Good morning. Frustrated and isolated, North Korea is conducting more missile tests than ever. |
| A North Korean missile test in 2017.Korean Central News Agency, via Associated Press |
|
North Korea has for decades been testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in defiance of international demands to stop. North Korea's authoritarian leader, Kim Jong-un, has picked up the pace this year, testing a record number of missiles so far. The North fired 12 in the past two weeks alone, including two early today. Last week, one flew over Japan, the first such launch since 2017, setting off alarms and panicking residents. |
I called Choe Sang-Hun, The Times's bureau chief in Seoul, who also covers the North, to learn more. |
| Count for 2022 is as of Oct. 8. | Sources: Center for Strategic and International Studies; The New York Times |
|
Ian: Why is Kim escalating his country's weapons program now? |
Sang-Hun: North Korea is protesting recent military exercises by South Korea, Japan and the U.S. But more frequent weapons tests are also part of Kim's long-term goal. He wants to expand his country's nuclear and missile capabilities for self-defense. He may also want to use them as a bargaining chip to get diplomatic and economic concessions from the U.S. and its allies. Under American-led U.N. resolutions, North Korea has been banned since 2017 from exporting its major commodities — including coal, iron ore, seafood and textiles — which hurts its economy. |
North Korea is frustrated, isolated and uncertain about its future. Kim sat down with President Donald Trump in 2018 and 2019 and tried to use North Korea's nuclear capabilities as leverage to get the U.S. to lift or ease the sanctions. It didn't work. So Kim has tried to force the Americans back to the negotiating table. To do that, he has to test weapons, ratcheting up the threat to the U.S. and its allies. |
That's a major reason for North Korea to build up its capabilities now; it has to have a deep arsenal to be able to negotiate some of it away. North Korea wants recognition as a nuclear power, but some analysts think it will eventually offer to arm itself only with short-range nuclear weapons, which can still serve as a deterrent, but give up its longer-range missile capabilities in exchange for economic concessions from Washington. |
How do people in South Korea live with the nuclear threat from North Korea? |
For South Korea, missile tests have become routine. The government condemns them as provocations, and North Korea policy is a perpetual political issue, but ordinary people don't really pay attention to them. They're more concerned about inflation and domestic political scandals. South Koreans like to say that when North Korea does something provocative, their relatives in the U.S. — who read American media — are more concerned than they are. |
Tensions are not as high as in 2017, when Kim and Trump were exchanging insults and threats of nuclear holocaust. There was tangible fear then, even in South Korea. |
How do North Koreans regard the tests? |
While we don't have independent journalists doing interviews in North Korea, we do know that state propaganda and totalitarian control work there. My only visit to Pyongyang was in 2005, shortly after I joined The Times. I remember seeing what are called the Arirang Mass Games. It's a totalitarian spectacle. North Korea has one of the largest stadiums in the world, and it was crammed with thousands of young children who had trained for months to perform while holding colored signs, moving like robots in such perfect synchronization that they actually created moving pictures that flashed communist slogans. They were like human pixels. |
I witnessed how ordinary people's lives are affected by propaganda. It's clear that many North Koreans consider the country's nuclear weapons a matter of national pride, a symbol of dignity, independence and empowerment. The government tells its people that the U.S. wants to invade North Korea and that nuclear weapons will protect them from the evil, imperialist Americans and their lackeys in South Korea and Japan. |
North Korea likes to compare itself to a porcupine bristling with needles, deterring the American tiger. That's how it justifies spending resources on developing and testing weapons. You can go hungry, but you can't give up your pride is a common theme in North Korean propaganda. |
You've reported on North Korea for decades. How do you cover such a closed society? |
I talk to analysts in South Korea and to North Korean defectors. But because it's difficult to travel internally, defectors from one part of the country often don't know what's happening elsewhere. |
For me, the best way to understand North Korea's government is to follow its state media. You learn to screen out the propaganda and see what the government is really saying, and develop an understanding of the ideological, historical and diplomatic context of its actions. When the outside world began noticing North Korea's nuclear weapons program decades ago, there were many theories about its motivations. If you look back on official statements, state media articles and speeches by leaders, it's clear that it's been the government's aim to build nuclear weapons all along. |
More about Sang-Hun: He grew up in a village in southeastern South Korea and went to graduate school in Seoul. He didn't plan to become a journalist but followed a friend into the field and landed a job at the English-language Korea Herald. He joined The Times after 11 years with The Associated Press. |
| The bridge that links Crimea to Russia after yesterday's explosion.Afp Contributor#Afp/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
|
- Republicans remain favored to take over the House in next month's elections, while the battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.
- Donald Trump's dissembling about White House documents put both him and his lawyers in legal jeopardy.
- A nonprofit started by J.D. Vance, the Republican Senate nominee in Ohio, to address social ills there fell apart within two years.
|
- Major U.S. health insurers exploited the government's Medicare Advantage program to inflate profits by billions of dollars.
- A secret U.S. effort to end the civil war in Ethiopia failed, giving way to the most intense fighting yet.
- David Geffen Hall, the home of the New York Philharmonic, reopened after a renovation aimed at fixing a decades-old acoustic curse.
- "Saturday Night Live" blew through a busy week of news in a game show parody. The actor Brendan Gleeson hosted.
|
More of The Times, at a special rate. |
Now readers of The Morning can experience everything our journalists offer with the New York Times All Access subscription. From news and analysis, to Cooking, Games, Wirecutter and The Athletic, subscribe with this special offer. |
| The Mullet Championship in Lewisville, Texas.Erin Schaff/The New York Times |
|
Sunday routine: The chef Kwame Onwuachi plays basketball and shops for shirts at Dover Street Market. |
A Times classic: Why we feel compelled to say "bless you" when someone sneezes. |
Laureate: Annie Ernaux, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, "finds the universal in humble, well-salted details," Dwight Garner writes. (Here is a guide to her work.) |
Our editors' picks: Celeste Ng's new novel about a boy's search for his mother on the run from a government, and 10 other books. |
| THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE |
- The annual International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group meetings start tomorrow in Washington.
- Tomorrow is Columbus Day, a federal holiday in the U.S. Many states also recognize Indigenous People's Day.
- Harvey Weinstein's second trial, in which he faces 11 charges related to rape and sexual assault, is set to begin tomorrow in Los Angeles.
- Japan will lift Covid travel restrictions for foreign tourists on Tuesday.
- On Thursday, Social Security will announce the largest inflation adjustment to benefits in four decades.
- The government will release new inflation numbers on Thursday.
- Italy's new Parliament will meet Thursday for the first time since the election of a hard-right coalition.
- The Green Bay Packers play the New York Giants in London today in the Packers' first international game.
|
| Con Poulos for The New York Times |
|
| NYT |
|
66 Down: Play title that superstitious actors avoid saying aloud in theaters |
Take the news quiz to see how well you followed the week's headlines. |
Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. |
Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Claire Moses and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. |
|