Throughout his September 2026 state go to to South Korea, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev highlighted the position of the nation’s ethnic Korean neighborhood in ties with Seoul. His talks in Seoul coated cooperation in power, know-how and important minerals. North Korea had pursued its personal diaspora outreach a long time earlier. In Kazakhstan, Pyongyang despatched Korean-language textbooks and funded a neighborhood affiliation in 1989. Some neighborhood exchanges continued after its Almaty embassy closed in 1998. Regardless of North Korea’s efforts, nonetheless, its relations with Central Asian international locations stay restricted, falling behind the in depth academic and business relationships related to South Korea.
The expertise of Central Asia’s Koryo-saram (Korean individuals) means that the shared ethnic ties created a foundation for cooperation to type with each Koreas however was not sufficient to maintain a strong relationship on their very own. North Korea’s monetary difficulties and subsequent sanctions constrained its actions and skill to construct out its relations in strong or multi-faceted methods. South Korean establishments, in the meantime, related cultural engagement with examine, coaching, and enterprise alternatives. For a lot of Central Asian governments and Korean neighborhood organizations, these relationships, nonetheless uneven, didn’t require selecting one Korea over the opposite. As an alternative, they’ve managed each relationships in keeping with the degrees of effort that both Korea invested into constructing significant ties to the native populations past shared ethnicity. As North Korea expands its cooperation with Russia, this may increasingly create new alternatives for Pyongyang to reengage with Koryo-saram communities in Central Asia, though the extent to which it may possibly translate these alternatives into significant relationships will depend upon its potential to supply sustained and tangible types of engagement.
A Diaspora With Its Personal Historical past
Koryo-saram shouldn’t be described as a North Korean neighborhood. As historian German Kim explains in his account of Koreans within the former Soviet Union, migration to the Russian Far East preceded the Peninsula’s division. Many settlers got here from its northern provinces, however these origins don’t set up present-day nationality or political allegiance. Stalin’s deportation of Soviet Koreans to Central Asia in 1937, adopted by a long time of Soviet schooling and social life, additional formed a definite diaspora expertise.
The communities stay substantial. Kazakhstan’s 2021 census counted 118,450 ethnic Koreans, about 0.6 p.c of the inhabitants. An official Uzbek estimate report in August 2021 put the nation’s Korean inhabitants at roughly 174,200. Collectively, these figures point out about 293,000 individuals within the two international locations at the moment who, regardless of their origins and ethnic ties, don’t essentially replicate or help present-day North Korea.
For this text, that distinction issues greater than the dimensions of the inhabitants. A household connection to a spot now a part of North Korea might make visits or language examine significant. It doesn’t set up a choice for Pyongyang over Seoul. Nor does participation in a South Korean academic program exhibit a rejection of North Korea.
Outreach That Outlasted the Embassy
In a examine out there on-line since 2004, Kim information that Pyongyang despatched 3,000 Korean-language textbooks and primers to Kazakhstan in 1989, alongside the arrival of a language professor and a taekwondo teacher. A North Korean-funded affiliation facilitated visits by roughly 1,000 Kazakhstani Koreans throughout its early years. These had been concrete makes an attempt to interact a neighborhood, not merely diplomatic protocol.
The exercise didn’t merely finish with the Almaty embassy’s closure. Kim additionally describes a small group subsequently referred to as Kotonryon and a North Korean cultural exhibition it helped manage in Almaty in August 2000. South Korea’s ambassador attended the exhibition. That episode complicates any account of a diaspora divided into mutually unique North- and South-oriented camps.
Later contacts are documented in Kazakhstan’s official account of bilateral relations. A delegation together with lawmakers, businesspeople and the Affiliation of Koreans of Kazakhstan visited North Korea in October 2008. The next month, senior North Korean official Choe Thae Bok visited Kazakhstan, together with the affiliation and the Korean theater. Affiliation president Roman Kim said that it was keen to work with each Korean states.
These information don’t set up a big or constantly funded North Korean community, however they do spotlight that embassy closure and the disappearance of neighborhood contacts had been totally different processes.
The affiliation’s said willingness to interact each side additionally cautions towards treating Koryo-saram merely as a useful resource claimed by competing governments.
Diplomatic Relations on a Smaller Scale
All 5 Central Asian republics established diplomatic relations with North Korea in early 1992. Kazakhstan’s International Ministry dates the Almaty embassy’s operation to 1992–1998 and exhibits {that a} North Korean commerce workplace remained till November 2000. In Uzbekistan, Yonhap reported the Tashkent embassy’s closure in August 2016, citing a diplomatic supply who described a restructuring of Pyongyang’s missions within the Commonwealth of Unbiased States.
These occasions shouldn’t be assigned a single trigger. The Almaty commerce workplace closure preceded the United Nations (UN) sanctions regime established in October 2006. Kim’s historic account hyperlinks the withdrawal to North Korea’s financial disaster. Tashkent’s embassy closure occurred in a special sanctions surroundings, however the report of diplomatic restructuring doesn’t set up how monetary pressures, host-government choices or South Korean diplomacy contributed to that specific determination.
