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October 21, 2006

Dance, Little Piggy! (Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 14)

Most observers had speculated, since at least 1994 or so, that North Korea has the capacity to create a crude nuclear weapon. That appears to be exactly what they demonstrated recently, meaning that the only real news was our need to recalibrate Kim Jong Il’s brass-to-brains ratio. I didn’t guess whether he’d actually go through with it, but I did believe that he’d try to time it just before the U.S. election if he did. I also guessed that if...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/China & Korea/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea
October 16, 2006

Alleged Chinese Documents Reveal Depth of N. Korean Refugees’ Suffering

I can’t verify the documents’ authenticity, of course. That’s the natural advantage that comes with being China, North Korea, or any other opaque dictatorship — you can deny anything without having to let anyone search for the truth. Deniability in the narrower sense is always plausible. In the greater sense, it isn’t. This Wall Street Journal report merely adds some detail, and expands some of the parameters, of what we already know. The Border Police document, dated Jan. 10, 2005,...

Categories China/China & Korea/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Refugees
October 15, 2006

U.N.S.C.R. 1718: Who Won, Who Lost (Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 13)

John Bolton: Winner. I’d like to hear John Bolton’s critics deny that, as with Resolution 1695, he has wrung far more effectiveness from the U.N. than we had come to expect. Not only should we confirm this man, pronto, we should clone him. Madeleine Albright never got results like these. The United States: Winner. We got everything we really wanted here: help constricting Kim Jong Il’s financial arteries the right to search his ships and planes. an embargo on the...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Geopolitics/Japan/Japan & Korea/Money Laundering/U.S. & Korea/WMD
October 13, 2006

Nuke Test Roundup

* The Japanese government has approved a total ban on trade with North Korea, and the ban has already taken effect. The BBC has a showing the last boat carrying used bicycles and refrigerators back to North Korea, to be given as rewards to loyal party members. * Gordon Cucullu, writing at Front Page Magazine, talks about cutting China’s support to North Korea; you might want to read this first, however. * The New York Times talks about President Bush’s...

Categories China & Korea/Japan & Korea/NK Economics/WMD
October 12, 2006

MUST-READ: Key U.S. Policy-Maker Calls China Out for Double-Dealing

David Asher, who recently led the Illicit Activities Initiative, is probably the architect of our tough new financial strategy against North Korea’s counterfeiting, smuggling, and money laundering. He is also one of Washington’s clearest thinkers on North Korea. Asher didn’t know that North Korea would actually test a nuke when he delivered this address to the Heritage Foundation in September, and really, it deserved more media and blog attention than it got. Asher, to say the least, doesn’t think China...

Categories China/China & Korea/Money Laundering/Washington Views/WMD
October 11, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 12

“If the U.S. keeps pestering us and increases pressure, we will regard it as a declaration of war and will take a series of physical corresponding measures,” the North’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. Well, what on earth did they expect?  Applause?  Mind you, they still have the chutzpah to say they want to disarm, but the last time they said that was just hours before their alleged nuke test.  Meanwhile,...

Categories China & Korea/Japan & Korea/NK Economics/WMD
October 10, 2006

U.S. to Propose Arms Embargo on North Korea

I’d proposed it two days before July’s missile tests, because of the rising danger of another preventable famine, but  it now looks as if John Bolton is circulating  this concept  as part of what he’d tried to get from the U.N. after the July missile tests: The United States circulated a draft U.N. resolution late Monday that would condemn North Korea’s nuclear test and impose tough sanctions on the reclusive communist nation for Pyongyang’s “flagrant disregard” of the Security Council’s...

Categories "United" Nations/China/China & Korea/Famine & Food Aid/Money Laundering/NK Economics/WMD
September 18, 2006

Two More Refugees Take Shelter in the U.S. Consulate in Shenyang

As with a similar incident at the same facility this year, these refugees first entered the South Korean Consulate next door and then jumped the wall separating the two facilities. The additional defections mean that nine North Koreans have defected today alone, with a striking number of refugees expressing a preference to go to the United States rather than South Korea. It may be time for those who predicted that the North Korean Human Rights Act would have no effect...

