As US Vice President Biegun Visits Korea, North Korea's Kim Yo-jong Issues Warning to South Korea and US

Last October, North Korean State Affairs Commission Chairman Kim Jong-un is seen riding a white horse up Baekdu Mountain. On the left is Kim Yo-jong, the First Deputy Director of the Workers' Party.

Steven Biegun, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and Special Representative for North Korea, is currently visiting South Korea, while Kim Yo-jong, First Deputy Director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, has drawn attention by issuing a statement criticizing South Korea for the first time in six months, asserting her presence.

In this statement, Kim Yo-jong did not include any direct messages targeting the United States. However, since it was released during Biegun's four-day visit to South Korea, the prevailing assessment is that it serves as an implicit message to both South Korea and the U.S. Since the 'Hanoi No Deal' in February last year, North Korea-U.S. negotiations have been stalled for a long time. North Korea has not explicitly identified who Biegun's counterpart is. Nevertheless, it is clear that Kim Yo-jong is the leading figure in North Korea's recent strategy toward the U.S.

On July 10, Kim Yo-jong detailed North Korea's future diplomatic direction and overall negotiation stance toward the U.S. in a statement released through the Korean Central News Agency. This led to analyses that she oversees not only South Korea strategy but also U.S. strategy, and foreign media even reported the possibility of her visiting the U.S. before the American presidential election. The National Intelligence Service evaluated on October 8 during the National Assembly Intelligence Committee's audit that Kim Yo-jong is involved in the overall state affairs, including not only diplomacy and security but also the comprehensive planning of party inspection events.

Whenever Biegun has visited South Korea in the past, the possibility of secret meetings between North Korea and the U.S. at Panmunjom or other locations has been consistently discussed. During his visit in July, attention was focused on whether North Korea-U.S. dialogue would resume, but no significant progress was made. Given that this visit is considered a 'farewell visit' ahead of the U.S. administration transition, the dominant view is that the possibility of such meetings remains low. Biegun is expected to meet various South Korean officials and focus more on urging the South Korea-U.S. alliance and denuclearization strategy with smooth transition and handover in the Biden administration, rather than initiating new discussions on the Korean Peninsula issues.

Kim Yo-jong's recent statement appears to have toned down the harsh criticisms and abusive language that were typical in past messages toward South Korea. The statement consists of only four sentences and was not published in internal media such as Rodong Sinmun, the Workers' Party's official newspaper widely read by North Korean citizens, supporting this observation. This is interpreted as a continuation of North Korea's restrained approach in criticizing South Korea following Kim Jong-un's rare apology in September regarding the West Sea shooting incident.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said, "The message places more weight on warnings than on announcing actions," interpreting it as a message of determination not to tolerate any damage to the regime or insults to the supreme dignity during sensitive domestic and international times such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the 80-day battle, the 8th Party Congress, and the U.S. administration change.

Furthermore, evaluations suggest that North Korea's likelihood of responding positively to South Korean authorities' messages about inter-Korean health and medical cooperation has decreased due to this statement. Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said, "Minister Kang's remarks directly deny the greatest achievement of North Korea's supreme leader, which is 'zero COVID-19 cases,'" and predicted that "this will provoke further backlash from North Korea." He also forecasted that "it is highly likely to negatively affect the intergovernmental efforts to provide vaccines to North Korea."

Meanwhile, this year, Kim Jong-un has personally chaired nine Workers' Party Political Bureau meetings with COVID-19 prevention as the agenda, showing North Korea's strenuous efforts to control the pandemic despite economic difficulties. In his speech at the October 75th anniversary military parade of the Party's founding, he publicly declared domestically and internationally that there were no confirmed COVID-19 cases.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.