Monthly Archive: March, 2005

North Korea is losing–indeed, has probably lost–what Mao termed “the political struggle.” I just don’t have time to comment on this NY Times piece in detail now, but it’s an absolute must-read. The system’s hold on the minds of the people has never looked so shaky. So just how easy is it for a North Korean to break the blockade these days? “He just dials 0082 to get the Korean-speaking Chinese operator, then makes a collect call to here,” Mr....

Today, it’s the Brookings Institution . . . in the Washington Times, meaning that we’re not merely facing the death of the alliance, but the Apocalypse. For those of you from outside the Beltway, Brookings is a left-of-center foreign policy think tank that’s been supportive of negotiations with North Korea, often in the face of evidence that those negotiations have bought us little. Jack Pritchard has a job there, which might normally settle the matter. Author Richard Halloran, however, has...

Two South Korean protestors today at which of the following locations? a. The American Embassy, after a U.S. soldier was accused of bending the antenna on his Korean neighbor’s new Hyundai Chairman; b. The Chinese Embassy, to protest China’s forcible deportations of thousands of North Koreans to nearly certain death; c. The U.N. mission, to protest that organization’s failure to act forcefully to protect North Koreans’ human rights; d. The Unification Ministry, to protest against North Korea’s splurging on arms...

Today, it’s the Brookings Institution . . . in the Washington Times, meaning that we’re not merely facing the death of the alliance, but the Apocalypse. For those of you from outside the Beltway, Brookings is a left-of-center foreign policy think tank that’s been supportive of negotiations with North Korea, often in the face of evidence that those negotiations have bought us little. Jack Pritchard has a job there, which might normally settle the matter. Author Richard Halloran, however, has...

Update 11/28: Welcome TKS readers, to Washington’s most influential Web log on humanitarian, political, and military developments on the Korean peninsula. Stop by and visit the main page, or check the sidebar for fiskings, analysis, and first-hand reports, including your correspondent’s November 16th meeting with Ambassador John Bolton, as part of a delegation of the North Korean Freedom Coalition. ——————————– One million people, maybe more. Or put another way, about 30% of the total population of Lebanon, which includes infants,...

Two South Korean protestors today at which of the following locations? a. The American Embassy, after a U.S. soldier was accused of bending the antenna on his Korean neighbor’s new Hyundai Chairman; b. The Chinese Embassy, to protest China’s forcible deportations of thousands of North Koreans to nearly certain death; c. The U.N. mission, to protest that organization’s failure to act forcefully to protect North Koreans’ human rights; d. The Unification Ministry, to protest against North Korea’s splurging on arms...

Update 11/28: Welcome TKS readers, to Washington’s most influential Web log on humanitarian, political, and military developments on the Korean peninsula. Stop by and visit the main page, or check the sidebar for fiskings, analysis, and first-hand reports, including your correspondent’s November 16th meeting with Ambassador John Bolton, as part of a delegation of the North Korean Freedom Coalition. ——————————– One million people, maybe more. Or put another way, about 30% of the total population of Lebanon, which includes infants,...

Add the Asian Wall Street Journal and Thomas Barnett (The Pentagon’s New Map) to the list of those who’ve noticed that the United States and South Korea suffer from a visible lack of common interests and policies these days. The ASWJ said friction between Seoul and Washington was particularly intense over the joint North-South Kaesong Industrial Project. In the first stage of the project alone, 300 Korean companies were scheduled to employ 75,000 North Korean laborers and invest US$9.6 billion...

U.N. Update: Angelina Jolie, the UNHCR goodwill spokeswoman, is travelling to Northeast China to assess the circumstances of North Korean refugees. It’s a small but hopeful sign that the U.N., having rid itself of Ruud Lubbers, might take a fresh look at its duties.

Add the Asian Wall Street Journal and Thomas Barnett (The Pentagon’s New Map) to the list of those who’ve noticed that the United States and South Korea suffer from a visible lack of common interests and policies these days. The ASWJ said friction between Seoul and Washington was particularly intense over the joint North-South Kaesong Industrial Project. In the first stage of the project alone, 300 Korean companies were scheduled to employ 75,000 North Korean laborers and invest US$9.6 billion...

Chosun Ilbo correspondent Kang Chol-Hwan has a disturbing new report on a North Korean crackdown on dissent and efforts to destroy evidence of the regime’s atrocities. Kang himself is a survivor of North Korea’s Yodok labor camp district, a complex of camps that covers a vast, remote area of northeaster North Korea. Kang was sent to Yodok while still in elementary school because of a political transgression by his grandfather. You can read the full story in his autobiography. The...

It must be the dumbest thing I’ve heard all year. The EU, which– lacks any military relevance to Northeast Asia other than its anxiousness to arm China; has done (along with its member states) virtually nothing to contribute to the security of Northeast Asia since 1953; has an abyssimal diplomatic record even on its own continent; wants a seat at the six-party table. How typical of them to wait until North Korea completely walked away, revealing the nullity of the...

Greatness Comes from Goodness: The paleo-right in America, of which George W. Bush is a reformed member, never tired of expressing its derision for “nation-building,” questioning its value to U.S. interests and deriding the lives thus saved as so many drops in an ocean of misery. In fact, our nation-building exercises have not always been planned, accepted, and executed intelligently, but those that were saved thousands of lives. There simply isn’t another force on earth that can move and deliver...

U.N. Update: Angelina Jolie, the UNHCR goodwill spokeswoman, is travelling to Northeast China to assess the circumstances of North Korean refugees. It’s a small but hopeful sign that the U.N., having rid itself of Ruud Lubbers, might take a fresh look at its duties.

It must be the dumbest thing I’ve heard all year. The EU, which– lacks any military relevance to Northeast Asia other than its anxiousness to arm China; has done (along with its member states) virtually nothing to contribute to the security of Northeast Asia since 1953; has an abyssimal diplomatic record even on its own continent; wants a seat at the six-party table. How typical of them to wait until North Korea completely walked away, revealing the nullity of the...

Greatness Comes from Goodness: The paleo-right in America, of which George W. Bush is a reformed member, never tired of expressing its derision for “nation-building,” questioning its value to U.S. interests and deriding the lives thus saved as so many drops in an ocean of misery. In fact, our nation-building exercises have not always been planned, accepted, and executed intelligently, but those that were saved thousands of lives. There simply isn’t another force on earth that can move and deliver...

It’s March, and the South Korean government has cranked up the fightin’ words about Takeshima Tokto . . . which means that we must be about a month until the next South Korean election. More here. I can’t understand that bone-headed Japanese rightists would actually fail to see this connection in picking the timing of a stunt like this one. Certainly not calculated to achieve the desired objective; but it always gets the South Korean red guards stirred up just...

The draft’s English text is here. The bill has a heavy focus on the return of the abductees, but goes far beyond in its human rights implications. Specifically, the bill– Links Japanese aid to improvement in human rights in North Korea; Calls for the government to welcome North Koreans to Japan and to its foreign missions’ Requires that Japan’s diplomats in other countries and at the U.N. work for the protection of North Korean refugees; Provides for government cooperation with–and...