THE EVOLUTION OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN MALAYSIA AND NORTH KOREA

This paper aims to analyse the aftermath of Kim Jong Nam’s assassination on the diplomatic relations between Malaysia and North Korea along with the historical evolution of diplomatic relations between both countries since Malaysia’s independence. Little is known about the nature of diplomatic relations between Malaysia and North Korea, especially when public perceptions dictate that both countries barely share any similarities. In appreciating the implications of the murder case from the perspective of international law, an analysis is carried out on the history of diplomatic relations between Putrajaya and Pyongyang. A further study is conducted on the factors which attract Malaysia and North Korea to forge and strengthen their diplomatic relations. Malaysia’s inclusive foreign policy is highlighted via her participation in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1970 which promotes peaceful engagement with all countries regardless of their political allegiance, including the Communist-led regime in North Korea. The task of preserving regional safety and bolstering economic prosperity are top on Putrajaya’s priority list. With the volume of bilateral trade between Malaysia and North Korea is steadily increasing and Pyongyang’s continuous provocations of her Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), peaceful engagements with the aim of repairing the damaged diplomatic relations is the best option for both countries. This study concludes that although the relationship between the two nations are severed, it is crucial for Malaysia to consider reviving and enhancing bilateral relations with North Korea, hence benefiting Putrajaya in outlining Malaysia’s future foreign policy.


Introduction
expanding economic ties (Hussein, 2020). The real impetus was Malaysia's commitment toward neutralisation and non-partisan (i.e. non-alignment) in Southeast Asian geopolitics by withdrawing from the debunked Asian and Pacific Council (ASPAC) in 1973 (Berita Harian, 1973). The council which was comprised of exclusively non-Communist countries in Southeast Asia was deemed as inconsistent with Malaysia's aspiration to forged diplomatic relations with Communist countries in the region such as Vietnam, Laos and China (Camilleri, 2003, p. 60). For Malaysia, the true meaning of non-align movement and neutrality could only be achieved through the forming of diplomatic relations with all countries, irrespective of their differences in political and social ideologies (The Straits Times, 1973). It was only through this foreign policy that Malaysia can stay true to its principle of non-alignment and becomes the real neutral State in the region (Baginda, 2016, p. 100).

Sports Diplomacy is an area that should be explored and angled by Wisma Putra since Kim
Jong Un is a devoted fan of the American basketball (NBA); an interest he shared with his late father Kim Jong Il (Pickrell, 2019). As a matter of fact, ahead of the second U.S.-North Korea Summit in Vietnam in 2019 Kim Jong Un had specifically requested a team of famous American basketball players to be sent to North Korea for cultural exchange between both countries (Rodrigo, 2019). Jong Un's love for the sport is evident especially when the written request was made integral to the plan of denuclearising North Korea by the United States (Palmeri, 2019). Further, his close friendship with former NBA star Dennis Rodman is also publicly known (Lavender, 2020).

Tun Dr. Mahathir & The Look East Policy: The Lynchpin of Malaysia-North Korea Diplomatic Relations
Economic activities between both countries inaugurated immediately after the formation of the diplomatic relations on 30 June 1973. Although the volume was sparse compared to other States in the same region (Cook & Singh, 2018, p. 212), both Malaysia and North Korea managed to sustain the peaceful bilateral relations via close co-operation in the agricultural sector (The Star, 2017) and mutual participation in sports tournament . In 1975, the late Tun Ghafar Baba as the then Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development led a Malaysian trading delegation to North Korea. It was reported that he had the longest meeting Kim Il Sung ever accorded with any foreign Minister; they discussed how Malaysia could have developed her own farming machinery (The Straits Times, 1975).
