These are some unusual pictures of Kim Jong Un, North Korea's supreme leader.
Unusual because they show him in a context we don’t normally see him.
Let’s zoom back a bit... all these people around him are scientists.
Thanks to their research, North Korea has developed its weapons of mass destruction.
But they didn't do this alone.
North Korean scientists have long tried to partner with foreign universities.
And some of these collaborations may have been trojan horses used by the regime to
access sensitive information. So, we took a closer look.
Our investigation focused on an alarming number of joint publications with a
prestigious laser institute... in Germany! This most likely violates U.N. sanctions that
ban scientific collaborations with North Korea. So, how was this collaboration possible?
And did it potentially help North Korea build more modern weapons of mass destruction?
Our story starts here, at the Max Born Institute in Berlin,
or MBI - a prestigious German institute conducting basic research on lasers.
In 2008 and 2009, MBI took in two North Korean physicists.
Dr. Im Son Jin, who stayed for nearly two years.
And Dr. Kim Kwang Hyon, who stayed for nearly three.
Both came with a German scholarship, both worked with MBI researcher Doctor Joachim Hermann.
The personal relationships, especially between Hermann and Im, will play a crucial part in
this story. But for now, all you need to know is that the presence of two North Korean physicists
at MBI should have probably raised a red flag. This is Katsuhisa Furukawa. He was part of the
UN Panel of Experts that monitors sanctions against North Korea.
But the regime turned to its own scientists. Instead of importing weapon-related technologies
from abroad, Pyongyang focused on developing its own. And it worked.
Since its first test in 2006, North Korea has conducted 5 more tests with nuclear weapons
and more than 200 with ballistic missiles – especially this year saw an unprecedented number.
Today, Kim Jong Un can boast that his claimed hydrogen bomb was "homemade".
But the science behind these weapons likely comes from abroad.
The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in the U.S. developed an interesting
dataset to look into this concern. Basically, it counts how often North Koreans have published
papers with foreign scientists. This graph shows that collaborations
skyrocketed after the first sanctions of 2006 restricted technology transfer.
In 2016 the UN Security Council finally decided to close this loophole. New sanctions
forbade almost every type of collaboration. Unsurprisingly, the country mostly involved
is North Korea's big brother China. But second place goes to... Germany!
A liberal democracy and one of the UN’s biggest supporters.
So how was this possible? Enter science diplomacy.
Basically, it's one way to build trust between nations.
For example, even as the cold war raged,
scientists in the US and Soviet Union worked together on a polio vaccine.
Efforts like this helped build trust and eventually led to arm control treaties.
Science is also crucial in solving common problems, like climate change.
Or in the case of North Korea, to monitor their active volcano.
But there's more. Many
countries, including Germany, have a constitutional tradition
that guarantees freedom of science to protect its independence from politics.
Kai Gehring is a German politician from the Green Party who heads the Science
Committee in parliament. And in this case,
a red line may have been crossed… Which brings us back to the MBI.
Neither Im nor Kim are above suspicion.
Im worked with scholars from a Chinese academy that could be linked to Beijing's nuclear program.
Whereas Kim, in a statement, supported North Korea's "building of nuclear force"
After coming back to North Korea, Dr. Im, in particular, kept in touch with Dr. Herrmann.
We reached him by email, and he told us that they are still in contact. The last paper
they published together is dated 2020. In total, nine papers were published
after the 2016 sanctions were introduced. And their subject is... well, very, very complex.
But what matters in our case is whether the research has dual-use potential and
can be used by the military. We asked 10 physicists and
non-proliferation experts separately to analyze some of these papers.
Some physicists considered them "irrelevant" to military applications.
Many pointed out that "everything in physics has a possible dual application"
While others said they could be used to develop weapons, even if it’s in the future.
However, all non-proliferation experts were alarmed.
A UN source, who requested anonymity, told us: So why did MBI researcher Herrmann continue
to work with North Korean scientists? Well, that's exactly what we asked the institute.
This is Marc Vrakking, MBI's director. He told us that there is another important
reason why the collaboration continued… In other words, they didn't know.
In a written statement the MBI pointed out that the institute eventually
stopped Herrmann’s work "because of North Korea’s role in international politics."
and added: So, are politicians to blame?
This case shows that autocratic regimes can exploit scientific freedom:
- German politics failed to communicate and properly enforce UN sanctions.
- The MBI never asked German authorities for any permission.
- And the whole system could be bypassed through personal relationships.
In order to avoid dangerous technologies falling into the wrong hands, German lawmakers might need
to draw up clearer red lines. But neither politicians nor
scientists can do this alone. The BIG challenge will be to prevent
the transfer of sensitive information while at the same time protecting scientific freedom.