Summit Perceptions

So what will be the enduring  effect of the meeting between Roh Moo Hyun and Kim Jong Il?  I could speculate, but others have already done that.  Simply read the divergent brands and ask yourself:  who is better informed and grounded in reality:  a semi-random sampling of ordinary  North Koreans, or a New York Times reporter?  (Big hint:  it’s Norimitsu Oniishi, who is almost always over his head when he strays beyond culture and fluff stories).   I’ll just observe that it’s got to be pretty scary for the North Korean  authorities when the people are this well informed, and when it’s this easy for them to turn outward for information. 

If the meeting was all about perception and little substance, how was it perceived? 

If you needed any further proof that Sunshine isn’t reforming North Korea, it would be striking any mention of  “reform and openness” from the conversation — yes, even on South Korean government Web sites — at North Korea’s insistence.  Ten years and seven billion dollars later, reform is not only an off-limits topic up North, the censorship is moving to the South.  I ask:  who changed who here?

The North also forced South Korea’s president to watch its propaganda mass  games.  A South Korean professor saw a comparison to the large Nazi rallies of the 1930’s, a comparison I’ve often drawn here, concluding that it was a costly tribute to one man’s vanity (though “megalomania” seems more apt).  Even one of the visiting  South Korean ministers was embarrassed. 

Somehow, I don’t think this will win Roh’s political descendants — who still don’t even have a candidate — many votes.

See also:

*   Chinese police  have arrested four would-be North Korean defectors  at a South Korean international school, and South Korea actually plans to file a protest.  Really?  What did the Chinese have to do to cause that?  For starters, rough up a few South Korean diplomats. 

*   It’s always interesting to watch the AP’s Anne Flaherty try to contain/conceal her rage when Democrats  succumb to patriotism:  “Our soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and Guardsmen aren’t fighting as Democrats or Republicans but as Americans.”  This is the kind of “journalism” that created the market for Fox News, excessive and ham-handed an opposite as it may be.  Anne:  in the name of all that is holy, quit your job and start a blog.  Less widely reported:  more trouble for Al-Qaeda, which may have lost more of its key facilitators and  its last major Iraqi ally, and which (along with Shiite radicals) has failed to bring off the “Tet” that I had expected.  Keep fingers firmly crossed.