Something Really Has Changed in North Korea

Hotair ^ | 01/25/2024 | John Sexton

[SeekAndFind]

Last week I wrote about the concerns of a pair of North Korea analysts that something had changed in the tone of the rhetoric emanating from Kim Jong Un. Of course North Korea has a long history of belligerent talk and threats against the US but something about this seemed different and more urgent. Kim said he was giving up on reunification with South Korea. Instead, South Korea would now be considered the North’s top enemy.

But it’s more than just empty rhetoric. Sometime over the past few days Kim ordered a monument meant to symbolize hope for reunification torn down.

Kim last week described the Pyongyang monument as an “eyesore” and called for its removal while declaring that the North was abandoning long-standing goals of a peaceful unification with South Korea and ordered a rewriting of the North’s constitution to define the South as its most hostile foreign adversary.

Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC appeared to show the destruction of Pyongyang’s Monument to the Three Charters for National Reunification, also called the Arch of Reunification. An image Tuesday clearly showed the arch missing along a roadway.

Clouds and snow cover made it difficult to ascertain when North Korea tore down the monument, but it appeared to be within the last few days. NKNews, a website focused on North Korea, first reported on the satellite images.

The arch was a 30-meter (about 100-foot) tall structure that looked over a highway leading to the city of Kaesong near the border with South Korea.

Here’s what it looked like:

According to reports, North Korea has demolished a major monument, informally known as the Arch of Reunification, which symbolizes the goal of reconciliation with South Korea. According to a report by NK News, the monument is no longer visible there in satellite imagery.


#UPDATE pic.twitter.com/rlL2R2JnWu

— Bnz English (@BnzEnglish) January 23, 2024

In addition to removing the monument, North Korea also fired off more missiles.

On Wednesday, South Korea’s military said North fired several cruise missiles into waters off its western coast, adding to a provocative run of weapons demonstrations in the face of deepening nuclear tensions with the United States, South Korea and Japan.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the US and South Korean militaries were analysing the launches. It did not immediately confirm the exact number of missiles fired or their specific flight details.

Finally, something else which seems very out of the ordinary for the North Korean leader. This week he acknowledged the dire situation in which much of his country is living. Though he blamed his party officials for the lack of basic necessities, it was still something of a surprise that he would bring it up at all.

Speaking at the two-day party meeting, which began Tuesday, Kim labeled the economic problem as a “serious political issue,” saying that his government revealed the “inability to provide even basic necessities such as basic foodstuffs, groceries, and consumer goods to the local people.”

“The overall local economy is currently in a very pitiful state, lacking even basic conditions,” Kim said at a politburo plenary meeting, as cited by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency Thursday…

Sources inside North Korea told Radio Free Asia in May that as many as 30% of farmers in two northern provinces were unable to work on collective farms because they’re weak from hunger.

Urging improvements in the economic situation, Kim scolded his party officials, urging them to take immediate action.

You get the overall impression that Kim sees himself in a desperate situation. His already poor economy is collapsing and he seems ready to lash out militarily at those he considers his enemies even as he cozies up to Russia and China. It’s a very dangerous situation for South Korea but also for the US which has a lot of troops stationed there.

[DoughtyOne]

I would observe that as China gets closer to feeling enough
of its oats to do what it wants against the U. S., it seems
as though hot spots are opening up around the globe.

We even have many Chinese military age single men sneaking
across our southern border, just in time to cause havoc here
in the U. S. if hostilities were to break out.

Even the FBI has finally pulled it’s head out at least
far enough to take notice of that last point.

We are going to pay hell, for what Biden has done this
last year along, let alone the other two years of
destruction.

[SACK UP]

A multi front war is brewing. Korea.. eastern Europe... Iran and proxies... Taiwan... etc

[Brian Griffin]

Is there any reason that food would be short this year (excluding Communism)?

[bitt]

P

[Deaf Smith]

I see one chick standing on/outside the line.

Capital Offense?

[Buck-Toothed Knuckle Dragger]

Histrionic child-minds.

[piasa]

Major drought in 2023...led to starvation that continues today

[17th Miss Regt]

This week he acknowledged the dire situation in which much of his country is living. Though he blamed his party officials for the lack of basic necessities,...

Sounds like he is setting the stage for a large-scale purge.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

When WW III starts we will not be fighting just Russia—but a cabal of powers who will hit us from all sides at once. Russ9a, Iran, China and North Korea. Other lessers states will join in—Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, maybe others like Egypt and South Africa, Serbia and Belarus. How many will fight for us and how many sit on their hands?

[ansel12]

Make a list of countries that those enemies will be fighting, it is a massive list, we aren’t alone.

[rxh4n1]

“How many will fight for us and how many sit on their hands?”

Fight for us, the Brits, the Poles, maybe Israel; and the little countries that voted with us on the anti-Israel UN resolutions will support us in the UN. The rest will sit on their hands or join the New Axis.

[frank ballenger]

RE: Sometime over the past few days Kim ordered a monument meant to symbolize hope for reunification torn down.

Got the idea watching American TV of confederate memorials and statues of anyone who was not 100% woke getting pulled down in the US.

Our reunification effort is over. Desecration of the names of people who had other points of view in the Confederacy is the new style now.

[CJ Wolf]

And here

[ifinnegan]

I think this is to set the bar lower (or higher, however one looks at it) for the incoming Trump administration.

Just a return to the Kissingerian status quo will seem an accomplishment, whereas Trump was effecting true reform the first time around.

[BlackbirdSST]

Make a list of countries that those enemies will be fighting...

You go first.

Let me guess, when all of these unknowns that have poured across our open border activate, you think NATO is going to ride in to rescue US. amiright?

[Wallace T.]

China and Russia abandoned collective farming decades ago, yet North Korea persists. Before farming was privatized, the USSR suffered frequent famines and had to import grain from America and elsewhere. At least Russia had vast mineral resources that could be sold to provide funding for food purchases. North Korea lacks any substantial resources and produces little other than weapons manufacturing.

[BobL]

“A multi front war is brewing. Korea.. eastern Europe... Iran and proxies... Taiwan... etc”

...and just when our military is at our WEAKEST since the beginning of World War 2, and about the only thing that can stop the Neocons from starting these wars is Trump taking office.

[AZJeep]

Oh,
He just wants some handouts from the USA. Then he will take a break for few months.
As Clinton, he negotiated deal like that some twenty years ago.

[ansel12]

You need to read the posts and pay attention to what is being said in them.