북한의 외교정책 변화에 관한 연구 : 「월간국제정세개관」과 북한 외교엘리트 심층인터뷰를 중심으로 A Study on the Change of Foreign Policy in North Korea : Focusing on the “Monthly International Overview” and in-depth interviews of North Korean diplomatic elites원문보기
본 연구의 목적은 북한이 형성하는 대외정세 인식에 관한 담론을 살펴봄으로써 김정일･김정은 시기 외교정책의 특징을 비교․분석하는 것이다. 최고지도자가 전하는 대외적 메시지가 외교정책에 어떻게 반영되는지 유형화해보고 향후 대외정책의 양상을 전망하였다. 이러한 연구 목적을 달성하기 위해 조선로동당 기관지 『로동신문』의 외교 사설인 「월간국제정세개관」을 ‘토픽 모델링’ 기법을 활용하여 분석하였다. 외교사설로 파악하기 어려운 북한 내부의 대외정세 인식과 외교행태에 대해서는 탈북 외교 엘리트 7인에 대한 심층 인터뷰를 진행하였다. 탈북 외교관과의 인터뷰를 통해 북한에서 내밀하게 형성되는 대외정세 인식을 파악하고 실제 외교 현장에서 행해지는 외교지침을 수집하였다. 두 차례에 걸친 교차연구를 실시하여 문헌 내용과 실제 외교 행태를 비교･분석하여 실증적 연구가 될 수 있도록 하였으며 북한 외교정책 연구의 방법론적 지평 확장을 시도하였다. 1차 분석으로 『로동신문』의 기사 「월간국제정세개관」은 김정일의 집권이 시작된 1994년 7월부터 마지막 기사가 보도된 2019년 9월까지 시기별로 대외정세 인식의 양상을 비교하였다. 분석 결과 김정일 시기의 기사 200건은 ‘한미일 군사 연합훈련’에 대한 비난 강도가 가장 높았다. 북한은 이러한 대외정세 인식에 기반하여 내적으로 끊임없이 반미의식을 고취하면서 향후 핵 개발의 명분을 쌓고 있었다고 풀이할 수 있다. 2012년부터 2019년 9월까지의 기사 74건에 대한 ...
본 연구의 목적은 북한이 형성하는 대외정세 인식에 관한 담론을 살펴봄으로써 김정일･김정은 시기 외교정책의 특징을 비교․분석하는 것이다. 최고지도자가 전하는 대외적 메시지가 외교정책에 어떻게 반영되는지 유형화해보고 향후 대외정책의 양상을 전망하였다. 이러한 연구 목적을 달성하기 위해 조선로동당 기관지 『로동신문』의 외교 사설인 「월간국제정세개관」을 ‘토픽 모델링’ 기법을 활용하여 분석하였다. 외교사설로 파악하기 어려운 북한 내부의 대외정세 인식과 외교행태에 대해서는 탈북 외교 엘리트 7인에 대한 심층 인터뷰를 진행하였다. 탈북 외교관과의 인터뷰를 통해 북한에서 내밀하게 형성되는 대외정세 인식을 파악하고 실제 외교 현장에서 행해지는 외교지침을 수집하였다. 두 차례에 걸친 교차연구를 실시하여 문헌 내용과 실제 외교 행태를 비교･분석하여 실증적 연구가 될 수 있도록 하였으며 북한 외교정책 연구의 방법론적 지평 확장을 시도하였다. 1차 분석으로 『로동신문』의 기사 「월간국제정세개관」은 김정일의 집권이 시작된 1994년 7월부터 마지막 기사가 보도된 2019년 9월까지 시기별로 대외정세 인식의 양상을 비교하였다. 분석 결과 김정일 시기의 기사 200건은 ‘한미일 군사 연합훈련’에 대한 비난 강도가 가장 높았다. 