North Korea’s Provocative and Secret Interventions in South Korean Elections

The year 2022 started off rough with North Korea’s seven missile launches in January. North Korea demonstrated the advancement of its missile technology, where it pushed ahead the test launches of the latest hypersonic, short-range, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. It also conducted an additional missile test in late February – which it self-proclaimed as a test for the development of ‘reconnaissance satellite’ – after about a month of suspending the provocation. These launches not only posed significant threats to the security of the Korean peninsula but were also conducted less than two months before South Korea’s presidential election on March 9, 2022.

Deterrence against North Korea’s provocations, therefore, has become a hot topic in the presidential debate on February 3. Presidential candidates argued over the construction of a South Korean missile defense system, including People Power Party candidate Yoon Seok-youl’s pledge of additional deployment of Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD). This debate suggests that North Korea’s military provocations play a significant role in the South Korean presidential candidates’ conversation over Seoul’s foreign policy decisions, which also raises concerns over why North Koreapractices these antagonistic actions particularly around the election day, and how these interventions are carried out.

Overt Interventions: Provocations and Propaganda

As seen from the missile tests in January, North Korea’s most common form of electoral intervention in South Korea is provocative military actions, including nuclear and missile tests. CSIS Beyond Parallel’s database suggests that Pyongyang has historically been increasing provocations against Seoul around the National Assembly or Presidential election dates since the 1950s, indicating that North Korea’s provocations around South Korea’s election date are not unprecedented. For instance, North Korea carried out six medium and short-range ballistic missile launches before the 2017 South Korean presidential election, and it also conducted four missile tests before the 2020 National Assembly election. The recent missile tests, therefore, are following the same pattern observable in South Korea’s election period.

Another overt form of North Korean intervention is spreading propaganda using its media, such as Rodong Sinmun, to malign candidates that threaten the regime’s interest, especially conservative politicians emphasizing security against North Korea, and these rhetorics are circulated across the South Korean internet through 162 pro-North Korea websites to distort the public’s perception of the candidate and the party. For example, while Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, expressed his intention to run for the presidential election in 2017 with promising popularity among conservative voters, a pro-North Korea website spread a photo of Ban bowing to Japan’s then-crown prince Naruhito to frame him as pro-Japan. The resulting criticisms from the South Korean public became one of the reasons that drove Ban to withdraw his bid for the election. These propaganda campaigns are also observable for the upcoming presidential election, where Rodong Sinmun published a caricature of Yoon Seok-youl with slanders propagating him as a “warmonger” set to derail peace in the Korean peninsula.

North Korea organizes these overt interventions to render the South Korean public, government, and policies favorable to its regime’s interests. Fully aware that North Korean provocations will cause public anxiety about national security, Pyongyang anticipates that brinkmanship tactics can induce the voters to elect candidates and the incoming government with a more moderate approach to North Korea and achieve its regime’s interest, such as blackmailing for economic aids or suspension of ROK-U.S. joint exercise, in return for ending the North’s provocative military actions. Furthermore, North Korea attempts to instigate internal conflict in South Korean domestic politics. For instance, North Korean propaganda disgracing conservative candidates and parties could incite an exhausting internal dispute. In the case of Ban Ki-moon, while progressives claimed him as pro-Japan for his photo bowing to Naruhito, the conservatives criticized the progressives as having a pro-North stance by aligning with North Korean propaganda. These internal conflicts can disrupt the rational policy-making process in implementing a unified North Korea policy and weaken Seoul’s foreign policy momentum.

Covert Interventions: Online and Offline Infiltration and Agitation

In contrast to overt interventions, there is limited information available depicting the extent of North Korea’s covert influence on the voting trends in South Korea due to its confidentiality. Nevertheless, Chosun Ilbo’s interview with Kim Kuk Song, North Korean defector and former senior colonel at Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), suggests two types of covert electoral interventions– infiltrations in civil society organizations and cyber campaigns.

First, North Korea has been planting secret agents into South Korea’s progressive civil society organizations to run propaganda and agitation campaigns to influence South Korean public opinion and Seoul’s policy decisions to favor Pyongyang. Kim argued that several North Korea plants secret agents in the South Korean public, who disguise themselves as civil society activists, to manipulate public opinion. Their agitation condemns Seoul’s policy that threatens North Korea, which is superficially publicized as “peace-seeking.” A former North Korean spy also testified that one of the missions that Pyongyang orders to the spies in South Korea include recruiting South Korean individuals with anti-government sentiment and sympathies towards the North to utilize them as the resident spies.

