Summary of Mike Chinoy and Kathi Zellweger’s Presentation
Journalist Mike Chinoy and Swiss humanitarian worker Kathi Zellweger presented a unique, human-centric overview of North Korea to the Darien Men’s Association on September 23, 2026. Their collaborative work and presentation are centered around their co-authored book, Miss Kathy: Saving Lives in North Korea, which aims to provide a window into the daily lives of the country’s 25 million ordinary citizens. Chinoy opened the presentation by explaining that Western media and literature tend to focus almost entirely on two narrow genres: high-level nuclear diplomacy or dramatic defector escape stories. This leaves little room to understand the vast majority of the population who are simply trying to live their lives, manage daily economic realities, and survive under difficult circumstances. Chinoy noted that defector narratives are highly disproportionate in public discourse; for instance, in the first six months of 2026, only 63 defectors successfully made it out of the country.
Chinoy provided the necessary geopolitical context for Zellweger’s humanitarian work. Having traveled to North Korea 17 times since 1989 as a foreign correspondent for CNN, Chinoy met with the original leader Kim Il-sung three times. He noted that, contrary to the typical cartoon clichés of an absurd state, the regime has consistently executed calculated political strategies. Historically, Pyongyang sought a better relationship and security guarantees from the United States—such as through the 1994 Agreed Framework—but mutual suspicion and political failures repeatedly broke down these deals. Following the collapse of the 2019 Hanoi Summit with Donald Trump, current leader Kim Jong-un fundamentally shifted gears. The regime wrote off the idea of rapprochement with Washington and instead forged an exceptionally close military and economic alliance with Russia, trading weapons and troops for food, cash, and technology, while carefully maintaining ties with China.
Operating amidst this constant international tension, Kathi Zellweger managed over three decades of field experience, making 75 trips to North Korea—the longest continuous history of humanitarian engagement of any individual. Beginning her work with the Catholic charity Caritas in Hong Kong, her direct involvement with North Korea began during the catastrophic 1995 floods, which triggered a severe famine that claimed between 600,000 and 3 million lives. Zellweger built relationships of trust with local doctors, nurses, and government officials by remaining strictly impartial and respectful. To overcome widespread international doubts about the military siphoning off relief goods, she established rigid, countersigned bilateral agreements that specified exactly who the beneficiaries were and how long rations would last, allowing her to monitor distribution directly.
Zellweger shared an amusing anecdote from her early days living in Pyongyang that highlights the ever-present state surveillance. Before her office was connected to a secure Swiss government server, she had to rely on a standard local landline. One Saturday afternoon, the spouse of her agricultural expert was on the phone chatting with her 94-year-old mother in France, casually speaking in a mixture of English and French. Suddenly, the line clicked, and a monitoring voice interrupted the call, politely requesting, “please not to change languages”. Despite such pervasive state control, Zellweger emphasized that ordinary North Koreans maintain a vibrant sense of humor even in grim circumstances. While visiting a local free market, she asked a female vendor what she was selling that day. The woman looked at her and playfully responded, “Everything, even my husband, and at a discount!”
Over her extensive career, Zellweger expanded her efforts from emergency food distribution to sustainable development and specialized health programs. She spearheaded a Sloping Land Management Program to teach housewives contour-belt planting on hillsides to reverse soil erosion and boost crop yields, and she managed the Pyongyang Business School for four years, bringing in foreign lecturers to teach young North Koreans the basics of capitalism and global economics. In 2015, she established her own Hong Kong-based non-profit, Coreat, which funded over 30,000 cataract surgeries across 10 hospitals and built greenhouses at child residential centers.
Through this prolonged engagement, Zellweger tracked a massive societal transformation she calls the “Five M’s”: the growth of unofficial Markets, the spread of Money, the rise of Mobile phones, the influx of Motor cars, and the emergence of an urban Middle class in Pyongyang. A sixth “M”—Mindsets—began changing among a younger generation born during the famine who never fully relied on the state. However, this growing consumerism and hunger for knowledge sparked a severe regime backlash, leading to significantly tighter domestic surveillance and information censorship since 2017.
