Here’s what you need to know about North Korea and the Winter Olympics
Athletes, cheering squads, musicians, and a high level political delegation from North Korea are heading south.
We asked Sokeel Park, Liberty in North Korea’s Director of Research and Strategy, what to make of their participation in the Olympics. Here’s what he had to say:
Last year all the talk was of potential war and escalating tensions. Now North Korea is sending all these athletes and delegates to South Korea for the Winter Olympics, why?!
Sokeel: The South Korean government has pushed for this since last June. As the host of a huge international event, their top priority is to ensure the safety and security of the games. The concern would be that Pyongyang will try to disrupt the party, so Seoul thinks that if they can get North Korea to participate, then the games will go on peacefully.
The South Korean president also sees North Korea’s participation as a potential step towards a better relationship between the two Koreas.
Pyongyang has its own motivations. They likely see it as an opportunity to disrupt the US-South Korea alliance. It’s also a chance to launch a low-cost charm offensive aimed, not just at South Korea, but also China, Russia and the rest of the world in order to slow the momentum of building pressure and isolation that increased in 2017 as they raced forward on their nuke and missile programs.
Kim Jong-un also likes to use sports to promote nationalism and a sense of national achievement, which increases support for the government.
Seoul and Pyongyang are both interested in a reduction of tensions and playing nicely for a bit. But in the bigger picture, we can also see this as part of the tension-negotiation cycle that we’ve seen for decades.
What will it be like for these North Korean athletes who come to South Korea?
Sokeel: North Korea is the most closed and self-isolated state in the world. There’s no internet and very limited media, so visiting and seeing South Korea with their own eyes will be quite an experience for North Korean athletes.
All of the North Korean visitors will receive ideological education both before and after their time in South Korea. And you will hear commentators describing them as coming from the ‘privileged loyal elite’.
But people would have said the same thing about Thae Yong-ho and other diplomats, until they defected!
Many of the athletes will be hounded by journalists. They will know the protocols their government expects them to follow but they are also human and will be curious. Some of them will see that even though they are only 50 miles from North Korea, they are a world away in terms of the openness, advancement, and affluence of South Korea compared to North Korea.
Will ordinary North Korean citizens have an opportunity to follow the Olympics?
Sokeel: They won’t get the kind of media coverage we will get in the rest of the world, but state media will release some updates about the Olympics through their official newspaper and television broadcasts. The stories will be presented in a positive way to promote a sense of national achievement.
What’s the mood like in South Korea? Are people supportive of North Koreans joining the Olympics?
Sokeel: To the public here, the on-again-off-again relationship between Seoul and Pyongyang is a bit like your friend who is always breaking up with, and then getting back together with their boyfriend/girlfriend.
Every time they break up you know it’s not really over, and every time they get back together you know it’s a matter of time before there’s trouble again.
This isn’t a new thing for South Koreans. The two countries marched out under a unification flag at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, and this will be the tenth such occasion. The first joint sports teams were table tennis and football (soccer) way back in 1991.
The North and South are fielding a joint women’s hockey team. Does the team have the opportunity to interact outside of practice?
Sokeel: Probably not that much. It sounds like they are staying in different dormitories, for instance. But they’ve been training a lot together in the last few days and have played one game together.
It’s quite incredible though that there is an Olympic team made up of players who are South Korean, North Korean, Korean-American and Korean-Canadian, all coached by a Canadian-American woman!
What do younger South Koreans think about all of this?
Sokeel: Younger South Koreans are just less and less interested in North Korea and the concept of reunification.
There was pushback to the joint Korean women’s ice hockey team initiative, and young people were critical of how it was handled. They are very sympathetic towards the South Korean players who had been training hard for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity only to have politicians change the lineup by including North Korean players for the sake of some symbolism.
But that sentiment could flip if the joint Korean ice hockey team beats Japan on February 14th!
What do resettled North Korean refugees/defectors think of all this?
Sokeel: You’d have to ask North Korean defectors!
Of course there’s a lot of different opinions, but from the few conversations I’ve had, there’s actually a lot of similarities with young South Koreans. A lot of sympathy for the South Korean ice hockey players who it was thought might have to be sacrificed for the sake of the joint team, and some people seem unsure about the joint entrance under a unification flag instead of using the South Korean flag.
Will they root for North Korean athletes?
Sokeel: When it comes to watching North Korean athletes, most people are going to root for them. I think that’s only human and there is a desire to see people who still live in your home country do well in the Olympics, also because they know that they will have been training so hard for this opportunity.
When the Olympics end and North Korean athletes return to their country, will anything be different?
Sokeel: It’s likely that this moment of relaxed tensions will quickly feel like history. And not in a good way. The situation surrounding Pyongyang’s nuclear program is just not going to change any time soon.
However, temporary respite from higher tensions is better than no respite. And a few hundred North Koreans coming to South Korea is better than no North Koreans coming to South Korea. These North Koreans will likely see, feel, and learn things that run counter to the regime’s propaganda and ideologies.
Hopefully the Olympics will be a chance to show that North Korea is more than just Kim Jong-un and nuclear weapons. It’s a chance to humanize the North Korean people and show their potential, their humanity, and build more support for a day when the North Korean people can fully connect with the rest of the world.
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