North Korea

Lord Swire Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Swire]

That this House takes note of the current threat posed by North Korea.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, I have been asked by a number of Members of this House why we are having a debate on the DPRK—North Korea—this afternoon. Why now? What has materially changed? I went to the Library a few moments ago and asked when North Korea had been debated either in this House or the other place. The answer was that it was debated in this place in 2017, in a debate instigated by my friend the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and in the other place in an Adjournment debate brought by Andrew Selous in 2014, and to which I answered as the Minister of State in the Foreign Office at that time. Many things have changed in the world since that time and many things have changed certainly in North Korea.

I worry sometimes about the bandwidth we have for foreign policy. How often do we debate or even speak about Afghanistan? How often do we speak about what is going on in Syria or in Yemen? We are focused always on the issue at hand, which at the current time is mainly Israel and Gaza. We seem to ignore all these other things, but that does not mean to say that bad things are not developing when our backs are turned.

Whenever we talk about the DPRK, there is a big international move to condemn it or bring about some kind of conference or forth. Then we all go away and forget about it. When we come back to see what has happened, the result is always materially worse. One day, we might seriously regret our lack of attention. If this debate achieves anything, I hope it concentrates the minds of those who are following it, not least those in Pyongyang who will no doubt be given a copy of it, however sanitised.

The fundamental thing that has changed since 2017, or certainly since 2014, is the increased part played by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as part of an unhealthy, unwelcome and, frankly, dangerous anti-Western axis. In the time allocated to me, I intend to highlight what is going on internally in that country, expose what it is doing on the international stage and make some suggestions for His Majesty’s Government.

Lockdown has been going on for some time in North Korea. The country closed down completely and expelled the British embassy from Pyongyang—all embassies except the Russian, Chinese and Cuban embassies and a handful of others. Our ambassador has not been allowed back and the country is still using the excuse of Covid and lockdown, despite it accrediting a new ambassador from China in July.

Of course, lockdown suits the regime, because it means that no international observers can visit the country. This has coincided, unsurprisingly, with a huge crackdown on dissent. Prison camps are full. Some are there not for sins that they have committed but for sins allegedly committed by their fathers and their fathers’ fathers. We are increasingly seeing clamp-downs on watching South Korean films or listening to South Korean music—some crimes punishable by death, if caught.

Then there is malnutrition. Although there is no evidence of the mass starvation that we saw in the 1990s, there is evidence that some parts of the country are suffering deeply from a lack of food. In fact, there has been a complete breakdown in the public distribution of food. The regime has made it illegal to move food privately from one area to another, which suggests a very real problem.

But we are dealing with an opaque regime which, incidentally, has been hit by sanctions. Even those of a Panglossian disposition would find it hard to say anything good about the DPRK or its regime. Kim Jong-un presides over one of the most repressive regimes in the world and certainly over one of the most egregious human rights regimes, systematically abusing its people, of anywhere in the planet.

I want to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, who are in their places, who together have kept the issue of North Korea going in the British Parliament. I pay tribute to them both and acknowledge the brave people who have tried to escape from the hell that is North Korea. I have met some of them in Seoul, in the past, and they are incredibly brave, as are those—indeed, they are even braver—who have helped others to escape. I wonder if the Minister, who has been asked this in the House before, has any knowledge of the 50 Christians who were sent back from China to North Korea, what representations the Government have made about those people and whether any of them are safe or even alive.

It is easy and sometimes tempting to depict Kim Jong-un, with his cult following and his Potemkin villagers, as a rather grotesque, Monty Python-esque figure of fun. All the evidence suggests that this is very far from the truth and that he is an individual who is very focused on certain things which are dear to him—above all, the maintenance of his family’s regime. I believe that increasingly bringing his daughter along to his public appearances is evidence that he intends for this regime to continue. It is his way of demonstrating to the people of North Korea that the Kim regime will continue after his death.

The relationship between Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang is of interest. I think it is largely transactional, not ideological, because their common enemy is the West, most particularly the United States. Interestingly, in the vote at the UN on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia was supported in that instance only by Belarus, Eritrea, Syria and the DPRK. The Chinese did not support it. There are areas of difference between the two countries.

Russia is the new player in all this. Relations have certainly picked up since the summit with Putin. We are led to believe that Russia is providing drones, satellite technology, body armour and so forth to the regime in Pyongyang. In return, the Russians are getting shells, some of which are already being used in Ukraine, although there are questions as to their quality. The shells are being transported by train, and the missiles by ship to Vladivostok. There is also evidence that the DPRK who, incidentally, are also serial proliferators of arms and munitions, have been providing arms to the Wagner Group, as well as to others. Some of the Hamas arms provided by Iran were also manufactured originally by the DPRK.

