LOOKING ACROSS the Han river estuary from the Aegibong peace park observatory in Gimpo near Seoul, South Korea’s capital, North Korea is just a short paddle away. Less than a mile from the observatory, its citizens can be seen tending fields and riding bicycles past a cluster of low-rise blocks of flats not far from the river bank. If any of them were to peer back, they would see gaggles of South Korean schoolchildren trying to get a closer look at their settlement through the row of binoculars erected at the viewpoint.
The sense of closeness that comes from looking out over the river in Gimpo has rarely been more deceptive than today, ten years into the rule of Kim Jong Un, the North’s dictator. The latest hope for opening and reform was dashed in Vietnam in 2019, when Mr Kim and Donald Trump, then America’s president, failed to come to an agreement to exchange sanctions relief for arms control at what was to be their final meeting. Over the past two years, ever more of the few remaining links between North Korea and the outside world have been severed as Mr Kim has instituted one of the world’s strictest border closures in response to the covid-19 pandemic. What little information trickles out is hardly encouraging: there are reports of severe food shortages and political purges, even as state media rebuff diplomatic overtures from America and the South.
When Mr Kim took over upon the death of Kim Jong Il, his father, on December 17th 2011, such a grim state of affairs did not seem ine ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
