The difficulties of covering North Korea : NPR

Scott Detrow, host:

On February 27, 2019, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong a tight hands and smiled warmly for cameras in a hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam.

(Soundbit of archived registration)

President Donald Trump: I think it was a great very successful relationship. I think it was very successful. We are looking forward to. We do it both.

Detow: Their behavior was friendly, despite the past animosity. Kim had formerly called Trump a Dotard. Trump had promised rain and fury on North Korea. But right now, it was in the past. The two leaders had exchanged personal letters, and Trump, in the conduct of the meeting, even said, quotes: “We fell in love”.

Anthony Kuhn, Byline: They are a strange couple, do you know?

Detrow: Anthony Kuhn of NPR was there in Hanoi to cover the meeting while Trump and Kim negotiated on the nuclear program of North Korea.

Kuhn: The city was in excitement with processions of various collections that whistled within two years. Everyone was – Hanoi seemed to try to take it. There were T-shirts with Trump and Kim on it. People got these haircuts Kim Jong a high and tight and, of course, a lot of Vietnamese kitsch.

Detrow: Despite the fanfare, the summit ended early without agreement.

Kuhn: It was essentially the collapse of diplomacy.

Detrow: As Trump said …

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Trump: Sometimes you have to walk, and it was just these moments.

Detrow: Although an agreement did not occur, this meeting was a striking contrast with the approach that Trump recently adopted with Iran, an approach that led to American air strikes on its nuclear installations. So when we called Anthony Kuhn for this week’s journalist’s notebook, I wanted to start there, speaking of parallels and non-peaks between the North Korea negotiations of Trump and the current conflict with Iran.

Kuhn: It has been in many minds of people. And in fact, a spokesperson for the State Department was questioned this week, does the American bombing of Iranian nuclear installations have a message for North Korea? And the spokesman responded, well, the United States remains attached to the denuclearization of North Korea. As for what could happen if the North Korean nuclear problem cannot be resolved by dialogue, she said, well, I cannot speculate on this hypothetical situation.

The key point, however, is that North Korea now has an estimated arsenal of around 50 atomic bombs, while Iran did not. And North Korea also has the missiles to deliver them not only to the American military bases in Asia, but also to the American homeland. Thus, a preemptive American strike on nuclear installations in North Korea is really out of the question.

Detrow: right.

Kuhn: So, if anything, the message to North Korea was that when they decided to build a nuclear arsenal, it was a judicious investment. This is the difference between what happened to them and other countries that have abandoned their nuclear weapons, such as Libya and Ukraine.

Detrow: So let’s change speed and come back to talk about the ways you have covered North Korea because this is a more extreme example of certain things that I think we also live when we try to cover Iran, right? It is a country difficult to enter. It is a culture that the American public may not really understand. North Korea, in particular, there is probably the greatest government control over the movement and information and the media in the world in the world. How do you do it when you try to cover this country? How do you get around political messaging to know how ordinary people think of special questions?

Kuhn: Yes, well, it’s very frustrating not to be able to enter the field and talk to people. And even when you enter, it is so difficult to transmit to people the life of ordinary North Koreans. If you enter North Korea, you are probably going to the capital, Pyongyang, to report. But, you know, Pyongyang is a showcase city. It’s for the elites. And press organizations that have created offices in Pyongyang are sometimes accused of simply being useful idiots and helping North Korea to – you know, to turn off its propaganda without really getting any news. I personally think that there are means, you know, to get the news from there. There are ways to interpret what you see and what you hear from people.

Basically, what we do in South Korea is that we are talking to defectors, and we must remind people that they are not necessarily representative of all people in North Korea. We read what North Korea says of itself and its state media. And although it is propaganda and often gives you very little idea of ​​what is really going on in there, you must learn to interpret it. You must be able to read between the lines.

And also, it is important to get closer as much as possible. Go to the demilitarized area in South Korea and look with binoculars above the border to see what life in North Korea looks like. Go to the Chinese border on the Yalu river between the two countries. Look at how the Chinese city of Dandong is on fire with lights at night while the other side of the river is in the dark almost total at night. And go to Russia, where many North Korean workers are sent to work. You must get closer as much as possible and enter, if possible.

Detow: and you were inside North Korea, however. Tell us about this trip.

Kuhn: Yes, that was one of the most incredible experiences of my career as a journalist. I went with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra when they were invited to perform in Pyongyang in 2008. And it was a kind of brief window of cultural diplomacy, that people hoped to flourish in something more. And I was in Pyongyang for about three days, and we were taken throughout the city. It was an unforgettable journey. And one thing that made him really formidable was the communication that took place between people and musicians, the use of music as a universal language, you to pass all kinds of obstacles to communicate.

And, you know, I left with the feeling that for all the differences and for all the ways in which the two Koreas – North and South – have separated, they are always both Korean. They speak more or less the same language. They eat the same food. Their cultural performance was so similar. So it made me believe that as far as they came, perhaps one day a reunification could still be possible.

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Unidentified person: we are very happy to learn that the symphonic orchestra had come to our country. I also think that the exchange is necessary.

(New York Philharmonic Performance Soundbite from “An American in Paris” by Gershwin)

Detrow: You know, we have obviously looked at a lot here, but there have been new developments on the scenario. Trump tried to send another letter to Kim recently, right?

Kuhn: Yes, that’s what is reported. None of the two parties confirmed it. But this story was reported for the first time by an authoritarian news website in North Korea called NK News, and they said that Trump had sent his letters via the only communication channel working with North Korea, which is the North Korean Korean Embassy at the UN but the North Korean diplomats refused to accept the letters, so they never reached Kim Jong

Detow: wow.

Kuhn: So, any attempt to try to restart negotiations has so far failed.

Detrow: I mean, it’s really remarkable, not to accept a letter from the President of the United States. So it makes me ask me, like, what do you think you are different this time? Why do you think Kim is not committed at all?

Kuhn: Well, we are faced with a fundamentally different scene in the second Trump administration that we did from the first one. As we have said, they now have an estimated nuclear arsenal at around 50 weapons, when they had only about 20 or 30 during the first Trump administration. They were looking for security guarantees from the United States when they did not obtain them, they turned to Russia and China. And now, by sending North Korean troops to fight Ukraine in Russia, they have – basically, a kind of mutual self -defense treaty.

And finally, you know, there was the written letter between Kim and Trump in 2018 and 2019. Kim and Trump exchanged 27 letters, personal letters. And there are photos of Kim Jong a reading Trump’s letters at his office. You can practically see the letters look through its sheet of paper. And in the latest letter that Kim wrote to Trump, he wrote to him, if you do not consider our relationship as a springboard who only benefits you, then you would not be like an idiot who will only give anything in return. It is therefore how bad he felt that he had been burned by Trump. And as if that was not enough, Trump then took these letters and gave them to journalist Bob Woodward, who published them, and they were everywhere in the media.

Detrow: Quick tower compared to the original and oversized envelopes …

Kuhn: (laughs).

Detow: … of this correspondence, I suppose.

Kuhn: Who would imagine that Trump would simply distribute them like candies, right?

Detrow: It is the NPR correspondent, Anthony Kuhn, which covers the Korean peninsula and Japan. Thank you very much for talking to us.

Kuhn: Great Time, Scott. THANKS.

(Soundbite of “El Bueno y El Maio” by Hermanos Gutierrez)

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