In 1979, North Korea displayed keen interest to purchase tons of rubber from Malaysia instead of buying from Singapore and Sri Lanka. In a meeting dated 20 September 1979 between Liew Sip Hon, the Malaysian Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry and Choi Jong Geun, the North Korean Minister for Foreign Trade, Pyongyang purchased 4,000 tonnes of rubber from Malaysia valued at RM7 million (Business Times, 1979). The official trade relationship between Malaysia and North Korea began on 9 June 1979 with a comprehensive list of commodities trades between Malaysia and North Korea . The breakdown of the commodities is as follow: -Source: Ping On the geopolitical front, Malaysia was amongst the countries in Southeast Asia that supported North Korea's membership into NAM . Despite North Korea not originally part of Tun Dr.
Mahathir's Look East economic policy in 1981 -since Malaysia championed for the Third World movement (Cooper, 1997, p. 153 Malaysia's trade agendas (Izzudin, 2017). In short, Tun Dr. Mahathir's Look East policy was not a mere extension of Tun Abdul Razak's vision towards neutrality but a strategic move to sustain valuable diplomatic relations (Abdul Rahim, 2014) with an important trade partner (Workman, 2018).
During the North Korea Famine (1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998) where up to 3 million North Koreans died of starvation (Human Rights Watch, 2006), besides than providing humanitarian aid (Tedboy, 2016), Malaysia had also employed 60 North Korean artists from the Mansudae Art Studio to paint a panoramic view of a paddy field worth RM11 million in the Kedah Padi Museum as an effort to assist Pyongyang (Lopez, 2017) which is still struggling economically (Kihl & Kim, 2006, p. 225).
Mansudae Art Studio even held two (2) public exhibitions of paintings in Malaysia -in 2008 titled Window of Pyongyang at Berjaya Times Square, Kuala Lumpur and in 1992 at Lot 10, Kuala Lumpur (Lee, 2008 (Hamid, 2017). In 2010, the Pahang State government announced that it will adopt a North Korean technology to plant paddy in Sungai Pelak on a commercial scale after a successful paddy planting project in Mambang, Pahang. The pilot project was conducted with the cooperation from Sungai Duri Plantations Sdn. Bhd. where five (5) North Korean paddy experts worked on their project in the 60 hectares State government-sponsored land in Mambang. The project which will employed the MR 219 paddy variant as its subject was projected to boost farmers' harvest up to seven (7) tonnes of paddy per hectare in a season (Mohamad, 2010). Currently, paddy farmers in Malaysia are harvesting twice per year (Omar, 2019, p. 23 The presence of North Korean workers in Malaysia was first exposed during an explosion incident at the Silantek Sarawak coal mine in 2014 which had claimed three (3) lives including a North Korean (The Malaysian Times, 2017). It was reported that out of 119 miners employed, 49 were from North Korea . The Deputy Home Minister acknowledged that there were North Korean miners legally employed in Sarawak and this was due to their discipline, dedication and mental-toughness (Hodal, 2014). He elaborated that in the coal mining industry, only certain countries like China, Great  (Pak, 2018). In 2017, it was reported that North Korea has upgraded her nuclear weapons technology which was ten (10) times stronger than the nuclear bombs detonated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II (O'Connell, 2019, p. 51). After test-firing two (2) Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) in July 2017, Pyongyang has insisted that it has mastered the long-range ballistic missile technology capable of striking the United States (Izumikawa, 2018, p. 320). Further, North Korea has been increasingly outspoken in flaunting her nuclear weapons technology, boasting to conduct nuclear tests whenever and wherever she sees fit (Jeffries, 2010, p. 135). Subsequent to North Korea withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2003 (Margulies, 2008, p. 150) and started to conduct its nuclear weapons test and missiles launching in 2006 (Parrington, 2012, p. 88), the UN Security Council (UNSC) has passed numerous resolutions condemning Pyongyang's actions which put the world's security at stake (Parrington, 2012). Over time, UNSC has steadily increased the sanctions with the aim of pressuring North Korea toward denuclearisation (Thiessen, 2009, p. 50 Further, the sale of luxury goods to North Korea is also prohibited. However, the UNSC sanctions may have backfired as they seemed only to embolden Kim Jong Un's ambitions to solidify North Korea's nuclear weapons technology (Asian Green News, 2018). Thus, the U.S. and her allies in Asia view North Korea as a threat to global security (Payne & Schlesinger, 2015, p. 44).
