Open Sources, November 14, 2013

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KAESONG FAILWATCH:  A new report from the Daily NK, containing an interview with an employee of a South Korean company that manufactures textiles in Kaesong, largely validates my post from last week. The bottom line: companies are hiding how much operations suffered from the five-month shutdown to prevent further damage to their business, such as the loss of customers who may seek more reliable suppliers.

This, of course, is my cue to publicize the fact that while Kaesong manufacturers must continue to pay fixed fees to the North Korean regime without making profits, “business owners are hemorrhaging funds.” Good.

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RUSSIA’S DEAL WITH SOUTH KOREA to expand the Rajin Port gets skeptical treatment from the WSJ’s Korea Real Time. If you look at the details, this looks like a splashy announcement that will have little practical effect. The investment commitments seem highly conditional, and of course, this isn’t the first time a foreign power has tried to expand Rajin. Hanging over everything is the past failure of Kumgang and the unfolding failure of Kaesong. Who wants to be the next lemming to swim into those troubled waters?

At the same time, it’s hard not to see this as a sign of declining U.S. influence over a harshly practical South Korean government.

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NORTH KOREA TRIES, and apparently fails, to buy oil from Iran via China. So why don’t they buy directly? Do they simply lack the terminal facilities to unload the big tankers that can make the journey non-stop?

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YOU COULD ALSO SAY THAT about the other alternative:  “DC rappers head to North Korea: ‘If we don’t die, it will be a life-changer.’”

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THE TRIAL OF ALLEGED FIFTH-COLUMNIST LEE SEOK-KI has begun in district court in Suwon, amid tight security. Lee, a lawmaker from the far-left Unified Progressive Party, is accused of rounding up dozens of co-sympathizers in a large in-person and telephonic meeting to plot a wave of sabotage attacks against South Korean infrastructure, in support of an invasion by North Korea. The South Korean government has yet to clarify whether any evidence suggests that such an invasion was actually imminent.

It is remarkable that any organization that had successfully remained clandestine for so long would be so careless in its operational security, but the National Intelligence Service claims to have recordings, and the reactions of some members of Lee’s party suggest that the NIS has the goods on Lee, and they know it. If this trial happened in an American court, it’s nearly certain that those tapes would be played in court.

If the NIS knows the first thing about the importance of managing public opinion (it does!) and cultivating an image of legitimacy (it doesn’t!), it will play the tapes in court, upload a digital copy onto its website, mark any redactions or interruptions clearly, and let the people decide for themselves.