Where Is Robert King?

The short answer is that King, President Obama’s Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, is headed for South Korea and Japan. Here’s the entire State Department news release:

Ambassador Robert King, Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues, will visit South Korea from January 11-14 and Japan on January 15. This will be Ambassador King’s first visit to the region since being confirmed by the Senate in November 2009. Ambassador King will meet with South Korean and Japanese government officials, as well as North Korean defectors, family members of abductees, and non-governmental organizations.

And that is all. (Thanks to a friend for forwarding.)

Since King’s confirmation last November, I’ve seen his statements covered in the media just once, when he proposed what struck me as a completely implausible concept at North Korea’s universal periodic review at the U.N. Human Rights Council: having the North Koreans create their own “independent” human rights monitor. As expected, the U.N. review has come to nothing. In early December, King appeared at this press conference, where he gave some uninspiring answers to mostly shallow questions. Beyond that, I’ve yet to see King sit down for a media interview to explain his vision for how he’ll effect any material change to the exceptionally bleak lives of North Koreans today, or to demonstrate some understanding of why the matters within his portfolio drive at the heart of every disagreement we have with North Korea, including nuclear weapons and proliferation. If King doesn’t grasp and can’t articulate that cogently, it’s a sure thing that he’s going to get rolled by the East Asia Bureau, which has long wanted to roll over American presidents’ feigned interest in human rights. If the things that are happening in places like Camp 22 and Chongo-ri matter to this administration, I’ve seen no sign that that’s the case. The Administration’s statements on human rights are on the low end of what could be described as “token,” tongue-clucking acknowledgments that there is an issue at all — only the latest example, frankly, of Obama’s foreign policy being a continuation of second-term Bush, for better or otherwise.

King’s post-confirmation grace period has expired, and the matters within King’s portfolio are matters of great urgency to a few of us. Yet even as closely as I’m following this issue, I still have no clue what’s on King’s agenda for the next three years, what role he’ll play in policy-making, and what role he’ll play in talks with the North Koreans. If you think about it, even poor Robert Park has done more to bring global scrutiny to North Korea’s death camps than King has. It’s enough to give the impression that King has been ordered to keep a low profile, and given the way the Bush Administration muzzled Jay Lefkowitz, and given that the same career FSO’s who ran the Asia Bureau then are still there (Sung Kim), I’m not going out on a long limb to harbor such suspicions.

I could be wrong, of course. My mind is still open; after all, I’ve repeatedly said that Obama’s sanctions policy is far superior to Bush’s, and I was just about the toughest critic of the Bush Administration’s approach to human rights in North Korea (or, stated more accurately, the absence of one). King will have plenty of chances to correct my misapprehension during his trip, and I’ll keep a close eye on how much he talks to the press and what he tells them. King might also agree to an interview with me. I’ve sent in a request to the State Department press office. We’ll see if anyone gets back to me. I don’t enter this undertaking with high expectations. More likely than not, the answer will be some sort of pro-forma statement about the President’s/King’s commitment to [blah blah yadda] that won’t really tell us anything. If so, we will be able to draw appropriate conclusions.