>> Everything that we see in the U.S. now, we were seeing 10, 15 years ago in South Korea, so I always see it as being now that kind of cutting-edge, postmodern place where you see the intersection of culture and technology in the same way that we used to see in Japan years ago.

♪♪ >> Hello and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer, and today we are talking about everyone's favorite K-pop band.

The one that I've heard of -- BTS, of course, and the explosive success in South Korean cinema, not to mention the 10th anniversary of Kim Jong-un's totalitarian rule over the North.

How has South Korea become such a dominant soft power force on the global stage so quickly?

And as this newfound fame angers its neighbors to the north, will there ever be peace between Pyongyang and Seoul?

I speak with journalist Jean Lee.

She led Korea coverage for The Associated Press from 2008, 2013.

She even served as their Pyongyang bureau chief for a while.

Don't worry, I've also got your "Puppet Regime."

>> President Biden is acting a little strange lately.

>> An infrastructure bill that's gonna -- [ Buzzer ] Aaaah!

>> But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

>> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by... >> To say that South Korean pop culture is having a global moment right now is an understatement.

Three of Netflix's top 10 TV shows this week all hail from Seoul with the hugely popular and highly bingeable and deeply disturbing thriller series "Squid Game" taking the top spot ever for several weeks.

My dog Moose dressed as a guard for Halloween.

In 2020, the South Korean film "Parasite" won Best Picture at the Oscars, becoming the first non-English-language film to take the top prize, and K-pop band BTS has a hit single, "Dynamite," just hit triple-platinum status in the United States.

BTS has gone so global, they even made a splash at the United Nations.

>> ♪ I wanna dance, the music's got me going ♪ ♪ Ain't nothing that can stop how we move ♪ >> In addition to their performance in the General Assembly, they spoke to raise awareness for Sustainable Development Goals, further proof that K-pop's influence expands beyond music.

In fact, K-pop fans have used online activism to bolster causes like Black Lives Matter and to troll politicians.

You'll remember one famous incident members of the so-called BTS Army flooded an event page for a Trump rally in Tulsa with thousands and thousands of phony RSVPs.

President Trump bragged about a guest list of more than a million people.

The arena, with capacity for 19,000, didn't even fill.

As South Korea's cultural cachet continues to climb, so does Little Rocket Man's anger.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called the K-pop invasion a "vicious cancer," and he sees the South's soft power as a direct threat to his rule.

And of the global sensation "Squid Game," a North Korean website published an article arguing it showed that South Korea was "infested by the rules of survival of the fittest, corruption and immorality."

The dictator is about to celebrate his 10th anniversary as the country's supreme leader, with his reign marked not only by extreme weight loss but by an expansion of its nuclear weapons program, widespread crackdowns on dissent and dire conditions for the country's impoverished population, all of which seems pretty on brand for a totalitarian state.

Despite his disdain for K-pop, Kim has made some, albeit small, effort to play nice with his neighbors to the south.

Back in 2018, you'll remember he stepped across the borderline at the DMZ for a historic meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

At the behest of the Trump administration, he participated in summits aimed at bringing peace to the peninsula.

Trump even became the first sitting U.S. president to step foot inside North Korea.

>> Big progress.

>> Unfortunately, that big moment brought absolutely zero progress.

In fact, Kim vowed to ramp up his nuclear ambitions after the series of summits failed over sanctions disputes.

Just how much longer will this frozen conflict last between the North and the South?

Will Biden fare any differently than his predecessor at crafting a successful Pyongyang policy?

And as the South Korean presidential elections approach, will the temperature ever be right for peace?

I'm asking journalist Jean Lee.

She knows her way around Seoul and Pyongyang.

She led Korea coverage for The Associated Press and opened the company's bureau in the North Korean capital.

Jean Lee, thank you so much for joining me on "GZERO World."

>> Great to join you.

>> So much to talk about on Korea.

I want to talk to you not just about Kim Jong-un and nuclear proliferation.

I kind of feel like the bigger story these days is South Korea.

How does that make you feel?

>> Oh, my gosh.

You know, I struggled for so many years to get South Korea on the news agenda because it was always about North Korea.

So it's amazing that South Korea is getting its moment.

>> Why is South Korea such a soft power globally right now?

>> South Korea -- We have to remember that this is a country that has evolved so much from the time I was a kid.

I'm Korean-American.

I'm second generation Korean-American, but I was raised going to South Korea in the '70s and '80s, and it went from being this very poor country, a very kind of authoritarian society into becoming a young and vibrant democracy.