China is currently working closely in tandem with the DPRK, though there is now evidence that the Chinese are increasingly concerned about the direction of travel in the relationship and the closeness between the DPRK and Russia. At the end of the day, if anyone owns the relationship with the DPRK, it is China. China is confronted with a series of pretty difficult choices and bad options, ranging from the possibility of a reunified peninsula which may be democratic and Western-leaning—given the geographical positioning of the peninsula, this is not agreeable to China. Full-on war between the DPRK and the Republic of Korea, again, would draw other actors into the area and lead to mass migration into China—something the Chinese fear as well. Much of this may now change because of Russia’s increasing collaboration with the DPRK on the nuclear programme. In the absence of any other options, I believe that China prefers the status quo—for the time being at any rate.

What has the international response been to this incremental ratcheting-up by the regime in North Korea? In all fairness, the Biden Administration have provided more support to Japan and helped bring Japan and South Korea together in a way that, some years ago, many thought would be impossible, given their complicated mutual history. America has already helped build up a relationship with the Philippines. We should not forget that the last attempt to confront and do a deal with Kim Jong-un was made by Donald Trump at the Hanoi summit. It was a failure which left Kim Jong-un embarrassed. He lost face because there was ultimately no deal with the Americans. If anything, it drove him more towards Russia.

At the last American presidential election but one, which saw Trump elected, the default position of HMG in those days was to support the Clinton regime. We were not even allowed to engage with the Trump camp. In retrospect, that was a huge mistake. I got into some hot water by saying that I thought Donald Trump would win. I say to your Lordships this afternoon that I think it is not impossible that Donald Trump might win once more, however desirable or not that may be. I hope that the Government will start to reach out as the Republican nominee forms a shadow Administration, because we may well face that same situation once more, in which case we can expect all kinds of new initiatives.

We know what Kim Jong-un wants: he wants to maintain his regime at all costs; he wants to be recognised, de jure, as a nuclear state—incidentally, he has studied closely what has happened to those who have given up nuclear weapons—he wants diplomatic relations with the United States; and he wants massive economic aid. Of course, none of these will be remotely possible if the DPRK continues with its illegal weapons programme.

Doing nothing is fraught with danger. There is a real concern now that something could go wrong in relations between Seoul and Pyongyang, because the North Koreans are not even picking up the telephone hotline between the two, so the risk of escalation or unintended consequences is very real and present. That is why I believe the Government should do a number of things. First, I believe they should push to re-establish the six-party talks: we would be in the 20th year of them if they were still happening. I also believe, and I have always believed, that there is a role for the United Kingdom in those six-party talks: I would like to see them become seven-party talks.

Secondly, I believe we should press the DPRK to immediately allow all international agencies back into the country, and back in together.

Thirdly, I believe we should push very hard for the reopening of the British embassy in Pyongyang so that our ambassador can take up his post.

Fourthly, and others may want to say more on this subject, we should devote more resource to countering the DPRK’s cyber programme. It is getting cleverer and cleverer at cryptocurrency theft and ransomware: 30% or 40% of the funding of its illegal weapons programme is now coming from this source, from the Lazarus Group and others, who are thought to have stolen $2 billion since 2017. This is something that, with our partners, we really have to double down on and deal with.

Fifthly, I believe that, with allies, we should push to increase sanctions. The North Koreans are masterful at evading sanctions, so we should certainly have sanctions on the leaders in that country but we should also have secondary sanctions. This has a wider application, and I think we should do it more often with other countries where we sanction people. There are those who get away: the personal shoppers; the people who manage the London real estate; the people who look after the yachts and the holiday homes. Anybody who has any connection with the leaders of a rogue regime should also suffer sanctions. We need to do much more in this area, complicated though I know it is.

Finally, we should work with our allies and the International Criminal Court on holding DPRK officials to account. Although it is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court, as some other countries unfortunately are not, I believe we need to show countries such as this that if they continue to violate international norms by joining in axes against western democracies, they need to be held to account. If they continue to treat their own population in the way that they have, they also must face the full force of international law. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, what we may have lacked in quantity, Hansard will record that we have more than made up for in quality. While it would be invidious of me to single out any one speaker, I am most grateful to all those who spoke and who listened. I am also extremely grateful to the usual channels for allowing me to secure this long-overdue debate.

All of us here will commit to keeping alert to the threat posed by North Korea and keeping up the pressure. In that, I know that we have an indefatigable champion in the shape of our Minister, whose record of his day sent a shiver down my spine. One can only suppose that he exists, in expanding his own bandwidth as he takes on all these difficult issues around the world, by surviving on a diet of canapés and Foreign Office Ferrero Rocher. We know that he is fighting for us in these matters.

Those of us who have stood on the DMZ, in the safety of the thriving democratic Republic of South Korea, have looked across the abyss into the almost Kafkaesque regime in the north. As we go home to our families for the Christmas period and go Christmas shopping—with the warmth of our homes and our families and with food on the table—we should pause to think of those people who are subjected to some of the worst human rights abuses anywhere in the world by a regime with a warped ideology whose sole interest is in maintaining its own stranglehold on that country. We owe them more than sympathy and warm words; we owe them our continuing determination to do something about it.

Motion agreed.