North Korea has one of the largest military forces in the world where it has more than 1.2 million active soldiers and 8.3 million in reserve plus paramilitary troops combined with the escalating numbers of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) (Slater, 2004, p. 153). Apart from increasing the number of nuclear weapons tests, Pyongyang has also escalated provocations against her geopolitical rivals (Tan, 2015, p. 227). These factors have reasonably heightened security tensions worldwide. Moreover, North Korea is reported to embark on an accelerated production of her Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) (Mazarr, 2018, p.1) and modernising its already large conventional military force (Shin, 2018). As of 2017, there are nine (9) Nuclear Armed States (NSA) in the world as per the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) 1968, namely United States of America, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea (Macias, 2018). However, all these countries have various reasons for pursuing nuclear weapons armament and technology development (Menon, 2000, p. 114).
Whilst some countries have legitimate reasons to develop nuclear technology (e.g. mass energy generation), the others have questionable motives such as enhancing national security system (Meer, 2016, p. 212-230). North Korea belonged to the latter since she is frequently involved in nuclear weapons-motivated extortions (Lam, 2017). Pyongyang's continued development of her nuclear weapons technology might be a response from the realisation that foreign interventions in North Korea's internal affairs would inevitably lead to warfare instead of peaceful negotiation (Cohen, 2017). Further, the nuclear weapons development program is crucial to defend North Korea's security and to justify the longevity of Kim's dynasty (Wooseon, 2017, p.1). The policies upheld by Kim Jong Un are bolder than the course adopted by his father and grandfather (Freeman, 2015), especially Jong Un's decision to proclaimed North Korea as a Nuclear-Armed State by amending the North Korean Constitution in 2012 (Son, 2020, p. 325). Clearly, Pyongyang's nuclear weapons proliferation contradicts Putrajaya's stand on peace and neutrality in the region (Zin, 2017).
North Korea's economy begun to collapse subsequent to the Korean War (1950( -1953( ) (Funabashi, 2007 and Pyongyang sought her Communist-ally Soviet Union for assistance to reconstruct the nation (Richardson, 2006, p. 107). During the initial stages, North Korea had received substantial training and technology transfer in heavy industries from the Soviet Union in 1950's until 1980's (McEachern, 2010. North Korea's nuclear program started during mid-1950's when North Korean scientists received their training in Soviet Union (Oh, 2005, p. 27). In developing the nuclear reactor technology, North Korea was closely aided by the Soviet Union (Kort, 2010, p. 109) and China (Copper, 2016, p. 106). North Korean scientists have also benefited tremendously from the academic exchanges and technology transfer from Soviet Union (Dixon & Smith, 1993, p. 209) and China (Nanto & Manyin, 2010, p. 14). From 2004 to 2014, the North Korean government spent an average of $3.5 billion annually on military and defence system (Lee, 2019, p. 115).
North Korea's guiding principles in diplomatic relations are based on Juche (self-reliant) and Songun ('military-first' or 'militarism') (Cordesman & Hess, 2013, p. ix). Thus, the Korean People's Army (KPA) plays a central role in North Korea's politics and economy (Oh & Hassig, 2000, p. 113-115). The status of the army has been steadily elevated within Pyongyang's socio-economic hierarchy  (Kim, 2006). As North Korea embarked on its large scale nuclear weapons development, the country has grown economically and geopolitically isolated (Park, 2006, p. 38-39). Apart from Juche which over-emphasised on self-reliance that leads to isolation (Piddock, 2007, p. 19), North Korea military provocations to its neighbours and arch nemesis also played a large part of her isolationism principle (French, 2007, p North Korea to improve her economy while retaining the nuclear weapons technology (Pardo, 2020, p. 127). As the successor to Songun, Byungjin's two-fold objectives are meant for liberating North Korea's resources to construct nuclear weapons that serve as the ultimate protection against foreign aggression (Panda, 2020, p. 16-18). The North Korean regime believed that the foreign forces including South Korea and the U.S. could at any time attack or undermine her security (Beggin, 2019).