북한은 이러한 대외정세 인식에 기반하여 내적으로 끊임없이 반미의식을 고취하면서 향후 핵 개발의 명분을 쌓고 있었다고 풀이할 수 있다. 2012년부터 2019년 9월까지의 기사 74건에 대한 토픽 모델링 결과, 김정은 시기에는 자위적 군사력 강화를 필두로 핵 무력 고도화 의지를 노골적으로 드러냈다. 김정일 시기에는 이란 및 팔레스타인 문제를 거론하면서 간접적으로 핵 야망 드러낸 것에 비하면 가장 의미 있는 변화다. 이상의 내용을 바탕으로 탈북 외교엘리트 7인에 대한 심층 인터뷰를 통해 교차연구를 진행한 2차 분석 결과 「월간국제정세개관」에 나타난 북한의 대외 인식은 최고지도자의 인식을 파악하는 데에는 의미가 있지만, 실제 현장과 반드시 일치하는 것은 아니었으며 일부에서는 상당한 괴리가 있음을 확인하였다. 가장 큰 괴리를 보여주는 사례는 북한이 공식 외교무대에 나설 때 나타났다. 2000년 남북정상회담이나 북미, 혹은 다자간 정상회담과 같은 대외적 요인이 발생했을 때에도 「월간국제정세개관」은 정치적 일정과 관계없이 ‘반미’가 토픽 선정에 가장 주효한 영향을 미치고 있었다. 한편, 회담 참가를 앞둔 외교관들에게 “반미의식을 투철하게 지니면서도 미국 외교관들을 현장에서 만나면 회담이 잘 되길 바라고 후속 조치도 강화하겠다고 이야기 하라.”는 내용의 교시가 내려왔다고 한다. 여기서 말하는 ‘후속 조치’는 한반도 비핵화에 관한 조항이었지만, 회담에서 비핵화를 조건으로 협상할 때도 현장의 북한 외교관들은 북한이 협상에서 절대로 핵을 포기하지 않을 것을 알았으며 앞으로도 그럴 것이라는 데에 이견을 보이지 않았다. 이처럼 북한 외교에서 가장 큰 불일치한 점은 ‘핵 외교’에 관한 인식이다. 북한 외교의 변곡점마다 국내외 학계에서도 ‘비핵화’를 조건으로 내세운 북한의 대외정책에 근본적인 인식 변화가 있는 것인지 꾸준한 연구가 있었지만 실상은 북한의 핵보유 선언으로 이어진 것으로 볼 때 해당 연구의 함의가 있다. 김정은이 2018년 남북 정상회담 전후 당시 주요 외교 업무에서 외무성을 배제하고 있는 것 또한 파악하였다. 이와 같은 문제의식을 가지고 살펴본 결과, 북한이 2019년부터 「월간국제정세개관」게재를 중단하였다는 것은 북한이 앞으로 국제사회에서 정상국가들과의 관계 개선을 시도하기보다는 자위적 핵무력 강화에 무게를 실을 가능성이 높다는 정책적 함의를 도출해낼 수 있었다. 이상의 분석을 통해 북한이 자초한 외교적 고립은 더욱 심화될 가능성이 높은 것으로 예측된다. 반면 중국과 러시아 등 냉전시대에 사회주의 연대의식을 형성하였던 국가들과의 교류는 더욱 강화될 것으로 예상된다. 특히, 김일성의 ‘쁠럭 불가담’을 형성하였던 이란･파키스탄 등의 중동국가들과 ‘대중동 외교’를 이어나갈 것으로 보인다. 이는 지금까지 북한외교 연구 분야에서 부차적인 변수였던 북한의 ‘대중동 외교 분야’가 김정은 외교의 핵심 코드로 자리잡을 가능성이 높다는 함의를 담고 있으며, 앞으로 북한의 중동정책을 중요한 상수로 봐야 한다는 의미를 담고 있다. 이 학위논문을 작성하면서 이미 발표된 저자의 학술 논문들이 활용되었다. 제4장 제1절과 제2절의 내용은 2023년 발간된 평화문제연구소의 『통일문제연구』 35권 1호에 게재된 본인의 논문 “김정일 및 김정은 집권 시기별 북한 대외 정세 인식 변화 분석: 노동신문 월간국제정세개관의 토픽모델링 분석을 중심으로”를 요약･정리하여 수록하였다.
