Both countries agree that the U.S.’s reconnaissance resources have played a role in identifying Kim Jong Un’s movements since he went under the radar after a Political Bureau meeting on April 11. ...*
...A total of four reconnaissance planes were deployed last Friday when Kim appeared at the fertilizer plant. Some of the findings from such tight monitoring were shared with the South Korean government, which is why the South Korean government could confidently say that there was no unusual development in the North in addition to its internal intelligence. “The majority of the U.S.’s reconnaissance resources dedicated to Northeast Asia were deployed to the Korean Peninsula to identify Kim Jong Un’s movements,” said a diplomatic source.
*U.S. reconnaissance resources could increase pressure on S. Korea’s defense burden, by Gi-Jae Han and Kyu-Jin Shin; May. 06, 2020 07:42, Updated May. 06, 2020 07:42; http://www.donga.com/en/home/article/all/20200506/2055581/1/U-S-reconnaissance-resources-could-increase-pressure-on-S-Korea-s-defense-burden
According to the new Donga report, the US is now arguing that the intense reconnaissance effort is a basis for increased payments from South Korea for its share of US military costs in South Korea. This is main thrust of the new DongA article. Leaving the stalled SMA US- ROK negotiations aside for the moment, the key revelation is that US reconnaissance assets showed that Kim was alive and well. All this while the usual suspect assets, the defector groups, the think tanks, their web sites and flacks in the pliable media, asserted in all platforms available to them in South Korea, the US and Japan, as well the world generally, that Kim was critically ill after a heart procedure, in a coma, dying, or already dead. Not a word of this based upon a reliable source.
Due to the effectiveness of US reconnaissance the "Kim is dead" narrative was known to be false inside the US and South Korean governments, virtually the entire time, while mainstream media in the US pushed the story that Kim was a goner as hard as they could. This was a psychological warfare operation supplementing the usual regime change, maximum pressure campaign ongoing against North Korea. It's purpose was to foment instability in North Korea in the form of a potential succession crisis. That this duplicitous strategy should now be used to pressure South Korea to fork up a larger share of US military costs in South Korea is very unlikely to be successful.
Unfortunately for them, two well known North Korean defectors recently elected to the South Korean National Assembly on April 15, have been pilloried in South Korean political circles and press for their dubious contribution to the misinformation campaign about Kim's incapacity and demise, pressed primarily by the US and Japan. (The Japanese press went so far as to publish photo-shopped imagery and video of Kim Jong-un's face pasted onto his father's glass casket in the Palace of the Sun.) The South Korean perception of the credibility of Thae Yong-ho and Ji Song-ho have been seriously damaged by the episode. The question of their loyalty to South Korea is openly raised by politicians asking whether or not they are "spies." Ji had gone so far as to say "I'm 99 percent certain Kim Jong-un is dead," which essentially means he's either dumb or dishonest. Thae made a public apology to the people of South Korea in an attempt to redeem his impaired reputation.*
*North Korea defectors criticised over speculation Kim was ill or dead, Hyonhee Shin, Sangmi Cha Reuters May 4, 2020;
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-kim-defectors/north-korea-defectors-criticised-over-speculation-kim-was-ill-or-dead-idUSKBN22G0FS
One seriously has to question why South Korea would consider rewarding the US for efforts that did not actually lead to increased security on the peninsula but were neutralized simultaneously by a US effort that was, in effect, an agit-prop operation, designed to cause instability in it's nuclear armed neighbor to the north. At one and the same time it attempted unsuccessfully to undermine the credibility of the South Korean government. The latter now has a historic new mandate from the April 15 general election. Ambassador Harris' appearance in a May 1 video, demonstrating his interest in cooking skills during the conundrum, added a ridiculous patina to another serious US public relations failure in South Korea. Or was the effort to destabilize the North with disinformation plausibly deniable?
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