{"id":75505,"date":"2022-09-30T11:00:55","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T01:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=75505"},"modified":"2022-09-30T10:24:46","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T00:24:46","slug":"north-korea-could-be-headed-back-towards-famine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/north-korea-could-be-headed-back-towards-famine\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea could be headed (back) towards famine"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

With the Ukrainian breadbasket\u2019s link to global markets disrupted by the ongoing Russian invasion, global food security has been unusually prominent in the news cycle. Shortly after the invasion began, some analysts were quick to warn against \u2018beggar thy neighbour\u2019<\/a> food trade restrictions, and the UN World Food Programme recently stated that the war is driving a \u2018global food crisis\u2019<\/a>. Famine looms<\/a> in a range of countries, including Somalia and Afghanistan<\/a>, but the growing food insecurity risk in North Korea has attracted surprisingly little renewed coverage.<\/p>\n

There has been sporadic reporting since mid-2021 suggesting that serious food shortages were once again emerging in North Korea. State media reporting of a June 2021 Worker\u2019s Party Central Committee meeting quoted<\/a> the country\u2019s leader, Kim Jong-un, saying, \u2018The people\u2019s food situation is now getting tense.\u2019 In November, the BBC<\/a>, citing reports from defectors in South Korea and assessments by Seoul\u2019s National Intelligence Service, commented, \u2018There is a concern as winter approaches that the most vulnerable will starve.\u2019<\/p>\n

By early this year, based on official statements from the ruling party\u2019s January plenum, the International Crisis Group<\/a> wrote: \u2018Given the concern expressed in the plenum report about farming, we can assume a degree of difficulty for many North Koreans in getting food\u2014either because it is in short supply or because market prices are out of reach for people who have seen their incomes fall.\u2019<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to believe that the situation will have improved much in the year to date, but making any assessment at all is difficult. The Covid-19-driven closure of the border between North Korea and China has both contributed to severe food insecurity and made reliable information about the North scarcer than ever. While the bilateral nature of China\u2019s food aid to the North means international observers have difficulty grasping its exact scale, China is widely acknowledged as the most significant source of food imports and food aid<\/a> for the country.<\/p>\n

In May, after North Korea officially reported its first case of the Omicron variant, Foreign Policy<\/em><\/a> observed that the country \u2018may be trapped between famine and plague\u2019. The dual challenge of food shortages and pandemic response will have been tough enough for Kim\u2019s regime, but the import ban<\/a> the regime is reported to have imposed on crucial trade with China can\u2019t have helped matters.<\/p>\n

North Korea is heavily sanctioned and therefore in many ways not affected by fluctuations in global markets like the turmoil precipitated by the war in Ukraine, but imports still matter. It has continued to rely on oil imports for a range of agricultural inputs<\/a>, including fertilisers and diesel, for example. Sanctions have severely restricted<\/a> the availability of crude oil to the North for some time.<\/p>\n

Natural disasters have also played a part in food shortage concerns over the past several years, and recent conditions are cause for concern. The Economist<\/em> and World Food Programme have noted that snow coverage, a critical factor in North Korea\u2019s agricultural rhythms, was markedly below<\/a> average in both 2021 and 2022. \u2018By the regime\u2019s own admission, this year\u2019s drought is the second-worst since records began in 1981.\u2019<\/p>\n

The US national intelligence estimate on climate change<\/a>, which identifies North Korea as one of the states most vulnerable to climate impacts, suggests its effects should be considered the new normal: \u2018North Korea\u2019s poor infrastructure and resource management probably will weaken its ability to cope with increased flooding and droughts, exacerbating the country\u2019s chronic food shortages.\u2019<\/p>\n

There are links between famines and political instability, but they are complex<\/a>, varied<\/a> and context specific. North Korea has a well-known and tragic history of famines, most notably the deadly 1994\u20131998<\/a> event, which also highlighted the political<\/a> nature<\/a> of famines. These events are not simply a matter of crop failure, but of government choices, market access, aid and other factors. The catastrophic nature of the 1994\u20131998 famine, through which the regime endured, also signals that as much as famines are a challenge for the government, they don\u2019t pose any clearcut threat to regime survival.<\/p>\n

Just as it is difficult to make sense of what\u2019s actually going on inside North Korea, it is also difficult to make sense of how food insecurity might influence its foreign policy and the internal political situation facing the regime. The International Crisis Group suggested that domestic and agricultural woes would likely mean the regime would be inwardly focused during 2022\u2014yet we\u2019ve seen a most active period<\/a> of missile testing. The testing could well be targeting a domestic audience. More likely, the development of nuclear weapons serves multiple ends, including for deterrent purposes and as a source of leverage for the regime\u2019s broader political and strategic interests.<\/p>\n

The impact of this situation on the Korean People\u2019s Army is another open, but potentially significant, question. There were reports last year of malnutrition concerns<\/a> for military personnel, for example. It\u2019s also worth noting that the KPA has historically played a role as an auxiliary agricultural labour force<\/a>. The most recent UN reporting<\/a>, which described \u2018the strong possibility of starvation\u2019 as alarming, also stated that \u2018rice from the military reserve had been released to soldiers\u2019.<\/p>\n

Events in North Korea remain as opaque as ever, perhaps compounded by Kim\u2019s need to disguise dire food insecurity, as well as the further shuttering of the country that has occurred over the Covid years. What reporting is available suggests that the prospect of devastating famine still looms. We\u2019re unlikely to get an accurate read on events in North anytime soon, but it seems unlikely that the reality is a happy one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the Ukrainian breadbasket\u2019s link to global markets disrupted by the ongoing Russian invasion, global food security has been unusually prominent in the news cycle. Shortly after the invasion began, some analysts were quick to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1519,"featured_media":75509,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,2658,281,702,86,211],"class_list":["post-75505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-china","tag-coronavirus","tag-food-security","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-north-korea","tag-south-korea"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNorth Korea could be headed (back) towards famine | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/north-korea-could-be-headed-back-towards-famine\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"North Korea could be headed (back) towards famine | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With the Ukrainian breadbasket\u2019s link to global markets disrupted by the ongoing Russian invasion, global food security has been unusually prominent in the news cycle. 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