See Also: Links for March 14th
[Update: Apparently, some of you want to see someone put the hurt on Lim Won Hyuk, although I have neither the time to do it nor the inspiration to re-argue things I’ve already said here a thousand times. Sperwer may come through, and I look forward to those efforts and promise to link them. Meanwhile, Prof. Sung Yoon-Lee e-mails obligingly with this link to his PBS News Hour debate with Lim. Just between the headline and the top of the text, on the right side, is a streaming video link. Enjoy, and thanks to Prof. Lee for his contribution to this humble site.]
* It’s a cruel world after all: GI Korea discusses Disney’s alleged use of slave labor in North Korea. Salary payment arrangements turn out to have something in common with Kaesong, and with European industries that rent North Korean labor:
Kim said he didn’t pay the North Korean artists in person for their work. Rather, he wired US$170,000 to North Korea directly for their 2006 assignments.
* So, you could say the mass grave is half empty: China says that most of its organ transplants are not from executed prisoners. “If criminals want to donate their organs, then their wishes should be respected ‘in the interest of mankind’, Xinhua added.”
* Demonstration season starts in China: There has been unrest in central China over a rise in bus fares. “A government official had told Reuters earlier in the week that some 20,000 people clashed with about 1,000 police armed with guns and electric cattle prods. The official said that nine police cars had been burned.”
* How to Kiss South Korea’s Ass: Lim Dong Won’s son, who has taken televised rhetorical beatings from Prof. Sung Yoon-Lee and Marcus Noland, explains how to those of you who can’t live without knowing:
South Koreans’ perception of the ambiguous U.S. role in the checkered history of South Korean democratization. Whenever young South Koreans see the United States, particularly the current Bush administration, carrying the torch of democracy promotion around the globe, they cannot help but recall the contradictory U.S. role in South Korea and be suspicious of Washington’s motives. They question the traditional patron-client relationship that has been the status quo since the 1950s.
This was actually so tedious, cliche, and hackneyed that I couldn’t get through it. I’m pretty tired of explaining that without this “patron-client relationship,” Lim would be boiling bark to the soft sounds of mass games and accordion music on that one channel on his radio. There isn’t much that’s more ambiguous to me than just what our massive unilateral subsidy of South Korea does for America these days. My own preference would be to withdraw some of that ambiguity in a very big hurry. I can’t imagine that Lim’s whiney victimology wins Korea any friends, although it may win sympathy from the sort of people who might just express it by pulling our troops out. In other words, Lim may manage to unite conservates and liberals on something.
* The China that could have been: It’s another great from the Asia Sentinel: Chinese reformer Zhao Ziyang, who was purged by butchers like Li Peng for refusing to sanction the machine-gunning of students at Tienanmen Square, wrote a manifesto before his death, based on conversations with a fellow prisoner.
Speaking from the grave, a remarkable Chinese political figure is calling for drastic changes in the Communist Party, including the elimination of the post of party chief, the abolition of party branches in ministries and companies, the introduction of independent trade unions and direct popular election of officials up to the city level.
….
He proposed splitting the government from the party by abolishing party offices in government ministries and companies, and making public the drawing up of the budget, the operations of government.
“The party has far too many branches, interfering in the government and civic organizations,” he tells Zong on July 30, 1994. “The party even interferes in all aspects of an individual’s life, even his private life.
He also proposes independent trade unions and farmers’ organizations, freedom of speech, direct elections for village, county and city leaders and more democracy within the party.
He says that China cannot adopt the U.S. system of three branches of power nor a western-style parliamentary system, because the Communist Party must retain its leading role. If it fell, there would be a power vacuum and chaos. But under that condition, “we must diversify our economic, political and social life and allow the expression of all kinds of different opinions. Having a single opinion is no longer possible.
So far, it’s only being published in Hong Kong, but I can’t see how the Chinese authorities can keep it out for long.
* Heavy Entertainment: The funniest thing I’ve seen all month.
I’m pretty tired of explaining that without this “patron-client relationship,†Lim would be boiling bark…
But that’s the way the world is turning, and nowhere is it more evident than on the Korean peninsula. Just this morning you can read the English version of Joong Ang and find the following:
“[Uri] Party spokesman choi Jae-sung urged the Grand Nationals to explain their past hostility to North Korea.”
Well, duh! Does that question even merit an answer?
The Korean War, and all its devestation, millions killed or injured, millions more thurst into homelessness and famine, a nation pushed to the brink of collapse, families torn apart, and all because of a North Korea that Uri Party spokesmen think needs defending.
Of course, the clincher is that this comment was made, not specifically to defend the Nork’s past atrocities, but rather to juxtapose past GNP hardline policies with their more recent softening on Nork issues.
The article was titled “It’s Springtime for Kim Jong-il in GNP’s eyes” and follows with “…the deeply conservative Grand National Party also wants to make friends with the communists next door.”
The Korean blood that flows in the veins of north and south will always and everywhere be more important than any rescue or assistance or support or defense the US might have given the South for the past sixty years. We look dfferent and live across the ocean. We can never be real allies because we can never be real Koreans. And Koreaness is the most important thing of all.
Like the line from the famous wedding scene: “This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Let’s not argue over who killed whom.”
North and South are restless to get on with their long overdue honeymoon.
I share your distaste for the likes of Wonhyuk Lim, but I think that his clever (albeit turgid) rhetoric needs more of a critical response than simply a dismissal on the grounds of his parentage. Maybe I’ll get my fisk on. In the meantime, please provide some pointers to Sung and Noland’s critiques of him if you can. TIA.
I’d like to ‘second’ Sperwer’s request for information on Sung’s and Noland’s critiques.
… and iIf two of us ask for it does that mean ya gotta do it?
😉
Frankly, I just don’t have the time. But if either of you do it, shoot me a link and I’ll update this post. I didn’t find his rhetoric to be clever. I really didn’t think something this “tedious, cliche, and hackneyed” was worth the time.
Check out the US Institite of Peace web site. USIP hosted a panel last year on which Lim and Noland tangled over South Korean aid. (Not sure it was webcast, but…)
Now your goading me to rip Lim in order to explain what I think is clever about his article. I guess I’ll write it up asap. BTW, in my book, “clever” is not a term of approbation.
What I find so fustrating about our “alliance” with South Korea is that they don’t see the North Korean government as the enemy, something I have never understood. I guess being an American has taught me to love freedom so much, and my Christainity has taught me that one shouldn’t be friends with evil, so I just can’t see things the South Korean’s way. About China, they would be better off ulimately if the communist get out of power for good, though they may have their stuggles at first.