Don’t read too much into North Korea releasing a US soldier

Perhaps he was not so useful after all. Yesterday, North Korea’s decision to expel Private Travis King, just over two months after the US soldier bolted across the inter-Korean border, quashed speculation that he would be held captive for years. A month after admitting that King had been detained, Pyongyang decided to ‘expel’ the man who ‘illegally intruded’ into the country. Once again, he remains in custody, but this time in the hands of the United States, as they decide his fate following not only the border-crossing, but also charges of assault and destruction of public property while stationed in Seoul. 

True to form, North Korean state media revealed little about why the government decided to free the US soldier. Instead, the editorial repeated how King had confessed to entering the country unlawfully, in seeking to flee ‘inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US army’ and disillusionment with ‘the unequal US society’.