953 Armistice Agreement void. The day after, M4 Intel, April Media’s own video program, interviewed DPRK specialist Dr. Kiyul Chung to analyze the situation. Chung is convinced that given the circumstances have fundamentally changed, this latest statement will have far-reaching implications compared to a similiar announcement by Pyongyang in 2009. 

Host: Welcome to today’s M4 Intel. With us here today is Dr. Kiyul Chung, a Visiting Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University who has been participating in the Korea’s self-determined and peaceful reunification movement for decades. He has unique access in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and has personally visited the country close to 100 times, which is rare, to the say the least, for any foreign national, let alone a US citizen.We’re honored to have you here today, Dr. Chung.

We’re honored to have you here today, Dr. Chung.

Chung: Thank you very much. I’m happy to be here.

Host: Thank you. Sir, I’m just going to be blunt here. The DPRK on Tuesday night declared the 1953 Armistice Agreement void. Now, earlier, on May 27, 2009, just two days after its second nuclear test, the DPRK said pretty much something along similar lines about the same agreement; it said it was no longer bound by it. In what ways do you think these two statements, the one in 2009 and the one on Tuesday night, different?

Chung: In essence, I believe the 2009 statement and the 2013 statement are the same. That is, (the DPRK) is not bound by the Armistice Agreement which has been repeatedly violated by the other end, meaning the United States of America.

All this is coming from a country so isolated that it was blockaded for over 60 some years by the United States unilaterally, and a so-called Stalinist nation where nothing is there but the “Stalinist, Communist regime”. Their successful launching of their own satellite, including the third underground nuclear test surprised the world and left it speechless.

The point is this: in 2009, the DPRK did not have any tangible, material, physical proof to the world that it had a military or technological capacity to deter or counter the US “attack first” nuclear policy towards even non-nuclear states.

Now, what is different is that the DPRK has proven to the world that it does have intercontinental ballistic missile technology, and it’s not just nuclear weapons, hydrogen and neutron bombs, including EMP, or electromagnetic [pulse] power are also things they seem to have.

So the statement last night from the Spokesman for the army’s Supreme Command that the armistice agreement would be void as of March 11 means that it seems the DPRK’s wording is not anymore “language only”. It feels real. Something is coming.

The US has even further stepped up anti-DPRK demonization and isolation, and now there’s about 200,000 South Korean troops and 10,000 US troops with every possible sophisticated US war machines there in the region. Their military drill is a war drill and can be turned into a real war within five minutes, as many experts argue.

So the DPRK seems to have no choice but to do something to defend itself. Since last year, Kim Jong-un, the new leader of DPRK, has declared that they would not wait any longer, and that they would wage all-out war. With the declaration of this all-out war approach, and including last night’s void of the armistice agreement as of March 11, many people in this field feel that something is genuinely different from 2009.

Host: Right. But in terms of the language, in terms of the statements themselves, it seems to you that the wording is not much…

Chung: Essentially, in my own interpretation, they’re not much different. But the situation is fundamentally different, I would say.

Host: Professor, people say that the DPRK is sending mixed signals. Tuesday’s announcement came just days after former NBA superstar Dennis Rodman led a team of American basketball players on a historic visit to Pyongyang. Also recently, we have learned that the DPRK has offered virtual asylum to the vastly influential BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay. Both of these events have surprised many throughout the world. Why did this statement come now?

Chung: I think we need to pay more attention to the timing (of  Tuesdays’ statement), which is right before the UN Security Council was about to meet to talk about the DPRK’s third nuclear test. So from the timing of this, it seems that the DPRK wanted to a send a clear message to the United States of America: We’re not playing by words. It is real, what we say now.

Dennis Rodman’s visited Pyongyang, and the Google power figure visited at the end of last year. Many people do not know that now in Pyongyang, some of the world’s largest media companies, AP, the Associated Press, and Reuters, have their branches. And so does Kyodo, the Japanese news agency, also has a branch there, and so does CCTV and Xinhua News Agency.

With Kim Jong-un’s new leadership, it seems that compared to the past, the DPRK is ready not only militarily, but also economically. Or, there is a sense of confidence in their own way of development, of their own domestic economic development, and they continue to reach out to the international community, and to relate to other people by bringing in people like Dennis Rodman, Google’s former president, or AP or Reuters.

The message is that while it is engaging in real, serious, life-and-death situation to fight with the US in a 70-year-long and still ongoing hard struggle, the DPRK is at the same time wide open. We are part of the international community; don’t make us look like “demons”. We are part of the world.

I hope that the Chinese leadership can take the proper measures and decisions, sitting as one of the permanent UNSC powers in the UNSC structure, and not be manipulated again by the United States of America, while China itself is being militarily encircled, and while the US is using the South China Sea issue to divide China from its neighboring nations including the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia. The same thing applies to Russia’s situation.

