Good engagement: BBC, in a reversal, decides to broadcast to North Korea (Update: Did the Telegraph get it wrong?)

Congratulations to EAHRNK, Lord Alton, and Youngchan Justin Choi, another of the young Korean-American over-achievers who may already have had an impact beyond his years on the history of his ancestral homeland. Here’s another link to Choi’s pages on Twitter and Facebook, if you wish to add your congratulations to mine. (I’m sure I’ve omitted many names of those who pushed for this, so feel free to add others in the comments.)

It now looks like the Beeb is going to launch a North Korea service after all. So what took the BBC so long?

[I]t is likely to spark fury from Pyongyang’s volatile leadership, and could lead to the British embassy in Pyongyang being targeted for protests or being shut down altogether.

It could also put Britain in the firing line for North Korean-led cyberattacks, such as the one that targeted Sony Pictures last year over its film “The Interview”, which lampooned Kim Jong-un. [The Telegraph]

The Sony attack wasn’t attributed until last December, and the BBC had been considering this issue for far longer. This reason seems more plausible to me:

A number of senior figures within the Foreign Office were understood to have objected to the proposal, fearing that Britain’s ambassador to Pyongyang could be constantly hauled in for dressing downs by his North Korean hosts.

Gee, this bad? The horror! They sound an awful lot like our State Department.

But pressure in Parliament and the Lords, combined with growing international concern at the extent of Pyongyang’s human rights abuses, is understood to have led to a recent change of heart at the BBC.

Having said that, there are also some sound practical reasons, too, although not one of them seems insurmountable to me. For example, if there are short-wave broadcasts available the jangmadang (markets) won’t take long to provide short-wave radios. An even easier change would be for South Korea to allow medium-wave broadcasts to North Korea. That would certainly lessen the need to argue about leaflet balloons.

I look forward to the reaction of everyone who supports engagement with North Korea, right up to the point that the engagement reaches ordinary North Koreans. For some reason.

Now, if we can just get them to bring back Top Gear ….

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Update: A well-informed source, who asked not to be named, writes in to tell me he had recent communications with the BBC, and that the BBC is still saying no. The BBC needs to clarify its position, and the rest of us — especially those who sincerely believe in engaging the North Korean people — need to keep the pressure on.