The North’s participation in these Games signalled a “remarkable” return to the international fold, suggested Jean H Lee, a former Associated Press journalist who opened the US news agency’s first bureau in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.
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Voice of America: North Korea sends poop-filled balloons into South →
Jean speaks to William Gallo of the Voice of America about North Korea’s campaign to send balloons filled with garbage across the DMZ to South Korea.
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New York Times: Kim Jong-un and Putin Plan to Meet in Russia to Discuss Weapons →
Jean speaks to the New York Times about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea.
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New York Times: North Korea Unveils What Appears to Be New ICBM During Military Parade →
Mr. Kim’s emotional apology was “a shrewd way of placing blame on circumstances beyond his control, and deflecting attention from the enormous resources poured into nuclear weapons,” Jean H. Lee, a North Korea expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, said in an email.
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Washington Post: ‘A Dear Leader approach’: Trump’s critics compare his shows of strength around coronavirus to authoritarian tactics →
Read MoreClearly, the North is taking more precautions than we are. That says more about us and our government and our response.
Washington Post: Trump’s dream of a Nobel Peace Prize kept alive by far-flung foreign allies →
“If anything, peace on the Korean Peninsula is even more elusive today, given the specter of a nuclear-emboldened North Korea,” said Jean Lee, director of the Korean Center at the Wilson Center.
Read MoreWall Street Journal: North Korea Loves Military Parades—Will Kim Jong Un Bring Out the Big Guns?
SEOUL—North Korea’s first military parade in two years is expected to feature throngs of spectators and plenty of propaganda, but the most closely watched element will be what, if any, new weapons leader Kim Jong Un puts on display for the world.
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Washington Post: As nuclear talks resume, some fear Trump has already given Kim what he wanted: A spot on the world stage →
“He can tell his people that he met with the world’s most powerful leaders and take that propaganda and use it to justify his policies,” said Jean H. Lee, a former Associated Press reporter who served as bureau chief in Pyongyang from 2008 to 2013. “That makes it very hard to challenge him or raise any criticism and allows him to maintain very tough policies on his people.”
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Washington Post: ‘I don’t blame Kim Jong Un’: In dismissing Bolton, Trump sides with North Korean leader — again →
Jean H. Lee, a Korea expert at the Wilson Center, noted that in addition to siding with Kim, Trump has adopted some of the North Korean leader’s subversive language. She pointed to Trump’s reference to U.S.-South Korea drills as “war games,” a term Lee described as pure North Korean propaganda.
“It betrays his lack of understanding on these issues and how easily swayed he is — it’s like North Korea 101,” said Lee, who served as the Associated Press bureau chief in Pyongyang from 2008 to 2013. “He is placing a priority on his personal relationship over what’s best for the United States and the region.”
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The Guardian: Inside the bizarre, bungled raid on North Korea's Madrid embassy →
Speaking about the embassy raid, Jean H Lee, a former AP news agency bureau chief in Pyongyang who now works at the Wilson Center thinktank, told me that she believes “these actions have jeopardised lives on all sides: their own, those of defectors they have extracted, and those in the embassy”.
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Quoted in New York Times: Trump’s Asia Gamble: Shatter Enduring Strategies on China and North Korea →
“I can’t see Kim giving up his nuclear weapons entirely,” said Jean H. Lee, a Korea expert at the Wilson Center in Washington. “They are his ‘treasured sword’ and all that he has to give him leverage. But he is willing to barter some dismantling of his nuclear program in exchange for concessions.”
New York Times: Trump’s Talks With Kim Jong-un Collapse Over North Korean Sanctions →
“Did these two leaders and their teams build up enough good will to keep the lines of communication open, or are we headed into another period of stalled negotiations — or worse, tensions — that would give the North Koreans more time and incentive to keep building their weapons program?”
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New York Times: Trump Meets Kim Jong-un to Start Summit Talks →
Jean H. Lee, a Korea expert at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based research organization, said of Mr. Kim that “he does want a changed relationship with the United States, and to improve his country’s shattered economy.”