For 60 years the DPRK has been blockaded, isolated and demonized. Now, they would be all by themselves if China and Russia join the US.

It also reminds me, and I often mention that in my articles, that in the mid-1960s China was in exactly the same situation as the DPRK is now. It was threatened by the United States and British. Robert McNamara, former Defense Secretary in the US, threatened to bomb Beijing if China pursued its own independent nuclear program. And then, its closest “socialist” neighbor, the Soviet Union, joined the US and Britain in threatening to isolate China and demonize China. Chairman Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, then Chinese leaders, decided to build their own independent nuclear power anyway by any means necessary. Then New China, soon after its founding, had called for bilateral relations with all nations around the world, including the West. But China had been ruled out. It had not been respected. The US and the West had not agreed to build bilateral relations. It changed only until when China became a nuclear power in 1964. France came first, and then the US came. So that by 1979, China was able to develop its reform and opening up policy.

The DPRK does not have bilateral relations with the West or with the United States. The DPRK has called for over 50 some years to sign the Peace Treaty to replace the armistice agreement, which has been refused by the United States. What else can this small, divided nation do in the face of weeks, months and all 67 years of threatening by a global superpower with nuclear weapons?

I hope, since I’m here, and I’m told by my Chinese friends in the government, that the Chinese government can do everything possible to not let the harshest sanctions be passed at the UNSC structure. I know the Chinese government does its best to make things better and stable and peaceful. But again, it seems still that the US-led global manipulation and the divide-and-conquer strategy is ongoing as of today at the United Nations Security Council discussions on the DPRK.

Host: But professor, you said you believe there are tangible things that Russia and China can do to deter or balance this manipulation of powers.

Chung: Unless if China and Russia agree, there is no way the US or the West can go along to further isolate or sanction the DPRK. Before the Iraq War, they didn’t get any support from China and Russia, or from Germany and France. So the G. W. Bush invasion of Iraq became a disaster.

When the US and NATO invaded Libya in March 17, 2011, unfortunately, China and Russia allowed them to go ahead with the “No-Fly Zone”. And after eight months, a sovereign, independent nation was destroyed. It was gone.

In the UN structure, China and Russia still hold a fundamental, determining power not to allow the US-led NATO powers to violate an independent nation’s sovereignty in the region and around the world.

I do sincerely hope that China and Russia’s national leaders take the proper, balanced measures not just for the sake of the DPRK, but for the sake of their own nations, the region and the world.

Host: Welcome to today’s M4 Intel. With us here today is Dr. Kiyul Chung, a journalism professor at Tsinghua University who has been leading Korea’s reunification movement for decades. He has unique access in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and has personally visited the country close to 100 times, which is rare, to the say the least, for any foreign national, let alone a US citizen.

Chung: Thank you very much. I’m happy to be here.

Host: Thank you. Sir, I’m just going to be blunt here. The DPRK on Tuesday night declared the 1953 Armistice Agreement void. Now, earlier, on May 27, 2009, just two days after its second nuclear test, the DPRK said pretty much something along similar lines about the same agreement; it said it was no longer bound by it. In what ways do you think these two statements, the one in 2009 and the one on Tuesday night, different?

Chung: In essence, I believe the 2009 statement and the 2013 statement are the same. That is, (the DPRK) is not bound by the Armistice Agreement which has been repeatedly violated by the other end, meaning the United States of America.

All this is coming from a country so isolated that it was blockaded for over 60 some years by the United States unilaterally, and a so-called Stalinist nation where nothing is there but the “Stalinist, Communist regime”. Their successful launching of their own satellite, including the third underground nuclear test surprised the world and left it speechless.

The point is this: in 2009, the DPRK did not have any tangible, material, physical proof to the world that it had a military or technological capacity to deter or counter the US “attack first” nuclear policy towards even non-nuclear states.

Now, what is different is that the DPRK has proven to the world that it does have intercontinental ballistic missile technology, and it’s not just nuclear weapons, hydrogen and neutron bombs, including EMP, or electromagnetic power are also things they seem to have.

So the statement last night from the Spokesman for the army’s Supreme Command that the armistice agreement would be void as of March 11 means that it seems the DPRK’s wording is not anymore “language only”. It feels real. Something is coming.

The US has even further stepped up anti-DPRK demonization and isolation, and now there’s about 200,000 South Korean troops and 10,000 US troops with every possible sophisticated US war machines there in the region. Their military drill is a war drill and can be turned into a real war within five minutes, as many experts argue.