And I think about how the generation that came of age in the late '80s and early '90s -- that's my generation in South Korea -- they've been exposed to the world post-Seoul Olympics 1988 with the explosion of the Internet that has allowed them to access the rest of the world as well.

And they've grown up in a democracy, and all of these things together have meant that we've seen South Korea just blossom into this really vibrant country, both politically and culturally.

I'm absolutely excited because as a Korean-American, nobody knew where South Korea was.

They vaguely had heard about the Korean War, but they didn't know where it was.

And so suddenly, to have this be a, you know, these bands and these movies be such a household name and for people to be looking for Korean restaurants, asking me about Korean dramas, asking me for advice about where to visit South Korea, there's definitely a sense of Korean pride.

And it's such a change from the way that I grew up in post-Vietnam War America, where being Asian was something that was difficult at times, to be honest.

And now it's just -- it's hip to be Korean.

It's amazing.

>> Now, 20 years ago, even 10 years ago, you'd have a lot of these conversations about Japan and Japanese rock and fashion forward and whiskey and you name.

What's different about it?

>> I think we have to acknowledge that South Korea, in a sense, is building on everything that they learned from Japan as well, because even in South Korea, there was so much that was inherited from the Japanese, not only because of a colonial period where the Japanese occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945, but also more, in recent decades, they did look to Japan as a country that was able to engage internationally and export its culture.

Where have they taken it since then?

South Koreans are not only good at emulating, but they are really good at innovating, and they've proven that.

I think there was a lot of question for years about whether South Koreans were just copying technology, but I think they've proven in the last 10, 15, 20 years that they can innovate as well.

I mean, you go to -- and I know you've probably been to South Korea... >> Many times, yes.

>> ...you go there and it feels like this postmodern place now where it's so wired.

Everything is so high-tech.

Everything that we see in the U.S. now, we were seeing 10, 15 years ago in South Korea.

So I always see it as being now that kind of cutting-edge, postmodern place where you see the intersection of culture and technology in the same way that we used to see in Japan years ago.

>> And also South Korea, the historic sense, very conservative society, a very gender-segregated society.

And I mean, clearly with the way South Korea is portraying itself on the global stage, those things also seem to be changing very quickly as well.

Does it feel like society is moving that quickly in terms of, you know, really integrating the whole society?

>> So, on that point, I would say that South Korea is still in a period where they have some growing pains when it comes to making sure that all sectors of society are developing at the same warp speed that their economy is developing.

It's still very difficult for women.

They are not where they need to be when it comes to gender parity.

If you look at the charts produced by the OECD, for example, when it comes to the gap in pay between genders.

South Korea, unfortunately, is at the very bottom.

And so I think -- And then there's also the inclusion of the diverse parts of South Korea's society that they still need to work on.

This is a country with a really low birth rate.

So they do need to think about how to incorporate people from other countries as well as women in the workplace so that they can maintain the economy, maintain the lifestyle, support the future economy.

And this is something that they're grappling with because it's always a question of culture when it comes down to it.

The South Koreans, they've developed and changed so much, evolved so much, so quickly, and they're still grappling with "What is Korean that we need to hold on to?"

What's traditional?

What is our culture and what do we need to give up in order to be a first-world country, a donor nation, an international globalized country?

And I don't think they're quite there yet, but I think that they're making the baby steps toward becoming a more globalized, inclusive society, but they have a long way to go.

>> When you think about areas that South Korea will be seen as a global leader, taking aside the advances in soft power, where do you think South Korea is going to be making a true mark that, around the world you'll see people saying, "Wow, South Korean leadership really made a difference"?

How do you think that's going to change?

>> I do think that South Korea still has room to capitalize on the potential that that soft power can play.

It does remind me a little bit of England in the sense that I think South Korea does punch way above its weight in the same way that I think England does in terms of its cultural exports.

England does really shape culture in the western world in such a significant way for such a small country.

And I think South Korea has the potential to do that, not only in Asia.

It has already been doing that across Southeast Asia for many years but internationally as well.

I think in terms of the two Koreas, North Korea and South Korea trying to exert influence and build allies, there's still room for South Korea to use its soft power as a way to bring more allies on board in terms of which Korea is going to dominate.

You've got the Korea with the nuclear weapons, but then you've got the Korea with BTS, which is an army of a different kind.

>> Seoul, of course, you know, sort of eyesight distance from North Korea and all of this extraordinary expansion of soft power and disruptive nature of changing society is happening next to the world's most closed totalitarian system.

In the context of everything we're talking about today, how is that -- I mean, you lived in Pyongyang.

