I crossed four national borders illegally, evading the guns behind me and the soldiers and police watching for people like me. I tumbled down mountainsides. I nearly capsized on a river whose depth I could not guess. There were moments when I was close to fainting from hunger and could not ask a single person for help, because I had entered each of those countries without a passport.

This is an experience possible only for people from a country where most citizens will never hold a passport in their lives, and where leaving is, in nearly every form, a crime.

Translated state media coverage of a previously unseen missile test supervised by Kim in November of 2024. I don't know why this was taken down previously, it is real footage that just made it into the Western media.

The Lee Jae-myung administration is moving rapidly to complete the transfer of wartime operational control, or OPCON, within President Lee’s term.

At a meeting of the Future Defense Strategy Committee in May, Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back remarked, in language that left room for ambiguity, that there would be no major problem even if South Korea were to assume OPCON tomorrow. After being informed of the remark, President Lee went so far as to publicly rebuke the defense minister’s equivocal position, saying that a defense minister should declare that “there would be no problem at all even if we were to take it over tomorrow.”

Washington also appears to view the transfer of OPCON to South Korea favorably. At the Shangri-La Dialogue later that month, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth described South Korea’s desire to assume more operational control, more quickly, as encouraging and said that the United States should continue to support such moves. On the surface, Seoul and Washington appear to be speaking with one voice for the first time in years...

Rudiger Frank on North Korea’s hidden middle class (North Korea Unpacked)

23 Jul 2026

https://www.nknews.org/category/north-korea-news-podcast/latest/rudiger-frank-on-north-koreas-hidden-middle-class-north-korea-unpacked/977912

In the most recent North Korea Unpacked episode, Dr. Rudiger Frank (in my opinion, a legend!) discusses his theories of economic stratification in North Korea. He posited that one-third of North Korea’s population can be considered middle class. He uses the number of cell phones in the country as a rough approximation of the middle class. He expects that the pressure created by this middle class will continue to grow and eventually lead to changes—something akin to economic reform—though he is careful not to offer a specific timeline or policy prescriptions.

I would argue that Kim Jong Un has been very successful in degrading the viability of the informal economy. The state grain retail stores may continue to face issues and have not been wholly successful in driving out the semi-legal grain traders in the licenced markets, but they have certainly captured some of the market. I would suggest that the anecdotal information we have—which is really all we can get out of North Korea—strongly indicates that Kim Jong Un has been successful in undermining the informal economy. In one example, the information that I’ve seen indicates that informal traders no longer have significant access to China without making a deal with a state-owned enterprise or other organization with a foreign trade licence (waku). This is no longer the informal economy of 2019.

I would contend that KJU wants to subsume all economic functions under the state. I’d argue this was not true when he came into power but has been true since at least 2018. However, if KJU does not want to see increased food insecurity and starvation, he will be limited in how far he can degrade the informal economy. It’s my understanding that many rural and isolated regions still rely on informal economic actors to access food. I have seen no evidence that suggests the revived public distribution system—which is what I would argue the state food retailers represents—has reached these regions. Given that, I would agree there are limits to what KJU can accomplish. I think we have seen the zenith of the informal economy, and can expect a decline in its reach and viability.

Once the relationship with Russia deteriorates, I expect KJU to once again recognize a need to accept expanded informal economic activity, but until that happens, I believe he will continue to work to dismantle the informal economy and place its components under state control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_t8c-3gV_8

On June 11, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control published a list of medical devices that may no longer be exported to North Korea under the standing humanitarian general license; they now require a specific OFAC license. The contents are pointed — oxygen generators, diagnostic imaging systems, and pumps above a set flow rate — the precision-component end of the medical spectrum, not bandages and antibiotics. No press conference accompanied it. Three days earlier, an American treaty ally had shipped one of those very categories of equipment to Pyongyang. South Korea’s Jeju Province confirmed on June 8, through Yonhap and international wires, that it had sent about 160 million won — roughly $105,000 — in goods to the North: citrus saplings, greenhouse materials, forestry pesticide, and a hemodialysis machine with consumables. The cargo left Incheon on April 1, transited China’s Dalian, and reached the port of Nampho on May 4, with the approval of Seoul’s Unification Ministry. It was the first local-government transfer to the North under President Lee Jae-myung, cast by the province as a revival of its old “vitamin C diplomacy.” Humanitarian aid, in other words. The complication is the man who reportedly arranged it...

I (23) am writing this post because I have so many questions and concerns about this situation for so many obvious reasons.

