North Korea’s Cultural Diplomacy in the Early Kim Jong-un Era

The rumours of Unhasu Orchestra’s demise soaked up a good deal of the bandwidth in the English-language press that focused on the DPRK in autumn 2013. Yet there remains a real dearth of academic work on this significant state institution, which was clearly intended to pursue Kim Jong-il’s ideology and spread Kim Jong-un’s glories, particularly in charismatic commemorative vein. Thus this article’s scope and interest in establishing the orchestra’s function in North Korea’s efforts to craft external views of itself is both useful and timely. The Associated Press bureau in Pyongyang, similarly, has been the focus of a great deal of ire and interest on the internet, but far less scholarly investigation. This article puts the AP-KCNA collaboration into a “soft power” framework whereby North Korea’s gains from the project are juxtaposed against the propaganda uses to which it is put. Even as the AP’s presence in Pyongyang (and, briefly, Manhattan) has manifested the glimmering if hardly full appearance of a new internationalism for North Korean viewers, the article holds out the possibility of the DPRK using the AP as a channel to Washington. In other words, its greatest use in the possible unfreezing of US-DPRK relations may be yet to come, inevitable criticisms of restricted reporting notwithstanding. Both the AP-KCNA joint exhibition and the Unhasu Orchestra’s sojourn to France coincided with the first months of Kim Jong-un’s reign. Thus they can provide an alternate perspective both on North Korean foreign policy and the wider debate about how to best engage the DPRK. The paper therefore adds to the literature on North Korean foreign relations under Kim Jong-un, and can enrich the ongoing debates over journalistic and musical engagement with North Korea.