“But we need to remember that he sacrificed his people’s well-being, making decisions that deprived them of food, clean water, electricity, heat and medicine, in order to build nuclear weapons,” Ms. Lee added. “He won’t be willing to give his weapons up readily, and may be prepared to sacrifice his people again if things don’t go his way.”
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CNN: Trump Kim summit: What does a win for North Korea look like in Hanoi? →
Secure a political declaration to end the Korean War
Jean H. Lee, director Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy
The biggest prizes for Kim will be diplomatic as well as economic.
Kim, like Trump, craves a big dramatic and historic moment in which the two leaders, foes for seven decades, stand side by side to declare a political end to the Korean War. To be clear: Such a declaration would not serve as a peace treaty formally ending the war. But it would be enough for Kim to take home to his people as a propaganda victory.
Ending the Korean War was a goal neither his father nor grandfather accomplished before dying; to accomplish that task would cement his authority inside North Korea as a master statesman and military strategist.
Such a declaration would allow Kim to turn the country's focus away from war and toward the economy; it also would start the lengthy process of negotiating a formal peace treaty with China, the United Nations and the United States.
More importantly, Kim will be seeking economic concessions in return for rapprochement and promises to give up elements of his nuclear program. A lifting of crippling UN sanctions imposed on North Korea is a priority for Kim. Once sanctions are eased, South Korea in particular is poised to restart joint economic projects that could serve as an economic lifeline to Pyongyang as well as to rebuild North Korea's decaying infrastructure. In addition, Seoul must wait for concrete nuclear concessions from North Korea to justify lifting its own bilateral sanctions in place since 2010.
For Kim, a successful roadmap to denuclearization in Hanoi would pave the way for North Korea's return to the international fold, politically and economically, while delaying the complete relinquishing of his prized nuclear assets for many years to come.
Washington Post: He helped Trump confront North Korea. Now Ji Seong-ho wonders whether human rights will be left behind. →
“The North Koreans do not take criticism well,” said Jean H. Lee, an analyst at the Wilson Center and a former reporter who opened an Associated Press bureau in Pyongyang in 2012. “They are very sensitive to an assault on their way of life and their political system and their penal code. I suspect there may be some reluctance to bring up the issue of defectors and showcase them in a way that Trump did last year, to avoid angering the North Koreans.”
Quoted in the New York Times: U.S. Appears to Soften Timing for List of North Korea’s Nuclear Assets →
“Both the South Koreans and the North Koreans have made a very compelling case for starting the process with at least a declaration,” Jean H. Lee, a Korea expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, said at a talk there on Wednesday.
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Washington Post: Documentary shows Trump saluting North Korean general
Though only a brief interaction, it was telling that the salute was included in the documentary, according to Jean H. Lee, a North Korea scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
“This is a moment that will be used over and over in North Korea’s propaganda as 'proof' that the American president defers to the North Korean military,” Lee said. “It will be treated as a military victory by the North Koreans.”
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CNBC: North Korea is at the Olympics — but North Koreans probably won't get to see much of it
"The North Koreans won't have the same kind of access to the Olympics as we do. But if their athletes do well, they will certainly be celebrating it."
Read MoreFox News: North Korea pushing 'vanity projects' as Olympics near →
“As a young man in his mid-30s, Kim Jong Un must woo the next generation if he’s to rule for decades to come,” Lee told Fox News. “Sports and technology — two things all young people love — are part of that equation.”Read More
AP: Chloe Kim: California kid heads to South Korea's games →
"Snowboarding just doesn't have the same exposure there, and she doesn't have the same accomplishments yet as someone like Yuna Kim," says Jean Lee, a global fellow at the Wilson Center, who previously served as Associated Press bureau chief in Pyongyang, North Korea. "But she has the potential. If she goes home with a medal, and I think she probably will, she'll become a huge star in South Korea."
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