Edward Howell is a politics lecturer at Oxford. He was involved in launching the BBC World Service in North Korea.
As Kim Jong-un himself announced at a New Year’s Eve event in Pyongyang, 2025 was an ‘unforgettable year’ for North Korea. During the final weekend of the year, the Supreme Leader supervised a ‘nuclear-capable’ long-range strategic cruise missile test, which he termed an ‘exercise of war deterrence’ against the ‘security threats’ facing Pyongyang. The test
The regime of North Korea has continued to exploit the war in Ukraine to spread its propaganda. This week we learnt that Ukrainian children, abducted by Russia, are being sent to an infamous North Korean summer camp. The children have reportedly been taught to ‘destroy Japanese imperialists’ and heard from North Korean soldiers who destroyed
It was only a matter of time before Japan’s Iron Lady would be targeted by China. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi mentioned how Tokyo might resort to force were Beijing to take military action over Taiwan: ‘If there are battleships and the use of force, no matter how you think about it, it could constitute a
It is rare to see Xi Jinping burst into laughter. But something must have tickled China’s Paramount Leader when he met South Korean President Lee Jae-myung on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju, South Korea. The summit will largely be remembered this year for Donald Trump’s tête-à-têtes with East Asian
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, once again declared earlier this wek that he would only welcome peace talks with the United States if Washington dropped its ‘denuclearisation obsession’. Responding several hours later, South Korean president Lee Jae-myung stressed that Seoul would accept a deal between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump in which Pyongyang agreed to
When analysing authoritarian states, not least North Korea, most of the time we have to read between the lines. But on other occasions, things are more obvious. Today, China celebrates eighty years since its victory over Japan in the second world war. Xi Jinping has invited Western and non-Western leaders past and present, but all
Hours after his first bilateral meeting with Donald Trump earlier this week, the South Korean President Lee Jae-myung admitted that he feared that his one-to-one would become a ‘Zelensky moment’. Although the reality was far from the case, it made for somewhat vomit-inducing listening. As Lee showered Trump with praise for his handling of North
When dealing with rogue states, being pessimistic often means being realistic. The much-anticipated summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin last week allowed the Russian leader to relish the bright Alaskan lights of summitry with Trump, buy the precious commodity of time, all while maintaining his ambition to defeat Ukraine. Amidst this week’s numerous meetings
When Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump meet in Alaska today, it will mark their first encounter since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Although the talks are likely to be dominated by questions of a ceasefire, possible division of territory, and how the three-year war will conclude, North Korea will likely be more
On both sides of the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea, loudspeakers blasting news, music, weather reports, wailing sounds, or anti-DPRK messaging have formed a regular part of life along one of the world’s most militarised borders. Yet the South Korean government’s decision to remove these loudspeakers, which commenced on Monday, sets a
For the country known as the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’, the sun is only just still shining on the prime ministership of Shigeru Ishiba. When will it set? The recent legislative elections will go down in history for all the wrong reasons, marking the first time in 70 years that Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic
Think of South Korea and K-pop, Korean cuisine, films, and perhaps even skincare products spring to mind. The fact that anything preceded by a ‘K’ immediately invokes something Korean is testament to the success of South Korea’s global soft power. But behind the sentimental love stories and bright lights, Asia’s fourth-largest economy is at a
This week’s Nato summit could not come at a more pivotal moment. As recent months have shown, the challenges to contemporary global security are no longer limited to the individual threats posed by Moscow, Tehran, or Pyongyang. What makes the current situation even more concerning for the West is the multiple threats posed by the
Much akin to Britain on 4 July last year, South Korea is now veering leftwards. Seoul only had a protracted two-and-a-half, and not fourteen, years of conservative rule by a leader who declared martial law on a cold winter evening last December. But at a time when security in East Asia is increasingly precarious, the
Kim Jong Un is not a happy man. Only a month after he unveiled North Korea’s first 5,000-ton destroyer, another similar warship was seriously damaged as it was launched yesterday. North Korean state media issued an unusually lengthy report following the destroyer’s failed launch, mentioning how the ship’s hull had been damaged, the ‘launch slide
If you think that it is only Chinese infiltrators roaming across the West, including on our very shores, then think again. For all the ever-expanding scope of ballistic missiles, frigates, and drones in North Korea’s arsenal, the hermit kingdom has been adding another body of weaponry to its toolkit: cyberwarfare capabilities. It is yet another
We knew it was happening all along, but it was only a matter of time before both Russia and North Korea confirmed to the world the inevitable fact that their relationship is more than rhetoric. Six months after the first North Korean soldiers were deployed to the Kursk region, the Kim regime has finally admitted
Earlier this week, Kim Yo Jong proclaimed that North Korea has no intention of abandoning its nuclear weapons. ‘If the US and its vassal forces continue to insist on anachronistic denuclearisation… it will only give unlimited justness and justification to the advance of the DPRK aspiring after the building of the strongest nuclear force for
Over 100 days since his impeachment trial commenced, South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol was unanimously voted out by the country’s constitutional court earlier today. This is the man whose presidency will be remembered for his infamous declaration of martial law on 3 December last year. For his detractors, today is a jubilant occasion and
This past week, eagle-eyed observers of South Korean politics – not to mention the South Korean public – were supposed to have been put out of their respective miseries. The fate of the embattled South Korean President, Yoon Suk Yeol, would be made known, and South Korea could regroup and plan its next steps at
