Open Sources, February 3, 2014

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BRIAN MYERS’S TAKEDOWN OF “ENGAGEMENT” proponents at NK News is a must-read, a more erudite version of the argument I’ve made about North Korea changing the Associated Press rather than the opposite.

What worries me is the subversion of our media. This usually comes about through interviews with self-styled engagers: charity workers, tour operators, exchange organizers, industrialists, film-makers. On the one hand they make claims of a decidedly political nature, to the effect that their work is making a difference, building bridges, etc. Criticism of firmer approaches is always at least implied. But when pressed on the charge of helping a brutal dictatorship, they fall back on the line of, “You have to ask someone else about that, I’m just a ________ .” (Fill in the blank.) The result is better coverage than the regime would otherwise have received. 

Joel Wit, whom Myers never mentions in his piece, posts a rather nasty response in the comments, and Myers, as you’d expect, gives as good as he gets. Here is most disturbing part of Wit’s response, to me:

And if he wasnt (sic) sitting in far off Dongseo University, he would also know that under the Lee administration, funding for engagers by the Korea Foundation was essentially cut off. 

This is concerning, not because those sharing Wit’s views have lost funding, but because of what it says about the capacity of a foreign power, whose interests often diverge from those of the United States, to buy influence in Washington, D.C. by subsidizing research and argument it favors. In fact, I happen to think that the views South Korea funded during the Roh Moo Hyun years were in conflict with the interests of the United States. Wit may think the same of the people Park’s government is funding now, but that’s mostly beside the point. The Korean government (as opposed to Korean-American organizations) has no First Amendment right to buy influence in Washington. It’s another reason to tighten the Foreign Agents’ Registration Act.

Update: Remember when, a few years back, the Korea Foundation threatened to cut off funding to the American Enterprise Institute over this special Korea issue? One of the articles, citing rising anti-Americanism, called for an “amicable divorce” from South Korea.

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THIS INTERVIEW WITH DAVID STRAUB, at Radio Free Asia made a few interesting points:

You know, there were all sorts of debates about Rodman in the media. But I think the Rodman episode is important for what it suggests about Kim Jong Un’s political judgment. I find it extremely difficult to believe that his mingling with someone as bizarre as Rodman can be helpful to him in political terms in North Korea. It’s another disaster for his image in the outside world. You know, it certainly could not, and did not, improve Kim Jong Un’s image abroad. It should have been very easy for anybody to predict that it would not be helpful and and would be very damaging for Kim Jong Un’s image abroad. So I suspect that this was a decision made by Kim Jong Un personally. We know he loves American basketball and people like Rodman, and nobody felt they were in a position to tell him this was a very bad idea.

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TRADE BETWEEN NORTH KOREA AND CHINA reached a record high in 2013, despite China’s vote for UNSCR 2094 and some positive initial signs of a Chinese crackdown on dirty North Korean banks. So much for those who argued that China has finally had it with North Korea’s antics. It will be interesting to see how this volume changes (or doesn’t) because of the purge of Jang Song Thaek’s followers, many of whom were deeply involved in the China trade.

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I’M NOT SURE HOW anyone can predict a bad harvest in February, but someone is. One thing we can safely predict — whether the harvest is good or bad, the regime will make sure rural people will still go hungry.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES SHOULD TELL the whole truth about family “reunions.” For one thing, they aren’t reunions; they’re closely monitored hostage visits except that the hostage doesn’t go home after the ransom is paid. They have all the privacy of a family visit at a penitentiary. Finally, the families involved often weren’t “cruelly separated by the Korean War,” but by the abduction of a family member by North Korea. Once again, the Times gives us the worst North Korea coverage of any major U.S. newspaper, at a time when The Washington Post and The L.A. Times are both covering this story superbly.

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POSSIBLY THE FIRST GOOD-NEWS STORY from a North Korean prison, ever:

Rules at Jongori prison, also called Reeducation Camp No. 12, now permit relatives to bring in formerly banned items such as underwear, socks, and footwear, along with food and drink, a resident of North Hamgyeong Province told RFA’s Korean Service. “After daily visits were allowed, the number of deaths has dropped in Camp. No. 12,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Cheongo-ri is in quite a remote area, unfortunately, and the nearby villages are too small for accommodations. Except for prisoners lucky enough to have family living in Hoeryong, and who can afford to get to Cheongo-ri and back every day, this won’t be much help. I doubt this change would have happened at a purely political prison camp, which Cheongo-ri isn’t. Violent criminals are also housed there, along with defectors and “economic” criminals.

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AS IF ON CUE, the U.S. Ambassador to Japan responds to Japan’s secret outreach to North Korea by meeting with abductees’ families.

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F**K DYNASTY: You’re on your own deciding whether to believe this story, but it comes from a named source, and Fujimoto was in a position to know this sort of thing:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the execution of his uncle Jang Song Thaek last month for his role in procuring teenage girls to satisfy the sexual desires of Kim’s father, according to a former Japanese chef for the Kim family. Kenji Fujimoto said that by having Jang killed, Kim “wanted to prove that he’s different” from his father Kim Jong Il and his grandfather Kim Il Sung, both of whom he said had “quite a history with women.”

Fujimoto claimed that aside from his official duties as de facto number two to Kim Jong Il, the 67-year-old Jang had been in charge of a “pleasure division” tasked with recruiting girls aged 15-16 years for the late dictator. Fujimoto, who was Kim Jong Il’s personal sushi chef from 1988 to 2001, said Jang would receive and “screen” batches of about 100 girls each for the pleasure division, of which only 10 would be picked for a final “interview” with the Great Leader, said Fujimoto, who claimed to have attended about half a dozen such interviews. 

If Dennis Rodman ever gets tired of visiting North Korea, I’m sure Kim Jong Un could recruit Woody Allen.

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WHERE IN THE WORLD IS KIM KYONG HUI? Here is this week’s rumor.