Sino-ROK normalization has brought enormous economic and trade benefits to both countries, but over two decades of ever-closer “partnership” between Beijing and Seoul, South Korea has never gained the level of strategic support from Beijing that it has desired as leverage in dealing with North Korea. 

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, the country’s main agency for inter-Korean affairs, said an under-15 international soccer tournament in Pyongyang began on Friday and is proceeding as planned. The competition involves squads from countries that include China, Brazil and South Korea.

Soft-power sound war escalates as Seoul and Pyongyang turn up the volume on propaganda transmitted over border.[...] South and North Korea have begun a high-volume propaganda war, blasting radio broadcasts across the demilitarised zone after a landmine explosion exacerbated tensions along the border between the two countries.

North Korea has threatened to attack South Korean loudspeakers broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda messages across their shared - and the world's most heavily armed - border.

This month’s concerts have been made possible thanks to organizer Morten Traavik, a trusted figure in the area of cultural exchange as far as Pyongyang is concerned. He told local news agency Yonhap that the band can draw on the division of their homeland Yugoslavia in understanding sentiment towards the separation of the Koreas at the close of Tokyo’s colonial rule.

A set of North Korean propaganda posters is set to go on show in Beijing this week in a rare exhibition outside of the country. North Korea tour company owner Nicholas Bonner, a Briton, has found a way to put a selection of striking replica posters on show without falling foul of officials in the secretive state.