Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has long been confined to her brother’s not-insignificant shadow. But, in recent weeks, Yo Jong has shown that she is far more than just her brother’s ashtray-carrying secretary. She has launched a series of fiery rhetorical attacks against South Korea, accusing “South Korean scum” of “polluting the inviolable territory” of the North by distributing “political and conspiratorial” material. The target of her ire is leaflets denouncing her brother’s regime, which have been distributed using balloons across the Korean border. Yo Jong’s way with words shows that she is a chip off the old block.
Yo Jong’s way with words shows that she is a chip off the old block
Her latest verbal assault came just a few weeks after she issued another invective, accusing the “military gangsters of the ROK [Republic of Korea]” of using South Korean drones to deposit “anti-DPRK propaganda leaflets” in the North. It’s clear that the leaflets have hit a nerve, and their contents give an indication why. The North Korean Foreign Ministry broadcast photographs of just what the South Korean leaflets contained, namely facts about the income disparities between the two Koreas, and photographs of how North Korea’s cash is being spent, such as on luxury Swiss watches for the Supreme Leader, and Christian Dior coats for his eleven-year-old daughter, Kim Ju Ae. Together with developing nuclear weapons and missiles, this is where the regime’s money is going; forget the people.
Over the past few months, the Korean peninsula’s battle of balloons has worsened considerably. Relations between the two Koreas – who remain, technically, at war – have soured as South Korean activist groups continue to send balloons carrying dollar bills, bottles filled with rice, and USB sticks containing South Korean media to their impoverished northern neighbour. The North has responded by deploying its own balloons, carrying bags stuffed with excrement and rubbish. Some of these balloons have hit central Seoul, with one bombardment last month reaching the South Korean presidential compound.
North Korea’s passionate dislike of the leaflets deposited by the South is no surprise, particularly since these manoeuvres form part of a long-term effort at seeking to change the hearts and minds of the North Korean people. Who can forget how, in June 2020, when much like its counterparts in the so-called free world, North Korea was under coronavirus-induced lockdown, Yo Jong threatened – in response to these leaflets – the collapse of the “useless” inter-Korean liaison office, which had served as a de facto embassy of the two Koreas (given the lack of formal diplomatic relations between the two countries). Kim Yo Jong had her way; the liaison office was no more.
The decision to cut off all lines of communication – including, in the past few days, the dismantlement of power transmission lines across the inter-Korean border – has only escalated tensions. Some critics of the balloon barrage suggest that at a time of heightened provocations on the Korean peninsula, South Korean activist groups – frequently led by North Korean defectors – should stop bombarding the North with its much-hated leaflets. Back in December 2020, the then-ruling liberal South Korean administration of Moon Jae-in criminalised the sending of anti-North Korea leaflets towards North Korea, as part of what would become a highly unsuccessful attempt to improve inter-Korean relations. These actions, however, were rightly ruled as unconstitutional in September last year, by the current South Korean government of President Yoon Suk Yeol. In the years since, the balloon bombardment has intensified.
The truth is that bowing down to the North would be a not-so-tacit admission of defeat. Yo Jong has repeated her claim that, if South Korea continued to send such “political agitation leaflets”, Seoul should prepare for calamity.
Her tantrums shouldn’t let us forget that freedom of expression is at stake here. Perhaps there’s a lesson here for Britain. Kowtowing to authoritarianism is never a good idea, a point which the incumbent government would do well to remember as Keir Starmer’s government seeks to re-formulate its foreign policy priorities, not least when it comes to China, in an attempt to demonstrate foreign policy leadership (even if leadership is hardly an apt description of Starmer’s prime ministership). Even closer to home is, perhaps, a more localised threat. As the anything-but-liberal “liberal authoritarian” zeitgeist of identity politics continues to engulf government, society, and hallowed institutions, not least universities, it must be met with resolve. Otherwise, the authoritarians will win.
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