Monthly Archive: October, 2005

Journey’s End: A North Korean woman who had her feet amputated due to torture by North Korean authorities arrived in the South with her son last weekend. She made her way to a camp in Thailand after escaping from the North. You have to marvel at the sheer will to survive that drives some people.

South Africa, the beautiful country that was my home for three glorious and historic months as apartheid crumbled all around me in the year 1990, still has a few things to teach us about how much more effective discourse is than censorship in defanging a venomous lie. While the GNP fulminates with demands to arrest extremists like Professor Jang Shi-Ki for proclaiming Kim Il Sung to be Kim Il Sung’s gift to the lesser races of the world, the South...

Just finished debating former Ambassador Donald Gregg on the BBC. The subject was engagement with North Korea, where I laid out my views here long ago. The specific topic was the revelation that British-American Tobacco has been producing cigarettes in North Korea–strictly for the domestic market, so we’re told. That has apparently caused great outrage among the presumably left-leaning audience (host Steve Richards is just to the left of Arthur Scargill), although it’s hard to isolate the audience’s outrage from...

A month after the fact, the Heritage Foundation’s Peter Brookes has written about the 9/11 riot in the New York Post: THIS time, South Korea’s anti-American crowd has gone too far. Uncle Sam-bashing is, unfortunately, quite popular these days among South Korea’s left, teachers and youth–burning the Stars and Stripes and massive anti-U.S. street protests are all too common. But now South Korean radicals–many of them de facto North Korean pawns–are threatening to tear down the 15-foot tall statue of...

Donald Rumsfeld is on his way to Asia to talk to China and South Korea, among others. South Korea’s main goal is to get back something that the United States seems less interested than ever in keeping: On Friday, Defense Minister Yoon signaled his intent to tackle the issue during his meeting with Rumsfeld. “The issue of wartime command transfer will become one of the main issues to be discussed at SCM,” he told reporters. Yoon said it is the...

BEIJING, Oct. 17 KYODO The Japanese Embassy in Beijing issued a warning Monday to Japanese nationals in China about possible ”strong reactions” from the Chinese public following Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s visit to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine. The warning, issued through e-mail to registered Japanese nationals, follows violent anti-Japan demonstrations in Chinese cities in April, in which the embassy was pelted with stones and water bottles. __________ In response to Koizumi’s fifth visit to the shrine since he took...

This millenium’s Brass Balls Award will go to these people, if there’s any truth to this story: A group of human rights activists will attempt to stage a protest in North Korea after gaining access to the Stalinist country ostensibly to make up audience numbers for the “Arirang” mass calisthenics performance. The maverick human rights advocate Norbert Vollertsen said during a conference on North Korea’s human rights violations at the National Assembly the same day that the protest was planned...

Ambassador Alexander Vershbow has arrived: Acting as America’s face, another task for the new ambassador will be to interact with the South Korean public, particularly the younger generation that did not experience the Korean War. This is important because Seoul has increasingly been making clear in recent years that it wants to be treated as an equal partner in the bilateral relationship. Mr. Vershbow is also expected to push Seoul more on North Korean human rights, but exactly how much...

Kaesong Update: The U.S. is keeping duties on Korean stainless steel cookware, but dropping them for Taiwan. I wonder why.

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea has recommended quietly to the National Intelligence Service not to oppose the issuance of a passport to Kim Tok-hong, a North Korean defector, an official with the commission said yesterday. Mr. Kim headed a state-run trading company in the North before he defected to the South in 1997, since when he has been an outspoken critic of the North’s regime. In 2003, he was invited by the Hudson Institute to speak on North...

You Heard It Here First: The United States House of Representatives’ International Relations Committee is expected to hold a hearing on South Korea-U.S. relations, a source in Washington said yesterday. The source said the hearing will address calls for the removal of the statue of General Douglas McArthur from Incheon, reasons behind increasing anti-American sentiment and the lack of public diplomacy by Washington. I have some fairly good guesses on who the source was . . . if it wasn’t...

Like I Say, Mercurial: How fast do polls shift in South Korea? This fast.

Bureau 39 Watch: Another setback for Bureau 39–Japanese authorities have searched the offices of two entities affiliated with Chongryon, the North Korean-controlled association of Korean residents in Japan. They’re suspected of drug trafficking.

Again, Iraqis have reminded us that liberal values cannot survive unless we are willing to defend them. The news today–a high turnout almost nationwide and very little violence–is a heartening antidote to the self-loathing flagellation and emotionalism of the surrender-to-everyone lobby, despite the media’s amplifification of that message so far beyond the proportions of its relevance. Initial results suggest that enough Sunni Arabs voted “yes” to pass the Constitution. Gateway Pundit has pictures and links to a Reuters (!) video....

Ambassador Alexander Vershbow has arrived: Acting as America’s face, another task for the new ambassador will be to interact with the South Korean public, particularly the younger generation that did not experience the Korean War. This is important because Seoul has increasingly been making clear in recent years that it wants to be treated as an equal partner in the bilateral relationship. Mr. Vershbow is also expected to push Seoul more on North Korean human rights, but exactly how much...

Like I Say, Mercurial: How fast do polls shift in South Korea? This fast.

Bureau 39 Watch: Another setback for Bureau 39–Japanese authorities have searched the offices of two entities affiliated with Chongryon, the North Korean-controlled association of Korean residents in Japan. They’re suspected of drug trafficking.

[Updated] Now this is what I’m talking about when I say that the South Korean right needs to join the public debate about North Korea instead of hiding behind morally and intellectually lazy censorship. Here is the full text of the letter, followed by Rep. Hwang’s press release: Letter of Protest To Mr. Li Zhaoxing, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of China [OFK Update: A wel-informed source tells me Mr. Li is actually the Foreign Minister. Oops.]: In August...