본 연구의 목적은 북한이 형성하는 대외정세 인식에 관한 담론을 살펴봄으로써 김정일･김정은 시기 외교정책의 특징을 비교․분석하는 것이다. 최고지도자가 전하는 대외적 메시지가 외교정책에 어떻게 반영되는지 유형화해보고 향후 대외정책의 양상을 전망하였다. 이러한 연구 목적을 달성하기 위해 조선로동당 기관지 『로동신문』의 외교 사설인 「월간국제정세개관」을 ‘토픽 모델링’ 기법을 활용하여 분석하였다. 외교사설로 파악하기 어려운 북한 내부의 대외정세 인식과 외교행태에 대해서는 탈북 외교 엘리트 7인에 대한 심층 인터뷰를 진행하였다. 탈북 외교관과의 인터뷰를 통해 북한에서 내밀하게 형성되는 대외정세 인식을 파악하고 실제 외교 현장에서 행해지는 외교지침을 수집하였다. 두 차례에 걸친 교차연구를 실시하여 문헌 내용과 실제 외교 행태를 비교･분석하여 실증적 연구가 될 수 있도록 하였으며 북한 외교정책 연구의 방법론적 지평 확장을 시도하였다. 1차 분석으로 『로동신문』의 기사 「월간국제정세개관」은 김정일의 집권이 시작된 1994년 7월부터 마지막 기사가 보도된 2019년 9월까지 시기별로 대외정세 인식의 양상을 비교하였다. 분석 결과 김정일 시기의 기사 200건은 ‘한미일 군사 연합훈련’에 대한 비난 강도가 가장 높았다. 북한은 이러한 대외정세 인식에 기반하여 내적으로 끊임없이 반미의식을 고취하면서 향후 핵 개발의 명분을 쌓고 있었다고 풀이할 수 있다. 2012년부터 2019년 9월까지의 기사 74건에 대한 토픽 모델링 결과, 김정은 시기에는 자위적 군사력 강화를 필두로 핵 무력 고도화 의지를 노골적으로 드러냈다. 김정일 시기에는 이란 및 팔레스타인 문제를 거론하면서 간접적으로 핵 야망 드러낸 것에 비하면 가장 의미 있는 변화다. 이상의 내용을 바탕으로 탈북 외교엘리트 7인에 대한 심층 인터뷰를 통해 교차연구를 진행한 2차 분석 결과 「월간국제정세개관」에 나타난 북한의 대외 인식은 최고지도자의 인식을 파악하는 데에는 의미가 있지만, 실제 현장과 반드시 일치하는 것은 아니었으며 일부에서는 상당한 괴리가 있음을 확인하였다. 가장 큰 괴리를 보여주는 사례는 북한이 공식 외교무대에 나설 때 나타났다. 2000년 남북정상회담이나 북미, 혹은 다자간 정상회담과 같은 대외적 요인이 발생했을 때에도 「월간국제정세개관」은 정치적 일정과 관계없이 ‘반미’가 토픽 선정에 가장 주효한 영향을 미치고 있었다. 한편, 회담 참가를 앞둔 외교관들에게 “반미의식을 투철하게 지니면서도 미국 외교관들을 현장에서 만나면 회담이 잘 되길 바라고 후속 조치도 강화하겠다고 이야기 하라.”는 내용의 교시가 내려왔다고 한다. 여기서 말하는 ‘후속 조치’는 한반도 비핵화에 관한 조항이었지만, 회담에서 비핵화를 조건으로 협상할 때도 현장의 북한 외교관들은 북한이 협상에서 절대로 핵을 포기하지 않을 것을 알았으며 앞으로도 그럴 것이라는 데에 이견을 보이지 않았다. 이처럼 북한 외교에서 가장 큰 불일치한 점은 ‘핵 외교’에 관한 인식이다. 북한 외교의 변곡점마다 국내외 학계에서도 ‘비핵화’를 조건으로 내세운 북한의 대외정책에 근본적인 인식 변화가 있는 것인지 꾸준한 연구가 있었지만 실상은 북한의 핵보유 선언으로 이어진 것으로 볼 때 해당 연구의 함의가 있다. 김정은이 2018년 남북 정상회담 전후 당시 주요 외교 업무에서 외무성을 배제하고 있는 것 또한 파악하였다. 이와 같은 문제의식을 가지고 살펴본 결과, 북한이 2019년부터 「월간국제정세개관」게재를 중단하였다는 것은 북한이 앞으로 국제사회에서 정상국가들과의 관계 개선을 시도하기보다는 자위적 핵무력 강화에 무게를 실을 가능성이 높다는 정책적 함의를 도출해낼 수 있었다. 이상의 분석을 통해 북한이 자초한 외교적 고립은 더욱 심화될 가능성이 높은 것으로 예측된다. 반면 중국과 러시아 등 냉전시대에 사회주의 연대의식을 형성하였던 국가들과의 교류는 더욱 강화될 것으로 예상된다. 특히, 김일성의 ‘쁠럭 불가담’을 형성하였던 이란･파키스탄 등의 중동국가들과 ‘대중동 외교’를 이어나갈 것으로 보인다. 이는 지금까지 북한외교 연구 분야에서 부차적인 변수였던 북한의 ‘대중동 외교 분야’가 김정은 외교의 핵심 코드로 자리잡을 가능성이 높다는 함의를 담고 있으며, 앞으로 북한의 중동정책을 중요한 상수로 봐야 한다는 의미를 담고 있다. 이 학위논문을 작성하면서 이미 발표된 저자의 학술 논문들이 활용되었다. 제4장 제1절과 제2절의 내용은 2023년 발간된 평화문제연구소의 『통일문제연구』 35권 1호에 게재된 본인의 논문 “김정일 및 김정은 집권 시기별 북한 대외 정세 인식 변화 분석: 노동신문 월간국제정세개관의 토픽모델링 분석을 중심으로”를 요약･정리하여 수록하였다.
The purpose of this study is to examine the discourses within North Korea on its external perceptions, and comparatively analyse the changing characteristics of North Korea’s foreign policy during the Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un era. North Korea demonstrated various changes in its di...
The purpose of this study is to examine the discourses within North Korea on its external perceptions, and comparatively analyse the changing characteristics of North Korea’s foreign policy during the Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un era. North Korea demonstrated various changes in its diplomatic behavior in accordance with the changes in its external environment. Over time, its perception of the United States and the Korean Peninsula, and of ‘peace’ itself, have also changed. North Korea maintained the armistice regime which was established by the agreement signed on July 27, 1953, but in order to overcome the regime’s constraints, it attempted to hold summits with both South Korea and the United States or even reach a peace agreement with the US, while at the same time pursuing nuclear development and missile launches. A turning point in North Korea's perception of its external situation can be observed during the fall of the socialist bloc that began in the late 1980s and the subsequent end of the Cold War. Due to rapid changes in the international situation at the time, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of the communist bloc in Eastern Europe, North Korea became diplomatically isolated, and external communist support for North Korea also ceased. On the other hand, the Soviet Union and China established diplomatic relations with South Korea, further deepening North Korea's isolation. The North Korean economy also failed to the point of bankruptcy, and scenarios of North Korea's regime collapse emerged among experts. External isolation and grave economic hardship functioned as major factors that undermined the power succession and stability of the Kim Jong-il regime after Kim Il-sung's death, and improvement of external relations for the country was necessary for the country’s economic viability. In such grave internal and external crises, North Korea signed the Inter-Korean Basic Agreement, which aimed for a peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas externally, while strengthening the country’s “our-style socialism” and self-reliance. At the same time, North Korea sought for regime stability