North Korea's Spy-State Makeover

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has begun a major overhaul of the security and intelligence organs that are central to maintaining his regime. Kim announced at the Supreme People's Assembly in March that the country's existing security agency, the Ministry of Social Security, would be rebranded as a police body. 

It has also emerged that the Ministry of State Security, the secret police agency, has been reorganized into the State Information Bureau, after the title of State Security Minister Ri Chang-dae was changed to director of the State Information Bureau. 

This ministry, which has long served as the central enforcer of North Korea's reign of terror through its crackdown on political dissidents, is now widely expected to become an external intelligence agency—a kind of North Korean version of the CIA.

The Spy-State Rebrand

The existence of a secret police apparatus has, since the country's founding, served as a safety mechanism vital to the survival of the state, rooting out anti-government and rebellious elements and preventing coups. It has also been a source of political power. Because North Korea's political machinery is not publicly disclosed, uncovering the full picture of the new organization will require painstaking intelligence-gathering and verification by South Korea and other countries concerned.

At least three facts are known about the sweeping overhaul: Kim's speech at the Supreme People's Assembly in late March; the restructuring of the security apparatus and the conversion of the Ministry of State Security into the State Information Bureau; and the incorporation of the former United Front Department, which handled operations against South Korea, into the Foreign Ministry.

South Korea's spy agency has been especially sensitive to these changes. The Institute for National Security Strategy, which is affiliated with the agency, described the move as "an important measure that goes beyond a simple organizational reshuffle and reflects a change in the role of North Korea's intelligence agencies and its external strategy." 

It noted that in a strongly undemocratic state, "the renaming of the highest-level secret police, intelligence and counterintelligence organization carries major significance." The institute identified four aims behind the creation of North Korea's State Information Bureau.

• Shift from a regime-protection state to an intelligence-focused state and project the image of a "normal state."
• Expanding the functions of its intelligence agencies.
• Adapting to the redefinition of inter-Korean relations as those between "two hostile states."
• Facilitating smoother exchanges with Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies.

South Korea's Unification Ministry also analyzed the move as part of an effort to strengthen intelligence functions and present North Korea as a normal state. The analysis sees the overhaul as an extension of a broader trend observed at the latest Supreme People's Assembly, where North Korea renamed its Socialist Constitution simply the Constitution, toning down ideological language and seeking to appear more like a normal country.

Kim's KGB Inheritance

The origin of North Korea's Ministry of State Security dates back to 1948, when the North Korean regime was first established. Its founder, Kim Il Sung, modeled it on Stalin's secret police and Gulag system. 

The agency built a nationwide network into cities, counties, and villages, deploying security officers to monitor companies and institutions and identify anti-regime elements. It remains a vast secret police apparatus, holding an estimated 120,000 people in six political prison camps.

The Soviet KGB, which Kim Il Sung used as a model, was dismantled after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russian President Boris Yeltsin divided its functions between the FSB, which handles domestic security, and the SVR, which is responsible for foreign intelligence. 

Kim Jong Un, the current leader, may now have new intelligence sharing with Moscow in mind in his dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Tsutomu Nishioka, a specially appointed professor at Reitaku University who is well versed in North Korean affairs, said he has obtained information from a source connected to North Korea that the trigger for the reorganization of the Ministry of State Security was "the US and Israeli attack on Iran in late February."

US and Israeli forces precisely struck Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and others while they were attending a closed-door meeting at the center of the Iranian leadership. The Trump administration had accurate human intelligence. 

"Kim may have thought that he could be the next target," Nishioka said. "If he wants to protect his own safety, he needs to have intelligence, too. I have heard that the starting point for this reorganization was his desire to have an intelligence agency modeled on Mossad and the CIA."

The direction of the reorganization is to merge the Ministry of State Security's external operations division with the Workers Party's operations units targeting South Korea, and to collect internal information from third countries such as the US. 

In effect, it means "placing people inside third countries and having them gather intelligence," Nishioka said. The domestic division, he added, is said to be specializing in "searching for foreign intelligence informants who have penetrated the core of power in North Korea."

Tightening the Inner Circle 

What, then, will happen to the Ministry of State Security's primary mission of identifying anti-government and rebellious elements at home? According to Nishioka, "the plan is to create a new political bureau within the police body and transfer the nationwide surveillance network there." 

As for the operations targeting South Korea, its necessity disappeared after North Korea shifted inter-Korean relations to a "hostile two states," leading the former United Front Department to be downgraded to a unit under the Foreign Ministry.

"The overall flow is that the agency in charge of operations against South Korea is being dismantled, the Ministry of State Security is being reorganized as an external intelligence agency, and the police body is expanding its role in domestic security," Nishioka said. 

"The era in which the purpose of security and intelligence agencies was to foment revolution and launch surprise attacks in the South is over. Kim Jong Un's personal safety has become the top priority."

Still, Nishioka said there is "no clear direction" regarding jurisdiction over the political prison camps scattered across northeastern North Korea. But he said the newly created political bureau within the police is likely to take charge of domestic security as a whole, including political prisoners.

Ri Chang-dae, the head of the new information bureau, rose through the ranks of the security apparatus, and the former Ministry of State Security had been linked directly to Kim Jong Un. The reorganized State Information Bureau is also believed to answer directly to Kim. But according to information obtained by Nishioka, the person ultimately in charge will be Kim Yo Jong, Kim's younger sister.

Kim Yo Jong is believed to serve, in addition to her official positions, as the head of the Organization and Guidance Department, a central organ of the Workers' Party. The department is known as the "party within the party" and is the most important body overseeing the party, military, government, and security agencies. 

If Kim Yo Jong takes charge of North Korea's version of the CIA, she would control both personnel and intelligence. That may suggest Kim Jong Un is gripped by a level of fear in which he believes he can trust only his own family over his personal safety.

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Author: Ruriko Kubota, The Sankei Shimbun

(Read this article in Japanese)

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