“North Korea [DPRK] is very good at playing this PR game. Kim Yong-nam’s visit will create a lot of excitement,” said Sung Yoon Lee, professor of Korean Studies at The Fletcher School, Tufts University in Massachusetts, the United States. 

His comment came after the DPRK confirmed that it would send its highest-ranking official in years to visit the ROK amid an ongoing thaw in relations over the upcoming Winter Olympic Games. The DPRK’s Kim Yong-nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, will be leading a delegation of high-ranking officials to celebrate the events. 

“It signifies North Korea’s [DPRK] serious intent to advance its interests by its charm offensive. North Korea [DPRK] has already won some benefits without the Olympics even having begun with its image makeover. North Korea [DPRK] now comes across as the party that’s more interested in peace while the Trump administration comes across as the petulant party,” said Lee who thinks the move can be seen as a PR victory for the DPRK.

“I don’t think we should simply see it as a unilateral North Korean [DPRK] win,” Tat Yan Kong, reader in Comparative Politics from the Department of Politics & International Studies, at SOAS University of London added.

He thought both sides have their interests. “The North Koreans [DPRK], they seek the easing of sanctions and economic assistance; they seek the suspension of the joint drills, and they seek South Korea [ROK] as a bridge to the United States,” Kong elaborated. “For the South Korean [ROK] side, engaging with North Korea [DPRK], there are some substantial benefits to be had: the reunion of separated families, developing a mechanism of communication, especially on the military side, and to prevent the outbreak of incidents.”  

As his guest for the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics on Friday, US Vice President Mike Pence will bring the father of Otto Warmbier, the American student who was imprisoned in the DPRK for 17 months and died shortly after he was sent back to the US. 

When asked what kind of message Pence wants to send, Lee said that even though the UN study states that the DPRK’s crimes against humanity “do not have a parallel in the contemporary world,” the US move is not effective PR at this particular time. “It paints the US as the spoiler, as the party that is petulant and bellicose while North Korea [DPRK] comes across as more interested in reconciliation and peace,” he explained.

Kong added “human rights in North Korea [DPRK] will not be improved unless the society is developed; the society won’t develop unless there is an economic change; and there will not be substantial economic change unless there is engagement from the outside and the development of the linkage between North Korea’s [DPRK] economy and outside economies.”

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is reported to have suggested that the US and ROK conduct a planned joint military drill after the Pyeongchang Olympics without scaling it down in order to keep the pressure on the DPRK to give up its nuclear and missile development. Lee said he thought this move betrayed the sense of nervousness that is real on the part of the Japanese and US governments that the ROK is slightly inching away from its allies and tacit ally of Japan, and is moving closer to the DPRK.

“In that regard, North Korea [DPRK] has already won the small victory by driving wedges among those three nations,” Lee concluded.