and security by actively promoting cooperation with Western countries, including the United States. Its anti-American ideology still persisted as a governing discourse to justify the regime internally, but since the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, the country began to demonstrate seemingly contradicting perceptions and attitudes by relying on the relationship with the US for its own survival. In other words, a schism appeared between North Korea's ideological and historical anti-Americanism on the one hand, and its ‘pragmatic’ diplomatic behavior on the other. There also have been active discussions in academia at the time regarding such double attitudes, to determine whether there had been an actual change in the country’s anti-American stance and regime ideology, or whether such behavioral manoeuvre was simply a diplomatic strategy and tactic for its immediate survival. Following Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un’s reign also showed the country’s dual foreign policy of hard- and soft-line combination. For instance, since 2012 when Kim Jong-un officially took power, tensions on the Korean Peninsula have been heightened due to the regime’s increased military provocations including nuclear tests and missile launches. The international community responded accordingly to these provocations with sanctions. At the same time however, North Korea has displayed significantly conciliatory and compromising behaviors through three inter-Korean summits since 2018 and two US-North Korea summits (Jun 12, 2018 and Feb 27~28, 2019), and another US-North Korea summit meeting at Panmunjom. The previous year, on November 29, 2017, the country had declared that it had completed its nuclear capabilities and displayed an attitude that ran counter to its self-designation as a “strategic nation.” Since the collapse of the Hanoi summit with the United States in February 2019 however, the country’s relations with both South Korea and the United States have strained, and North Korea is once again pursuing a hard-line foreign policy. Upon such background outlined above, this study seeks to analyze how North Korea perceives its external situation after the end of the Cold War in the 1990s and also the changing nature, if at all, of its foreign policy accordingly. In order to achieve this research objective, the author utilized the ‘topic-modeling’ technique to analyze North Korea’s external perception displayed in the ‘Monthly International Situation Overview(hereafter, Monthly Overview),’ a diplomatic editorial appearing in Rodong Simnum published by the Worker’s Party of Korea. And from this analysis, this research attempts to determine North Korea’s external perceptions, its attitudes, and its intentions. In addition to the topic-modeling, this study conducts in-depth interviews with seven North Korean defector-diplomats, in order to analyze North Korea's perception of its external situation and diplomatic behaviors that are not obtained from the Monthly Overviews. Through in-depth interviews, the diplomats’ perceptions of the country’s’ external environment were identified and their actual diplomatic guidelines were collected. In turn, the analysis of the Monthly Overview was further studied cross-sectionally through these in-depth interviews, comparing North Korea’s published contents and actual diplomatic behaviors. In this way, this research attempted to expand the empirical methodology of North Korean foreign policy research. First, the primary subject of analysis in this study, the Rodong Shinmun editorial ‘Monthly Overview’ from July 1994, when Kim Jong-il's rise to power began, to September 2019, when the last article was reported, was collected. Then, North Korea's changing perception of its external situation according to the country’s internal and external conditions was analysed. Topic-modeling, one of the tools in text-mining analysis, was used as a research method. Through this analysis, this research attempts to search for any underlying meaning in the literature, and analyze any changes in diplomatic behavior according to North Korea's perception of its external situation. In the process of analyzing the Monthly Overviews using the topic-modeling tool, the North Korea’s perception of its external situation during the Kim Jong-il period was categorized into four topic clusters. During the Kim Jong-il era, there was a strong criticism of the Korea-US-Japan joint military exercise [Topic 1]. This was interpreted as North Korea’s apparent effort to expand diplomacy with the US, when it constantly promoted anti-American sentiments internally and laying the groundwork for future nuclear development. Based on this perception, North Korea’s military-first politics came to function