Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Kim Jong-un's First Decade - Gassing Up the Country

This is the first of the supplemental articles for the Kim Jong-un's First Decade in Power series. It deals with vehicle ownership, the supply of fuel, and sanctions avoidance issues.

Photograph of the Pyongyang-Kwanmun gas station via Wikimapia.

Introduction

I have written about this topic more than once as it intersects with multiple areas of research, but one thing that has been made clear is that the rise of the modern gas station within North Korea and changes toward ‘car culture’ have largely been a product of Kim Jong-un’s rule.

Thanks to the publication of the AccessDPRK 2021 Pro Map and newer Google Earth imagery for most towns in North Korea, I can now provide the most detailed picture yet of the country’s fueling infrastructure; a picture that has been largely painted in Kim Jong-un’s first decade in power.

Of the 157 gas stations that I have found, 149 of them have known construction dates. And of those, 63.8% were constructed since Kim Jong-un came to power. Additionally, four of the six stations whose exact year of construction isn’t known were at least constructed on or after 2012, meaning that two-thirds of all gas stations have been built in just the last decade.

While gas stations may not seem like an important topic, in the context of North Korea, they become a window into the country’s economy and reforms as they sit at the nexus of the growth of vehicle ownership, car culture, fuel imports, and sanctions avoidance activities.

To service an ever-larger vehicle fleet, whether they’re state-owned or private, easy to access fuel needs to be made available. And to keep those gas stations operational, a steady supply of refined petroleum must also exist.

To cover this issue, this article will be broken down into three main topics: vehicle ownership, gas station construction, and fuel supply and sanctions.

 

Vehicle Ownership & Car Culture

This is the Peokkugi I Series from North Korea's own Pyeonghwa Motors. Its design is heavily influenced by the Fiat Doblo. Image via Pyeonghwa Motors sales brochure.

The streets of Pyongyang, a city of 3 million, are famous for not being full. Traffic jams are rare and brief, and most people get around by subway or tram service. Outside of the capital, most people have to walk or ride a bicycle. If they have a few extra won, they can jump on the back of a farming truck or military vehicle to make their way. Long journeys are predominantly taken via train.

So it might be surprising for many to know that North Korea has its own automobile industry, of sorts. While North Korea has been producing various vehicles since 1958, it wasn’t until the 2000s that they started to take the idea of manufacturing non-commercial passenger vehicles seriously. 

Established in 2000 as a joint venture with the South Korean-based Unification Church as part of the South’s Sunshine Policy at the time, Pyeonghwa Motors was meant to usher in a new era of not only economic cooperation between the two countries, but also to help fulfill Pyongyang’s desire to have a robust automotive industry.

Pyeonghwa’s plant in Nampo has a nominal capacity of 20,000 cars a year, yet, in most years fewer than 1,000 vehicles were manufactured. Its peak was in 2011 when 1,820 units were made. And like the products of North Korea’s other vehicle plants, their creations are largely Chinese-manufactured, DPRK-assembled car/truck/bus kits. The few models that are predominantly manufactured within the country are merely modified copies of foreign vehicles and still require many foreign parts.

However, even if North Korea has yet to develop its own truly domestic and indigenous car manufacturing base, tens of thousands of cars, trucks, and buses on North Korean roads come from North Korean factories, and they are in enough numbers as to make up a sizable percentage of North Korea’s entire vehicle fleet. What’s more, the regime has managed to import a number of vehicles over years. Along with the increasing privatization of transportation services (a reported 6,000 taxis are in Pyongyang alone) this has all helped keep urban populations moving.

Regulations were relaxed in 2017 to allow for more car registrations, as most passenger vehicles were still technically owned by state enterprises and lent or leased out. Compared to the annual income of North Koreans, prices are still prohibitively expensive, ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 for most models, but it is estimated that 20% of Pyongyang families now have their own cars thanks to a growing middle class.

As mentioned, an alternative to outright ownership is “leasing” them from a state firm. According to DailyNK, this involves “The owner of the car must pay 150,000 KPW to the enterprise for using their name and to make a working record, and also needs to pay 50,000 KPW each month to the Security Department for a license. In addition, they’ll have to pay more than 300,000 KPW in bribes for various reasons”.

Despite supply challenges and the fact that cars are still a major luxury, the regime has taken steps to normalize driving and to familiarize the next generation with car culture, perhaps in anticipation of broader car ownership in coming years.

In 2017 the government began to build children’s “traffic parks” which are miniaturized city blocks with fake buildings, streets, street signs, and even bridges. Kids are given mock cars to drive (pedal) around with and learn the rules of the road. Most towns have at least one of these parks while a few have had their construction delayed. In total, the AccessDPRK database has located 149 driving parks.

These reforms and other changes also mark a change in ideology, where having your own car isn’t just a decadent part of Western capitalism but can be something to which citizens are implicitly told they can finally aspire to. But to accomplish this, ready access to fuel is needed.

 

Gas Station Construction

This graph shows the number of identified gas stations constructed each year from 2012 to 2020. It is based on the data found within the AccessDPRK 2021 Map, Pro Version

Unlike in basically every other country on earth, getting fuel (gasoline or diesel) in North Korea has typically been restricted to those operating state-owned and military vehicles. People would get rations or would otherwise need to get permission from their factory, farm, or other work unit. From there, the fuel would have been distributed either from basic fuel tanks on site or would need to come from centralized fuel distribution centers that would send out fuel as needed. An example of one of these large depots can be found at 39.094342° 125.615611°.

Every town had fuel, but the concept of a western-style gas station was mostly unknown, and I have only been able to locate 54 in the whole country that existed prior to 2012. While the centralized supply of fuel seems to have been adequate for most of the country’s history, it was simply too complicated and the sites too remote to be responsive to the increase in private vehicle ownership and in taxi and bus companies.

As the graph above shows, and corresponding with Kim Jong-un’s assumption of power, there was a marked increase in the number of gas stations being constructed each year from six 2012 to a peak of twenty-two in 2017. And while the growth rate peaked in 2017, newly built gas stations have shown up every single year. Additionally, many of the older sites have been renovated and expanded within the same time frame.