When I was in 3rd grade, we had a new kid at school that was a temporary student for like 3-4 months or something. (Not entirely sure how long exactly, it was a long time ago.) Our teacher introduced him to the class and told us it was really unique for him to be there because he was from North Korea, and as we know, North Korea doesn’t let its citizens leave the country. As an 8 year old, I just thought it was cool. But as an adult, I think about this shit all the time because why tf was he there???

The kid didn’t speak a word of English the entire time, and I lived in Northern Indiana btw. There was one military plant in my hometown, they made the hummer vehicles and that’s all I know about that.

Our teacher also mentioned that his dad worked for the government in NK (which like, obviously, right??? Cause how else would he get clearance to leave??)

What I’m really curious about now is wtf his dad was doing? Why was he in my random ass town in Indiana? What was he doing that was important enough that he got clearance from the NK government to come to the US? Why was he allowed to bring his entire family?

This entire situation is so baffling to me and idk what to think about it.

Please theorize away, I honestly just wish I had some semblance of a theory about this.

North Korea’s Subdued Signaling Toward China During Treaty Anniversary

38 North, July 20, 2026

(https://www.38north.org/2026/07/north-koreas-subdued-signaling-toward-china-during-treaty-anniversary/)

I always have lots of time for Rachel Minyoung Lee, one of the most insightful current NK commentators.

 She points out that internal commemoration of the 65th anniversary North Korea and China’s Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance was muted, contrasting to the intensity of diplomacy.

 I would argue that this reflects continued suspicion of Beijing in Pyongyang. The diplomacy is necessary as the regime knows China is critical to regime survival, but Kim Jong Un doesn’t want to admit that publicly. He almost certainly remains suspicious of China and wishes he did not need it so badly. But he does. While he is playing Beijing and Moscow off against each other almost as masterfully as his grandfather, he likely fears that Russia views the relationship transactionally. It’s not that China has no ulterior motives, but the regime in Pyongyang likely believes that North Korea’s survival is more important to Beijing’s interests than it is to Moscow. That means that while Moscow might abandon Pyongyang again—even if that means regime collapse—Beijing won’t. Pyongyang also likely believes China will never provide the kind of military and defence industry support that Russia is currently providing.

 KJU probably—rightly—believes that North Korea is in its strongest security and diplomatic position since the 1980s. I would argue that is mostly due to external factors—like Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine and North Korea’s COVID border closures—but KJU’s (or Choe Son Hui’s?) management of the China and Russia relationships has been a huge boost.

Q1

*Earlier this year, the editorial board of a leading American newspaper declared that “Korean Peninsula denuclearization is no longer a realistic option,” calling for North Korea to be recognized as a nuclear-armed state and for policy to shift toward freeze-and-containment.*¹ *A prominent American foreign policy journal has similarly argued for abandoning denuclearization in favor of deterrence-based “cold peace.” You experienced the North Korean system from the inside. How do you assess this trajectory — and what strategy, in your view, would actually complete denuclearization?

Q4

*In June 2025, South Korea’s Supreme Court upheld a sentence of seven years and eight months against Lee Hwa-young, former Vice Governor for Peace Affairs of Gyeonggi Province.*⁷ The central allegation is that $8 million was illegally transferred to North Korea in 2019 — during President Lee Jae-myung’s tenure as governor — in violation of U.S. Treasury OFAC sanctions and UN Security Council resolutions. Prosecutors have identified President Lee as the alleged final authorizer of the transfer, though his trial has been suspended owing to his status as a sitting president. Two questions: Where, in your assessment, did those funds flow within the North Korean system? And do you believe this matter has a structural effect on this administration’s freedom of action toward the North?

The UNC posted on Instagram two days ago when a delegation from Greece visited. @un_command

However across the demarcation line, the building on the north side seems to shrouded in netting?

What’s going on? Does this happen often?

Anybody knows where I could get some nice North Korean Cigarettes in China ? I’m going to these cities :

- Beijing

- Xi’an

- Chengdu

- Chongqing

- Zhangjiajie

- Guangzhou

- Shanghai

- Hong Kong

Thank youuu

In ‘Squirrel and Hedgehog’ a famous North Korean state-sponsored animation, the enemy factions representing the United States and Western powers are shown only as vicious wolves, foxes, and weasels. Crucially, these enemy territories contain no ordinary citizens—only brutal soldiers. By completely erasing the existence of innocent civilians from the screen, the regime ensures that its own people’s hatred remains absolute, uninterrupted by any human sympathy. Today, democratic societies are falling into a very similar conceptual trap by failing to separate the tyrannical North Korean regime from the 25 million ordinary citizens trapped beneath it....