The detonation of nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that caused the defeat and surrender of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II (1940)(1941)(1942)(1943)(1944)(1945) (Rotblat, 1997, p. 106) had inspired the Kim's regime to develop nuclear weapons, as justified by Juche (Flake & Snyder, 2003, p.1). Hence, the only way to guarantee the survival of North Korea is to exploit nuclear military technology to thwart foreign threats (Nam, 2019). Possessing nuclear weapons is also part of Pyongyang's Crisis Diplomacy (i.e. Brinkmanship) that deliberately manipulate the risk of war as a leverage (Lim, 2000, p. 127). Besides, the nuclear weapons technology is also manipulated to boost Kim Jong Un's image (Albert, 2019). Be that as it may, the Kim's dynasty is still struggling to fulfil its economic promises to North Koreans (Hawk, 2013, p. 354), on the back of spending billions of dollars to advance its nuclear weapons (O'Neil, 2014, p. 31).
Thus, parading an unparalleled nuclear weapons to the world is perhaps the only way for the Kim's regime to survive (Roehrig, 2012, p. 81) otherwise, Kim Jong Un will struggle to sustain his political prowess in North Korea (Onchi & Nagai, 2018). As such, Malaysia carefully maintains its Malaysia to support the view of the majority (Saravanamuttu, 2011, p. 5 (Murad, 2013). The university believed that education could help North Korea to integrate with the global society, thus gradually ending its isolationism policy (Zurairi, 2013). It is evident that Malaysia has thus far, applied its neutrality and non-alignment stand in most of diplomatic relations issues with North Korea, particularly when Putrajaya engaged Pyongyang in a conciliatory mode rather than in an offensive mode (Krishnamoorthy, 2017). This diplomatic stance is also illustrated in Putrajaya's response to the United States hegemonic plan to combat terrorism in Southeast Asia subsequent to the September 11 tragedy (Nesadurai, 2006, p. 194-195).

The Assassination of Kim Jong Nam and the Suspension of Malaysia-North Korea Diplomatic Relations
The murder of Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) on 13 February 2017 by the deadly VX Nerve Agent drew shock and suspicion (Reynolds, 2020, p. 188). A lot of theories behind the murder have been suggested by critics and observers; chief amongst them is the fact that Kim Jong Nam was a credible pretender to the Kim's dynasty (Ma, 2018). Moreover, Kim Jong Nam was the ideal candidate for China's economic reforms which supported the liberation of North Korea's economy (Shen, 2007, p. 135) that will run contrary to the age-old philosophy of Juche   (Kim, 2007), the United States, South Korea and North Korea that has started since two decades ago (Ping, 2017). In fact in 2018, the United States had shown her interest to groom Malaysia as the regional leader towards North Korea's denuclearisation (Lopez, 2017). Malaysia, however under Tun Dr. Mahathir -the individual who spearheaded the diplomatic relations between Putrajaya and Pyongyang about 40 years ago -are eager to rekindle the damaged diplomatic relations. It is just a matter of time before both countries repair and resume their bilateral relations (Chu, 2018).
In retrospect, it seems that North Korea stand to lose more than Malaysia especially after two

The Severance of Diplomatic Relations Between Malaysia and North Korea
On 19

2021). Mun Chol Myong -who is not a North Korean Diplomat (Talib, 2021) -is the first North
Korean ever extradited by any country in the world to face charges in the U.S. (Bartlett, 2021).
Reports revealed that Mun Chol Myong was associated with North Korean intelligence services i.e.
Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB) (Viswanatha, 2021 After more than four decades of bilateral relations, North Korea's irrational decision has officially ended her diplomatic relations with Malaysia (Wey Kok, 2021).

From Hostility to Diplomacy: How Malaysia Benefits from Maintaning Diplomatic Relations with North Korea
Prior to the severance of diplomatic relations, North Korea had enjoyed enormously from infestation and dry spell. It is projected that from 2019 until 2020, Malaysia will import 1.12 million tonnes of rice from Thailand and Vietnam which accounts for more than 80% of Malaysia's total global import of rice (Schroeder, 2019). Malaysia's ability to increase paddy harvesting by using North Korean technology is a good prospect for its economy especially when there is no more increase in paddy planting areas in the country and Malaysia's overall population is expanding by 3% annually (Idris, 2018). In the long run, the transfer of technology in paddy planting from North Korea will alleviate Malaysia's dependence on foreign imports to feed its growing population (Wahab, 2018, p. 8 , 1998). The flow of foreign workers to Malaysia becomes the bone of contention between Malaysia and the source countries as their arrival has caused the spike in crime rates and the rise in social ills (Rahman, 2017, p. 14-15). However, the same argument could not be applied to the North Korean workers working in Malaysia. In 2014, Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Tunku Jaafar praised the North Korean miners in Selantik, Sarawak as diligent and disciplined (Tawie, 2017). He also dismissed the allegation that the North Koreans despite working legally in Malaysia, were involved in the propogation of their political agenda (The Sun Daily, 2017).
As such, Malaysia could consider North Korea as an alternative source of dependable foreign labour (The Japan Times, 2017) particularly in certain industries which demand high-skilled workers but are deliberately snubbed by Malaysians due to the nature of the jobs which are dirty, dangerous and difficult (3D-Jobs) (Kumar, 2016). For as long as Malaysia continues to over-rely on the foreign manpower to built its economy in critical areas like agriculture, construction and manufacturing, issues such as reliable and high-skilled foreign workers should be addressed immediately since these are the major factors suppressing the rate of local wages and slowing down the country's pace towards achieving a high-income high-productivity nation (Kok, 2018). Office of Malaysia, 2006). Amongst the primary roles of NAM are to promote world peace and to affirm a country's right to self-determination (The Star, 2003). The ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China which aggravates the world's economy is a testament that a peaceful region will encourage more economic activities (Forrer, 2012, p.1). Malaysia's current economic slump could be revived with Putrajaya taking the helm of welcoming more economic and diplomatic collaborations with more countries other than the U.S. and China (e.g. the European Union) to negotiate trading pacts and strengthening existing diplomatic relations (Sharif, 2013). This leads to the conclusion that the more neutral a country behaves, the more Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) it will attract (Overseas Development Institute, 2006).
After the end of Cold War, NAM's direction is shifted towards developing multilateral ties amongst its members (Ministry of External Affairs, Governemnt of India 2012). Thus, the purpose of NAM is no longer limited to forge peaceful co-existence but also to encourage economic growth that serves to solidify mutual interests amongst its members (Union of International Associations, 2020).
The failures of the U.S.-North Korea Summits in 2018 (Singapore) and in 2019 (Vietnam) (Friedman, 2019) have signalled that it is timely for NAM to assert its role in promoting world peace by providing a platform for Pyongyang to freely explain her aspiration in resolving her conflict with the U.S. (Shim, 2014, p. 4). NAM could be maneuvoured as the alternative channel to redress perennial security issues such as the denuclearisation of North Korea (Triwibowo, 2018). Similar to the U.S.-China Trade War, the issue of nuclear weapons proliferation in North Korea affects not only the U.S. but the entire world especially those countries in Southeast Asia due to their proximity to the Korean Peninsula (Clinton, 1996, p. 288).
The sooner the issue is resolved, the better it is for global peace and economic stability (Moon, 2019 (1940)(1941)(1942)(1943)(1944)(1945) and the latter was enslaved during the Japanese Occupation of the Korean Peninsula