While the beginnings of vehicle ownership and the establishment of taxi companies began years earlier, there is no debate that this switch to a more modern system of gas distribution has taken hold and was driven by the Kim Jong-un regime.

Of course, this reform wasn’t done altruistically to make driving around the country easier. The state issues permits for gas station construction and state-owned companies have also been involved in the establishment and operation of new sites, likely resulting in considerable annual revenue. One of the most well-known cases of state ownership is the Air Koryo gas station in Pyongyang’s Kangan District.

Since 2015, the state airline has been trying to diversify itself and may operate several others gas stations. They also run a taxi service and a food company. As NKNews notes, Air Koryo is owned by the military and so these businesses are not only an attempt to gain revenue for the government but for the military in particular.

This image shows two gas stations. The smaller one has existed since before 2004 while the larger facility was constructed from 2012-2014. The smaller station only provides fueling services, but the larger station also has a vehicle maintenance facility. Note: the numerous small, temporary structures in the image are related to a major building project on Saesalim Street, Sadong District.

In terms of design, many of the gas stations are stand-alone structures that only provide fuel and perhaps small consumer goods like snacks or phone cards, which most people around the world would find recognizable. Others are part of larger facilities that include vehicle maintenance services for commercial and passenger vehicles.

In a country where most vehicles are still used for industrial purposes (materials transport, dump trucks, etc.) and where constant vehicle maintenance is required, as most vehicles are decades old, clusters of these stations are occasionally created to handle the demand.

An example of this can be seen at the Potonggang Reservoir in Pyongyang where there are three distinct fueling and maintenance facilities next to each other.

However, despite the clear rise in the number of gas stations, a vision of long highways with gas stations dotting the landscape or where there’s one on every corner in town is still a distant one. South Korea has an estimated 11,800 gas stations. Even when considering the South’s larger population and economy, the fact that North Korea has fewer than 200 is a stark reminder of how far the country must go to eventually become a nation that caters to the driver.

There are very few gas stations along the country’s highways. Along the major Reunification Highway, for the nearly 100 km distance between Sariwon and Kaesong there are no evident gas stations. And in the country’s interior regions there aren’t any of the modern sites outside of major towns. Drivers must rely on the old method of getting refueled and would be well advised to carry an emergency supply of gas with them.

Indeed, the decades of fuel scarcity led to the adoption of wood gasification in countless vehicles. And while modern gas stations are spreading, they still remain largely confined to major cities – particularly those cities involved in international trade. The seven cities of Pyongyang (47), Sunchon (10), Rason (8), Chongjin (7), Hamhung (7), Nampo (6), and Sinuiju (6) hold nearly two-thirds of all gas stations in the country.


Fuel Supply, Sanctions, and Sanctions Avoidance

It is important to note that while gas stations have spread around the country, most places still rely on the more traditional way of getting fuel into vehicles. These fueling compounds can be found all over the country and many have been renovated over the years. This implies that the new gas stations built in the last decade have not merely been replacing an existing system, but that they are creating a net increase in demand.

This need for more petroleum supplies has been demonstrated by the expansion of the Nampo fuel terminal and the construction of storage tanks in other parts of the country as well. In Nampo, since 2018 more than 30 storage tanks have been added or are under construction. 

As North Korea lacks any natural oil reserves, the United Nations has placed sanctions limiting how much it can import as a result of its nuclear and missile programs. This sanctions regime only allows for 500,000 barrels of refined petroleum and 4 million barrels of crude oil products to be imported each year.

To get around sanctions, North Korea has been employing ship-to-ship transfers (STS) and then brings their newly loaded vessels into a home port to offload the illegal petroleum products. Each transfer can provide North Korea with anywhere from 500,000 to over 1 million liters of oil (6,289 barrels).

Based on United Nations reporting and using publicly available ship tracking data, there are six primary vessels engaged in STS activities along with several smaller vessels. Each ship can make numerous transfers a year. In 2020, the US found 32 individual instances of fuel being smuggled to DPRK ships within Chinese waters, while the Chinese government was alerted by the UN to 46 instances of smuggling activities via STS.

All of this adds up to a lot of fuel coming into the country. According to the 2020 UN Panel of Experts report, the US estimates that “under the one-third laden scenario, these deliveries would have amounted to almost three times the total cap of 500,000 barrels set in paragraph 5 of resolution 2397 (2017). Under the half-laden scenario, the deliveries would have amounted to more than four times the cap and, under the fully laden scenario, they would have amounted to almost eight times the cap.” (emphases added)

But ship-to-ship transfers aren’t the only way North Korea can get illicit petroleum. There is an aging but still operational pipeline from China that is owned and operated by China National Petroleum Corp. North Korea’s only functional oil refinery, the Ponghwa Chemical Factory, is also located nearby, enabling them to convert crude oil from the pipeline into other needed products.

While China is party to the UN sanctions against North Korea, enforcement of those sanctions is left up to each member state, and the pipeline is not monitored by independent organizations.

In 2016, an estimated 270,000 tonnes (36,800 barrels) of fuel – both gasoline and diesel – was transferred to North Korea through the pipeline according to official Chinese data. A further 520,000 tonnes (70,900 barrels) of crude oil was also sent. However, customs data isn’t always made available and it has been notoriously unrealizable. What’s more, is the pipeline’s ability to transfer not just crude oil but refined products as well. At full flow, it could send eight times North Korea’s annual legal allotment.

2020 report by The Nautilus Institute reveals that oil transfer via pipeline is still ongoing through this COVID-era, even if other import methods have temporarily been restricted. Its authors estimate that crude oil exports by the Dandong-Sinuiju Pipeline from China in 2019 came to 715,000 tons (approx. 5.2 million barrels), but increased those exports to nearly 750,000 tons (almost 5.5 million barrels) in 2020 – far in excess of UN limits.

The current trade restrictions imposed by Pyongyang due to COVID has likely impacted a range of smuggling activities, but it seems rather clear that North Korea has the networks of ships, allies, and infrastructure to routinely surpass international limits.

And the operation of gas stations is one key to realizing that fact.

