The Cynn & Schofield Report: Volume 1 (March 2022)
Tracking Covid-19 News Inside North Korea
As China loses control of its hardline “Covid Zero” approach to the pandemic and Jilin Province – adjacent to the DPRK – enters lockdown, it is more necessary than ever to consider the impact of Covid-19 inside North Korea. During the Spanish Flu pandemic a century ago, the pioneering work of Dr Cynn Hyung-chang and Dr Frank Schofield sounded a warning about the perils of the new virus in Korea. As I discovered in my recent research into the Spanish Flu for Sino-NK, the pandemic had seismic repercussions for the Korean Peninsula. To honour the legacy of Dr Cynn and Dr Schofield, The Cynn & Schofield Report at North Lights will offer a monthly overview of Covid-19 headlines about North Korea.
The Headlines for March:
School attendance in North Hamgyong Province has plummeted up to 30% due to the pandemic, according to Daily NK. As Jong So Yong writes, “student attendance at schools in North Hamgyong Province since the beginning of the school year on Mar. 1 [2022] has been so poor that the province’s Department of Education recently launched a fact-finding survey.” Long term, this trend will likely prove damaging for political control, as schools remain one of the key sites for the inter-generational transmission of ideological orthodoxy inside the DPRK. As Lee Woo-young and Seo Jung-min wrote in North Korea In Transition: Politics, Economy, and Society (2013), during the famine of the 1990s, “reproduction of official culture through public education was virtually impossible in many parts of North Korea” due to absenteeism and illness. The pandemic risks a reprise of these conditions, eroding the state’s practice of school-based surveillance so integral to its systems of control.
In Hyesan, Yanggang Province, fighting erupted between merchants and security forces over COVID-19 restrictions. As Daily NK explains, “the ban [on gatherings] was met with vigorous protests from locals who have been eking by through street commerce. In fact, many locals apparently engaged in commerce on the streets despite threats from the authorities.” The response from authorities was predictably harsh. “The police officer then switched to threats, warning the merchants to scatter before they all ended up in forced labor brigades.” As I explored over at Sino-NK, the Japanese colonial administration’s heavy-handed ban on public gatherings and commerce during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 helped drive the discontent that culminated in the anti-Japanese March 1st Movement of 1919. We cannot rule out similar consequences for authorities inside North Korea as the pandemic drags on. As Lee Chae Un added in the recent report, “according to the source, the merchants [in Hyesan] responded by grabbing the officer’s clothes and pelting him with stones that were lying nearby … merchants who were busted got six months of forced labor, and the others were dragged off to labor brigades as well.” Despite the ferocity of the state’s response to this small act of defiance, this is an important reminder that the North Korean people are not brainwashed and compliant, rather they are policed and heavily surveilled. One always thinks of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor, whose protest against repressive measures implemented to curtail street vending catalysed the Arab Spring in early 2011.
Daily NK reports that two families have died in Hoeryong in North Hamgyong Province due to the economic consequences of the Covid-19 border shutdown with China. As Jong So Yong explains, “closure of the border over the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic has forced Hoeryong residents into extreme difficulties since they can no longer earn money or receive goods across the border [with China].” Regions of North Korea once enriched by their proximity to China are feeling the burden of the pandemic most acutely. Jong adds, “as a result of the dire circumstances the residents of the city are facing, one family starved to death earlier this month while another, also facing starvation, decided to collectively commit suicide by burning charcoal [inside their home]…” China’s recently announced lockdown of 24 million of its own citizens in Jilin Province – adjacent to Hoeryong – will exacerbate this economic and social crisis further. Unless China is able to recover control of the Coronavirus in Jilin, there are certain to be consequences for North Korea too .
RFA is reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on military preparedness in North Korea. According to a source in South Hamgyong Province, “due to the coronavirus pandemic, a significant amount of reserve materials have already been consumed.” Neighbouring “great power” Russia’s unexpected logistical quagmire during its invasion of Ukraine will heighten concern in Pyongyang about the readiness of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) and the DPRK’s ability to maintain logistical support to its military. The impact of the pandemic on a beleaguered KPA demands closer scrutiny and more research.
Daily NK reports on production failures at the Namhung Youth Chemical Complex in South Pyongan Province due to the pandemic. The complex is the second largest fertilizer plant in the DPRK. Ha Yoon Ah reports that, “Namhung Youth Chemical Complex cannot secure the parts it would need to replace equipment right away with trade suspended due to the closure of the country’s borders in the wake of COVID-19.” North Korea’s signature factories are increasingly incapable of functioning effectively during the pandemic. North Korea’s factories are already unable to make up shortfalls in fertilizer supplies exacerbated due to the drop in trade because of the pandemic.
Daily NK reports that a locally designed and manufactured disinfectant has proved ineffective in the battle against COVID-19 in North Korea. As Jong So Yong writes, citing a source inside North Korea, “the disinfectant in question had already been distributed and sold all throughout the country, including Pyongyang, but the authorities have begun efforts to recall the product nationwide.” According to the report, this debacle led to the dismissal of the head of the Koryo Medicine General Hospital’s Koryo Medicine Research Centre. North Korea’s efforts to overcome the threat of COVID-19 without external help are producing further tragic results, especially for those without the protection necessary to defend against the virus.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly:
Daily NK notes the key role the Ministry of State Security (MSS) and Military Security Command (MSC) are playing in the implementation of anti-epidemic measures in North Korea. It is no surprise that the DPRK response to COVID-19 is heavily securitized. As Kim Chae Hwan writes, “given that the MSS monitors the ‘ideological trends’ of North Koreans, this development suggests that North Korean authorities have further strengthened their management and control over people in the country under the pretext of protecting them from COVID-19.” North Korea will continue to use the pandemic as a pretext for strengthening ideological control, restricting movement, and forestalling defection. Ironically, a semi-porous border with China offered the DPRK a release valve for popular discontent (at least in those key border regions). A radical drop in defector numbers is not necessarily to the advantage of the totalitarian state.
Today, the UN Special Rapporteur on the DPRK Tomas Ojea Quintana once again requested that the international community provision North Korea with much needed Covid-19 vaccines. With no sign of a vaccination program large enough to deliver the requisite three doses of Covid-19 vaccine to 25 million North Koreans – and no sign of a DPRK yet willing to receive such aid – we can expect this Covid crisis to continue into 2023.
Recent Analysis:
Bryan Betts, “China’s Omicron surge shows risk of North Korea’s own zero-COVID strategy,” NK News, 16 March 2022.
Thomas J. Byrne, “Why the international community should move to mass vaccinate North Korea — Now,” The Hill, 16 March 2022.
Dominique Fraser, “COVID and North Korea: Helping the Population by Delivering Information and Vaccines,” The Diplomat, 9 March 2022.
Riccardo Villa, “How Pandemic Paranoia Is Driving North Korea’s Strategy,” The Diplomat, 16 February 2022.