In this month’s NK Update, Minah Kang, Ph.D. Candidate Johns Hopkins University, discusses North Korea’s ballistic missile tests, new activity detected at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the rapid spread of COVID-19 in North Korea, and Pyongyang’s provocations following President Biden’s visit to South Korea and Japan. Additionally, the author looks into South Korea, Japan, and the U.S.’ response against the North, particularly at the prospects of strengthened trilateral cooperation and a stricter sanctions regime.

In this commentary, Bong Sup Shin, Visiting Professor at Kwangwoon University and former Consul General of the Korean Consulate in Shenyang, China, writes on the current status of DPRK-China relations and its implications for the Yoon administration. Dr. Shin argues that Sino-North Korean relations revolve around the balance of respective national interests and is no longer confined in the framework of a blood alliance. Instead, the two countries strive to achieve a “strategic symbiosis” and are engaged in a repetition of conflict and cooperation. On the Yoon government’s future course of action, the author underscores that the Yoon administration should not misinterpret DPRK-China relations based on the old Cold War mentality and suggests that it should expand its diplomatic leverage in the U.S.-China rivalry.