Satellite imagery exists of many of the gas stations during different phases of construction. Through these images one can see that each gas station typically has 2-4 (sometimes more) fuel storage tanks. But to err on the side of conservative estimates, I will use two tanks as the average.

Using measurements attained from “Wonsan Station #2” at 39.142021° 127.385198°, I estimate that each fueling tank has a capacity to store 7,733 gallons (184 barrels) of gasoline. If we assume that all of the 103 identified gas stations built in the last decade have the same sized tanks, only have two of them, and are refilled only once a month, then the demand for additional fuel products has risen by 19,115,976 gallons (455,142 barrels) each year of refined petroleum. That’s almost the country’s entire legal import limit just to operate these new gas stations and is based on using conservative estimates.

Busier stations will need more. Numerous gas stations have 4+ storage tanks. Some tanks are larger. Therefore, the actual supply needs could easily be greater.

There are still the other 54 older gas stations, there’s still the centralized distribution network that those in rural areas rely on, there’s still the need for aviation fuel, heavy fuel oil, and the need for supplies for their fishing fleet and military vehicles.

Of course, their refinery can produce refined products, but the point is that nearly half a million barrels of gas is now – newly – in demand, a demand that has not been accounted for by adjusting sanctions levels. A demand, it seems, that can only be realistically met through illicit imports.

~ ~ ~ ~

I have scheduled this project to run through to the end of the year, with a new article coming out roughly every 10 days or so. If you would like to support the project and help me with research costs, please consider supporting AccessDPRK on Patreon. Those supporters donating $15 or more each month will be entitled to a final PDF version of all the articles together that will also have additional information included once the series is finished. They will also receive a Google Earth map related to the events in the series.

Supporters at other levels will be sent each new article a day before it’s published and will also receive a mention as seen below.

 

I would like to thank my current Patreon supporters: Amanda O., GreatPoppo, Joel Parish, John Pike, Kbechs87, Rinmanah, Russ Johnson, and ZS.

--Jacob Bogle, 9/1/2021

Thursday, August 26, 2021

Kim Jong-un's First Decade in Power - A Kim is Born

A young Kim Jong-un with his mother, Ko Yong-hui, in this undated photo from the North Korean documentary The Mother of the Great Songun Joseon which aired on Aug. 24, 2020.

Part I - A Kim is Born
 

Early Years

The Day of the Shining Star is a holiday commemorating the birth of Kim Jong-il, the father of Kim Jong-un. On February 16, 1942, Kim Jong-il, it is said, was born on the sacred volcano Mt. Paektu, the spiritual home of all Korean people. This “Paektu bloodline” endows the Kim family with the divine right to rule not just North Korea, but all of Korea.

The truth to Kim Jong-il’s birth is less poetic. He was born a year earlier in 1941, in Russia. But facts rarely get in the way of North Korean hagiographers as they work to turn ordinary stories of their leaders into mythical epics that seek to transform their leaders into demigods and inspire a kind of religious devotion to them.

While there are tales of new stars appearing in the sky to mark the birth of Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un’s importance to the state wasn’t evident until much later in his life, and so his tale has yet to be fully embellished. Lacking shinning stars and double rainbows, the exact circumstances surrounding Kim Jong-un’s birth are unknown, both to the people of North Korea and to the outside world.

Very little biographical information about the Kim family is released to the public and even less information is shared about those Kims who are not currently the leader of the country. Kim Jong-un’s existence wasn’t widely known about until a few years before his father’s death in 2011.

We know that he is the fourth child of Kim Jong-il and was born to his mistress Ko Yong-hui in either 1982 or 1983 and that he was probably born on January 8 (his birthdate has not been confirmed by DPRK sources). We know that from 1993 to 2001 he attended both private and public schools in Switzerland under an assumed name, Pak-un, as part of a carefully constructed fake identity. Although, more recent evidence suggests that he began going to school in 1991.

However, apart from random anecdotes, the memories of his European classmates and from the few defectors who knew him, and what can be gleaned from other sources, relatively little can be known for certain about his life and activities until 2010.

Although Kim Jong-un grew up in the rarified atmosphere of North Korea’s most elite family, among palaces and armored trains, as Kim Jong-il’s third son, he appeared to be destined to live a luxurious but quiet life. Perhaps he would become the head of a political department and sit on various government commissions, but he was never intended to become a public figure, let alone the leader of North Korea.

Spending his youth in the country between the Kim family’s main palace, Ryongsong, and at their seaside compound in Wonsan, the young Kim Jong-un would have enjoyed the rare foods his father procured from abroad, boats and Ski-dos, horse riding, his own “General’s” uniform, models of weapons, and lots of foreign films and video games that were prohibited to the rest of the population. Often alone with his nurse and bodyguards, the young prince could order them about at his whim – and no one dared disobey.

While he did spend time under the care of his aunt, Ko Yong-suk, and with her young son, his childhood was far from normal, and he did not have the kind of tight-knit nuclear family that so many enjoy.

Despite the limited information available, some things all sources agree on: Kim Jong-un loves basketball, particularly the American NBA team the Chicago Bulls, and he also had access to the best electronic gadgets the 1990s had to offer.


Time in Switzerland

It wasn’t until he was sent to Switzerland (as had also been done with his siblings) that he seems to have developed some level of friendship with his foreign classmates, while true friendships in North Korea were all but impossible given the power dynamics between the deified princeling and his subjects (no matter how much older, respected, or accomplished they were).

During his time in Switzerland from ca. 1993 to 2001, one of the schools he attended was the International School of Berne, which cost $20,000 a year in tuition. Like other children at these schools, Kim (rather, Pak Un) was assumed to come from a wealthy but not necessarily important family, and no one realized that he was the child of one of the most notorious leaders in the world until he himself became leader.

His lack of German-language speaking skills and his ridged, constructed life outside of school meant that Kim spoke little about his life to others. Regardless, through his enjoyment of basketball, he was able to build relationships with his classmates and live more “normally” than he could when cloistered inside his Swiss apartments or back in Pyongyang.