The surviving channels might nonetheless help official dialogue. Kazakhstan’s International Ministry recorded a gathering with Ambassador Sin Hong Chol in April 2021. A separate Well being Ministry report explicitly recognized him as ambassador to Russia, concurrently accredited to Kazakhstan. It additionally recorded Kazakh curiosity in studying about conventional Korean medication. The report demonstrates contact and a topic for doable cooperation, not {that a} medical program was subsequently carried out.
Concurrent accreditation supplied an official channel to Kazakhstan after the Almaty embassy closed. The report contains reciprocal visits in 2008 and political consultations in 2015, in addition to conferences with Kazakh officers in 2021. These set up continued contact, however the sources cited right here don’t present whether or not the traditional-medicine cooperation mentioned in 2021 was carried out.
The place South Korean Engagement Amassed
Training provides a clearer measure of continuity. South Korea’s Almaty Training Heart, opened in August 1991. In 2025, Busan’s municipal authorities reported greater than 3,000 annual enrollments within the Heart’s language programs, alongside language testing, scholarship-related actions and schooling gala’s. The middle hyperlinks cultural curiosity to sensible routes into additional examine. Its packages usually are not a measure of solely Koryo-saram participation, however they exhibit institutional exercise sustained over a long time.
The broader relationship extends past diaspora packages. A June 2024 Uzbek presidential account reported 726 joint ventures with South Korean participation throughout a number of industries. It additionally described functioning vocational-training facilities established with Korea Worldwide Cooperation Company (KOICA) help in Tashkent, Samarkand, Shakhrisabz, Fergana and Urgench. These are concrete factors of contact in employment and coaching, not merely expressions of shared heritage.
Kazakhstan’s customs-based figures put merchandise commerce with South Korea at roughly $6 billion in 2023. The embassy’s financial overview identifies crude oil and metals amongst Kazakhstan’s exports, and equipment and automobiles amongst its imports. That composition is a reminder that bilateral commerce rests on financial complementarities in addition to private connections. It will be deceptive to attribute the whole relationship to diaspora diplomacy.
Uzbekistan’s official annual nation collection gives a direct comparability between the 2 Koreas. For 2023, it information roughly $1.18 million in turnover with North Korea and $2.37 billion with South Korea. Relative to the nation’s whole foreign-trade turnover, the shares had been about 0.002 p.c and three.7 p.c. This nationwide collection contains items and providers, slightly than merchandise alone. It additionally recorded $15.7 million with North Korea in 2015 and $864,000 in 2024: the connection was small and variable, however nonetheless significant.
These aggregates don’t establish the members in each transaction, distinguish diaspora-led enterprise, or seize all oblique exercise. Nor can they set up the legality of explicit transactions. Their narrower worth is to point out the size of recorded engagement, slightly than treating a small quantity as nonexistence.
The comparability factors towards a distinction within the vary and continuity of establishments connecting individuals to every nation. A language course with testing and scholarship pathways provides potentialities past a one-off cultural go to. Coaching facilities and companies create further causes to keep up contact. It isn’t to say that cultural affinity brought about funding, or that Seoul displaced Pyongyang by means of a coordinated marketing campaign, however exhibits how cultural contact could possibly be bolstered by alternatives exterior the neighborhood itself.
Continuity And not using a Giant Partnership
For North Korea, regardless of closing down its formal diplomatic workplaces in Kazakhstan, the connection is clearly nonetheless invaluable. Its International Ministry information political consultations in Pyongyang in 2015 on nonproliferation and cooperation in worldwide organizations, in addition to North Korean help for Kazakhstan’s UN Safety Council candidacy and EXPO 2017 bid. Such exchanges had a diplomatic function even with out in depth commerce.
Nearer relations with Seoul didn’t require severing these channels. The 2024 Kazakhstan-South Korea joint assertion acknowledged the contribution of ethnic Koreans to bilateral ties whereas additionally calling for North Korea to adjust to UN Safety Council resolutions. The coexistence of those positions is extra informative than a easy account of Central Asia selecting one Korea and rejecting the opposite.
For assessing North Korea’s regional presence, the sensible query is whether or not occasional contacts turn into recurring exercise: common packages, identifiable organizations, funded exchanges or sustained commerce. Embassy counts alone can not reply that query. Neither can the existence of an envoy accredited from Moscow exhibit that Russia is organizing a wider North Korean return to Central Asia.
The historic report helps a restricted conclusion. Pyongyang did set up connections with Central Asia’s Korean communities, and a few survived diplomatic retrenchment. What it didn’t develop on a comparable scale was the persevering with entry to schooling, employment and establishments related to South Korea. Understanding that distinction requires consideration to what diaspora members and host-country organizations might do by means of every relationship, slightly than assuming that ancestry decided their allegiance.
Knowledge notice: Demographic figures seek advice from 2021. Uzbekistan’s commerce comparability makes use of the nationwide statistical portal’s annual nation collection and total-turnover collection; each cowl items and providers. Shares are calculated from unrounded 2023 values. Kazakhstan’s $6 billion determine is a individually reported merchandise-trade whole. The 2 nationwide collection usually are not used to calculate cross-country commerce shares.