The presentation concluded with a sobering look at the current reality. North Korea completely sealed its borders in response to COVID-19 in early 2020, forcing almost all UN and NGO teams to leave by spring 2021. International aid workers have still not returned, leaving a massive information vacuum. According to a 2025 UN report, 46% of the population—roughly 11.8 million people—remains undernourished due to chronic food insecurity, decaying infrastructure, and a lack of basic medical equipment. Zellweger strongly asserted that decades of Western economic sanctions have completely failed to alter the regime’s nuclear ambitions, instead disproportionately punishing ordinary people. Both speakers advocated for a shift toward long-term development, pragmatism, and a period of peaceful coexistence rather than relying on isolation and pressure.
CNN covered the story behind this book and posted a 14-minute video about North Korea and Kathi’s work less than one week after their presentation, featuring interviews with Miss Kathi and Mike Chinoy. The video shows her footage of life in areas of North Korea which few outsiders have ever seen. It also described in depth the work she did over many years to provide much needed food and health care to those in need in North Korea.
THE AUTHORS
Mike Chinoy is an American journalist who, along with his co-author Kathi Zelleweger, will be speaking to us live as the first stop on their book tour of the United States. Last year, via remote video, Mike addressed the prospects for China’s increasingly muscular efforts to take over Taiwan. He has reported on many of the most important geopolitical events in Asia since the mid-1970s, including the death of Mao Zedong, the rise of China, the Hong Kong handover and developments in Taiwan, Thailand, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, North Korea and elsewhere. Mr. Chinoy spent 24 years serving as a foreign correspondent for CNN, serving as the first bureau chief in Beijing, from where he reported live during the Tiananmen Square crisis. He also worked for CBS and NBC in Hong Kong. In addition to receiving an Emmy Award for reporting on Tiananmen Square, he received a Peabody Award, a Dupont Award, and an ACE Award.
He has also covered North Korea extensively, traveling there 17 times since 1989. In1994, he became the only journalist invited to accompany President Jimmy Carter on his historic trip to Pyongyang and was the first journalist ever to file live TV reports from North Korea.
Mr. Chinoy is a consulting editor of the Taiwan Strait Risk Report, a monthly newsletter that quantifies fast-moving geopolitical risk on the Taiwan Strait.. He is also a Nonresident Scholar at the University of California, San Diego’s 21st Century China Center. Previously, he also spent 15 years as a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the U.S.-China Institute of the University of Southern California. From 2006-2009, he was a Senior Fellow at the Los Angeles-based Pacific Council on International Policy, focusing on security issues in China, North Korea, and Northeast Asia. He is the author of six books. Miss Kathi: Saving Lives in North Korea, was described by former CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan as “an unrivaled account of heartbreak and heroism in the world’s least understood nation, North Korea.”
He has a degree in Chinese Studies from Yale University and a Master’s degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in Taipei, Taiwan.
Kathi Zellweger
Kathi Zellweger is a senior aid manager with over thirty years of field experience in Hong Kong, China, and North Korea. She was based in Pyongyang for five years (2006–2011) as the North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), an office of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before joining SDC, from 1978 to 2006, Zellweger worked in a senior post for the Catholic Agency Caritas in Hong Kong, where she played a key role in pioneering Caritas’s involvement in China and North Korea.
She also managed the Hong Kong–based KorAid Limited, a nonprofit she established in2015 to focus on serving children in institutions and people with disabilities in North Korea. She has made 75 trips to North Korea and has the longest continuous history of humanitarian engagement with the country of—literally – anyone.
Zellweger is affiliated with the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC)at Stanford University in California and is a Non-resident Fellow at the European Center for North Korean Studies at the University of Vienna. She holds a master’s degree in international administration from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont.
In 2005, Zellweger was presented with The Bishop Tji Hak-soon Justice and Peace Award from a South Korean foundation established to promote social justice, peace, and human rights. In 2006, she received the honor of the Dame of St. Gregory the Great from the Vatican for her work in North Korea.