as a governing discourse during the Kim Jong-il period, and it can be interpreted that such approach was in fact intended to secure legitimacy of the country’s nuclear possession. As for the Kim Jong-un era, topic-modeling method was utilized on 74 Monthly Overviews published from January 2012 to September 2019, and they were also categorized into four clusters. It was confirmed through this analysis that during the Kim Jong-un era, the North Korean leader explicitly demonstrated his will to advance nuclear weapons, beginning with strengthening military capabilities for self-defense. This is the most significant change from the previous era, during which his father’s nuclear ambitions were only indirectly revealed through sporadic mentions of Iran and Palestine issues. North Korea’s external perception in relation to the advancement of nuclear forces was also found to be connected to its perception of ‘THAAD deployment’ [Topic 3]. In the second analysis, a cross-sectional study was conducted based on the above information through in-depth interviews with seven North Korean defector diplomats. This was an attempt at an empirical analysis of how the country’s external perception displayed in Rodong Sinmun is actually reflected in the country’s diplomatic field. As a result of the secondary analysis, it was confirmed that North Korea's external perception shown in the Monthly Overview was significant in understanding the supreme leader's perception, but they did not necessarily match the situation on the ground, and that there were significant gaps in some areas. For example, a significant gap between the diplomatic field and the external perception displayed in the Monthly Overview occurred when the country was put on the spot on a diplomatic stage. Even during the 2000 inter-Korean summit, US-North Korea summits, and other multilateral summits, ‘anti-Americanism’ had the most appearance in the Monthly Overview’s topic selection, regardless of the political schedule. Meanwhile, contradicting instructions were reportedly given to diplomats who were about to participate in diplomatic meetings, such as, “Although you have a strong anti-American attitude, tell your counterpart that you hope the meeting goes well and that you will strengthen follow-up measures when you meet American diplomats.” The ‘follow-up measures’ referred to provisions regarding the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. However, even when negotiating on the condition of denuclearization at the summit, North Korean diplomats on the scene knew that North Korea would not give up its nuclear weapons but only ‘agreed’ that it would do so in the future. The greatest discrepancy between the Monthly Overviews and the actual diplomatic scene was the country’s perception of its ‘nuclear diplomacy’ During the 1994 Geneva Agreement and the summits in 2000 and 2018, an inflection point in North Korean diplomacy, academic experts continued to study whether there was any fundamental change in perception of North Korea's foreign policy, which put ‘denuclearization’ as a condition. In light of the above analysis, this study concluded that North Korea was only using nuclear negotiations to obtain what it wants from the international community and that there would be no fundamental changes in the future. This perception of North Korea has been further strengthened in the Kim Jong-un era. Also, judging from the fact that publications of the Monthly Overviews discontinued since 2019, when the strengthening of self-defense military capabilities through nuclear power was adopted as the top priority in foreign policy, it can be interpreted that North Korea’s perception of any importance of dialogues and negotiations in a peaceful atmosphere was greatly reduced in North Korea's foreign policy. It was also learned that Kim Jong-un was purposefully excluding the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from major diplomatic works. For example, the diplomats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were unaware of any relevant details regarding the China visit in 2019. Compared to the practices during the Kim Jong-il era when matters related to diplomatic activities across political and military officials were directly reported to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the hierarchical status of the Ministry had been noticeably lowered. In light of these considerations, it is possible to draw policy implications that Kim Jong-un is likely to focus on strengthening the country’s nuclear power rather than pursuing efforts to improve relations with other countries in the international community. As such, cross-sectional research using topic-modeling analysis of the Monthly Overviews and in-depth interviews with seven North