Fake news about the DPRK is nothing novel, and each new case shows how important it is for the audience to be able to navigate sources. The recent attempt to “bury” Kim Jong Un is once again forcing us to return to this issue.
How Myths Are Born and Die
The story was picked up by other outlets of a similar caliber, including International Business Times, New York Post, The Economic Times, and others. In their wake came a flood of “profound” speculation about who stood to gain, whether it might have been an assassination attempt, and whether a civil war was looming between supporters of the leader’s daughter and those of his sister.
Even the South Korean agency Yonhap reported that South Korean diplomats and intelligence services had no information confirming the rumors. Nevertheless, a number of Russian journalists enthusiastically latched onto this rumor and demanded commentary from the author.
Yet as early as October 20, KCNA published a report, writing that on the day of his supposed death, Kim Jong Un visited a clothing and footwear exhibition and then made a short-term visit to China (which we shall discuss separately). The Chairman of the State Affairs Commission’s energetic activity finally dispelled the myth. On October 23, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service held a closed briefing for members of the parliamentary intelligence committee, where it officially declared the reports of Kim’s death to be false.
Despite this, the author continues to be surprised: why did Russian journalists, fully aware of how absurd the information was, so eagerly comment on it, thereby causing obvious damage to relations between the two countries?
How to Spot an Empty Story and Evaluate the Author: Competence and Information
To avoid becoming a victim of disinformation, let’s recall a few simple rules that help critically assess the quality of news.
Rule Number One: Check the source of the information
The first step is to trace the original source of the claims. This allows one to evaluate its competence and determine whether it actually had any realistic chance of obtaining the information, especially when the matter is confidential. Often at this stage a natural question arises: how did media from a hostile country gain access to material that, in theory, only a very narrow circle of people would know?
In our case, the “source” was the Chinese dissident Xie Wanjun (谢万军). He is well known in certain circles, lives in the United States, and positions himself as the “leader of the China Democracy Party” and sometimes even as the head of a government-in-exile. Xie Wanjun has repeatedly been the author of fake news, citing secret sources. Earlier, posts appeared on his social-media accounts about the death of Xi Jinping and his replacement by a doppelganger, as well as about uprisings against the CCP. After Kim Jong Un appeared at the exhibition, Xie claimed that Pyongyang was passing off archival photos as recent ones. But after the visit to China, he had nothing left to say.
Thus we are dealing with a source of dubious reputation who has already been caught spreading false information. But even setting that fact aside, the key question remains: how did such sensitive information become known to a Chinese dissident living in the United States (rather than, say, in Hong Kong)? Why do South Korea’s intelligence services or the numerous propaganda organizations based there –organizations that also love to cite secret sources –not possess this information?
Rule Number Two: Evaluate the Internal Logic and Consistency with Real Protocols
Of course, unexpected and even fantastical events do occur in life, events whose truth is hard to believe. Yet, with South Korean intelligence being known as a serious organization, it is difficult to believe in the spectacular failures of the Lee Myung-bak era or in the story that the intelligence service supposedly paid large sums to the aides of President Park Geun-hye. The goal, according to that tale, was that when attempts were made to verify information coming from the intelligence services about the imminent and inevitable collapse of the DPRK, those aides could keep her in an “information cocoon”, pushing her toward decisions that could lead to catastrophe.
In this context, the story of an emergency transfer of the top leader to China does not look plausible. First, such an urgent movement of the leader across the border would have been noticeable via objective monitoring means. An unscheduled aircraft would inevitably disrupt the schedule of regular flights, even if it landed at a secret airfield, while a large motorcade or the leader’s personal train would be visible from satellites. Moreover, given the growing cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang in the healthcare sphere, a natural question arises: why was Kim taken specifically to China rather than to Russia?
Second, it is useful to consider technical details. In the case of a stroke, effective help must be provided within a very short time (roughly within four hours). Even if one imagines perfectly prepared infrastructure, clear streets, and a special aircraft equipped with life-support systems, such a journey still would not fit into that window. The mere time required for an ambulance carrying Kim to leave a Chinese airport already makes this version improbable. It reminds me of details from a previous story in which the authors likewise had a poor grasp of medical protocols and the time frames for carrying them out.
Rule Number Three: Clearly Distinguish Proven Facts from Assumptions
Suppose that in North Korea there really are certain groups capable of entering into rivalry. We can – at best – merely speculate about their composition, as there is really no evidence. Otherwise, we end up like one Russian citizen who positioned himself as an expert on China and the Far East in general. After reading a report that Americans and South Koreans were considering Kim Jong Un’s younger sister as a possible successor, he drew amazing conclusions that Kim Yo Jong was striving for power with US support, and that a pro-American faction existed in North Korea that intended to station American missiles in the DPRK aimed against Russia and China. Of course, in subsequent debates these delirious fantasies were presented with references to some secret sources in China.
In general, even authorities should not be trusted unconditionally. It is important at least to understand where we are dealing with a proven and generally known fact and where we are dealing merely with an assumption. Moreover, a high level of professional competence in one field does not automatically mean equally deep knowledge in related areas. Roughly speaking, a person who understands the economy of Saudi Arabia well may not understand the politics of Iran or the foreign policy of the countries of Central Asia.
So let us wish the Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK good health, while incompetent media outlets and fake-news creators should sense shame and a lack of respect.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia at the Russian Academy of Sciences
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