Via Caixin Global: How a Coronavirus Outbreak Could Ravage North Korea. Excerpt:
As governments in East Asia report tens of thousands of infections from the deadly new coronavirus, one country in the region has remained staunchly tight-lipped about the outbreak: North Korea.
The secretive nuclear state has yet to announce a single case of the virus, which causes a pneumonia-like disease known as Covid-19. In contrast, its two main neighbors — China and South Korea — are the two countries worst hit by the epidemic, having logged 80,000 and 6,000 cases respectively as of Friday.
But official silence doesn’t necessarily mean the fast-moving virus hasn’t reached North Korea. Experts say that cases there are likely and could overwhelm the socialist country’s crumbling public health system if it spreads unchecked, potentially causing large numbers of deaths.
And as the reclusive state hunkers down deeper to prevent a major outbreak, disruptions to cross-border trade with China threaten to snarl the regime’s economic lifeline and push it back into a game of nuclear provocation.
As with previous epidemics, Kim Jong Un’s government is unlikely to share much information about a prospective Covid-19 outbreak within its borders. North Korea’s international isolation means it “doesn’t owe it to anyone to publicly disclose case numbers,” Soo Kim, a North Korea expert at the RAND Corp. and former CIA analyst, told Caixin Global in an email.
Additionally, announcing a domestic public health crisis — even in response to a pathogen that has bamboozled leaders of far more developed nations — could undermine the Supreme Leader’s legitimacy, Soo Kim added.
“From a governance aspect, Kim Jong Un might view his inability to handle the outbreak as reflective of his failed leadership,” she said. “This could erode the North Korean population’s trust in — or rather, their fear of — their leader.”
Warning signs
Both the North Korean government and the few international health organizations that operate in the country remain taciturn about the possible presence of the virus there. Caixin Global was unable to contact the North Korean health ministry, while the World Health Organization’s Pyongyang office, which keeps a tally of cases in the region for international observers, did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
However, South Korea-based media outlets, citing anonymous sources, have been reporting Covid-19 cases in the north for several weeks, some of which have apparently been fatal. North Korean defectors in the south have also passed on unconfirmed information from contacts back home about a disease that resembles Covid-19.
Experts told Caixin Global the virus has likely already reached North Korea. “I imagine there are several cases of Covid-19 there,” said Myungken Lee, a professor in the Graduate School of Public Health at Yonsei University in Seoul who served as the UN Development Program’s North Korea project director from 1998 to 2015. “I don’t know why (the defector community) would try to spread specific rumors (about Covid-19) in South Korea.”
While North Korea’s hard border with its capitalist neighbor effectively insulates it against the unfurling outbreak there, its northern border with China poses a far more serious problem. Under normal circumstances, the 1,420-kilometer (822 miles) boundary is relatively porous, with both Chinese and North Korean traders crossing back and forth with comparative ease.
But the spread of the disease in China has strained that relationship. Liaoning and Jilin, the two northeastern Chinese provinces that border North Korea, had respectively recorded 125 and 93 Covid-19 cases as of Friday, according to their provincial health commissions. Authorities have logged cases in places like Shenyang, Dandong, and the Yanbian Korean autonomous prefecture, where much of the two countries’ cross-border interaction takes place.