Kim’s love of basketball and of former NBA player Dennis Rodman would later come to serve as an opening move in one of the grandest games of all: trying to establish North Korea and its leader as a serious global player in geopolitics.

Through these interactions over several years in Switzerland, anecdotes reveal that otherwise hidden elements of his personality became uncovered. Though he tended to be shy, a collection of interviews with known classmates showed him to also be “dangerous, unpredictable, prone to violence and with delusions of grandeur," according to former U.S. Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell. His more brash side was also visible when playing sports as he could become very competitive and had a reputation for trash talking. 

Kim’s life wasn’t all sports and movie watching, however. After two years at school (ca. 1994/95), his mother was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. While she immediately began receiving treatment in France, her prognosis was grave and this affected the young boy. Despite the initial outlook, Ko Yong-hui managed to beat the odds (of a 5-year survival rate of 22%) and lived several more years, dying in 2004 after a recurrence of cancer.

Kim’s days in Switzerland were likely numbered after his aunt (the sister of his mother) and her husband viewed their position in the regime as weakened by Ko Yong-hui’s illness. His aunt, Ko Yong-suk, who had been Kim Jong-un’s guardian in Bern, gathered up her family and absconded to the U.S. Embassy in 1998. Her family now resides in New York City.

In the summer of 1998, after the defection, Kim was removed from the private school and sent to a public school so he wouldn’t have to explain why his guardians, who had been passed off as his “parents”, were no longer around according to Anna Fifield.

His inability to clearly communicate with his classmates at yet another school frustrated him and that fed into some of his worst behaviors. Though at least one former classmate holds more moderate memories of Kim’s actions, others recalled that he would become aggressive and even spat on and kicked them.

A lackluster student, Kim did manage to graduate from each grade until he was permanently brought back home in 2001.

 

– Regarding his youthful obsession, I would like to note that his incongruous enjoyment of basketball, a game created by the “Yankee imperialists” who invaded his country, and his desire to become a professional player, is somewhat par for the course for the Kim family, whose members seem to harbor dreams other than dictatorship and self-images that are outside of reality.

Kim Il-sung envisioned himself a great military leader and intellectual. The fact is, he never led more than a few hundred fighters during the struggle against Japanese occupation. During the Korean War, he had practically lost the whole country until China took the leading role in pushing back NATO forces. And, he only received around eight years’ worth of formal education (much of it in Chinese) and needed help regaining mastery of the Korean language once he returned to the country after Japan’s surrender after not permanently living in Korea since the 1920s.

And his father, Kim Jong-il, initially wanted to become a film director, not a dictator. His penchant for films led him to create a massive secret hoard of foreign movies. In 1978 it also lead to a bizarre episode of kidnapping that one would assume was the plot of a low-budget dramedy if it weren’t real.

No matter their secret dreams, each generation of Kim has managed to take up the mantel of power with ruthless efficiency. –


Siblings

In the meantime, Kim’s older siblings were being prepared for their own destinies. In cases of hereditary succession around the world, it’s usually the firstborn son who gets tapped to become the next leader. This is no different in North Korea, unless something gets in the way.

Kim Jong-nam was Kim Jong-il’s firstborn. He was born in 1971 to Song Hye-rim, another one of Kim Jong-il’s mistresses. His earliest years were spent living with his aunt, Seong Hye-rang, as Kim Jong-il didn’t want the non-divine and non-traditional circumstances of his private life incidentally revealed to the public (or to Kim Il-sung in particular). Kim Jong-nam was allowed to visit his grandmother in Moscow but was otherwise kept within the walls of various villas around North Korea.

It was around the time of Song Hye-rim’s own son’s defection in 1982 that Kim Jong-nam was sent to schools in Switzerland and Russia. He remained there until 1988 when he was recalled home. Much of the time from 1988 to 1998 is unknown, but it is suspected that he made several foreign trips as early as 1995; a habit that would come to haunt the rest of his life.

In 1998 he was given an appointment within the Ministry of Public Security (now called the Ministry of Social Security). He was later given roles in the country’s developing Information Technology sector, through which he was introduced to various foreign contacts.

It is suspected that Kim Jong-nam became the heir apparent in the 1998-2001 timeframe, but his aunt refutes this and claims that Kim Jong-un was actually tapped to become the successor in 1998 when he was around 15. Regardless, what happened next would make it impossible for Kim Jong-nam to become the third Kim ruler.

In 2001, using a fake Dominican Republic passport and under the alias of Pang Xiong (which means “fat bear” in Chinese), Kim Jong-nam and his family attempted to enter Japan to visit Tokyo Disneyland. From there, he was arrested and sent back to China, where Kim Jong-il demanded his return home.

The embarrassment caused by the Disneyland incident was the public excuse for why Kim Jong-nam began to fall out of favor, but he claims that during his life in North Korea, he advocated for various reforms and that’s the real reason why he was passed over. From that point on, he would spend much of his life overseas, particularly in Macau and Hong Kong, rarely going back to Pyongyang.

 

Kim Jong-un’s second older brother is Kim Jong-chul, who was born on September 25, 1981. He and Kim Jong-un share the same mother. In contrast to Kim Jong-nam’s often public life, the life of Kim Jong-chul is virtually unknown.

It is known that he spent his life in Pyongyang until 1993 when he was sent to schools in Switzerland, as was tradition. He was brought back home in 1998 and according to North Korean Leadership Watch, attended Kim Il Sung Military University.

Like his elder brother, Kim Jong-chul also enjoyed going overseas and was even photographed at an Eric Clapton concert in 2006 and again in 2011. These activities and others may provide a window into his psyche and help us understand why he was eventually removed from the running to succeed Kim Jong-il, despite his evidently worthy work within various government and Party apparatuses. As Kim Jong-il’s former sushi chef Kenji Fujimoto remarked regarding Kim Jong-chul, he was considered "no good because he is like a little girl".

Whether or not Kim Jong-chul played into traditional stereotypes of “manliness”, it seems he simply lacked the viciousness required to lead North Korea. A quiet man who enjoys popular Western music doesn’t inspire in others the vision of a future dictator. Kim Jong-chul remains in Pyongyang and still serves in government.