Korean defector-diplomats provides new light on the situation in North Korea since 1994, when its nuclear diplomacy began in earnest. Based on the above analysis, it is highly likely that North Korea's self-inflicted diplomatic isolation will only deepen further, while exchanges with socialist countries during the Cold War, such as China and Russia, are expected to strengthen. In particular, it appears that the country will continue the previous ‘Middle East diplomacy’ with Iran and Pakistan, with whom Kim Il-sung formed the Non-Aligned Movement. This further implies that North Korea's ‘Middle East diplomacy’, which had been only a secondary variable in North Korean foreign policy, is now highly likely to become a core aspect in the Kim Jong-un era, and that North Korea's Middle East policy should be viewed as an important constant in the future. In writing this dissertation, the author's previously published papers were used. The contents in Sections 1 and 2 of Chapter 4 are extracted from the paper, “Analysis of Changes in North Korea's Perception of Its External Situation during Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un era,” in Vol. 35, No. 1 of The Korean Journal of Unification Affairs, published in 2023 by the Institute of Peace Affairs.
The purpose of this study is to examine the discourses within North Korea on its external perceptions, and comparatively analyse the changing characteristics of North Korea’s foreign policy during the Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un era. North Korea demonstrated various changes in its diplomatic behavior in accordance with the changes in its external environment. Over time, its perception of the United States and the Korean Peninsula, and of ‘peace’ itself, have also changed. North Korea maintained the armistice regime which was established by the agreement signed on July 27, 1953, but in order to overcome the regime’s constraints, it attempted to hold summits with both South Korea and the United States or even reach a peace agreement with the US, while at the same time pursuing nuclear development and missile launches. A turning point in North Korea's perception of its external situation can be observed during the fall of the socialist bloc that began in the late 1980s and the subsequent end of the Cold War. Due to rapid changes in the international situation at the time, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of the communist bloc in Eastern Europe, North Korea became diplomatically isolated, and external communist support for North Korea also ceased. On the other hand, the Soviet Union and China established diplomatic relations with South Korea, further deepening North Korea's isolation. The North Korean economy also failed to the point of bankruptcy, and scenarios of North Korea's regime collapse emerged among experts. External isolation and grave economic hardship functioned as major factors that undermined the power succession and stability of the Kim Jong-il regime after Kim Il-sung's death, and improvement of external relations for the country was necessary for the country’s economic viability. In such grave internal and external crises, North Korea signed the Inter-Korean Basic Agreement, which aimed for a peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas externally, while strengthening the country’s “our-style socialism” and self-reliance. At the same time, North Korea sought for regime stability and security by actively promoting cooperation with Western countries, including the United States. Its anti-American ideology still persisted as a governing discourse to justify the regime internally, but since the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, the country began to demonstrate seemingly contradicting perceptions and attitudes by relying on the relationship with the US for its own survival. In other words, a schism appeared between North Korea's ideological and historical anti-Americanism on the one hand, and its ‘pragmatic’ diplomatic behavior on the other. There also have been active discussions in academia at the time regarding such double attitudes, to determine whether there had been an actual change in the country’s anti-American stance and regime ideology, or whether such behavioral manoeuvre was simply a diplomatic strategy and tactic for its immediate survival. Following Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un’s reign also showed the country’s dual foreign policy of hard- and soft-line combination. For instance, since 2012 when Kim Jong-un officially took power, tensions on the Korean Peninsula have been heightened due to the regime’s increased military provocations including nuclear tests and missile launches. The international community responded accordingly