Categories China/China & Korea/Refugees
September 15, 2006

Operation Ieodo Freedom© Begins!

You have got to be kidding me. This is Ieodo? It’s not even an island. Stll, the big, bold “Ieodo Korea” is a nice touch, and if that’s not enough to preserve Korea’s territorial integrity (such as it is), those crack VANK commandoes launched a bold pre-dawn raid — on the “Suyan Rock” Wikipedia page — and overwhelmed the sleeping red hordes to seize control of the smoldering, pock-marked moonscape that remains. According to that same Wiki page, Ieodo is...

Categories China & Korea/Unintended Humor
September 14, 2006

U-Ri-Ttang! U-Ri-Ttang! U-Ri-Ttang!

Open this one like a fine wine. China said Thursday it cannot recognize South Korea’s sovereignty over Ieo Island, a remote reef-islet in the waters between the Asian neighbors, after China announced it had conducted aerial surveillance on the islet last year. “Suyan Rock is a reef located below the waters in the northern part of the East China Sea, and we have never determined its ownership with South Korea,” said Qin Gang, a spokesman at Beijing’s Foreign Ministry, during...

Categories China & Korea
September 10, 2006

For My Next Act, I Shall Balance Four Whales on One Shrimp!

Roh Moo Hyun thinks his neighborhood needs a regional “multilateral security framework:” Roh […] emphasized that the European experience can be useful in coping with pending issues surrounding the Korean Peninsula. He said challenges confronting Northeast Asia include lingering Cold War-like tensions, concerns over the spread of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and environmental protection. He also said there are uncertainties on the possible realignment of power among Northeast Asian actors. “The European system that laid the foundation for the...

Categories China & Korea/Geopolitics/Russia & Korea/U.S. & Korea/Unintended Humor
August 31, 2006

TKL Interview with Chuck Downs on the Alliance, Diplomacy, Nukes, and Why Kim Jong Il Tested Those Missiles

[Update 2: Thanks to the reader who pointed out that I had accidentally disabled the comments! That’s fixed now; please submit any questions or comments you have.] [Update: This post will “stick” at the top of the page for a couple of days; scroll down for new entries.] Chuck Downs is an author, independent consultant, and former Pentagon official who frequently appears on television news programs to discuss North Korea policy. He has held a number of important positions in...

Categories An Alliance?/China & Korea/Geopolitics/Japan & Korea/Kim Jong Il/Korean Politics/Kremlinology/NK Military/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views/WMD
August 28, 2006

Welcome Home

A missionary who was imprisoned for 15 months after trying to aid North Korean refugees in China has returned home to a greeting of balloons and flowers from delighted relatives and friends. Wearing a baseball hat and dark sunglasses Monday night on his arrival at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the Rev. Phillip Jun Buck, 68, said returning home was like being in a “dream state.” A son, Jamin Yoon, 35, holding flowers as his father was swarmed by reporters, said his...

Categories Activism/China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees
August 26, 2006

China’s Game in Korea: Choose Your Own Reality

[Update: This new report says that the growth rate of Chinese-N. Korean trade fell last quarter, but there are varying explanations. During the first months of this year, however, South Korea’s trade with the North also showed a modest rise, but a decrease in South Korean products (including aid) going North.] As Richardson noted earlier, there has been much recent speculation about the state of Chinese-North Korean relations, particularly since China voted for weakened but potentially significant sanctions at the...

Categories China & Korea/NK Economics/WMD
August 10, 2006

TKL Exclusive: What Hyde Will Tell Roh

Via a reliable source I can’t name, I now have some specifics on just how pretty this won’t be. Among Hyde’s expected talking points for his visit to Korea this week are the following. Disclaimer — this is a paraphrase of a paraphrase: * You want operational control of all forces during wartime. How is that going to work? Will there be a U.S. general and a Korean general commanding the entire force jointly or two forces separately? Either way,...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/China & Korea/Human Rights/Korean Society/NK Economics/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views