What’s happening inside North Korea? Since the pandemic, the window has slammed shut

North Korea sealed its borders shut in the pandemic, even to its major trade partner, China, a move that the U.N. human rights watchdog said exacerbated shortages of food and medical supplies. But the harsh measure has also led to a loss of firsthand insights on the country that helped policymakers connect the dots about internal pressures and trends that inform U.S. policy toward the nuclear-armed regime.

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The lockdown has prompted an exodus of foreigners — diplomats, aid workers, business envoys and others — who could fact-check state media reports about the totalitarian country. Their accounts helped inform policymakers on decisions about how to negotiate and engage with North Korea to curb its ever-growing nuclear ambitions, and about how to gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics that guide the totalitarian leader’s political calculations…

Pyongyang is so strict about its border enforcement that it has ordered any trespassers — even animals — to be shot without warning, according to an October 2020 decree obtained by NK News, an outlet that follows North Korean affairs. The previous month, North Korea shot dead a South Korean official who disappeared from a fisheries boat, later dousing the man’s body in oil and setting it on fire in an apparent anti-coronavirus measure, South Korean military officials said.

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At a military parade broadcast Thursday, the first in President Biden’s term, rows of people dressed head to toe in orange coronavirus protective gear marched. The state media photos offered one of the few glimpses for analysts to pore over to gain intel and clues about life under the regime.

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