How is that being taken in North Korea?

>> I'd like to think that deep down, the North Koreans are secretly proud of BTS and of these Koreans who've made it to the top of the pop cultural world.

But officially, South Korean content is prohibited.

It does go back and forth, I should say, because we had this amazing moment in 2018, that moment of diplomacy, when Kim Jong-un did step out onto the world stage and he met with then-President Trump, he met with President Moon Jae-in, and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea brought K-pop stars to Pyongyang.

So I imagine there was a period where it was okay, but this thing, this type of thing, goes back and forth and we are back to a period where it is totally taboo, and I'll explain why it's so risky.

The North Koreans spend so much time trying to control the flow of information and stop their people from seeing how Koreans on the other side of the DMZ are living.

If they could see how influential South Koreans are, how well they're living, then it could raise that question of, "What are we doing here in North Korea?"

So I would say that the North Koreans do go to extreme lengths to try to control and shape the narrative about South Korea inside North Korea.

But for a period, we had so many North Koreans crossing the border.

Every plane that I took was packed with North Korean students, athletes, businesspeople, government officials going to China and seeing what the rest of the world was like.

And then you have all those people at the border who were crossing on foot in trucks and doing a lot of trade across the border.

This was all before they shut the borders, sealed the borders in January 2020.

But before then, for a good period, there was a lot of traffic across the border not only of goods and people but of ideas and little USB drives that were loaded with South Korean dramas.

And the North Koreans have told me that, hey, if they want to watch something in the outside world, the first thing they're curious about is South Korean content.

They are incredibly curious to see how South Koreans are living.

And I have to tell you, as an ethnic Korean who's spent time in Pyongyang, you can't help but look at the people of North Korea and think, "Okay, who would I have been if I had grown up in this regime?"

And I try to remind South Koreans and Korean Americans that it's just a fluke of fate that we ended up on one side or the other.

And so that was an interesting thing for me as an American to be in North Korea and recognize that I could have been one of those people and who would I have been?

And I think North Koreans feel the same way.

This content allows them to think about who they might be outside of those restrictive confines of North Korean society and culture.

>> After 2018, does it feel a little bit less dangerous?

I mean, because the leaders have seen each other face to face, because there was that at least one chance, even if it didn't lead anywhere, so far, at least.

Did it create a little bit less of that deep-seated "My God, we could be one moment away from Armageddon" with all of those nukes and conventional warheads pointed right at you?

>> I don't think I ever felt safe or comfortable because I knew that behind all the theater and drama of the summits of 2018, the North Koreans were still working on the nuclear program.

I never for a minute thought that they were putting -- hitting the pause button on that development.

And what I was concerned about all this time is, are they fooling us into thinking that we're going to be a bit safer when all along they are working just as hard as ever on that arsenal?

And I think that that's the case and that is the case I've been making all along, is that even as we reach out to the North Koreans and try to engage them, which is something that I do encourage, we have to -- It doesn't mean that we give up our sense of distrust or a sense of skepticism.

I think we need to hold on to that and be very realistic that these nuclear weapons are incredibly important to them and that they will continue because they don't trust us either.

They will continue to build this arsenal even as they reach out diplomatically.

I will be honest.

I feel much more under threat today than I did when I was there, because Kim Jong-un has used the time effectively to expand that arsenal to a degree where it is a verifiable threat not only to the region, but I would say to the world and to the Korean people.

>> Do you have any sense of what's happening with COVID in North Korea?

>> So, what I can tell you is that it's hard to imagine that there was no COVID in a country that shares a long border with China where you had people crossing the border every day.

But I can also tell you, having spent so much time in North Korean hospitals and clinics, that they simply do not have the capacity to deal with an epidemic.

I mean, most of the hospitals that I went to didn't have running water.

And so all of the signs on the walls were about preventative measures because they didn't have medicine.

So, I do think that they took extremely -- We do know that they took extremely restrictive measures, the most restrictive in the world.

They sealed the borders and that means not just preventing people from coming in but preventing goods from coming in as well.

And they do report testing to the WHO, and I still -- I do it on a regular basis.

I go to the WHO COVID-19 dashboard just for the heck of it and look at the dashboard, and at the very bottom, zero positive cases is North Korea, along with a couple of Pacific island nations.

Really hard to believe, although I think technically possibly they are testing a certain population.

And I think that for North Korea's propaganda, Kim Jong-un wants to tell his people, "Look, I've protected you from this outside threat.

Look, we have zero cases."

Whether or not that's true is highly debatable.

It's really hard for me to imagine.