Kim Jong-un and Kim Jong-il on a joint guidance visit to a factory in November 2011. Image source KCNA.

The Heir

With his older brothers knocked out of contention, it fell to Kim Jong-un to become the heir apparent. Fujimoto had words to say about this as well, saying, “if power is to be handed over then Jong-un is the best for it.” He went on to say that Kim Jong-il had preferred the younger Kim for years, something that supports his aunt’s claim that Kim Jong-un had actually been decided upon as a teenager.

Kim’s explicit existence was unknown to the people of North Korea until 2009. Prior to that, he may have been referred to through metaphor, but his name and relationship to the country’s Dear General were not yet known, even among most westerners.

In contrast to Kim Jong-il’s life prior to the death of Kim Il-sung, where he toured the country extensively with his father, it seems that Kim Jong-il was content leaving Kim Jong-un in the background until needed. The necessity to bring him forward and begin rigorous grooming happened much sooner than expected.

In August 2008 Kim Jong-il suffered a serious stroke. His situation was so severe that North Korean doctors were no longer viewed as capable of taking care of his needs and a French doctor, Dr. Francois-Xavier Roux, was flown to the country to attend to him. Other reports claim that Chinese doctors were also summoned to his side.

He was out of the public eye for around three months and when he finally reappeared, he looked much diminished. Already a short man and someone who didn’t like speaking in public, Kim Jong-il reemerged frail and continued his tradition of not speaking on national television or radio, leaving the public with many questions.

What Kim Jong-un and other members of the family were doing at this time one can only speculate on, but this brush with death forced Kim Jong-un into an intense period of preparation.

Even if Kim had been chosen to be the next leader as young as 15, there is little indication that he received any substantial training for the job until after 2008. And if the decision indeed wasn’t made until Kim Jong-il had his stroke, then the younger Kim was the subject of what could only be described a crash course in the dynastic leadership of an authoritarian, isolated, nuclear-armed state.

While his father had 20 years or so to gradually take on greater and greater responsibilities (to the point that, in most things, he was already the de facto leader of the county before Kim Il-sung’s death), it seemed obvious that Kim Jong-un had an uncertain number of years to prepare, to develop a power base of his own, and to learn how to manage a highly corrupt bureaucracy that was fragmented among competing power centers such as the Party, the military, and even among individuals like his uncle Jang Song-taek who had managed to carve out a level of control for themselves.

Kim Jong-un attended Kim Il-sung Military University from 2002 to 2006, as have many other members of the family. While military conscription is mandatory for all North Korean males and can apply to many women as well, Kim has no basic military training. According to official sources, he graduated at the top of his class (in contrast to his performance in Switzerland), but this is viewed as an attempt to burnish his image as a worthy successor capable of guiding the country.

North Korea is still deeply influenced by Confucian philosophy, where age is strongly intertwined with the concept of wisdom. Kim’s young age could have posed an obstacle among others in the family and military leadership who were older and more experienced. If Kim did attend the university and maintained a full course load, it may have prepared him in theory, but he still lacked hard experience.

As Kim Jong-il placed the military at the forefront of North Korean society through his Songun policy, Kim Jong-un needed to do more than read up on the exploits of his grandfather during the 1930s and Korean War.

Kim Jong-il began taking him to various military installations around the country as part of “on the spot guidance” (a tool developed by Kim Il-sung to publicly demonstrate his leadership ability and his “unmatched brilliance”), giving the younger Kim a greater understanding of the capabilities and deficiencies of the military he would soon inherit.

He was also seen accompanying his father on tours to factories, cultural sites, and farms in an attempt to get him seen by the public (who had largely been ignorant of his existence) and to try to improve his knowledge of the way the country functions and how to behave as a Supreme Leader.

Based on a review of Korean Central News Agency reports, some examples of these tours include a joint visit to Korean People’s Army (KPA) Unit 851 to oversee a military drill on Oct. 4, 2010, a visit to the construction site of the Huichon Hydroelectric Power Station on Nov. 2, 2010, attending the New Year concert of the Unhasu Orchestra on Dec. 31, 2010, a joint visit to the Amnokgang Gauge and Instrument General Factory on Jan. 13, 2011, viewed the performance of the Chagang Provincial Art Troupe on April 5, 2011, a joint meeting with the delegation of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation on May 17, 2011, and a joint inspection of KPA Unit 963 on July 12, 2011.

These and many other events played an important role in getting people used to Kim Jong-un as the future leader and served as an introductory education for him on a wide range of military, economic, agricultural, and cultural fields.

Leading up to the time of his father’s death, Kim Jong-un was given several official positions within the government and military. He is believed to have served within the army’s General Political Bureau, he was given a position on the National Defense Commission in 2009, and on Sept. 27, 2010 he was given the rank of Daejang (the equivalent of a four-star general in the U.S.) as well as given the honorific “Brilliant Comrade” which placed him above everyone but his father in the parlance of North Korean politics.

In 2011, South Korean reporting claimed that the regime had also begun to purge around 200 political and military officials who were seen to be too close to his uncle Jang Sung-taek and to others who might pose a challenge to Kim’s future rule. Some were allegedly executed, some were demoted, while at least one individual is said to have committed suicide after being interrogated. 

Kim Jong-il’s last week alive was a rather busy one. He toured multiple military and industrial sites giving on the spot guidance and preparing for various economic campaigns to begin in 2012 which would be the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s birth. But he was not to see the New Year. Kim Jong-il’s last public appearance was on December 15 when he and Kim Jong-un visited the Kwangbok Supermarket which had recently been renovated.

Long-term survival rates for those having suffered a major stroke are poor, with 70-80% dying within five years. Three years after Kim Jong-il’s stroke, he died on Dec. 17, 2011.

On that winter’s night, the 28-year-old Kim Jong-un would be faced with the realities of holding together a country with a chronically ill economy while also engaging in untold palace intrigue to ensure his ability to rule all without having the benefit of decades of preparation. 