to these provocations with sanctions. At the same time however, North Korea has displayed significantly conciliatory and compromising behaviors through three inter-Korean summits since 2018 and two US-North Korea summits (Jun 12, 2018 and Feb 27~28, 2019), and another US-North Korea summit meeting at Panmunjom. The previous year, on November 29, 2017, the country had declared that it had completed its nuclear capabilities and displayed an attitude that ran counter to its self-designation as a “strategic nation.” Since the collapse of the Hanoi summit with the United States in February 2019 however, the country’s relations with both South Korea and the United States have strained, and North Korea is once again pursuing a hard-line foreign policy. Upon such background outlined above, this study seeks to analyze how North Korea perceives its external situation after the end of the Cold War in the 1990s and also the changing nature, if at all, of its foreign policy accordingly. In order to achieve this research objective, the author utilized the ‘topic-modeling’ technique to analyze North Korea’s external perception displayed in the ‘Monthly International Situation Overview(hereafter, Monthly Overview),’ a diplomatic editorial appearing in Rodong Simnum published by the Worker’s Party of Korea. And from this analysis, this research attempts to determine North Korea’s external perceptions, its attitudes, and its intentions. In addition to the topic-modeling, this study conducts in-depth interviews with seven North Korean defector-diplomats, in order to analyze North Korea's perception of its external situation and diplomatic behaviors that are not obtained from the Monthly Overviews. Through in-depth interviews, the diplomats’ perceptions of the country’s’ external environment were identified and their actual diplomatic guidelines were collected. In turn, the analysis of the Monthly Overview was further studied cross-sectionally through these in-depth interviews, comparing North Korea’s published contents and actual diplomatic behaviors. In this way, this research attempted to expand the empirical methodology of North Korean foreign policy research. First, the primary subject of analysis in this study, the Rodong Shinmun editorial ‘Monthly Overview’ from July 1994, when Kim Jong-il's rise to power began, to September 2019, when the last article was reported, was collected. Then, North Korea's changing perception of its external situation according to the country’s internal and external conditions was analysed. Topic-modeling, one of the tools in text-mining analysis, was used as a research method. Through this analysis, this research attempts to search for any underlying meaning in the literature, and analyze any changes in diplomatic behavior according to North Korea's perception of its external situation. In the process of analyzing the Monthly Overviews using the topic-modeling tool, the North Korea’s perception of its external situation during the Kim Jong-il period was categorized into four topic clusters. During the Kim Jong-il era, there was a strong criticism of the Korea-US-Japan joint military exercise [Topic 1]. This was interpreted as North Korea’s apparent effort to expand diplomacy with the US, when it constantly promoted anti-American sentiments internally and laying the groundwork for future nuclear development. Based on this perception, North Korea’s military-first politics came to function as a governing discourse during the Kim Jong-il period, and it can be interpreted that such approach was in fact intended to secure legitimacy of the country’s nuclear possession. As for the Kim Jong-un era, topic-modeling method was utilized on 74 Monthly Overviews published from January 2012 to September 2019, and they were also categorized into four clusters. It was confirmed through this analysis that during the Kim Jong-un era, the North Korean leader explicitly demonstrated his will to advance nuclear weapons, beginning with strengthening military capabilities for self-defense. This is the most significant change from the previous era, during which his father’s nuclear ambitions were only indirectly revealed through sporadic mentions of Iran and Palestine issues. North Korea’s external perception in relation to the advancement of nuclear forces was also found to be connected to its perception of ‘THAAD deployment’ [Topic 3]. In the second analysis, a cross-sectional study was conducted based on the above information through in-depth interviews with seven North Korean defector diplomats. This was an attempt at an empirical analysis of how the country’s external perception displayed in Rodong Sinmun is actually reflected in the country’s diplomatic field. As a result of the secondary analysis, it was confirmed