Monthly Archive: October, 2005

How many hungry kids do you suppose could be fed for the cost of moving 800,000 people around? A regime that recently sent hundreds of thousands of city dwellers to the farms to perform agricultural labor is now sending hundreds of thousands of others from the hinterlands to the city to hold up pieces of carboard . . . during the height of the harvest season. Meanwhile, 6.5 million citizens are starving and the government is rejecting food aid. More:...

This will be considerably harder for South Korea to abstain from without making its amorality conspicuous: The UN General Assembly is likely to see a fresh resolution on human rights in North Korea during the 60th plenary session now under way in New York. A South Korean official said Thursday EU countries were leading the way, with their resolution on human rights in North Korea adopted at the UN’s Human Rights Commission. “At this time there is a 50:50 chance”...

I wish the South Korean government would stop pretending that it makes protests against things like this when the Chinese are so conspicuously comfortable about ingoring them: Seven North Korean defectors who entered the compound of a Korean international school in the Northwestern Chinese city of Yantai, Shandong Province, on Aug. 29 and requested safe passage to South Korea have been returned to the North. The group consisted of two men and five women, four of them from the same...

A group of Korean-Americans has sent a pointed message about the MacArthur statue: A group including Washington State Senator Paull Shin on Monday delivered the signatures of some 8,129 Korean Americans opposing calls to topple a statue of U.S. general Douglas MacArthur in Incheon to Grand National Party chairwoman Park Geun-hye. The signatories said today’s Republic of Korea would not exist without the sacrifices of Allied forces led by MacArthur in the Korean War. If Incheon City cannot defend the...

The Chosun Ilbo is talking about heeding the dangers spotlighted in a recent OECD report on the long-term prospects for the Korean economy. The main dangers highlighted are shortages of labor and capital (and neglects another to which the OEDC gently alluded, mainly Korea’s lingering xenophobia). It seems to me that the answer to all but the latter is unification. Unification, if done peacefully or semi-peacefully–and what I’m talking about here is a sudden regime collapse in the North–would suddenly...

More union corruption exposed: The Korean Federation of Trade Unions has suspended its president Lee Soo-ho in a bid to combat corruption in its ranks. The decision came in an executive committee meeting on Saturday after former vice president Kang Seung-kyu was arrested on charges of taking W81 million (US$81,000) in kickbacks from the Association of the Taxi Industry in Korea. I wonder what it cost the North Koreans to keep them quiet about low wages and unsafe working conditions...

Via Yonhap: SEOUL, Oct. 6 (Yonhap) — A member of South Korea’s main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) on Thursday denounced the government and its unification minister, claiming they are working to aid the country’s main enemy, North Korea. Rep. Kim Yong-kap stopped only short of accusing Unification Minister Chung Dong-young of treason, claiming the minister has been working to meet what he claimed to be unreasonable demands of the North since taking office in June 2004. “Ever since Chung...

I’m actually reasonably pleased with this result: BERLIN – Conservative leader Angela Merkel said Monday she had reached a “good and fair” deal that will make her Germany’s first female chancellor in a power-sharing agreement that would end Gerhard Schroeder’s seven years in office. Under the agreement, which ends a three-week political deadlock, Merkel would have to give most of the seats in the new Cabinet to Schroeder’s Social Democrats as the price of governing, including top jobs such as...

Threats seem to work better after you’ve asked the other fellow to step outside. Hill, perhaps under some pressure after a tough day before the Congress, leaked some other encouraging statements: Washington’s chief negotiator in six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, Christopher Hill, reportedly said the Stalinist country must discuss its human rights record, plans to develop biochemical weapons, support for terrorism and other illegitimate activities before the U.S. is ready to normalize ties. Which could mean nothing whatsoever....

No Top-Down Revolution in China: What happens when you challenge a corrupt official in rural China? This happens. Mao was wrong about many things, but he may have been right when he spoke of the rural peasantry as a prime breeding ground for revolution. China’s next revolution will have to come from the bottom. Update 10/11: Gateway Pundit has the tragic ending to the story, and much more. The punishment of these one-party felons may yet arrive in a swarm...

The New York Times, via the superb James Brooke, has published a lengthy and detailed report on North Korea’s growing food crisis, combined with its bizarre decision to cut off outside food aid. The regime, perhaps stung by the growing criticism and the negative reaction to its requests for “development aid” instead, took Brooke and dozens of others on a guided tour: “All people in the D.P.R.K. are now out to give helping hands to the farmers in harvesting,” the...

I try to avoid offering predictions about North Korea, but here is one I’m willing to stake my reputation on: the Kremlinology and palace intrigues over North Korea’s succession struggle will supply generations of plotlines for TV dramas. For the good of us all, and of the North Koreans in particular, pray that all will be filmed on location at Mandsundae. The good news–for those who seek the regime’s self-subversion, as well as for lovers of Ancient Romans and modern...

I snuck out during my lunch hour and caught the last half of Hill’s appearance (with Amb. DiTrani at his side), and spoke to my extremely well-placed source. I also picked up copies of the statements by Reps. Hyde and Lantos. Hyde’s, in particular, is a blockbuster. I don’t have time to write it all up now, but will do so later. Here are your headlines: 1. Hyde thinks the Beijing statement is a blueprint for Agreed Framework II, and...

Maintenance problems at the USFK? I’m always suspicious when I see the anti-war media banging the “hollow army” drum, so I’ll withhold full judgment until I read the GAO report. Which, as this point, might be never. The answer may be to remove the stocks entirely. I see few circumstances under which we’d want to be involved in a ground war in Korea. Our ground war contingency plan for Korea should be limited to the rescue and evacuation of American...

The Washington Post reports that Chris Hill, laying the groundwork for his testimony before the House International Relations Committee today, is stressing the importance of full disclosure by the North Koreans: With the fragile framework of a nuclear agreement in hand, President Bush’s envoys now plan to push North Korea to begin disclosing the extent and locations of its secret development programs right away to test the sincerity of Pyongyang’s commitment to give up its pursuit of atomic weapons. As...

The Washington Times reports: North Korea may call a congress before the end of the year to select a successor to leader Kim Jong Il, the Russian news agency ITAR-Tass reported Wednesday. Citing “a reliable diplomatic source in Pyongyang,” North Korea’s capital, the news agency reported that the selection of the nation’s next leader by a regular congress of the Korean Workers’ Party would ensure political and social stability in the country. “If the name of the present leader’s successor...

After years of silence about human rights, best embodied by disgraced U.N. Special Envoy Maurice Strong and disgraced U.N.H.C.R. chief Ruud Lubbers, the new face of the United Nations on North Korea is Special Rapporteur Vitit Muntarbhorn, and what an improvement he is over the other two: “The general sentiment is that the situation in 2005 remains critical. There is a drastic shortfall of food produced in the country and possible humanitarian aid from outside,” the report says. It calls...

The House International Relations Committee Will Hold a Hearing on the six-party talks tomorrow. Ambassador Chris Hill will testify. The provocative question Congress asks is whether the agreed statement constitutes “old wine in new bottles,” implying a comparison to the Agreed Framework. This deal is already in trouble in Congress. I’ll try to go, but it’s an incredibly busy week, so no promises.