~ ~ ~ ~


I have scheduled this project to run through to the end of the year, with a new article coming out roughly every 10 days or so. If you would like to support the project and help me with research costs, please consider supporting AccessDPRK on Patreon. Those supporters donating $15 or more each month will be entitled to a final PDF version of all the articles together that will also have additional information included once the series is finished. They will also receive a Google Earth map related to the events in the series.

Supporters at other levels will be sent each new article a day before it’s published and will also receive a mention as seen below.

 
I would like to thank my current Patreon supporters: Amanda O., GreatPoppo, Joel Parish, John Pike, Kbechs87, Russ Johnson, and ZS.

--Jacob Bogle, 8/24/2021

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Kim Jong Un's First Decade in Power - Introduction

Kim Jong-un overseeing the test of a “super-large” multiple rocket launcher in August 2019. Image via KCNA.

Introduction

Successful hereditary succession in communist regimes was unheard of until Kim Jong-il inherited power from his father Kim Il-sung in 1994. Kim Il Sung founded North Korea in 1948 and over the years the source and legitimacy of his power morphed away from popular power and became based on a kind of divine right, a right that separated his bloodline from any other and made his descendants the only ones with the legitimacy to rule. Fast forward to the death of Kim Jong-il on December 17, 2011, his son (Kim Il-sung’s grandson) assumed the mantel of power for the next generation.

Kim Jong-un was only 28N1 and became the youngest world leader to have nuclear weapons at his disposal. He was Kim Jong-il’s fourth child and so wasn’t the clear choice to become Supreme Leader until relatively soon before Jong-il’s death. In fact, he was such an unknown that prior to his ascent, even the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency only had a single picture of him as an eleven-year-old.

In the decade since Kim Jong-un became the Supreme Leader and Marshall of the Republic, North Korea has become a fully-fledged nuclear weapons state, he held the first-ever meeting between a North Korean leader and a sitting U.S. president, he has placed the Worker’s Party of Korea back into the center of governance (reversing the policy of his father), and the regime embarked on billions worth of construction and tourism programs. All the while killing relatives, enduring food shortages, maintaining a vast prison system, and is currently struggling with the greatest economic downturn since the 1994-98 famine due to COVID-19.

Kim Jong-un has a family, laying the foundations for a future fourth generation of Kim rule if he manages to maintain control for succeeding decades. But the chances of a successful future lie in his actions during this first decade.

The purpose of this multi-part series is to examine the history, challenges, successes and failures of Kim’s first decade in power and to probe whether or not a future decade is likely based on the performance of the last.

A lot has transpired these ten years and new challenges such as Kim’s health, abrupt changes in U.S. foreign policy, and other unforeseen events can have a major impact on the future of North Korea. The last decade gives us a template to consider how Pyongyang may react to such events and reminds us that they always carry the risk of swamping the man and the apparatus of state.

This series will be broken down into these primary themes:

·       A brief biography of Kim Jong-un prior to his succession
·       Kim entering leadership and consolidating power
·       Nuclear and ballistic developments
·       Foreign affairs and diplomatic efforts
·       Economic developments and construction
·       His health and the health of the country
·       Looking toward the next ten years

Additionally, occasional supplemental articles may be added to help expand certain topics that are relevant to Kim’s first decade and will be based on the findings of the AccessDPRK 2021 Pro Map.

 

It is important to avoid caricatures and popular biases when investigating a county and a man already viewed in the popular imagination as unstable and irrational; a view often prompted by reports in mass media. While occasional literary flourishes may be used throughout this series, I have endeavored to present a fair and accurate accounting of the facts of this last decade and will not shy away from objective successes or indulge in a tragedy of horrors to fit certain political narratives.

Kim Jong-un is a complex individual and North Korea is a nation of 25 million other individuals all with their own hopes and dreams, who share 75 years of history. Attempting to minimize their experiences or warp them through overt political lenses does not serve the wider debate and dishonors the realities of life in North Korea as best as we can understand it from an outside perspective.

 

I have scheduled this project to run through to the end of the year, with a new article coming out roughly every 10 days or so. If you would like to support the project and help me with research costs, please consider supporting AccessDPRK on Patreon. Those supporters donating $15 or more each month will be entitled to a final PDF version of all the articles together that will also have additional information included once the series is finished. They will also receive a Google Earth map related to the events in the series.

Supporters at other levels will be sent each new article a day before it’s published and will also receive a mention as seen below.

 

I would like to thank my current Patreon supporters: Amanda O., GreatPoppo, Joel Parish, John Pike, Kbechs87, Russ Johnson, and ZS.

--Jacob Bogle, 8/23/2021

Note 1: Kim Jong-un’s birth year is uncertain. It is either 1982 or 1983 but is generally accepted to be 1983 based on U.S. and South Korean sources.

Sunday, July 25, 2021

Probable Ballistic Missile Training Facility Located

AccessDPRK has located, with moderate probability, a ballistic missile training facility for North Korea’s Strategic Rocket Forces.

Located near the city of Jangjin at 40.328529° 127.228468°, Landsat imagery shows that the facility was established ca. 1994 and high-resolution images are available from Google Earth starting in 2009. 

North Korea has an estimated twenty operating ballistic missile bases, and most have gone undescribed in public sources except for brief mentions of the existence of “Base A” or “Base B”. Many of these bases have their establishments in the 1980s and 1990s, coinciding with an important period of missile development in North Korea as the country moved away from simply reverse engineering Egyptian-sourced SCUDS and began to develop their own indigenous weapons.

North Korea also has a number of areas used for testing rocket engines and the missiles themselves; areas such as the Hodo Peninsula Testing Facility, the Sinpo Shipyard, and many more. Getting even less public mention are the numerous smaller parts of the country’s missile infrastructure.

There’s more to developing a credible ballistic missile force than just having the ability to launch them. Having locations to do everything from research and development to training your nascent missile force personnel in handling, moving, mating, fueling, raising, and arming the missiles is necessary.

If no one can drive the large vehicles needed to move the weapons from one place to another, you’re left with sitting targets.

The Jangjin complex is one of the smaller ballistic missile-related facilities in the country. From its headquarters to the rear of the base is only about 1 km, while some operating missile bases cover dozens of square kilometers. 

