In this 2 March 2019, file photo, Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, attends a wreath-laying ceremony at Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi, Vietnam. File photo/AP/Pool/Jorge Silva
By Amanda Macias | CNBC
WASHINGTON, DC, 16 March 2021
The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent an eerie message to the United States on Tuesday, as Biden administration officials arrive for high-level talks in Japan and South Korea.
“We take this opportunity to warn the new US administration trying hard to give off [gun] powder smell in our land,” Kim Yo-jong said in a statement referencing joint US and South Korean military exercises in the region.
“If it [the US] wants to sleep in peace for the coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink at its first step,” she added, according to an English translation.
Kim’s comments, carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, are the first reactions from Pyongyang since President Joe Biden took office, and coincided with the arrival of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in the region.
Blinken and Austin, in their first trip abroad under Biden’s leadership, arrived in Japan on Tuesday and will travel to South Korea on Wednesday. The pair plans to reaffirm US commitments in the region and discuss ongoing security challenges, including North Korea.
“To reduce the risks of escalating, we reached out to the North Korean government channels, starting in mid-February, including in New York. To date we have not received a response from Pyongyang,” Blinken said during a news conference on Tuesday. “This follows over a year without active dialogue with North Korea despite multiple attempts by the United States.”
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on the Biden administration not to let up on the crippling economic pressure placed on North Korea.
“I hope that this administration will engage with North Korea with the same massive sanctions regime that we did, which put real pressure on Chairman Kim to come to the table,” Pompeo told Fox Business on Sunday. “We made some good progress. We didn’t get all the way. We got them to cease long-range missile testing, a big deal for the United States of America and our security,” he added.
The Trump administration made some initial progress with North Korea, but the negotiations broke down more than a year ago after the US refused to grant sanctions relief in exchange for Pyongyang’s dismantling of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
The Biden administration has tried unsuccessfully to restart nuke talks with North Korea.
Under third-generation North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the reclusive state has conducted its most powerful nuclear test, launched its first-ever intercontinental ballistic missile and threatened to send missiles into the waters near the US territory of Guam.
Since 2011, Kim has launched more than 100 missiles and conducted four nuclear weapons tests, which is more than what his father, Kim Jong-il, and grandfather, Kim Il-sung, launched over a period of 27 years.
At last the US is coming out smoking! It’s attacking communist China and shows its place in the world. Dictator Xi is all sound and fury to announce to the world of so called “Chinese dream”. It’s all to promote himself for the next term.
He showed aggression towards India, Vietnam, Taiwan and Japan. He thought that his propaganda of Chinese might would deter the US and the US would tone down its rhetoric and accept China as a power to reckon with.
Joe Biden has shown that he is in no mood to accept China’s ascendency and in-fact is determined to crush Chinese ambitions for good. Japan is a crucial ally to deter Chinese ambition against Taiwan. S Korea is a minnow and struggles to walk a tight rope between China and US.
All the powerful nations of Europe are fast becoming part of the front to confront China. Its not only geopolitical competition but is an ideological clash with communism. They will together restrict and deter Chinese ambition on Taiwan in order to protect Taiwan’s vibrant democracy. It’s the ONLY genuine democracy in Asia now after India has been relegated to “partly free” and “electoral autocracy”.
North Korea has lost its puff. It is again China which props up this regime. It seems the north is realising that there is no gain in firing missiles into the air while people are starving. It wants to shake off its closeness with Beijing and make friends outside the Chinese circuit.
Kim has no love lost for Xi. Kim knows Xi is a murderous thug who has no love for him and his family. Xi harbours evil ambition of one day annexing N Korea to its territory. By using the convoluted history of alleged 80,000 Chinese having died to protect N Korea in the Korean War, China is building a narrative to incrementally take over N Korea like Tibet.
Who is Kim Yo-jong? Nobody without Kim Jong-un! Who is this Kim Jong-un? Nobody without Xi Jinping!
Xi is very angry with Biden who has allowed his Secretaries of State and Defence to visit Tokyo first and then to Seoul (South Korea) while Xi Jinping’s China was only on third place. That too on US soil. Therefore angry Xi aims his gun at Biden over the shoulder of this little woman – Kim Yo-jong.