A recent example of this infiltration campaign is South Korean resident spies’ alleged involvement in opposing the introduction of F-35A stealth fighters. In August 2021, Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) arrested four civil activists for violating National Security Law and conducting espionage under Pyongyang’s orders. The spies were allegedly meeting North Korean spies in China and Cambodia to discuss their missions, including holding petitions and rallies opposing the deployment of F-35A stealth fighters in South Korea, infiltrating into various civil society organizations such as the Korean Confederation of Trade Union, and establishing a newspaper called ‘Chungbuk Young Press’ for disseminating pro-North propaganda. The spies also worked as Labor Issue Advisors for President Moon Jae-in’s election camp in the 2017 presidential election and had regular contacts with Democratic Party lawmakers – indicating the possibility of their influence in the current administration’s policy decisions. In October 2019, six months before the 2020 National Assembly election, they received Pyongyang’s order to imprint Liberty Korea Party – the predecessor of People Power Party – as a ‘misogynistic’ party to create hatred towards the conservatives among the female voters.

Second, North Korea infiltrates South Korea’s cyberspace to distort public opinion. According to Kim, RGB has cyber troops specialized in manipulating the South Korean public opinion, where they possess several hundred thousand South Korean people’s identification numbers and contact details to be utilized for infiltrating various South Korean internet communities to steer public opinion. According to Kim, he organized a cyber campaign during the 2012 South Korean presidential election, where “the RGB cyber troops ran manipulation operations in the comment sections of the political news articles criticizing the conservative candidate Park Geun-hye and centrist Ahn Cheol-soo.” North Korea has one of the most powerful hacker groups in the world that commits extensive cybercrime ranging from the deployment of ransomware to the theft of cryptocurrency. Its universities are fostering young hackers who are even considered outperforming American and Chinese counterparts. Consequently, the cyber propaganda campaigns against South Korean internet users will likely continue in the future.

The reasons behind these covert propaganda operations are similar to overt campaigns – maneuvering South Korean voters’ preference towards candidates with an amicable perception towards the North and inflicting internal conflict in the domestic political landscape. Nonetheless, covert intervention differentiates itself in its cost-effectiveness compared to provocations or diplomatic negotiations. Military provocations require North Korea to devote its resources to WMD development, even if it has to bear its persistent food shortage issues. In the case of diplomatic negotiation, Pyongyang must face Seoul’s demand to suspend nuclear and missiles tests, which Kim Jong Un considers as necessary for his regime security. In contrast, the covert interventions do not require North Korea to relinquish any of its security ambitions and still be capable of inciting Seoul to change its behavior if the candidates conforming to North Korea’s security interest win the election. Moreover, as South Korea has one of the highest rates of internet users in the world, with 96.5% of the population connected online, North Korea can anticipate a much more extensive and accessible influence to the voters through cyber campaigns.

The Efficiency of the Electoral Intervention

Under those circumstances, to what extent will North Korea’s interventions sway the upcoming 2022 South Korean presidential election and other future elections? The answer to this question is ‘limited and minimal’ for the recent North Korean military provocations. Although North Korea was and will continue to be a vital issue for every South Korean administration, the recent trend among the South Korean voters indicates that the peaceful resolution of the military provocations – the overt electoral intervention – has lost priority to other more crucial issues such as the real estate crisis. A poll from Korea Society Opinion Institute (KSOI) and Kukmin Ilbo on February 5, 2022, revealed 67.2% of the South Koreans regard the North Korean missile launch in January as not influential to the presidential election results. Another poll from Ipsos and The Korea Economic Daily on January 23, 2022, shows that 44.6% of South Korean voters consider real estate policy as the most urgent issue that must be addressed in the next administration, while only 7% of the people answered North Korea policy.

Notwithstanding, the significance of deterring North Korea’s covert intervention using espionage operations and cyber propaganda campaigns in South Korean elections is still valid and influential. Not only does the secret interference in South Korean people’s voting intentions hurt the democratic value and their voting rights, but also it covertly distortsSouth Korean public opinion, which may result in the implementation of a more favorable foreign policy towards Pyongyang after the election and gradually marginalize the security commitment between South Korea and the U.S., as North Korea intends to expel the U.S. influence in the region. Hence, cooperation in intelligence investigation between Seoul and Washington to uncover Pyongyang’s secret operations over South Korea’s public opinion will become essential to prevent North Korean electoral intervention in the future.

Seong Hyeon Choi is a research intern with the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.