Kim Dae-jung is widely remembered as a peacemaker today, so it’s not as well known that his presidency (1998-2003) didn’t start off on such friendly footing with North Korea.

In fact, for his first two years, North Korean state media treated him more or less the same as his center-right predecessors. They greeted his arrival by declaring no mere change of government could resolve inter-Korean differences, regardless of how lofty the talk coming out of Seoul was. 

The Korean Central News Agency, in fact, declared that if Kim wanted better ties he should tear down the wall between the two Koreas – literally and figuratively – abrogate the National Security Act, and dismantle the Agency for National Security Planning.

Since none of these were forthcoming, it piled on the conditions for reconciliation in the months that followed. This included demands for the release of unrehabilitated North Koreans captured and held in the South for decades and breaking off its “dependence on outsiders” (meaning the U.S.). 

Kim (henceforth: “DJ”), who had negotiated with Japan to help save South Korea’s economy during the Asian Financial Crisis, was also accused of facilitating another Japanese takeover of the Korean peninsula, through such nefarious means as allowing traditional Chinese characters in official government script (an alleged plot by “Japanese reactionaries”).

By early 2000, there was little to indicate a thaw: the Rodong Sinmun, in an editorial later translated and republished by the KCNA that March, said that DJ’s government would rig the National Assembly elections that April to “dampen the South Korean people’s desire for new politics and a new system.” 

Explicitly negative messages about DJ, however, would be exceedingly rare after this. On April 10, plans for an inter-Korean summit were announced, including on KCNA. After more than two years of denigrating the South Korean leader, casting aspersions on his intentions and demanding conditions he would have to meet, wouldn’t it have been hard for the KCNA and co. to sell a summit with him?

Actually, it was super-easy, barely an inconvenience.

The following two months would see a barrage of propaganda from state media. North Korea declared that not only was the summit acceptable, it was also consistent with the late regime founder Kim Il Sung’s lifelong dream of unification and in-keeping with Pyongyang’s national security interests (see Appendix A).

State media also quoted alleged regime supporters from around the world (including the Arab Youth Union, the World Federation of Trade Unions, and the especially wee Tanzanian National Coordinating Committee of the Juche Idea Study Groups) in support of this reasoning.

Oh, and despite DJ’s much-touted Sunshine Policy and his early calls for inter-Korean reconciliation, the whole thing was apparently really then-leader Kim Jong Il’s idea:

“(Kim Il Sung’s) idea and cause are being successfully put into practice in the crucible of the struggle to build a powerful nation under the guidance of the great Kim Jong Il. It is Kim Jong Il’s fixed resolution and will to hold in high esteem Kim Il Sung for all ages and build a Juche-based powerful nation in this land as Kim Il Sung wished,” state media announced. 

The summit of June 13-15, 2000 took place as planned, of course. Throughout the three-day affair, state media emphasized the wisdom of the Dear Leader Kim Jong Il. DJ, to the extent that he was quoted, was complimentary of his host, even thanking the Dear Leader for coming to greet him on the runway for their iconic handshake.

“(Kim Dae-jung) expressed his heart-felt thanks to Kim Jong Il, chairman of the National Defence Commission of the DPRK, President Kim Yong Nam and all Pyongyang citizens for their warm welcome accorded to him and his entourage.”

For the remaining two years of DJ’s presidency, the KCNA’s approach to him changed. Praise for the South Korean leader would not be offered – he was still the rival head of state in the battle for legitimacy to rule the Korean peninsula, after all – but they could also hardly devote column inches to degrading their negotiating partner.

Occasional negative references to South Korea’s government would follow, usually mentioning specific entities like the prosecution, but references to DJ (or the “chief executive,” as the North was fond of calling him) became neutral and – more importantly – extremely rare. Popular epithets for his government, including “reactionaries,” “fascists,” and “puppets,” also plunged in use.  

North Korea is, as others have argued, a garrison state that operates in an environment of constant military readiness. So, did other targets of North Korean ire – namely the U.S. and Japan – get more references in order to stoke such readiness? Not really. 

In fact, their mentions decreased as well, at least in 2000 and 2001, and for good reason. Part of North Korea’s accusations, both of the South Korean regime’s illegitimacy and untrustworthy nature, stemmed from Seoul’s status as a U.S. “puppet” and an appeaser of the Tokyo government that was preparing to sell out the interests of the Korean nation all over again.

Japan and the U.S. were still criticized by KCNA, but, as mentions of Seoul dropped, so consequently did those of its partners in Tokyo and Washington.

What does this tell us about North Korean state media, or at least its English-language iteration? Maybe not much about how the North Korean populace thinks, as they are not the English media’s target audience.

It can, however, tell us how North Korea’s leaders see its position in the world, as well as the uses it sees for its English (and now Spanish)-language media. 

North Korea has since the Cold War positioned itself as an international player; a champion of developing, socialist, and, especially, anti-imperialist nations.

In order to carve out its own legacy separate from its benefactors in the People’s Republic of China and the USSR, Pyongyang was actively involved in the Non-Aligned Movement and was a strong supporter of groups like the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Irish Republican Army, and the Black Panthers – not to mention assorted South Korean groups.

However, North Korea’s international standing has since taken a hit. For this we can blame Seoul’s growing international status, the collapse of international communism, and North Korea’s own reckless adventurism, which has sometimes cost it friends.

But that doesn’t mean they’ve given up on seeing themselves as important players and cultivating international support to boost their legitimacy.

While their remaining support may not have the revolutionary cred of the PLO, IRA or Hezbollah – the Ugandan National Committee for the Study of the Juche Idea is just never going to have the same heft, assuming it even exists – some such groups are active, do read its propaganda, and sometimes echo it. 

Don’t assume [North Korean state media] doesn’t have a purpose. You just aren’t the target audience.

Perhaps the 2000 summit was a soft sell for such groups, but the KCNA still approached it with zeal. It gathered an extensive list of supporters – some of whom, like Franklin Graham (son of the Rev. Billy) can be verified – to vouch for the summit.

A compressed version of this promotional campaign took place two years later when North Korea abruptly announced a summit between Kim Jong Il and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to address between the two (see Appendix B). The summit failed to result in a long-standing improvement in relations, but it can’t be said that they didn’t try. 

Similar diplomatic initiatives did not take place between Pyongyang and the U.S. during this period; North Korea did not extend an olive branch to Washington after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and soon found itself denounced as part of the Axis of Evil.

But in October 2002, when the U.S. announced that North Korea had violated the terms of the Agreed Framework of 1994 and had begun enriching uranium, the North did switch stances on another important issue – its membership in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

The last weeks of 2002 were devoted to a similar process with the inter-Korean summit – assemble as many voices as possible in support of North Korea’s change in stance (see Appendix C).

North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT in January 2003 following a steady drumbeat of support, including a ramping up of focus on the U.S. as an antagonist.

This was something very much helped by the Bush administration’s plans for an invasion of Iraq: “… as long as the U.S. continuously pursues its unilateral hegemony and hostile policy toward North Korea a dark cloud of a war can not be removed from the Korean Peninsula nor can peace be ensured however hard North Korea strives to improve North Korea-U.S. relations through dialogue and negotiations,” KCNA wrote that Dec. 21. 

So, the next time you see North Korean state media, especially the KCNA, with its many, many pages on participation in obscure sporting events, a translation of the leader’s works into yet another language, and its over-the-top denunciations of regime opponents, don’t assume it doesn’t have a purpose. 

You just aren’t the target audience. It functions, in effect, as a mechanism for cultivating international support among those who are, even when its positions undergo strategic shifts.

Edited by James Fretwell and Oliver Hotham