Hermit Kingdom? Not quite. To pay close attention to North Korean diplomacy is to notice the many ways it upends the stereotype of the isolated, nuclear-armed wildcard of Northeast Asia. Yes, the country’s propaganda services are prone to rhetoric meant to convey a sense of towering fury, mostly for domestic consumption. But before the coronavirus outbreak sealed its borders, North Korea’s state media reported on a steady stream of select foreign diplomats, academics, journalists and delegations trooping up to the capital, Pyongyang. Along with scattered embassies throughout the world, the North also has a permanent mission at the United Nations in New York, where one of its diplomats will dutifully, if virtually, join other world leaders speaking at the annual U.N. General Assembly. The United Nations makes a point of welcoming all nations, regardless of political persuasion. But in many ways, there’s a love-hate relationship between the North and the U.N. And it raises a lingering question: What, exactly, does North Korea get out of membership in the United Nations? On the one hand, the world body, with its jumble of nations — big and small, rich and poor, powerful and weak — gives North Korea, which is formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK, a rare and highly visible platform from which to respond to the criticism it faces. Most of that comes from what it considers the world’s leading bully — the United States — and its allies. But the United Nations also generates a fair share of that criticism. It puts the North’s diplomats regularly on the defensive as they battle a stream of official reports, investigations and motions that point out the North’s abysmal human rights record, its decades-long, coffers-draining pursuit of nuclear-tipped long-range missiles and other charges of infamy. One important thing the North gets from the U.N.: a direct point of contact with the 192 other member nations, including a host of countries that would be loath to send their diplomats to pay homage in Pyongyang — the United States pre-eminent among them. The two nations don’t have formal diplomatic ties, and Washington relies on Sweden as its consular proxy in Pyongyang. This means the North’s U.N. mission in New York is something of a substitute for an official embassy in Washington. When one side needs quick contact with the other, they often use the so-called “New York channel” at the United Nations. A good example of the importance of the “New York channel” came as the two sides were working out details of the three extraordinary summits between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un in 2018 and 2019. With the United Nations, “North Korea gets an excellent venue to work bilateral conversations with every country in the world without having to deploy diplomats in member capitals (at great expense), or have them travel to Pyongyang,” said John Bolton, who has served as both the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush and as National Security Adviser under Donald Trump. “The criticisms of North Korea will come anyway, and having a U.N. mission gives the DPRK proximity to media markets and universities in order to respond,” Bolton said in an email. He added: “The opportunities for DPRK intell gathering go without saying.” The usefulness of the United […]

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