Open Sources

I’ve been looking forward to Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard’s new book on North Korea, refugees, and public opinion for a long time now. I don’t have a copy of my own yet (ahum! – not that I’d find the time to read it these days). But thankfully, Evan Ramstad interviews Noland at the WSJ’s indispensable Korea Real Time.

It’s a diplomatic breakthrough: The Onion reports. Love those jackets.

A Different Kind of Different Kind of War:

Uriminzokkiri, a North Korea propaganda site, early this week blamed “South Korea’s extreme right-wingers” for a cyber attack that disrupted its website last weekend. The China-based site claimed the hackers were trying to stop its “influence from spreading. “They should stop acting recklessly and think carefully about a grave consequence that could be caused by their mean acts,” it warned.

North Korea was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008. The thing is, DCinside really didn’t have a political agenda until North Korea pissed off the netizens. Me: I say, better this than the SOFA or Tokdo. Or using artillery.

I’m generally not a fan of state-sponsored domestic propaganda. That being said, I suppose the South Korean government’s decision to launch a series of webcasts “to inform the public about North Korea and to raise awareness of future unification” couldn’t be any more disturbing than the saccharine hippie bong resin the ROK government put out during the DJ-Roh years. Or the juche agitprop of the Teachers’ Union. Or giving state funds to the Hankyoreh, or the film industry, or the leftist union goons. Consequently, I doubt most South Koreans have any idea what or where Camp 22, a place that every South Korean schoolchild will read about ten years from now, even is. I suppose it’s not unlike the argument for reverse discrimination affirmative action in Selma, Alabama in the early ’70’s. You could say that there are times when the greater good requires you to compromise principle.

Kim Jong Il Death Watch: OK, I suppose I don’t put much stock in the reliability of this, but we can hope, can’t we? If not, it is at least interesting that rumors like this spread so quickly. It has to mean that people dare to speak them, and want to hear them.

North Korea, which signed an Armistice Agreement ending the Korean War in 1953, has blamed its shelling of a South Korean fishing village on the lack of a peace treaty. You may say so, but would a peace treaty really have guaranteed the safety of North Korean artillery emplacements from South Korean fishwives? Also, how funny would it be if it turned out that it was really Christine Ahn and Selig Harrison who were writing the talking points for North Korea?

Take that hippies! I suppose I could be reading too much into this story. After all, conscription has always been mandatory in South Korea, and most of the country’s celebrities have found the spotlight to be disadvantageous to draft-dodging. But in another entry for our it-wouldn’t-have-happened-a-year-ago file, an actor’s decision to man up and join the Marines has drawn an outpouring of public support. Good for him. This isn’t just a good sign for South Korea’s return to a sensible view of North Korea. It may even augur for a recovery from the icky androgyny of its pop culture.

Your mandatory China-bashing link: “In both international and domestic politics, the Communist Party is finding that its increased power has led to a commensurate increase in resistance to that power.”