2023-09-19 23:42:59

The trip to Russia by the leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-un,—the first since the COVID-19 pandemic began—awakened international interest in the alliances that the Asian country seeks. The country located north of the Korean Peninsula maintains historical ties with Latin America, a region where it maintains embassies in Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil and where it seeks to open new diplomatic headquarters.

In July, the Government of Nicaragua announced a commitment with the North Korean authorities to open embassies in their respective countries. In turn, in 2019, Venezuela had become the third country in the region, following Cuba and Brazil, to have a diplomatic presence in North Korea.

“The relationship between North Korea and Latin America is diverse. The countries have had very different trajectories and ties,” María Pilar Álvarez, a doctor in Social Sciences and specialist in East Asia and Korea, explained to Sputnik.

A history of ties between North Korea and Latin America

Among Latin American countries, the one that maintains the closest relationship with North Korea is Cuba, which has “a very strong bond due to the historical and ideological connection.” Álvarez recalled that the diplomatic link dates back to the Cuban Revolution.

Another of the countries with which it maintains ties in the region is Venezuela. Both countries established diplomatic relations in 1965 and ties were strengthened starting with the Government of Hugo Chávez (2002-2013), the expert noted.

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Starting in the 1980s and 1990s, North Korea began a process of opening up the country, within the framework of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall. “North Korea had a strategy of reestablishing ties, establishing diplomatic relations or informal trade links with countries that had been part of the Western bloc,” he explained.

This interest ended up having repercussions in Latin America and led to new ties with the region, mainly in Mexico, a country with which North Korea has maintained relations since 1980.

“We might say that with Mexico it has the strongest link in Latin America, and in terms of trade it is the most important country,” said Álvarez.

Brazil, for its part, established diplomatic relations years later, in 2001, and since then has maintained a “relatively stable link” with Pyongyang, a destination to which it essentially exports coffee.

In Peru the situation is a little more complex. The Latin American country declared North Korean ambassador Kim Hak-Chol as persona non grata in 2017. The decision was adopted by the administration of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018) following considering that the country was repeatedly violating the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by not ending its nuclear program. Since then, relations have been limited to commercial matters and requests have been made to the North Korean government to stop its ballistic missile tests.

Mexico made the same decision that year; However, the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador accepted the credentials of the new North Korean ambassador, Song Sun Ryong, in 2020.

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Álvarez pointed out that Ecuador and Paraguay, without having established official diplomatic relations, carry out commercial ties, but the volume is not significant. In fact, trade between Latin American countries and North Korea does not reach significant figures in relation to other Asian countries.

“The volume of trade is not significant or decisive, neither in the case of Mexico or Brazil, but it becomes very important from the side of North Korea in this policy of expanding its commercial and political ties to the world, to countries where in another moment in history perhaps would not have been possible,” said the specialist.

Unlike what happens between China and Taiwan, countries can maintain ties with both Koreas. This was explained to Sputnik by Luciano Bolinaga, director of the Center for Asian Studies at the Austral University and president of the Argentine Association of Korean Studies.

“Argentina maintained double recognition towards South Korea and North Korea between 1973 and 1976. The Government of Salvador Allende (1970-1973) in Chile also established diplomatic relations with the Government of Pyongyang,” said the doctor in International Relations.

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In the Argentine case, the country “unilaterally broke diplomatic relations as a result of a withdrawal without prior communication of North Korean diplomatic personnel and the burning of the North Korean embassy in the city of Buenos Aires,” he explained. Only in the 21st century did the Government of Cristina Fernandéz de Kirchner (2007-2015) try to seek a rapprochement that did not prosper.

A favorable context to create new links?

Asked regarding the interests of the Asian country in the region, Bolinaga highlighted that in Mexico there are links between parties of both nations, while in Cuba the closest relationship It is at the government level, despite the fact that according to the analyst there is “an advance in South Korean diplomacy that is eroding North Korea’s presence on the island.”

In investigations carried out by the expert in Mexico and Havana, North Korean officials from the respective diplomatic headquarters suggested that the importance of Latin America for North Korea falls “fundamentally on the votes that the countries represent before the United Nations.” Those consulted stressed that the support of the countries in the region is sought once morest the sanctions imposed on Pyongyang.

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For Bolinaga, it is “unlikely” that North Korea will inaugurate new diplomatic representations in the region due to a question of resources, although it is feasible that the existing diplomatic offices will become concurrent with other countries.

The expert stressed that the opening of North Korea occurs within the framework of the strengthening of a new multipolar world and the consolidation of global trade no longer centralized in the US dollar. “In this framework, North Korea has a great opportunity to advance,” he said.

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