The base is situated in a forested part of Jangjin County and is arranged along a single dirt road. Moving south from the headquarters are four transporter-erector launchers (TELs), each with their own bunkers for protection.

There are also smaller objects and excavated emplacements throughout the complex, but they are too nondescript for me to identify. 

The TELs are approximately 17 m long and 3 m wide, while the bunker structures are 18-19 meters long and 5 meters wide. Each one is also protected by an earthen berm positioned roughly 28 meters away from the bunker entrances. 

A question exists whether or not the base is currently active. A review of Google Earth imagery shows that the TELs barely move, if at all, over a sequence of seven available images from 2009 to 2018. The TELs are not seen fully housed inside the bunkers nor are they seen moving around other parts of the base. 

The headquarters and road are maintained, suggesting the site hasn’t simply been abandoned, but what its current status is isn’t known, as North Korea’s modern intercontinental missiles are too large to fit the TELs at Jangjin. However, that may help give us an answer.

Jangjin may have been one of the first dedicated ballistic missile/TEL training bases constructed. At the time, the country only possessed short- and medium-range ballistic missiles (which fits the size of the visible TELs). Training for these missiles and equipment is still needed, but the country’s focus has since been on developing and deploying larger and larger missiles leading to the need for the enormous 11-axle TEL seen in 2020. Jangjin may simply no longer be a key training complex, particularly as other bases improve their own training capabilities.

The reason I don’t think this is an operating missile base is because it lacks many of the features common to known operational bases like Sakkanmol and Kal-gol. Some of the features it lacks are:

  • Jangjin lacks any perimeter fencing or obvious secured entrance other than the headquarters itself. 
  • Jangjin lacks any dedicated air defense sites. All of the air defense positions in the area are there to protect the Jangjin Airbase (6 km away) which is home to Il-28 bombers and MiG-21 fighter jets.
  • Jangjin lacks any underground facilities.
  • Jangjin only has three buildings on site. This is not enough to house the thousands of soldiers, munitions, vehicle sheds, maintenance facilities, etc. seen at other bases.
  • North Korea’s missile forces are arranged into three main belts: Tactical, Operational, and Strategic. The Tactical and Operational belts are for short- and medium-range ballistic missiles and are located nearest the DMZ. The Strategic Belt is located across the northern part of the country and is where their intercontinental ballistic missiles are deployed. Jangjin is located in the Strategic Belt but does not have any known ICBMs. However, this makes sense from a security standpoint, as the base is situated beyond the range limit of South Korea’s operational missile arsenal at the time of the base’s construction.

If not a training base, another possibility (though unlikely) is that Jangjin is actually a decoy site to fool foreign intelligence agencies into thinking North Korea has a larger force than they really do. Of course, after being around for so many years and with very little mock operations occurring to fool foreign observers, such a decoy site would quickly be identified as such and it would no longer serve a useful purpose. 

North Korea does have up to 10 decoy surface-to-air missile batteries, but I am not aware of any fake ballistic missile sites in the country or anywhere else. 

If it is indeed a training facility, the Jangjin site fits within the logical development course of a missile program and it takes its place within a large network of related infrastructure that analysts are still trying to fully uncover.


I haven’t been able to find any public information about this facility and those whom I have asked about it were either unaware of its existence or only knew that “something” was in the area. One of the purposes of AccessDPRK is to provide what information can be found and then to ask the public to do their own digging and to work collaboratively so that ever more information becomes available. If you know anything more about this facility or think I have gotten something wrong, please share.


I would like to thank my current Patreon supporters: Amanda O., GreatPoppo, Joel Parish, John Pike, Kbechs87, Planefag, Russ Johnson, and ZS.

--Jacob Bogle, 7/24/2021

Sunday, June 20, 2021

The Unique Buildings of North Korea's Missile Program

Despite all of the things we see and learn during North Korea's military parades and missile tests, only a fraction of the real story gets told (and often a fair amount of obfuscation is mixed in as well). Public knowledge of their ballistic missile program is still extremely limited though new discoveries do come to light.

Not every missile or vehicle is openly shown, and there are many deployed weapons systems and other equipment that have never been disclosed. Likewise, the infrastructure and training programs for their Strategic Rocket Force is largely unknown. And, North Korea has a habit of doing things just unusual enough as to baffle experts around the world.

In comparison to the United States and Russia/USSR, they test rockets and fire missiles far less often before beginning to mass produce them and place them into service. Their ability to indigenously manufacture the vehicles needed to transport and launch their missiles (especially the more modern versions) has often been viewed as lacking, but somehow, they end up with the equipment they need. Sometimes this is accomplished by converting large trucks from China and elsewhere, but it seems that their domestic capabilities may now surpass the limited capabilities usually described in public intelligence reports. 

Though this exact process is not fully understood, as WMD expert Melissa Hanham remarked in regard to the 11-axle transporter erector launcher (TEL) seen during the Workers' Party 75th anniversary parade in 2020, "It is also clear that they have built up their manufacturing sector to indigenously modify - and now potentially produce - their own missile launchers."

So, we are often left to dissect photos from state media, parse through the vague language of government and military officials, and use commercial satellite images to look for clues and try to learn what the DPRK doesn't want us to. That’s the purpose of this article, to use what is available to try and paint in some of the picture regarding North Korea’s TEL development.

Locations of the five extant TEL-cupola facilities.

One such little-known cog within North Korea's vast missile infrastructure are five (formerly six) unusual buildings that have been described as "clearstory cupolas". Their exact nature is not known, at least not publicly, but it is surmised that they play a role in both the development of new TEL designs and a role in the maintenance of deployed TELs, and in training their Strategic Rocket Force.

They take on two main designs, one is a modified section of roof of a larger, high-bay building and the other is a small building that is basically the modified roof section itself but placed on the ground as its own independent structure. 

The most well-known of these little-discussed structures is the Jonchon TEL Assembly Plant that was written about in 38 North's "That Ain't My Truck", in which the authors hunt down the location of this special building after it was first shown in a state propaganda film. 

Of the inventory of these formerly six (now five) buildings, two are located at known TEL/arms assembly factories, one was located at a missile-related facility, and three were built after 2011 at known missile operating bases stationing short range- and medium range- ballistic missiles.