So the DPRK seems to have no choice but to do something to defend itself. Since last year, Kim Jong-un, the new leader of DPRK, has declared that they would not wait any longer, and that they would wage all-out war. With the declaration of this all-out war approach, and including last night’s void of the armistice agreement as of March 11, many people in this field feel that something is genuinely different from 2009.

Host: Right. But in terms of the language, in terms of the statements themselves, it seems to you that the wording is not much…

Chung: Essentially, in my own interpretation, they’re not much different. But the situation is fundamentally different, I would say.

Host: Professor, people say that the DPRK is sending mixed signals. Tuesday’s announcement came just days after former NBA superstar Dennis Rodman led a team of American basketball players on a historic visit to Pyongyang. Also recently, we have learned that the DPRK has offered virtual asylum to the vastly influential BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay. Both of these events have surprised many throughout the world. Why did this statement come now?

Chung: I think we need to pay more attention to the timing (of Tuesdays’ statement), which is right before the UN Security Council was about to meet to talk about the DPRK’s third nuclear test. So from the timing of this, it seems that the DPRK wanted to a send a clear message to the United States of America: We’re not playing by words. It is real, what we say now.

Dennis Rodman’s visited Pyongyang, and the Google power figure visited at the end of last year. Many people do not know that now in Pyongyang, some of the world’s largest media companies, AP, the Associated Press, and Reuters, have their branches. And so does Kyodo, the Japanese news agency, also has a branch there, and so does CCTV and Xinhua News Agency.

With Kim Jong-un’s new leadership, it seems that compared to the past, the DPRK is ready not only militarily, but also economically. Or, there is a sense of confidence in their own way of development, of their own domestic economic development, and they continue to reach out to the international community, and to relate to other people by bringing in people like Dennis Rodman, Google’s former president, or AP or Reuters.

The message is that while it is engaging in real, serious, life-and-death situation to fight with the US in a 70-year-long and still ongoing hard struggle, the DPRK is at the same time wide open. We are part of the international community; don’t make us look like “demons”. We are part of the world.

I hope that the Chinese leadership can take the proper measures and decisions, sitting as one of the permanent UNSC powers in the UNSC structure, and not be manipulated again by the United States of America, while China itself is being militarily encircled, and while the US is using the South China Sea issue to divide China from its neighboring nations including the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia. The same thing applies to Russia’s situation.

60 years the DPRK has been blockaded, isolated and demonized. Now, they would be all by themselves if China and Russia join the US.

It also reminds me, and I often mention that in my articles, that in the mid-1960s China was in exactly the same situation as the DPRK is now. It was threatened by the United States and British. Robert McNamara, former Defense Secretary in the US, threatened to bomb Beijing if China pursued its own independent nuclear program. And then, its closest “socialist” neighbor, the Soviet Union, joined the US and Britain in threatening to isolate China and demonize China. Chairman Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, then Chinese leaders, decided to build their own independent nuclear power anyway by any means necessary. Then New China, soon after its founding, had called for bilateral relations with all nations around the world, including the West. But China had been ruled out. It had not been respected. The US and the West had not agreed to build bilateral relations. It changed only until when China became a nuclear power in 1964. France came first, and then the US came. So that by 1979, China was able to develop its reform and opening up policy.

The DPRK does not have bilateral relations with the West or with the United States. The DPRK has called for over 50 some years to sign the Peace Treaty to replace the armistice agreement, which has been refused by the United States. What else can this small, divided nation do in the face of weeks, months and all 67 years of threatening by a global superpower with nuclear weapons?

I hope, since I’m here, and I’m told by my Chinese friends in the government, that the Chinese government can do everything possible to not let the harshest sanctions be passed at the UNSC structure. I know the Chinese government does its best to make things better and stable and peaceful. But again, it seems still that the US-led global manipulation and the divide-and-conquer strategy is ongoing as of today at the United Nations Security Council discussions on the DPRK.

Host: But professor, you said you believe there are tangible things that Russia and China can do to deter or balance this manipulation of powers.

Chung: Unless if China and Russia agree, there is no way the US or the West can go along to further isolate or sanction the DPRK. Before the Iraq War, they didn’t get any support from China and Russia, or from Germany and France. So the G. W. Bush invasion of Iraq became a disaster.

When the US and NATO invaded Libya in March 17, 2011, unfortunately, China and Russia allowed them to go ahead with the “No-Fly Zone”. And after eight months, a sovereign, independent nation was destroyed. It was gone.

In the UN structure, China and Russia still hold a fundamental, determining power not to allow the US-led NATO powers to violate an independent nation’s sovereignty in the region and around the world.

I do sincerely hope that China and Russia’s national leaders take the proper, balanced measures not just for the sake of the DPRK, but for the sake of their own nations, the region and the world.