Open Sources: Yes, it’s going to be another hungry year in North Korea
For some time, I’ve been reading reports that North Korea has been stricken by foot-and-mouth disease, which doesn’t directly affect human beings, but kills cattle. According to Radio Free Asia, the disease has now spread across North Korea, including Pyongyang. Previously, I hadn’t attributed too much significance to the reports; after all, how many North Koreans can afford to eat meat anyway? But then there’s this: North Korea’s medieval agriculture relies on oxen. If the oxen die, farmers can’t plow or sow their fields.
This year’s severe cold is another reason why aid agencies are warning that North Korea is headed for another very lean year, although you can doubtless find a post in my archives (start here) for every single year saying that it’s going to be a tough year for some reason or another, usually flooding. Could all of these reports of impending disaster really be true? Of course. It’s just that there’s little reason to believe that international food aid can do anything to ameliorate it.
Marcus Noland writes that the widespread American perception that China accounts for 70% of North Korea’s bilateral trade is grossly overstated, due to the accounting methods of South Korean sources. When this argument comes from a source like Noland, it’s hard to be dismissive of that. The point I take from this is that South Korea is content to lay all of the blame on China for propping up Kim Jong Il, when its own contribution to that result (Kaesong) remains substantial. Even so, there’s ample evidence that China has great economic leverage against North Korea, and that it continues to willfully aid its weapons trafficking, proliferation, and human rights atrocities, and that it continues to funnel enough cash to the regime to keep it afloat.
Chris Green comes through with a report from a North Korean soldier who defected recently: “All the training I got in 12 years of Army life was marching every Saturday, winter drills for two months and summer training for one month. My memories of special forces training are of mountain warfare, a little bit of marching, some target practice, studying topography and swimming.
In Seoul, an NGO exhibit on North Korea’s prison camps has attracted an astonishing 20,000 visitors, including South Korea’s First Lady. This is yet another example of something that couldn’t have happened in Seoul even two years ago. I’m not going to go so far as to say that North Korea’s recent behavior has shattered South Korea’s apathy about what happens in the North, but it has cracked it. Hat Tip: Dan Bielefeld and Justice for North Korea.
Video: North Korean refugee kids graduate from high school, and Robert King is there. Well, good for him!
North Korean defectors plan to celebrate Kim Jong Il’s birthday with another leaflet balloon launch.
So Christine Ahn Has Her Work Cut Out for Her: North Korea is tied with Iran for the honor of being America’s least favorite country, at 11 percent. I’d guess that at least half of the 11 percent are thinking of South Korea.
Mike Chinoy may be the last man on earth who still bothers to ask why Agreed Framework II fell apart, and 38 North has to be the only forum that would host that tired discussion: “It would be nice to believe that only Pyongyang was responsible, but that is not the way it was and the North knows it.” (Sigh ….)
I can’t wait to see what Kushibo does with this one: “I heard from a reliable source in China that Kim Jong Il and Kim Ok have a 7-year-old son,” she tells Korea Real Time. “They got married about two years ago.“
Kim Jong Il Death Watch: In this edition of our ghoulish vigil, we look at largely baseless speculation about Kim Jong Il’s liquor-sodden kidneys, his black little heart, and his stroke-addled cranium.
Don Kirk isn’t terribly excited about the revolution in Egypt, fearing that things will only get worse. And now that the Egyptian military is in power, be sure to read his lengthy explanation of its links with the North Korean arms industry, a/k/a Bureau 99.