The city of Jonchon has two of these facilities. The first is what was shown in the 2013 Korean Central TV program and discussed by 38 North. It is located at 40.645677° 126.432921°.

In 2004 the cupola structure was approx. 11 meters long by 6 meters wide.


By 2011 the cupola structure had been enlarged to ~20 meters long and 6-7 meters wide. Exact measurements can be difficult to acquire using Google Earth.

The following are models of the Jonchon TEL Facility.

Building model by Melissa Hanham, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Used with permission.

This interior view shows not only the cupola but a KN-08 TEL with missile raised. Missile and TEL model by Frank Pabian and Tamara Patton; building model by Melissa Hanham, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Used with permission.

The other Jonchon facility is locate a short 3.7 km south at the Mupyong-ni Arms Plant (40.612031° 126.426428°). 

In 2004, the cupola was 15 meters long.

As with the TEL assembly plant, the cupola was enlarged here, too. It was expanded to 20 m in length (also increasing its height), making it capable of handling newer, larger generations of missiles.

The Mupyong-ni Arms Plant was the site of a 2017 test of the Hwasong-14 ICBM. A monument was erected at the plant to commemorate the launch.

The other sites are as follows:

Sakkanmol Missile Base (38.582871° 126.082998°). Unlike the two in Jonchon, the Sakkanmol facility is a stand-alone cupola structure, not attached to any larger building. It was constructed sometime between 2011 and 2013. 

The simply built structure is 16-17 m long by 7.5-8 m wide.

Sakkanmol is home to MAZ-543 TELs which carries the Hwasong-5 short-range ballistic missile, and the base is capable of deploying the Hwasong-6 and could be modernized to accommodate larger missiles. According to Beyond Parallel, the base has 9 to 18 TELs/MELs stationed at it.


Kal-gol Missile Base (38.684702° 126.720857°).


Kal-gol's cupola building was constructed in 2012. It consists of a 31 m long building with a cupola structure that is 14.5 m long by 3 m wide. Like Sakkanmol, it is a short-, medium-range ballistic missile base and has the Hwasong-6 and Hwasong-9 missiles deployed there.

Beyond Parallel's 2020 report on the base noted the existence of the clearstory cupola facility and supports the idea that they are used for TEL/MEL maintenance and training purposes.

The report also stated that the arched clearstory, "reaches a height of approximately 13-15 meters. This height allows for the elevation of a Hwasong-5/-6 missile (and potentially the 13.5-meter-long Hwasong-9 (Scud-ER) depending upon the level of the floor) on a TEL or MEL for both training (especially during the harsh winter months) and maintenance. The latter would ease the burden of depot-level maintenance requiring a TEL or MEL having to be sent back to the factory for repairs or upgrades and reduces the length of time that a launcher is away from its parent unit. However, this clearstory building is too small for larger missile systems such as the Hwasong-12, -14, and -15."


The last existing facility is at the Kumchon-ni missile base (38.964928° 127.597185°).


The TEL building at Kumchon-ni was constructed in mid-to-late 2012 and is 18-19 m long by 8-9 m wide. A set of adjacent barracks were joined into a single building at the same time. Unlike the other TEL structures, this one was built against a hillside, where the others are in more open terrain. 

However, like Sakkanmol and Kal-gol, Kumchon-ni is within the "tactical belt" of North Korea's ballistic missile base network. These bases house short- and medium-range ballistic missiles and would be involved in any first-strike against South Korea or even parts of Japan, as well as targeting US forces within South Korea. They would also be among the first locations to be attacked, and so ensuring proper training and that operational readiness is maintained is of the utmost importance. 

Generally, these buildings are large enough to accommodate TELs/MELs for the KN-02, KN-23, KN-24, KN-25, Hwasong-5, -6, -7, and -9, and possibly the Hwasong-10 and Pukkuksong-2. (See also: Missiles of North Korea by CSIS)




A sixth facility used to exist until it was demolished in 2020. Located much farther north than the missile operating bases mentioned, near the town of Sinhung, is a missile-related complex at 40.260594° 127.490231°.

The structure was 9-10 m wide and 20 m long.

Abutting a hillside, the Sinhung TEL structure was demolished ca. Feb. 2020.

Only an empty foundation remains today. However, at roughly the same time that the site was being demolished, another building was being constructed about 1.1 km west.


This new building is ~67 m long by 17 m wide and has a large hole in the roof that's 25 m long by 5 m wide. This could be a new larger cupola facility under construction, like the two in Jonchon, and would be used to develop larger TELs, as the opening for the clearstory section is bigger than at either Jonchon facility. Of course, only updated imagery of the completed building will give any certainty to this, but it does seem coincidental and the fact the unfinished building has a specific shaped hole in the roof suggests that this could be the case.


As we have seen, these facilities were either enlarged or built in and around 2011/2012, this coincides with Kim Jong Un's orders after assuming power that realistic training be instituted and operational readiness improved. The development of future (post-2011) generations and variations of ballistic missiles was also high on Kim Jong Un's agenda. This desire may be reflected in the proliferation of these structures as well - to facilitate newer systems as they are tested and their deployability ascertained.

Having a multi-purpose building such as these, where one can maintain various equipment, train on their use, and even modify them on the fly, would be greatly valuable to a cash-strapped country. These facilities, in combination with other purpose-built training facilities, lets us know that North Korea is serious about creating an effective missile force with the means to launch from any point in the country while maintaining the usefulness/survivability of their TELs.

Lastly, the particular nature and design of these clearstory cupola structures appear to make them unique to North Korea, as other experts have told me they weren't aware of any other country using buildings with this design in their missile programs.

It will take more research before their full purpose is known and how they interconnect with the rest of Pyongyang's missile program is understood, but at least we have a baseline of observations showing their locations, times of construction, and other important information that helps to build the picture.


I would like to thank my current Patreon supporters: Amanda O., GreatPoppo, Joel Parish, John Pike, Kbechs87, Planefag, Russ Johnson, and ZS.

--Jacob Bogle, 6/19/2021