I think there's more to the border closures than just the pandemic, to be absolutely honest.

He's trying to control that flow of information.

He's trying to stop these people from going back and forth because not only do these people bring things from the outside world -- they bring movies, they bring content, they bring ideas, they bring information.

And I think what we're seeing is North Korea in the middle of a complete clampdown on information from the outside, and the pandemic provides an opportunity to really close ranks and regain control over the people.

>> And you've also done a lot of work around cyber.

How active are the North Koreans right now in terms of malware attacks and other sorts of cyber efforts internationally?

>> During the years that I was in North Korea, I was seeing this incredible emphasis on computers, on science and technology, and it was all associated with Kim Jong-un.

So it was really about creating this mythology about this young man who was their new leader, who was really modern.

They called him a computer genius and I was thinking, "Great.

I would love to see North Korea open up, access to the Internet, join the global community the same way that South Korea has."

But this wasn't happening.

The North Korean people were not allowed, for the most part, to access the Internet.

And yet I was also looking at this wondering, "Is there another purpose?

Is there an ulterior motive?

Is there a nefarious purpose for developing all this science and technology?"

And so that was really where I started with thinking about cyber as well, because we know that the North Koreans are always thinking strategically.

We know that they're facing a lot of sanctions that are preventing them from getting the money into the country to build the nuclear program and also to keep the elites happy.

So what is better than cyber then?

Not only covering their tracks, being surreptitious, getting around sanctions, getting real border closures.

Sanctions and border closures won't matter if you're adept at cyber.

Now, it's just mind-boggling.

The other thing is that they fly so under the radar because you're thinking this is a country where most people can't connect to the Internet.

So how are they building one of the world's most aggressive cyber armies?

And that's what I explore in my podcast, "The Lazarus Heist," for the BBC World Service, is how does a country where most people can't connect to the Internet, where they don't have electricity, build this cadre, this group of cyber soldiers who really are some of the most aggressive in the world?

and I think we have to worry about it not only because they are targeting us and trying to emulate and learn how we live our lives and how to make -- how vulnerable we are because we rely on the Internet.

But that money that they're able to get back goes toward the nuclear weapons program.

And so it has a consequence with huge ramifications in terms of global security.

You're talking about people who have every motivation in the world to invest strategically in cyber to get around all the challenges they have to bringing in the money that they need to build those weapons and to keep that elite class loyal to Kim Jong-un.

>> Jean Lee, thank you very much.

>> Great to join you.

♪♪ >> You heard Jean Lee talk about North Korea's response to the COVID pandemic, but what about South Korea's?

As it turns out, pop culture isn't the only thing earning that nation big praise this year.

In one recent study, Seoul ranked third among 50 cities worldwide for their "agile, effective and transparent response" to COVID-19.

And beyond the capital, the country's commitment to test, trace and isolate and also to use advanced technologies by contact-tracing apps all proved successful.

At one point during the pandemic, South Korea performed more COVID-19 tests than any other country in the world.

But despite a well-coordinated COVID response and a boon in pop culture hits, other aspects of South Korea's society are less healthy.

Rising education and housing costs, swiftly increasing household debt, and growing youth unemployment are all serious political issues.

The country also has the highest rates of elderly poverty and suicide in the developed world.

And you can bet that these issues will be on the ballot in March.

That's when South Koreans head back to the polls to choose their next president.

Incumbent Moon Jae-in is unable to seek re-election after his single five-year term comes to an end.

And now to "Puppet Regime," where Joe Biden is having a tough time with some of his fellow Democrats.

>> Observers from across the political spectrum can't help but notice that President Biden is acting a little strange lately.

>> I told you I'm heading up to Capitol Hill to pass an infrastructure bill that's gonna -- [ Buzzer ] Aaaaaaaah!

Oh, boy, look at that.

7:00 p.m. Time to walk the dog.

Just going to take Major out to the -- [ Buzzer ] Aaaaah!

Get myself a new pair of sunglasses here on Amazon Prime.

Okay, just click here and -- [ Buzzer ] Aaaaaaah!

Gosh darn it, Joe!

I know the Republicans won't lift a finger to help me, but you got to help me out here, okay?

It's enough!

You're putting me in a hole.

I'm trying to transform America, and you're just sitting in your office there, just trying to hold the whole project -- [ Buzzer ] Aaaah!

[ Buzzer ] >> "Puppet Regime"!

>> That's our show this week.

Come back next week if you like what you see or you just like squid games, you'd like to participate in a game like that, all of your own-some, you can do that if you check us out at gzeromedia.com.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by...