North Korea is working overtime to counter South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s conciliatory messages, launching an intensive propaganda campaign to maintain the narrative of hostile relations even as Seoul extends peace overtures.
A high-ranking source in Pyongyang told Daily NK recently that North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau and Bureau 10 of the Workers’ Party of Korea (formerly the United Front Department) are vigorously pushing propaganda and psychological operations against South Korea. Their goal: perpetuate the hostile relations narrative under the strategy of redefining South Korea as a foreign country.
After declaring inter-Korean relations hostile and belligerent during a Central Committee plenary session in late 2023, North Korea has been systematically eliminating concepts of “one Korean nation” and reunification while insisting there’s no chance for improved relations.
But the new South Korean administration under Lee has moved to block propaganda balloon launches into North Korea and halt loudspeaker broadcasts along the border. Seoul has even promised to respect the North Korean system and avoid hostile behavior. This threatens to shift responsibility for strained inter-Korean relations squarely onto Pyongyang’s shoulders.
“The North Korean regime apparently feels burdened by South Korea’s appeals for peace and better relations with the U.S. in bilateral meetings, at multilateral events and before the international community. Pyongyang may feel particularly uncomfortable with South Korea’s emphasis on North Korea’s denuclearization in this context,” said Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification.
For these reasons, recent comments by Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, have stressed that the South Korean government continues its hostile policy despite conciliatory gestures. Kim has made three public comments since Lee’s inauguration: on July 28, Aug. 14 and Aug. 20.
Kim Yo Jong dismisses reconciliation as ‘pipedream’
Kim’s latest remarks came during “a consultative meeting with major director generals of the Foreign Ministry” on Aug. 19, as reported by Korean Central News Agency on Aug. 20.
“The ambition for confrontation with the DPRK has been invariably pursued by the ROK, whether it held the signboard of ‘conservatism’ or wore a mask of ‘democracy,'” Kim said, dismissing Lee’s remarks about restoring trust between the two Koreas as “a fancy and a pipedream.”
Notably, Kim described the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises that began on Aug. 18 as a “war drill for aggression.”
“We should pay attention to the fact that through the current joint military drill, which is being staged again while making a sign of reconciliation, the ROK is examining a new combined operation plan for ‘removing’ the nuclear and missile capabilities of the DPRK at an early stage and expanding the attack into its territory,” Kim warned.
Essentially, Pyongyang is undermining the South Korean government’s restoration efforts by setting unreasonable conditions — such as Seoul calling off joint military exercises with the U.S. — primarily for an international audience.
“This is the internal strategy: If the U.S.-South Korea exercises are actually halted, North Korea will downplay that as something Seoul should have done anyway, rather than a friendly gesture. If the exercises proceed, North Korea will treat that as grounds for fortifying the country and a pretext for retaliating against any provocations,” the source explained.
According to the source, North Korean authorities actively exploit the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises to criticize Seoul’s conciliatory gestures in foreign messaging while using them to reinforce the regime by legitimizing military buildup in domestic messaging. They do this knowing full well that South Korea would never accept demands to halt joint exercises.
“We can keep using the U.S.-Korea exercises to build our military and expand civil-military cooperation. The party is saying the time has come for the whole country to hold civil defense drills,” the source said.
“I think that, for now, the chances of inter-Korean relations being restored or dialogue resuming are close to zero. There’s no seat for Seoul at the table in dialogue with the U.S., either,” the source stated flatly.
Before the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises, North Korean military leadership distributed educational materials to the entire military emphasizing the need to overpower South Korea with military force.
A source in the North Korean military said the materials, distributed by the defense ministry on Aug. 16, stated that “the Korean People’s Army must regard South Korea as a hostile state designated for conquest and totally dominate it with military force” and that “the military must remain in total combat readiness, monitoring every step taken by the enemy, no matter what measures are taken by the party.”
These materials are presumably designed to keep soldiers’ ideological loyalty and discipline sharp as South Korea continues extending an olive branch.
