Mick Hartley

Another day, another defection. From the Guardian:

A ranking North Korean embassy official in Beijing has defected, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency has said, while a separate report suggested two embassy staff had sought asylum with the Japanese mission in the Chinese capital.

If confirmed, it would mark the latest in a recent series of high-profile North Korean defections that some observers see as a sign of growing instability within the leadership in Pyongyang.

Yonhap, quoting an anonymous source “familiar with Pyongyang affairs”, said the official – stationed in the Beijing embassy but attached to the North Korean health ministry – had disappeared with his family in late September.

The source said the official was responsible for sourcing medical supplies for a clinic in Pyongyang that caters to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and his family.

Presumably, then, a trusted official – who may have some juicy titbits to share about the Fat Controller's medicine cabinet. And, significantly, the defection happened at the embassy in Beijing, by far the most important of the North's diplomatic missions: a fact that suggests serious disaffection among the elite.

The North has been rocked by a number of high-level defections, most recently that of its deputy ambassador to Britain who fled to the South in a major propaganda victory for Seoul.

In a speech last Saturday to mark Armed Forces Day, South Korean president Park Geun-Hye made a direct appeal to more North Koreans to abandon their country.

“There have been persistent defections, even by North Korean elites who have been supporting the regime”, Park said.

“We will keep the road open for you to find hope and live a new life,” she added.

North-South Korea ties are currently plumbing new lows, with Seoul holding to a hard line with Pyongyang in the wake of two nuclear tests and numerous missile launches this year.

Indeed. Invective aimed at President Park in the official Rodong Sinmun has always been a feature, but it's ramped up since her speech encouraging defection, with articles calling her "“a barefaced and impudent bitch” and denouncing her “insane baloney”. Here, for instance:

To put together all the malignant invectives Park has spouted against the DPRK in her public appearances, they indicate that her confrontation hysteria has gone beyond the tolerance limit and she is now making her last-ditch efforts with a dagger between her teeth….

The DPRK is bolstering up its nuclear force of justice in every way to mete out a merciless punishment to the foreign forces persistently resorting to aggression, plunder, domination and interference, independently pave the way for reunification and prosperity and punish such group of traitors as Park who kowtows to the U.S.

If Park stops reckless tongue-lashing only when she faces precision nuclear strike at Chongwadae, it will be as foolish and ridiculous an act as meeting self-destruction.

That sounds very much like a threat to nuke the Blue House (aka Cheong Wa Dae, the official residence of the South Korean head of state). It's difficult to see how they can ramp the invective up much more than that, but, with these latest defections, they'll probably find a way.