that North Korea's external perception shown in the Monthly Overview was significant in understanding the supreme leader's perception, but they did not necessarily match the situation on the ground, and that there were significant gaps in some areas. For example, a significant gap between the diplomatic field and the external perception displayed in the Monthly Overview occurred when the country was put on the spot on a diplomatic stage. Even during the 2000 inter-Korean summit, US-North Korea summits, and other multilateral summits, ‘anti-Americanism’ had the most appearance in the Monthly Overview’s topic selection, regardless of the political schedule. Meanwhile, contradicting instructions were reportedly given to diplomats who were about to participate in diplomatic meetings, such as, “Although you have a strong anti-American attitude, tell your counterpart that you hope the meeting goes well and that you will strengthen follow-up measures when you meet American diplomats.” The ‘follow-up measures’ referred to provisions regarding the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. However, even when negotiating on the condition of denuclearization at the summit, North Korean diplomats on the scene knew that North Korea would not give up its nuclear weapons but only ‘agreed’ that it would do so in the future. The greatest discrepancy between the Monthly Overviews and the actual diplomatic scene was the country’s perception of its ‘nuclear diplomacy’ During the 1994 Geneva Agreement and the summits in 2000 and 2018, an inflection point in North Korean diplomacy, academic experts continued to study whether there was any fundamental change in perception of North Korea's foreign policy, which put ‘denuclearization’ as a condition. In light of the above analysis, this study concluded that North Korea was only using nuclear negotiations to obtain what it wants from the international community and that there would be no fundamental changes in the future. This perception of North Korea has been further strengthened in the Kim Jong-un era. Also, judging from the fact that publications of the Monthly Overviews discontinued since 2019, when the strengthening of self-defense military capabilities through nuclear power was adopted as the top priority in foreign policy, it can be interpreted that North Korea’s perception of any importance of dialogues and negotiations in a peaceful atmosphere was greatly reduced in North Korea's foreign policy. It was also learned that Kim Jong-un was purposefully excluding the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from major diplomatic works. For example, the diplomats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were unaware of any relevant details regarding the China visit in 2019. Compared to the practices during the Kim Jong-il era when matters related to diplomatic activities across political and military officials were directly reported to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the hierarchical status of the Ministry had been noticeably lowered. In light of these considerations, it is possible to draw policy implications that Kim Jong-un is likely to focus on strengthening the country’s nuclear power rather than pursuing efforts to improve relations with other countries in the international community. As such, cross-sectional research using topic-modeling analysis of the Monthly Overviews and in-depth interviews with seven North Korean defector-diplomats provides new light on the situation in North Korea since 1994, when its nuclear diplomacy began in earnest. Based on the above analysis, it is highly likely that North Korea's self-inflicted diplomatic isolation will only deepen further, while exchanges with socialist countries during the Cold War, such as China and Russia, are expected to strengthen. In particular, it appears that the country will continue the previous ‘Middle East diplomacy’ with Iran and Pakistan, with whom Kim Il-sung formed the Non-Aligned Movement. This further implies that North Korea's ‘Middle East diplomacy’, which had been only a secondary variable in North Korean foreign policy, is now highly likely to become a core aspect in the Kim Jong-un era, and that North Korea's Middle East policy should be viewed as an important constant in the future. In writing this dissertation, the author's previously published papers were used. The contents in Sections 1 and 2 of Chapter 4 are extracted from the paper, “Analysis of Changes in North Korea's Perception of Its External Situation during Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un era,” in Vol. 35, No. 1 of The Korean Journal of Unification Affairs, published in 2023 by the Institute of Peace Affairs.
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