Open Sources: Another nuke test coming, says John Bolton

Things that Kim Jong Il is buying that you can’t eat, Part 1: As Allison Kilkenny once learned the hard way, John Bolton has a pretty good track record for predicting North Korean nuclear tests. He’s predicting another one soon, and I suppose it’s about time for one.

Along with this, Bolton criticizes President Obama for his public silence on North Korea. But as we learned from George W. Bush, strident rhetoric is no substitute for a not-half-bad policy. This isn’t to say that Obama’s policy is more than half good. It’s far below its true potential, but it’s certainly a vast improvement over Bush’s — and I know first-hand that Bolton was isolated and sidelined within the Bush Administration, whose North Korea policy was actually very soft-line when you peeled away the empty talk. If the talk isn’t backed with a tough policy, all it does is stir up controversy and expend political capital that would be better spent on an executive order. And as Bolton acknowledges, doing nothing beats the hell out of Agreed Framework III.

Where Bolton’s criticism rings true is that President Obama — like his predecessor — has failed to apply sufficient pressure on China to implement U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1718 (Bolton’s own) and 1874 (its Obama-era progeny, which Susan Rice probably found on Bolton’s old computer, marked “first draft”). If no American president has the spine to flood the border region between North Korea and China with free internet and cheap guns, or even to threaten as much, then a more subtle pressure point is Taiwan. I can see principled reasons not to formally link the two issues; after all, Taiwan’s is a legitimate, elected government with an inherent right to defend itself. But if that’s not reason enough for us to help the Taiwanese build their anti-missile defenses, build ballistic missiles of their own, and nuke up, then isn’t gaining negotiating leverage over China just as good a reason?

Things that Kim Jong Il is buying that you can’t eat, Part 2: Presenting the new Ryugyong Hotel. Maybe in another 20 years, we’ll see pictures of the inside.

After being sold out by President Bush, Japan tries to regain lost diplomatic ground on the abduction of its citizens by North Korea:

A delegation of Japanese officials and activists urged the Obama administration on Thursday redesignate North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism over its failure to resolve cases of missing Japanese nationals abducted by North Korean agents decades ago and taken to the Stalinist state.

Eight members of Japan’s parliament and three Japanese human rights activists spoke to reporters at the National Press Club to denounce North Korea for what they said was a 30-year record of kidnapping and illegally holding Japanese citizens in violation of international human rights norms. The group also called for halting food aid to North Korea and reimposing economic sanctions.

That’s all good, except that I wouldn’t condition food aid on anything except North Korea’s agreement to the same degree of monitoring that the WFP gets in Sudan, Zimbabwe, or anywhere else. Otherwise, the food is better send to places where it can help those who really need it.

“On this argument, we could not get a clear response from the State Department,” Mr. Matsubara said. “Senior officials told us North Korea is a difficult actor to deal with.

Do tell! Even when you accede to their demands, they’re still difficult to deal with! Perhaps even more so, judging by recent events.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is supporting the Japanese. She said in a statement: “We cannot overlook the heinous North Korean practice of abducting Japanese and South Korean citizens, and citizens of other countries. “It must be made clear to Pyongyang that its actions will not be without consequences. I believe that the U.S. must hold Pyongyang accountable,” Ms. Ros-Lehtinen said. “It’s time for U.S. to ratchet up its pressure on the regime in response to its growing laundry list of abuses.

President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008 to reward it for its progress toward complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament. Discuss among yourselves.

They’re not wages if the workers can’t spend them: So North Korea has the chutzpah to demand that South Korea pay 5% more for labor costs at Kaesong just months after the shelling of Yeonpyeong, and without having so much as admitted to murdering all these South Korean sailors. Frankly, the fact that Kaesong is still running at all is an outrage and an insult to the families of the dead.

I also have a problem with the dishonesty of reporting that calls these payments “wages,” when our best information is that the workers only receive a tiny fraction of this — less than one-seventh of it, according to Barbara Demick, and that’s before you account for exchange rates (you didn’t think North Korea paid those workers in South Korean won, did you?). Most of that money is actually just bulk cash payments to Kim Jong Il, which would probably violate at least two U.N. Security Council Resolutions.

Someone tell Margaret Chan! Obesity is Coming to North Korea! One commenter recently asked for my reaction to this report that Coke and KFC were going to start operations in North Korea. Well, from a business and a corporate image perspective, I think that would be disastrous, which means it’s probably exceedingly unlikely. But if, for whatever reason, it does happen, then I’ll be sure to drop a line to all of those packs of lawyers who are currently hunting for North Korean assets to attach and garnish.

A Defector’s Tale: Lee Hyeon-Seo

Here’s the latest Good Friends dispatch.

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